D&D 5E Starter Set Contents Teaser

[Plaguescarred]

[Double Post]

 

[TerraDave]

It really is a pretty picture.

I think, vs. Moldvay and Mentzer, they have reversed the size of the books, with the adventure being the shorter one before and the longer one here.

And I think a lot will be riding on that. Can you really pick up that adventure and run an interesting game out of the box?

Hopefully, we will get a preview.

 

[Jer]

It's a point of entry for the game: grandma can pick this box up at a store when their kid asks for D&D for Christmas, or someone browsing the shelves at the store might see it and pick it up out of interest. None of those folks are likely going to the WotC website on a regular basis!

I'm actually hoping that this is a signal that Wizards is getting serious about putting an evergreen D&D product on the shelves of big box stores like Target, Wal*Mart, Meijer and other stores. I know Target is selling Munchkin and Settlers of Catan and Magic the Gathering and Pandemic among others. There's room on the shelf for a D&D boxed set that is playable right out of the box and expandable with digital and/or book purchases if players are interested.

They can adjust the game periodically to keep it on the shelves the way that Hasbro does with Clue and Monopoly and whatnot too - just change the adventure that's included for a new one every year or so the way that Hasbro changes Clue board designs.

 

[MoonSong]

Isn't this topic duplicated?
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?355650-First-Starter-Set-Excerpt

 

[am181d]

Out of curiosity, what are some things that folks were hoping for that aren't included?

(Keeping in mind that things like DM's advice and treasure, etc. will all appear in the adventure booklet.)

 

[Dausuul]

Hey, look! Art with two fully clothed female adventurers in reasonable poses! (The elf is wearing an awful lot of makeup for a dungeon crawl, but that's a fairly minor point.)

I do wonder what they're supposed to be. Neither is wearing armor and both look to be casting spells. Are they both wizards?

...Come to think of it, are they both on the same side? The elf's shield is rather conspicuously not covering the other two (nice touch: Her hair isn't getting blown rightward by the dragon's breath, while theirs is). Maybe the elf is an NPC villain allied to the dragon.

 

[ronaldsf]

One thing I wish were in the art is a hoard of treasure. Dragons should present grave danger with great rewards, dammit!

 

[MartyW]

Starter Set contents

Out of curiosity, what are some things that folks were hoping for that aren't included?

I was surprised about the lack to two items:

1) Poster map
2) Tokens or Standees (pawns)

Before someone jumps down my throats with a "5e is not focused on gridded combat" defense, I say phooey to that. Even Theater of the Mind groups enjoy nice looking maps and character pawns. Back when I played D&D in the 80's, we often used combat maps and minis during TotM play... Not because we were doing 3.x/4e style tactics, but because it gives you a good visual of where things are in the encounter. It helped the player understand the scene being described by the GM.

Second, 5th Edition needs to capture 4e players as well as old school players. There will be a *lot* of buyers who want to have the combat grid available.

Thirdly, they give shelf appeal. The first thing consumers do when picking up a product like this is turn over the box to see the pictures of the box contents. If you look at the Pathfinder Beginner Box, the contents sold themselves. You look at the pawns and the maps and the full color everything and say "Wow, I want this."

I'm not seeing the "wow" factor with the Starter Set.

I spent some time talking about this in more detail in a post I did last month on my blog:
ragingowlbear.blogspot.com/2014/05/d-starter-set-fiasco.html

 

[Morrus]

I was surprised about the lack to two items:

1) Poster map
2) Tokens or Standees (pawns)

It's cheap. It's $12 on Amazon. Putting more things in it would make it not cheap! It's designed as a quick impulse purchase by kids.

 

[MartyW]

It's cheap. It's $12 on Amazon. Putting more things in it would make it not cheap! It's designed as a quick impulse purchase by kids.

I talk about that too on the blog.

The MSRP is $20 ($12 is the steep Amazon discount, not what you'll find at the FLGS). Looking at Pathfinder $35 MSRP (was $23 on Amazon), and the deduct some contents (it contains a higher page count, standees and the dry/wet erase flip mat). The flip mat itself is at least $10 of that MSRP price point. Put in slightly fewer standee tokens, and you can hit the $25 MSRP with slightly better contents.


EDIT: When you look back at the D&D "Basic Game" sets they put out back in 2004/2006, those really had good contents. Thick cardboard map board, pre-painted minis, etc... and they did that at a reasonable price point. Even with inflation, a paper maps and cardboard tokens could still be contained in a reasonably priced box. Consider also the razor-blades economics. Sell the razor at break even price, make money on the blades (i.e. - core books).