Some Improvements for the Red Box!

[Tony Vargas]

1) Include full character creation rules (4 classes and 4 races).
2) Offer more customization, specifically cards that explain their math and equipment lists.

I like the walk-through, but a few pre-generated characters could work, too. I think leaving out customization and full creation rules makes it more likely the new player will go on to make additional purchases, which is kinda the point. (Though, I also think the point is just to sell a nostalgic looking box to a bunch of guys in their 40s, and that really requires nothing beyond a nostalgic looking box. Still, it'd be nice to aim a little higher than that.)

4) Make the rules consistent with the rest of the Essentials line.

With 4e D&D in general, yes. This is an introductory product for the D&D line. It fails if it introduces the customer to something other than the D&D line. The mechanics can be abreviated, of course, stuff can be left out - a lot of stuff - but everything that's included should map to what they find when they buy Heroes of Whatever or the DM set or the Rules Compendium, or the Player's Handbook, for that matter.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Okay, since I feel there were some good comments that got deleted after the errata thread became errata only, I suggest people voice them in this thread...

Hi John,

I didn't see this thread of yours at the time, but I moved the deleted conversation you had initiated into a new thread here http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-discussion/292206-red-box-some-constructive-criticism.html

Regards,

 

[Plane Sailing]

The Basic D&D boxes were different. Yes, they were for Levels 1-3 only, but they were everything you needed to play several 3-level long campaigns.

Not to mention that getting up to level 3 was an achievement that tended to take months of play back then! 2000xp at 20xp per orc* was a LOT of fighting to get to 2nd level


* numbers pulled out of my butt for illustrative purposes. What was the real rate in the original Red Box?

 

[Tony Vargas]

Exp to level was different for each class. I don't think an orc was even worth 20. 10+1/hp, maybe?

 

[Plane Sailing]

Exp to level was different for each class. I don't think an orc was even worth 20. 10+1/hp, maybe?

I'm probaby polluted by OD&D/AD&D, my recollection is something like

thieves: 1200xp
clerics: 1500xp
fighters: 2000xp
wizards: 2500xp

Getting a wizard to fireball level was some feat in those days!

(of course, the AD&D xp charts had some weirdness where from about 7th-9th level the fighters needed more xp than wizards!)

Cheers

 

[Danzauker]

The issue I see in some critics here is that it's not a matter of "what could improve the product" but more "what I would have liked the product to be".

If I look at a motorbike and say "well, I think it would be better if it had four wheels, could carry five people and maybe be covered", I don't actually want a motorbike, but an aoutomobile!

Same here. The New Red Box has only the cover and the form factor in common with the Old Red Box.

The ORB was NOT a starter set. It was integral part of the rules. You kept using them from 1 to 36th level. Expert and other sets just expanded the Basic rules.

The closer equivalent to BECMI is Heroes of the Fallen Lands and the DM stuff, whatever is called (don't remember).

The NRB is, instead, a starter set. It's clearly intended as a preview and "trailer" of what is the game. It inherently has little replay value, outside lending it to friends so to get them in the party.

If you already know what a RPG is, you played Vampire or even a computer RPG, then you should probably start with the Essential line, and buying the NRB is a waste of money anyway.

That said, not having it already in hand, I think there are some things that could make it better, without altering the base scope of the NRB.

- A some more short solo adventures after the "guided character builder".

They could start from what the first stopped, using one of the possible created characters, maybe one for the fighter and one for the wizard, which would thus be available as pregenerated characters. Best would be four adventures, one for each of the basic classes, but 2 archetipical classes are better than nothing.

I think this would have been good to introduce some fluff and technical differences to newbies. Skills peculiar to the class. Maybe some more powers.

- A couple more group adventures, possibly in different locales and situations.

Showcasing the thematic differences between dungeon, urban and woodland anventuring, and such the variety of role playing, could be a great asset for drawing new players in, IMHO.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I'm probaby polluted by OD&D/AD&D, my recollection is something like

thieves: 1200xp
clerics: 1500xp
fighters: 2000xp
wizards: 2500xp

Getting a wizard to fireball level was some feat in those days!

(of course, the AD&D xp charts had some weirdness where from about 7th-9th level the fighters needed more xp than wizards!)

Cheers

Those numbers are pretty spot on. Don't forget that standard XP also included 1 per gp value of treasure won under most circumstances. Thieves were leveling like crazy!

 

[Bold or Stupid]

Clerics

2 1500 (and can now cast)
3 3000
4 6000
5 12000
6 25000
7 50000
8 100000
then +100000/level

Fighters

2 2000
3 4000
4 8000
5 16000
6 32000
7 64000
8 120000
then +120000/level

Magic Users

2 2500
3 5000
4 10000
5 20000
6 40000
7 80000
8 150000
then 150000/level

Thief

2 1200
3 2400
4 4800
5 9600
6 20000
7 40000
8 80000
9 160000
10 280000
then 120000/level

and demihumans were weird.

 

[JohnSnow]

The fundamental problem with the argument that "The Starter Set is a trailer" or "The Starter Set is like the free trial cards for WoW" is that those things are free!! The Starter Set isn't!!

I'll put on my business hat, rather than my gamer hat.

What does D&D offer?

1. It's a social and cooperative game experience.
2. It's a game of your imagination.
3. It's a game of roleplaying and playacting.
4. It offers codified rules to settle situations that come up.
5. It's never the same game twice, and infinitely replayable.

Does the "Red Box" do a good job of conveying all those things? If it does, it's a good representation of "the D&D experience." If it doesn't, it's not.

I think it falls woefully short on point 5, and a bit short on point 2. Which makes it a decent introductory set, but not a great one.

Putting my gamer hat back on (without taking the business hat off), points 1, 2, 3, and 5 are what set RPGs (and D&D) apart from other games. So if the set falls short on conveying 2 of the 4 product differentiation points, then it's doing a relatively poor job of conveying why this game is special and worth playing. And cooperative games are far more common now that they used to be, meaning that D&D's differentiation is really about points 2, 3, and 5. Which means the Starter Set falls short on 2 out of 3 points. That's bad.

And that's why I feel the "Red Box" falls short.

 

[Mewness]

Although I've played 3.0, 3.5, and 4e, I've never bought any of the starter sets, precisely because I assumed that they would be products that were a lot like video game demos except that the player was expected to pay for them. (When someone else ran eventually ran the 3.5 starter adventure with me as one of the players, I thought I was pretty much correct.)

There seems to be a perception among some posters here that proper character generation rules will somehow be more alienating to new players than, say, combat rules. I find this highly unlikely. The non-gamer who "doesn't even know what a roleplaying game is" does, in fact, know what a roleplaying game is, even if he or she doesn't think in those terms. Everyone on the face of the earth has played games of "lets pretend" in which they pretend to be someone they are not; it's the rules that make RPGs weird, not the roleplaying. I really don't see how providing a set of character generation and progression rules that gives the player a reasonable amount of freedom is going to alienate new players in a way that providing a set of combat rules doesn't. I think it's easier for a non-gamer to think about what kind of character they want to be than what action they want to do in combat; I have never met a person "new" to roleplaying games who had any difficulty with the former, but I've met plenty who had difficulty with the latter.