D&D (2024) What's In D&D's New Starter Set?

There's a new Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set, titled Heroes of the Borderlands, coming in September. WotC has given us a quick peek at what's inside! The set is designed to be replayable, and comes with maps and cards, which are presumably part of the tile-based character creation system WotC has hinted at recently. The video doesn't reveal much else, but we should have more information over the coming months.

 

[darjr]

I'm currently in the research stage for mini cost for a boxed set, and one of the first things I noticed was that there were no minis there. For a large run like WoTC will have, injected minis per box wouldn't be that costly, Whereas they would be for me (at a less than 1000 print run lol). But the bigger thing that tells me is that box space is a premium, and a bag of minis uses a lot of box space. The difference between a 1.5 inch box height and a 2.5 inch box height. And on a large scale, that's logistically important.

Replying to clarify I meant as an add on product.

 

[SlyFlourish]

I have high hopes for the new Starter Set and, so far, what little we've seen seems very positive. My only real question is the price point. I remember days where Amazon had the Phandelver starter set for like $8. I'd buy a bunch of them and drop them in local lending libraries. I doubt this can get down to that price but WOTC did keep the core books to $50 so who knows. Going all cardboard is a smart move, I think, to keep that price down. But we'll see.

It's interesting that ability scores aren't here. I really liked the Tales of the Valiant "only the bonuses" approach for monsters and this is one step closer to that but obviously, someone who learns on this can recognize what's going on if and when they pick up the core books.

To me, this seems like the most important product for the future of TTRPGs. This is the product most likely to bring in new players and expose the to the hobby we love. Along with the three core books (now released) and the 5.2 SRD, this is the third pillar of what I'm really looking forward to from WOTC and how it can grow the whole hobby.

Fingers crossed!!

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I wonder if they could get away with a sheet of acrylic stand-ups (maybe just for the heroes) in the box - that'd be neat.

If they are doing cards, I hope they have finally gotten the issues worked out that hit them with the Deck of Many Things - and they're not the perforated type that was in the past sets. It seems so odd with them being under Wizards that they don't tap the Magic team to advise/help them with any card components (or that was what I was told in the past).

Deck of Many things were proper cards not card board so the issues should not surface

 

[JDR]

I have high hopes for the new Starter Set and, so far, what little we've seen seems very positive. My only real question is the price point. I remember days where Amazon had the Phandelver starter set for like $8. I'd buy a bunch of them and drop them in local lending libraries. I doubt this can get down to that price but WOTC did keep the core books to $50 so who knows. Going all cardboard is a smart move, I think, to keep that price down. But we'll see.

I saw somewhere that the MSRP is $49.95

 

[Sacrosanct]

I saw somewhere that the MSRP is $49.95

That was pre-tariff thought, right? I wonder if they will increase it.

 

[Parmandur]

That was pre-tariff thought, right? I wonder if they will increase it.

WotC is set up to not be as impacted by tariffs as a lptmpfnother publishers, given the extent to which theybprint in the USA.

 

[Sacrosanct]

WotC is set up to not be as impacted by tariffs as a lptmpfnother publishers, given the extent to which theybprint in the USA.

They print in the USA, but paper and ink is imported, to my understanding.

 

[Parmandur]

They print in the USA, but paper and ink is imported, to my understanding.

Sure, but volume and printing in the USA might help them keep their costs quite competitive.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

They print in the USA, but paper and ink is imported, to my understanding.

Not to mention they sell alot of product outside of the US, not to mention domestic costs will still be effected by global prices and retaliatory traffics.

 

[mearls]

I saw somewhere that the MSRP is $49.95

That sounds high to me. Based on the Pathfinder boxed set, and some pricing I did a month ago on an unannounced Chaosium product, I think the price should be around $30.

OTOH, if they're printing in the US it might end up around $50 especially if they don't have a ready source of dice. Depends on what margin they are looking for and the components. The Phandelver set was printed in the US except for the dice. We'd order massive numbers of dice sets each year from China and use them across all our products that needed them. That helped keep costs low.