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Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MaxKaladin" data-source="post: 1035855" data-attributes="member: 1196">I hope they do this.I was wishing they would to this just last week.  You see, I have a nephew who has shown an interest in gaming.  I was wishing there was something like the old red box set that hooked me to give him.  I know a lot of you are talking about demo groups, local game store events and existing groups as introduction methods.  The thing is, not everyone comes from a city or has lots of money to spend on games.  When you get right down to it, game stores aren't that common.   They're only a reasonable option for kids who live in cities and near the game store (or public transportation that gets them there) but not kids who live in small towns.   Also, a $30 or $40 game is a lot more feasable for a kid to invest in than the three core books and dice that a group would need to own to get started.  When I started, I was only aware of the game and the red boxed set because a friend got one as a birthday present and I had to talk my stepmom into driving me 25 miles to the next town where there was a bookstore with game books so I could buy a copy.  That red box is what really hooked me.  Like many of us with younger relatives, I want to introduce my nephew to the game.  I think a new version of the old red box set would be an ideal tool.  I think relying on game stores or demo teams is a mistake.  They don't cover enough territory.  There needs to be an inexpensive, self-contained D&D "starter" kit.  It has to be something that kids anywhere can get their hands on and isn't tied to having a game store or existing game group around.  It needs to be a single item that's inexpensive enough for parents and relatives to buy and give as gifts (I think plenty of us got our starting set as a gift).  I think that's the key.  Don't make people who might give the game as a gift have to spend 100 bucks or have to know which books and dice to buy.  Just present them with something inexpensive they can give a kid without worrying if its complete.  Make it self contained so even kids in small towns without an established gaming community can get one and start playing with their friends.  Do that, and I think you'll have a lot of new gamers.  Now, part of this is to follow the format of the 83 set in some ways.  Give examples of play and sample dungeons.  Give the very basics of a setting, just a village and a dungeon like the little bits of threshold and the dungeon in the 83 set, though this time around it would probably be Greyhawk.  Make everything open ended enough that you can play with just the set and your imagination.  (I knew one guy back in the 80s who played for years using just the red 83 set he got as a gift because that's all he had and never got access to any other game books.)  Don't talk down to the reader as several have said.  One thing you need to change from the old 83 set is to make the rules a subset of the current D&D rules.  The old 83 set was different from AD&D.  Elf was a class, not just a race, for instance and other things were different.  People with the new set should be able to go up a few levels and then transition their characters to regular D&D without them being incompatible.  There should be no follow on products*.  Instead of an "expert set" and so on, encorage people to buy the regular rules and go from there so you don't split the product into two lines.  * Actually, since the rules should be d20 compatible, people could, in theory, buy low level d20 modules and play them with little or no problem thus driving regular d20 sales.</blockquote>

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