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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 6237843" data-attributes="member: 1465">If I were in charge of designing a "Red Box", I'd choose these as the guiding principles:0- the purpose should be to attract new players to the world of D&D (not to attract to 5e people who already play other editions or RPG, i.e. not an "edition preview")All the following are consequences of "principle 0":1- it has to be sold in general toy stores and on toy shelves of supermarkets: people should not look for a Red Box, they should just find it, IOW it's the Red Box that should be looking out for potential buyers2- it has to be cheap, e.g. in the 20-30e range, because the potential new player shouldn't think too much about buying it or not... 50e is too much, most people wouldn't spend 50e on a game unless they are already gamers (including boardgames fans) or they already know they'll like it. 20-30e is cheap enough for a compulsion purchase. Content needs to be limited in quality and quantity to reach this goal.3- it has to be marketed as family game with an educational content, because unfortunately a RPG isn't really playable by less than 3-4 people, and a lot of potential customers have more kids than friends to play with. Do not underestimate the power of the word "educational" these days: advertise the opportunities for problem-solving, strategic thinking, creativity and storytelling on the cover of the box.These, and a nice cover art, would be the ideas for selling the Red Box. There is no content defined yet, because it won't make much difference for selling (to new players). It will make a lot of difference of course for actually liking the game and get hooked! So here's what I think...4- it has to be a smooth introduction into the complete experience of playing D&D. This means it has to be easy to understand at the first read, quick to start playing, and come with props that facilitate playing at a reasonable speed, which includes limiting the stuff that players and DMs have to keep in mind.So here could be one possible content:(all booklets should be softcovers and only with spare art to cut the costs, just like in the old BD&D boxed sets)- rules of the game: 1 booklet containing the minimum core rules for checks, combat and adventuring, ideally ~20 pages. It can be done for example by taking the playtest "How to Play" and trim the fat any way you can: not listing all possible combat actions, remove descriptions of damage types and spell templates, and rewrite the text to be straight to the point (casual players are inexperienced but not morons... very often the text in the playtest rules is incredibly verbose as if the designers think readers have serious understanding problems and need 20 lines to explain something that should be clear in 1). Stuff like Exploration module, Interaction module, feats and multiclassing don't necessarily need to be in the Red Box.- character creation: 1 booklet of ~20 pages with classes, races and backgrounds. Limit the amount of each to the most iconic (e.g. 4 classes, 4 races, 6-8 backgrounds). Limit the maximum level of character material (especially to keep the number of spells down), but not less than level 10.- DM's manual: 1 booklet of ~20 pages with guidelines about how to run the game and create adventures (normally to be read only once), a short example of play and a good chunk of monsters with slim descriptions e.g. 4 monsters/page x 10 pages = 40 monsters.- one set of dice- one folded laminated (i.e. eraseable) cardboard with one side blank and another with squares, for drawing maps- one page of light cardboard counters for characters and monsters- a few character sheets- one sample adventure (~10 pages) for 1st level characters, that would take them up a few levels; then provide monthly free short adventures online, in an easy-to-print format (just like they did in 3e)</blockquote>

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