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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JohnSnow" data-source="post: 5308476" data-attributes="member: 32164">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.</blockquote>

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