D&D 5E Street date for D&D Next Starter Game is July 15

[The_Baldman]

*snaps fingers* Of course! Well, not disappointed anymore. Would much rather be involved with running the big event.

Also suddenly $150 richer! Woo!

and I'm not known for loading my judges up with stacks of cool swag or anything. Hmmmmmmm. I wonder. . .

 

[Blackwarder]

I wanted to mention the black box as well. This is how I learned D&D. The box was great and had both an introductory learning experience as well as a more traditional reference rulebook. This made for a great starter set because you got a tailor-made learning tool as well as the actual game rules which you could take the Rules Cyclopedia and move on to the "full" game very easily and with no "delearning" or "relearning" of rules that weren't compatible between the intro set and the full game. The Dragon Cards learning/teaching method of that box is to this day the most clear, easy to follow, quick to learn method of introducing someone to D&D.

The black box was how I started playing also, a great product, when I found a group I already knew how to play due to the dragon cards.

Warder

 

[HardcoreDandDGirl]

The schedule might be 3 months: PHB in August, DMG in November, MM in February? Or they might release the MM between the PHB and DMG.

I would cry... most people I know wouldn't run games until all three were out... making it feb or march before I would see a 5e game then...

 

[delericho]

Lots of different possibilities... The MM is more needed to play than the DMG, however it's possible they will tell gamers to rely on published adventures for monsters until the MM is out (relying on playtest rules isn't a good idea since monsters numbers were reportedly far from ready). The schedule might be 3 months: PHB in August, DMG in November, MM in February? Or they might release the MM between the PHB and DMG.

That's possible, but not a good idea from the perspective of getting people playing the game. And that's a problem with just about any staggered release. In 1st Ed it was okay, because the MM could be (and was) used with pre-existing D&D materials until the PHB hit. It was okay in 2nd Ed similarly, because the PHB could be (and was) used with pre-existing 1st Ed materials.

But with 3e, 4e, and now 5e that's much less true - because each of these was a major rewrite of the game, we can't really use the new PHB with the MM from previous editions. So they do need to get the required books out there as quickly as possible - whether those "required books" are a single-volume PHB, a two-volume PHB/MM pair, or the standard PHB/DMG/MM trio.

(That said, the problems can be mitigated by making monsters available though some other means - a PHB appendix, an online primer, the Starter Set, the published adventures, or whatever.)

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

Back in 2000, my copy of the 3.0 PHB came with a "survival package". Basically, it was an appendix with some magic items, monsters and XP rules, that you're supposed to use until the MM and the DMG were available with the full information. If they're planning on different release dates, I hope the 5.0 PHB receives a similar treatment.

 

[DMZ2112]

Great! You can buy me a drink at GenCon then.

Oh, I'm $150 richer /now/. Once I hit the exhibit hall all bets are off, I'm afraid.

I really hope so. It's almost impossible to run a game without a MM while I can cope without the DMG.

Mind you we've heard rumors of the Tyranny of Dragons a couple of times now. I just think it's much more likely that we'll see an adventure at the con. That way they can also convince people who aren't planning on using the adventure to buy it and mine it for some monsters to use while waiting for the MM. It's kind of brilliant on their part.

(That said, the problems can be mitigated by making monsters available though some other means - a PHB appendix, an online primer, the Starter Set, the published adventures, or whatever.)

It has been stated on this blog that "Book 2" of Tyranny of Dragons will contain monster statistics. It is further implied that they are sufficient to run Dead in Thay (as well as, presumably, Tyranny of Dragons). That suggests to me that the "Starter Game" (or a subsequent release at Gen Con, I guess) may contain a bestiary comparable to the playtest packet.

and I'm not known for loading my judges up with stacks of cool swag or anything. Hmmmmmmm. I wonder. . .

I wouldn't want to presume.

 

[gyor]

I'll pojnt out that the playtest beastairy should do for the time period between the release of the PHB and the MM.

 

[DMZ2112]

I'll pojnt out that the playtest beastairy should do for the time period between the release of the PHB and the MM.

Well, there are two sides to that coin.

On the one hand, yes, there have been three official releases of a playable D&D Next ruleset in the past year. This has to be considered.

On the other, the differences between the open playtest bestiary in Dead in Thay and the closed playtest bestiary in the Tyranny of Dragons alpha were apparently substantial enough to encourage Alex Lucard to break NDA (?) to mention the fact that there are differences in a review of Dead in Thay, so that also has to be considered.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I get the feeling that the MM will come out before the DMG. Here is my reasoning.

In the most recent live Q&A, the designers told us what parts of the game they are working on. They said it came down to bug-squashing and fine tuning. The two examples given (and these may have just been hypothetical) is whether orcs have 2 hit points too many, or where hobgoblins need to have their Con score reduced from 14 to 12. Neither example pertained to the PHB.

The PHB is probably done, other than perhaps some layout and editing. The MM is all but done, it sounds like. But Mike was soliciting questions to be answered in the DMG not too long before the Q&A. DM guidelines are not done.

So MM could possibly come out at the same time as the PHB. If not, probably a month or two afterwards. This would leave DMG as the final book to come out.

And if we're lucky, they holidays will give us a combo set of all three of them in a box. That's what I'm waiting for.

 

[Mistwell]

"I can’t talk about specific products, but in my ideal world there’s a game called D&D that you find in stores. It’s simple enough that you can just start playing, but deep enough that you feel that the next layer of stuff adds to it, rather than replaces it like going from a starter set to a Player’s Handbook has traditionally done." -Mike Mearls