D&D 5E Starter Set Contents Teaser

[GX.Sigma]

What do you see in the corner? Gridded combat map. If WotC is really trying to sell "Theater of the Mind", why are they putting a grid map on the box art?

Probably because the adventure has maps for the DM to use, like every other dungeon adventure.

why not put in a poster map with no grid?

Because that would be expensive.

How much are you willing to bet that those gridded map bits come directly from the adventure book? (I'd bet on it.) This is where the TotM argument falls down.

The adventure has a map in the back of the book = you have to use a battlemat?

 

[Jer]

We're going to disagree, so we can probably stop beating the dead horse. I just think that if WotC doesn't look more closely at the beginner box presentation of their competition (i.e. - Paizo, FFG, etc), the competition will continue eating their lunch.

As a big fan of 4th edition (my group enjoys 4th edition so much that we have no intention of changing to 5th any time in the next few years), I have to say I disagree entirely. If the aim of the D&D team is to produce a game that gets away from the tactical combat of 3e/4e and get back to the verbal jousting across a table then they have to commit to that entirely for the starter set. You can't half-ass that commitment - if the game is meant to be played without minis and minis are "just an option" then you have to commit to that and show people that you can make that game and that it's fun to play on its own.

And again - if Wizards commits to getting this starter set into big box stores the way it should be - next to Clue and Battleship and Munchkin and Settlers of Catan - then the nature of who their competition is changes completely. And a $20 price point is perhaps perfect for an impulse purchase game down the toy aisle. (If Wizards doesn't do that then I will again be stumped by their entire "Starter Set" philosophy - as I admittedly have pretty much since the second starter set for third edition hit the shelves...)

 

[MartyW]

If the aim of the D&D team is to produce a game that gets away from the tactical combat of 3e/4e and get back to the verbal jousting across a table then they have to commit to that entirely for the starter set.

I don't believe that is the goal at all. Quite the converse -- the designers have said both play styles will be supported, so to claim that they are running away from gridded combat is to mis-state what has been stated by the designers.

EDIT: Bruce Cordell blogged on this very subject during the design, but the link appears to be broken now.
wizards.com/dnd/Archive.aspx?keyword=grid

 

[skotothalamos]

My recollection of the original Red Box was that there were neither pawns nor maps included. You had--well, you had exactly what we've got here: Player book, DM book, and dice. Seemed to work all right for Mentzer and Moldvay.

Mine also came with a white crayon.

There should be a group of upset people who demand a return to crayons in D&D Starter Sets!

 

[Dausuul]

Mine also came with a white crayon.

There should be a group of upset people who demand a return to crayons in D&D Starter Sets!

Wait, what? There won't be a white crayon?

5E IS DEAD TO ME.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Mine also came with a white crayon.

There should be a group of upset people who demand a return to crayons in D&D Starter Sets!

Yeah! Some of us might want the numbers on our dice to be various pretty colors! No more filled in dice! No more filled in dice! No more filled in dice!

 

[fjw70]

You weren't there, so you don't really don't have a basis of opinion on what we were playing.

Theater of the Mind does not preclude the use of graph paper map sketches and lead minis (yes, they were LEAD back in my day). Theater of the Mind means that you describe your actions and movement thought the use of words, not by counting squares and moving your pawn. We didn't do map-based actions/movement. AD&D groups back then would just place our lead avatars on the table with descriptions like "Well, you are over here [marks on the paper] and Fy-Tor is about 20 feet away over here... and the monster [places lego mini-fig] is standing about here near this stalagmite... [draws on paper]..."

The minis and drawings were to provide illustrative clarity, not tactical play.

Yes, I was around back then.

if you were putting minis on a map to show your location then it was not truly TotM IMO. If you were doing something else then I am not sure what it has to do with this discussion.

if I understand what you want then you want tokens and a map to put them on to (I assume) show the location of your character. If you do that then you don't need to verbally describe your movement and that IMO is not TotM.

if you don't want to put the tokens on the map then I am not sure why you want tokens. To show matching order?

But like you said I am sure we will agree to disagree.

 

[MartyW]

The dice better be these or it just ain't worth a plug nickel.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Wait, what? There won't be a white crayon?

5E IS DEAD TO ME.

Thank goodness for progress. I still have two sets of dice with un-crayoned numbers. (The d20 also doesn't have corners any more, but that's just hard use ...)

 

[YRUSirius]

Yay, we got our first look at the new layout and fonts.

To me, it's kinda interesting. The text font ist called Bookmania, the header font is red and is called MrsEavesSmallCaps. And the title font is called ModestoCondensed, but I think that was already known before. I'm curious about a real page with text blocks and I'm especially curious about the layout, design and fonts of the character sheet.

EDIT: And we got our first inside look into the PHB, I think:

https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/474675366381236224/photo/1

-YRUSirius