D&D General Who is this made for (Not Beginners) - the New D&D Starter Set

[AlViking]

If you have a specific playstyle featured in your starter set, you are pushing that style for new players. That's just what's happening IMO. So I have to wonder, what benefit is gained (by players, GMs, WotC, whatever) by pushing this particular playstyle at new players?

I don't think that's a logical conclusion. This is the training wheels version of D&D just to introduce people to the concepts of the game. If they like it they can download the free rules or go on to the core rules. As much as I liked LMoP as a starter set it still assumed there was an experienced DM and it didn't have any indication of swapping DMing at all. A lot of people are intimidated by the idea of DMing, and I think encouraging rotating DMs is a good idea.

LMoP as a module was decent, as a training tool? I'm not so sure. This obviously isn't the box set for you (or, apparently, the OP) but you aren't the target.

 

[Umbran]

Can you really not tell why so many people have blocked you?

Mod Note:
Can you really not tell why we ask you not to make discussions personal?

You're done in this thread.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

People simply did not address what I said was wrong with it and then glossed over what I said.

NO ONE...AT ALL

I mean, I did.

... I guess you didn't read my post, just like you didn't read the Read Me First or the Character Board!

ZING!

(With apologies. I truly mean this as a friendly 'take the piss' kind of post, so I hope it doesn't come off as overly mean).

 

[BruceWright]

How do you even know what Hit Points are? How do you even know what Hit Point Tokens are?

How can they expect you to put those tokens on the board when you have no idea what Hit Points are?

They are labeled as “Hit Point Tokens” and there’s a photograph of them stacked where the card tells you to place them, on page 3 of the "Read Me First" quickstart.

I'm attempting a good faith understanding of your posts here, and finding it harder and harder. I feel like whenever you say "This kit doesn't have X" we need to just post the photos of the the relevant part of the manual or the materials.

My best good faith reading of your experience is that you didn't receive the quickstart. My next is that maybe as an experienced player you discarded it or skimmed it, expecting it all to be explained in the player guide. My next is that you feel all of the explanations should live in the player guide, and you were confused when it all wasn't and assumed incorrectly that the kit had neglected to explain these things.

And then my least kind is that you're too quick to post here about omissions without checking your facts.

I engaged with this thread to see if there was a pitfall in the design I need to learn about in order to avoid it for my players.

But I am now at the conclusion that these are the complaints of someone who skimmed through the material and came to hasty conclusions that are factually incorrect.

 

[Parmandur]

...who's fault...do you blame...

I don't really see why it has to be a matter of "fault" or "blame": I work in customer support, and I talk to pefectly intelligent people every day who in good faith misunderstood something that my employer bent themselves into a pretzel to make as clear as possible so they don't get the hammer from government regulators.

Sometimes misunderstandings happen, even if the information is provided and the people who miss it are smart.

 

[GreyLord]

I mean, I did.

... I guess you didn't read my post, just like you didn't read the Read Me First or the Character Board!

ZING!

(With apologies. I truly mean this as a friendly 'take the piss' kind of post, so I hope it doesn't come off as overly mean).

You can PM me and send me the actual post you addressed my issue with?

Or you can post it again if not too much trouble.

I saw you attempted to post pictures but they didn't show up for me in the thread.

I also don't like your characterization that I did not read the Read Me First. I did read that, I skimmed through the How to Play. I also looked at the card. It did not occur to me to look at the combat portion of the Card for something like Spell DCs. I saw the area, I saw that it had to hit bonuses and such, but it never occurred to me to look specifically for a Spell DC item in that location of the card. I thought at the time it would have been located more towards where the spell cards and spells were, or even at least on or with that space where you would put a spell card.

Silly me for thinking Spells and Spell DC's would be close to the same spot (that was a little sarcasm from me there, it doesn't translate well into text).

Things were not where they were supposed to be and were referenced wrongly in that (which, as I said, no one addressed) and I probably missed it, but where did you say they told you how the Background and Equipment cards were supposed to work outside of the component overview diagram again?

Where were my players supposed to read about this? Where in the Read this First does it tell them what Hit Points are and thus how to identify Hit Point tokens and things like that?

I am sorry, I must have missed that.

I was the experienced player in the bunch though, so

You do realize though, that this does not help my players, nor does underhandly insulting them. They do not read these boards.

It may help me in the future, however, to understand how I may have missed certain things on my read through, or at least understand why they were so easily missed in the first place.

It may also help me understand why you and others in this thread feel that the Starter Box does a better job of introducing players to what the definitions of terms are and what they do than what we see in the PHB (which, albeit is longer, to me does a better job than the Starter Set, as I originally posted). I still feel that I might as well have just gotten everyone PHB's and it would have been easier to introduce them than what the Starter Set does. As this thread shows, almost everyone disagrees, but I still don't understand why they view it this way.

 

[GreyLord]

@GreyLord, since you apparently have several extra copies of the starter set that you have no use for, I'm more than happy to take one off your hands.

Well, I gave three of them to my players, so technically they are their sets.

The one which I share with a friend...I don't know. Maybe. Depending on where you live and if my friend is done with it (no guarantees that they are, I don't know at this point).

 

[Bae'zel]

I’m honestly quite stunned that anyone would be utterly clueless what hit points or health tokens are in a rpg game, especially when represented by red hearts.

It’s not like they haven’t been ubiquitously present in video games, cartoons and board games for decades. Maybe people who don’t watch tv cartoons, ever played video games, or avoided geek pop culture since the 80s?

And I’m even more stunned that a group of 4-5 people, each with their own copies of the starter set, which includes sheets of brightly coloured cardboard tokens of red hearts labelled “hit points” and “hp” could be confused about them.

Like… how?

 

[TiQuinn]

I’m honestly quite stunned that anyone would be utterly clueless what hit points or health tokens are in a rpg game, especially when represented by red hearts.

It’s not like they haven’t been ubiquitously present in video games, cartoons and board games for decades. Maybe people who don’t watch tv cartoons, ever played video games, or avoided geek pop culture since the 80s?

And I’m even more stunned that a group of 4-5 people, each with their own copies of the starter set, which includes sheets of brightly coloured cardboard tokens of red hearts labelled “hit points” and “hp” could be confused about them.

Like… how? Even my elderly boomer parents know that hearts typically represent “health”. Like, the original super mario bros. game was pretty well known.

This.

There is this assumption that games have to be simplified to such an obvious degree to meet the most novice of players or else they have failed, and I push back on that idea a bit. I feel that whether it’s a game, movie, book, music, whatever, one has to at least be willing to meet the media part way.

Sometimes it feels like some people are being asked to play these games under duress, in which case I can’t imagine anyone having a good time.

 

[definiteFreakyFishGuy]

I’m honestly quite stunned that anyone would be utterly clueless what hit points or health tokens are in a rpg game, especially when represented by red hearts.

When I tried to introduce DND to my in-laws (aged 80, 60), they had no idea what Hit Points were. It honestly made me question my assumptions and expectations I hold about RPGs.