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

[Micah Sweet]

It's more like different content. Yeah, it's a lot less words, and it's not content that Micah is interested in, but it's content that's worth quite a bit (in fact, I'm positive that WotC makes WAY LESS MONEY per unit on the Starter than they do on the PHB). Believe it or not, it's still a loss-leader, even at that price!

As you corrected noted, nothing you get from the starter that's not in the PH is worth equal price to me.

 

[bedir than]

As you corrected noted, nothing you get from the starter that's not in the PH is worth equal price to me.

Yes, because you don't need to start playing D&D. You've already been doing this version of the game for a decade.
Complaining that the starter set isn't right for a highly experienced player is like complaining that the book See Dog Run doesn't match Hemmingway.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

they are shown in the picture

To be fair, this will a problem for some people who are simply not visual. I use a lot of diagrams in my teaching, which is great for the majority of students, but I occasionally come across people who simply cannot comprehend information in that form, it might as well be Eldritch squiggles. But give them a wall of text and they understand just fine. My problem with that is, being dyslexic, I have a hard time writing a wall of text on the board.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

To be fair, this will a problem for some people who are simply not visual. I use a lot of diagrams in my teaching, which is great for the majority of students, but I occasionally come across people who simply cannot comprehend information in that form, it might as well be Eldritch squiggles. But give them a wall of text and they understand just fine. My problem with that is, being dyslexic, I have a hard time writing a wall of text on the board.

Sure, it happens. It's not the only place that the same information is given, as seen in other posts. But if you're not finding it by reading AND not finding it by looking at the pictures, then yeah, you're not finding it - but it's there.

 

[BruceWright]

Sure, it happens. It's not the only place that the same information is given, as seen in other posts. But if you're not finding it by reading AND not finding it by looking at the pictures, then yeah, you're not finding it - but it's there.

I sometimes DM for a friend who is a skimmer as he reads. He doesn’t seem to be aware that he’s skimming. If when he casts a spell, I ask him to read aloud the text of the spell, he’ll read the first sentence aloud and then sum up what it does the way he remembers it. Then I’ll ask him to please read the entire description aloud.
And then he’ll read the first two sentences, skip a sentence, and then read the last few words of the last sentence.

I’ll tell him he skipped a sentence again, and can he please read each sentence aloud. And then we find out that the spell only works on Beasts and not Aberrations, for example.

He’s a skimmer. And he doesn’t seem to be aware of it. I think he perceives himself as absorbing the full meaning of what his eyes are scanning.

 

[Hussar]

Or better yet, the Video Game has a tutorial, but people can't understand how the game works after trying to run the tutorial. Who do you blame, the player or the game?

You do have a point. After all, there is something to be said for being very clear in instructions. But, in 2025, I really don't think anyone needs to define hit points. Anyone who has picked up a video game knows what those are.

I'm now rather curious. I should try this in my ESL classes and see how well it plays out. See if they can figure it out.

But, in any case, there is a certain point of "you can lead a horse..." There is only so much hand holding you can do for a user. When the character sheet has a giant red box that reads Saving Throws, and apparently, even though the players had no problems finding their attack bonuses, and quite probably their spell attack bonuses, no one could find the saving throw DC's? I'm not really sure I'm going to blame the product here.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I sometimes DM for a friend who is a skimmer as he reads. He doesn’t seem to be aware that he’s skimming. If when he casts a spell, I ask him to read aloud the text of the spell, he’ll read the first sentence aloud and then sum up what it does the way he remembers it. Then I’ll ask him to please read the entire description aloud.
And then he’ll read the first two sentences, skip a sentence, and then read the last few words of the last sentence.

I’ll tell him he skipped a sentence again, and can he please read each sentence aloud. And then we find out that the spell only works on Beasts and not Aberrations, for example.

He’s a skimmer. And he doesn’t seem to be aware of it. I think he perceives himself as absorbing the full meaning of what his eyes are scanning.

I've seen that happen. A lot, actually! I've had players insist that a spell doesn't have a Saving Throw when I ask which Save it is, and read it multiple times like you describe, until I take their sheet (I make sheets for players that have the full text of spells, shortened to reduce word-count, but still maintain all that it does) and read it myself, only to discover, it says right there it's a WIS SAVE (or whatever).

I agree with you that they're not doing it on purpose! It's a strange phenomenon.

Like I don't judge our OP for the trouble they had (even if I disagree with their conclusions), I don't judge the player for it - but it can be a tad frustrating!

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I really don't think anyone needs to define hit points.

The designers of Heroes of the Borderlands felt that they needed to define HP. As far as I can tell, they did it in a number of places!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I sometimes DM for a friend who is a skimmer as he reads. He doesn’t seem to be aware that he’s skimming. If when he casts a spell, I ask him to read aloud the text of the spell, he’ll read the first sentence aloud and then sum up what it does the way he remembers it. Then I’ll ask him to please read the entire description aloud.
And then he’ll read the first two sentences, skip a sentence, and then read the last few words of the last sentence.

I’ll tell him he skipped a sentence again, and can he please read each sentence aloud. And then we find out that the spell only works on Beasts and not Aberrations, for example.

He’s a skimmer. And he doesn’t seem to be aware of it. I think he perceives himself as absorbing the full meaning of what his eyes are scanning.

Whist your example is somewhat extreme, I think most people do this to some extent. I know I do, which is why I very much prefer text articles over video, which force you to access information linearly. If you think about it, a whole paragraph fits into your field of vision, so why would you read one word at at time (or one letter at a time)? Close reading - reading one word at a time - is an important skill for lawyers.

And similar considerations come into play with images (such as the character boards). Most people, when given a picture to look at, their eyes dart around taking it all in (eye tracking research has been done). Artists are trained to exploit this to create movement in an image. So for an average person, if they have seen the character board, they have seen the character board. They don't need to be told exactly were to look to find something, because they assimilated the whole thing the first time they saw it.

But not everyone is average. In fact I would argue that no one is.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The designers of Heroes of the Borderlands felt that they needed to define HP. As far as I can tell, they did it in a number of places!

Yeah, it's a generational thing. Whilst most younger folk will be familiar with depleting red health bars from video games, older folk (say 60+ ish) won't be. And you might want Great Uncle Bulgaria to join in with the kids in playing this game.