D&D 5E Second guessing WOTC

[mips42]

In reading a forum on another board, a person sat down with the 5e Starter Set, the Pathfinder Beginner Box and 4 people who, according to the website, had never played these or any other FRPG's before.
The tl;dr results? Even at the higher price point, the new players preferred the Beginner Box over the Starter Set.
It was mentioned that Paizo had had essentially four years to get it's core rules sorted out before putting out it's 'Beginner Box' and WOTC had published the 'Starter Set' before it's core books were even done, so the playing field may not have been level (to borrow a sports term).
I hate mentioning this subject again but there it is. With this group of new players, after looking at and working with both, they preferred the robustness and versatility of the Beginner Box, even though it cost more...
SO, the question is: would it have resulted in a more complete / 'better' product if WOTC had published Basic, the PHB, MM and DMG BEFORE publishing a 'get started playing' boxed set?
[sblock] Here goes: I like D&D. I've liked D&D since 1e. I like playing D&D. D&D has been a part of my life since high school at least. If D&D were a person, it'd be my oldest living friend. I know it. I am not the 'target audience' for a Starter Set. I can't evaluate it like a new player would.
Having said that, I want D&D and, by proxy, a Starter Set to succeed. I want other people, new people to have as much fun as I did/do playing it. In order for that to happen, there needs to be a 'getting started' version that steps up and says 'Hi. I'm D&D, I'm here to show you wonder like you've never seen and the best part is: YOU get to be part of it.' So the getting started version doesn't need to be everything to everybody, but it DOES need to be enough for beginners, REAL beginners, to get a hold of and start that relationship. If (and I know this is a BIG if) this is the feeling echoed across new players, D&D isn't going to keep as many new players as it could.
My answer, therefore, is: very possibly they should have waited.
They could have gotten basic out for the experienced early-adopters (like me). Gotten the PHB, MM and DMG out for the experienced who want the extra options. THEN go back and distill that down to the "getting started" version so you HAVE all the art, you HAVE all the rules, you HAVE more 'hand holding' for the new GM, you HAVE the encounter building guidelines that you can give the GM and say 'here's how you can continue from here with what you have AND you can get the full, Basic version, free!'
I know they say 'hindsight is always 20/20' but...
[/sblock]
tl;dr = Maybe

 

[mips42]

Here's the site so you can read on your own.
http://millionwordman.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-beginners-choice-d-next-or.html

 

[Rune]

Did the new players actually pay for the beginner box and the starter set?

Because, if they didn't, then the price difference wasn't really relevant.

 

[GMMichael]

Small sample fallacy. Get 100 more groups of 4 brand-new players, and you'll have a meaningful result.

3.5 was a little too complex. Pathfinder, a headache. Now, maybe 5E takes several ideas for granted, i.e. it's written for people who already know D&D, but its stab at simplicity alone makes it better than Pathfinder. If it's actually as modular as WotC claims, then we'll have the option of going Pathfinder-complex with 5E.

 

[mips42]

Fair enough.

 

[variant]

So basically they liked the the Pathfinder Basic Game more because it was a more expensive product. Of course, they would like it when someone else is paying the money. That does nothing to decide which one someone will buy when they are browsing Barnes & Noble or Amazon.

 

[transtemporal]

SO, the question is: would it have resulted in a more complete / 'better' product if WOTC had published Basic, the PHB, MM and DMG BEFORE publishing a 'get started playing' boxed set?

Probably not. This is just my opinion, but WotC don't seem to understand that 'quickplay' or 'essential' rules should be your basic core mechanics that people can use to get familiar with the system before they go and buy the full version. WotC can't seem to stop themselves from also revising rules in a 'quicklplay' set so you end up with a kind of half-way revised version. Look at the 'Essentials' debacle. To this day, I have no idea what Essentials was trying to accomplish.

 

[Reynard]

The two products are different, with different goals. The Starter Set is intended to introduce you and a few friends to D&D and whet you appetite for the PHB and beyond. The Beginner Box is intended to take longer in introducing itself but in the end not just whet appetites but create gamers. They both go to level 5, but the only way to get there in the beginner box is for the group to create its own mini campaign or buy adventures. The Starter set is a one and done kind of thing. The BB GM has to do all the real work of a GM, while the SS DM gets a lot of hand holding and isn't asked to do the heavy lifting of creating new adventures.

The genius of the Starter Set is that it does not preclude a more Beginner Box like product down the line. Pathfinder was a mature product before the arrival of the BB, and that product benefitted greatly thereby. A year or two from now, a 5E extended starter set would similarly benefit.

As an aside, it is interesting to note that the Beginner Box created what I think is an unintended consequence for Paizo's. Many longtime Pathfinder players bought the BB and after seeing the streamlined and simplified rules used in that product, began asking for support for the BB. They wanted Pathfinder's version of tBECMI D&D. That was never a goal of the BB -- it is intended to draw players into full Pathfinder.

Now that 5 E has appeared and seems to scratch that "simpler, streamlined" D&D itch, it will be interesting to see how Paizo's responds and if the BB does form the ore of a secondary line.

 

[mips42]

So basically they liked the the Pathfinder Basic Game more because it was a more expensive product. Of course, they would like it when someone else is paying the money. That does nothing to decide which one someone will buy when they are browsing Barnes & Noble or Amazon.

I could have missed something but what I read was that they preferred the beginner box despite it being more expensive. To me this means they would have happily paid more to get it as, to them, it was the better long term purchase.
As an aside, while looking for something else, I found this:
http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20140609
In which I found this piece:
'The Starter Set has a fairly straightforward goal. It needs to serve as a gateway through which new DMs enter the hobby, building on the player material that will live online with Basic D&D. As a secondary goal, the Starter Set must also provide long-term value. In the past, intro sets for RPGs have often been focused on a stripped-down adventure scenario and a limited version of the rules that becomes irrelevant once players move on to the full version of the game. We wanted this new set to be something you could keep on your shelf and use again in the future.

We decided early on that any materials likely to be used only once had to be eliminated from the set or kept to a minimum. One example would be a tutorial that teaches the rules through a scripted adventure.'
For those that have it, do you feel the stated goal of 'serving as a gateway through which new DM's enter the hobby' and 'providing long-term value' was reached?
Personally, I would have liked a scripted adventure that would show new players how to play. I could see that being reused pretty much any time I'm bringing in a new player. A week or two prior (if possible) hand them my loaner dice and the self-paced adventure, sit down nearby and let them have at it.

 

[dd.stevenson]

I could have missed something but what I read was that they preferred the beginner box despite it being more expensive. To me this means they would have happily paid more to get it as, to them, it was the better long term purchase. (snip)

I don't think that's terribly meaningful--the poll was taken after the subjects were placed under different psychological pressures than that of an actual buyer at the decision point in the store. I would also argue that the subjects were not making a well informed decision re: long term value, since BB isn't very compatible with the pathfinder game, whereas the SS is fully compatible with 5E.

Really, the only thing I saw that felt well and truly damning for D&D was the fact that the SS rules weren't spoon-fed over the course of the adventure. That, I suspect, was a mistake on wotc's part.

The art differential might matter, but wotc's hands were probably tied in this as paizo has a large inventory of art whereas wotc probably has very little 5E art. Though I agree it's still odd that they recycled the cover art so many times.