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View Full Version : Starter Set vs. Beginner Box - The New Player Perspective



Psyren
2014-07-23, 09:56 AM
This guy did an interesting experiment that I would like to try - sitting down with brand new players (http://millionwordman.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-beginners-choice-d-next-or.html) (people who were not just new to tabletop, but new to fantasy RPGs in general) to go over both the 5e Starter Set and PF Beginner Box, then get their thoughts on which they like better. Some of their thoughts were surprising to me, but make sense in retrospect. Apparently he flamed their initial interest by bribing them with candy.

5e I think has the easier mechanics to draw new players in - but one aspect I don't see discussed as much is the presentation of those mechanics. Love, hate, or shrug at 5e, this is something WotC will hopefully take to heart as they finalize the PHB and DMG.

Feel free to discuss and all that.

Craft (Cheese)
2014-07-23, 10:47 AM
You know the vibe I'm getting from this? The D&D Starter Set is designed a lot like the new player experience in a crappy free-to-play game; It's priority is convincing you to buy more of the game, instead of actually making the experience any fun to play.

I *am* surprised though, that the brand-new players cared about having chargen rules available. That's pretty surprising; My experience is that players brand-new to RPGs want as little exposure to the underlying systems as possible and just want to freeform.

1337 b4k4
2014-07-23, 10:52 AM
I *am* surprised though, that the brand-new players cared about having chargen rules available. That's pretty surprising; My experience is that players brand-new to RPGs want as little exposure to the underlying systems as possible and just want to freeform.

I suspect this was influenced by the decision to roll up characters rather than play with the pre-gens. If that's the decision you make, then it absolutely makes sense to find it silly that they didn't include chargen in the Starter Set. I have to admit to agreeing with being disappointed in the "lack" of material in the box though. For such a big box, it sets pretty high expectations, and then fails to deliver. I think making the box so big will end up going down as mistake, and sincerely wonder if it was chosen merely because that size box seems pretty standard in the hobby industry these days and was the "cheapest" option.

Craft (Cheese)
2014-07-23, 11:07 AM
Well, I may have misunderstood, but by this line:


All agreed that characters should be rolled up to see if the difference was still apparent when it wasn’t all singing all dancing, and so they were...

I interpreted that to mean that the players were interested in rolling up characters instead of using the pregens, which is what I found surprising. If the DM didn't even show them the pregens and told them they were rolling up characters, then that is a much less interesting result.

Person_Man
2014-07-23, 02:23 PM
"the D&D set expected that if you needed a rule, you went and looked it up, the Pathfinder saved you the time and put the rule there for you to save you that half minute of looking"

This has always been an issue for D&D, and I'm sad that it wasn't addressed. I own and had a chance to run the 5E Starter Set for some experienced players, and they encountered similar issues when the 5E rules differed from the 3.5/PF rules they were familiar with.

Sartharina
2014-07-24, 02:11 AM
... how the heck did WotC fail to notice what Pathfinder had done, and one-up it?

And I really wish it was possible to get the D&D Basic rules in a meatspace format.

Tholomyes
2014-07-24, 02:30 AM
... how the heck did WotC fail to notice what Pathfinder had done, and one-up it?

And I really wish it was possible to get the D&D Basic rules in a meatspace format.I think part of the problem is the difference in customer base. Paizo is more interested in grabbing new customers, since they don't have the name value of D&D, and may be willing to accept that this may mean the beginner box might have to be more hefty and more friendly to beginners, even at the potential cost of monetary profit. D&D wants to attract new customers too, but they know that they have the leg up on name-value, and they also know that the starter set will be the introduction of the new edition to most current gamers. So they want to cut costs a bit, to make sure prices are low, meaning they can get it into more peoples' hands. This means no physical copy of the Basic Rules, and no second d10 and other stuff.

WotC may come out with a beginner box as well, but I think that beginners were only a portion of the intended audience of the starter set, while they were the full audience of the Beginner box. That being said, I do like the Beginner box overall more (even for the greater cost), even as an experienced player.

TheOOB
2014-07-24, 12:14 PM
I don't feel this is a fair comparison. The pathfinder Core Rulebook was published 08/19/2009, while the Beginner Box was published 11/15/2011, over two years later. Whereas the D&D starter set was published before all three books, at least two of which where not finalized at the time.

The Starter set is a marketing tool, it's designed to get some D&D 5e out there so people can play it while waiting for the final version, whereas the beginners box is made more to impress new players.

If WotC had made all the rules, had two years of people playing the rules to learn how best to present them to new players, and had resources they could dedicate to the starter set that are not dedicated to say...the core rulebooks, I'd say we'd see a much more....competitive product.

((Also, the D&D starter set is 19.99, the pathfinder beginner box is 34.99))

1337 b4k4
2014-07-24, 12:40 PM
I don't feel this is a fair comparison. The pathfinder Core Rulebook was published 08/19/2009, while the Beginner Box was published 11/15/2011, over two years later. Whereas the D&D starter set was published before all three books, at least two of which where not finalized at the time.

The Starter set is a marketing tool, it's designed to get some D&D 5e out there so people can play it while waiting for the final version, whereas the beginners box is made more to impress new players.

If WotC had made all the rules, had two years of people playing the rules to learn how best to present them to new players, and had resources they could dedicate to the starter set that are not dedicated to say...the core rulebooks, I'd say we'd see a much more....competitive product.

((Also, the D&D starter set is 19.99, the pathfinder beginner box is 34.99))

On the other hand, both are marketed as the product to buy to get you started on your gaming career. Frankly, if the 5e Starter Set couldn't be made awesome without the books being finalized first (which is certainly a valid possibility) then WotC should have waited before releasing the Starter Set. In fact, the more I think about it, the better of an idea I think that would have been. Right now, anyone getting the D&D starter set who then ventures into the online world for more information is going to find a lot of speculation and ranting, and not a lot of hard facts. If you imagine a new to D&D player who picks up the starter set and then perhaps ventures into this forum for the first time, they would quickly come to the conclusion that they've just acquired a horribly broken game that was a disaster and would fall apart the moment any player said "I want a wizard", and that none of their players who choose to play a fighter will ever have any fun.

pwykersotz
2014-07-24, 01:02 PM
On the other hand, both are marketed as the product to buy to get you started on your gaming career. Frankly, if the 5e Starter Set couldn't be made awesome without the books being finalized first (which is certainly a valid possibility) then WotC should have waited before releasing the Starter Set. In fact, the more I think about it, the better of an idea I think that would have been. Right now, anyone getting the D&D starter set who then ventures into the online world for more information is going to find a lot of speculation and ranting, and not a lot of hard facts. If you imagine a new to D&D player who picks up the starter set and then perhaps ventures into this forum for the first time, they would quickly come to the conclusion that they've just acquired a horribly broken game that was a disaster and would fall apart the moment any player said "I want a wizard", and that none of their players who choose to play a fighter will ever have any fun.

On the other-other hand, I get to play my first Starter Set game tomorrow! The staggered release of material means I don't burn out on rumors and get to supplement my information intake with actual playtime, making me more likely to stick with 5e through the DMG release. Without it, odds are decent that I would go another couple years without even looking into it after getting frustrated with endless speculation and no hard information.

Person_Man
2014-07-24, 01:50 PM
Right now, anyone getting the D&D starter set who then ventures into the online world for more information is going to find a lot of speculation and ranting, and not a lot of hard facts.

This is very true. And humorously enough, WotC migrated their 5E forums to a new section right before the Starter Set launch, and so attempts to find the 5E forum instead brought you to the WotC front page, and attempts to find "D&D 5E review" or similar searches on Google brought you to forums like this one, EnWorld, Reddit, etc., which are a lot more critical then the fanboy dominated WotC forum.

I'm still baffled by their decision not to playtest the final version of the PHB, and then release all their core products together at the same time.

Tehnar
2014-07-24, 02:13 PM
This is very true. And humorously enough, WotC migrated their 5E forums to a new section right before the Starter Set launch, and so attempts to find the 5E forum instead brought you to the WotC front page, and attempts to find "D&D 5E review" or similar searches on Google brought you to forums like this one, EnWorld, Reddit, etc., which are a lot more critical then the fanboy dominated WotC forum.

I'm still baffled by their decision not to playtest the final version of the PHB, and then release all their core products together at the same time.

I agree with their decision not to playtest their final product. IMO they should have not done a public playtest at all. It was not a playtest, it was a design by comity which Mearls admits to.

And even if I liked what I see from 5e, I would not want to buy the Starter Set, I would just wait for the PHB. I don't think that the Starter Set is there to tide people over until the PHB comes out is a valid argument.

pwykersotz
2014-07-24, 02:45 PM
I agree with their decision not to playtest their final product. IMO they should have not done a public playtest at all. It was not a playtest, it was a design by comity which Mearls admits to.

And even if I liked what I see from 5e, I would not want to buy the Starter Set, I would just wait for the PHB. I don't think that the Starter Set is there to tide people over until the PHB comes out is a valid argument.

I wasn't making the point as some revolutionary sweeping statement. I was saying they retained me because of it. It doesn't matter if it was their intention or not, it worked.

da_chicken
2014-07-24, 04:46 PM
I don't feel this is a fair comparison. The pathfinder Core Rulebook was published 08/19/2009, while the Beginner Box was published 11/15/2011, over two years later. Whereas the D&D starter set was published before all three books, at least two of which where not finalized at the time.

The Starter set is a marketing tool, it's designed to get some D&D 5e out there so people can play it while waiting for the final version, whereas the beginners box is made more to impress new players.

If WotC had made all the rules, had two years of people playing the rules to learn how best to present them to new players, and had resources they could dedicate to the starter set that are not dedicated to say...the core rulebooks, I'd say we'd see a much more....competitive product.

((Also, the D&D starter set is 19.99, the pathfinder beginner box is 34.99))

I'd say a larger issue with the review is that Pathfinder is teaching a game that's fifteen years old, well worn and polished (such as it is). 5e is teaching a game that's brand new, unrefined, and not well understood. I would be shocked if the Pathfinder game were not presented in a better fashion, even if it didn't cost twice as much. There's been a dozen extra years to get the kinks worked out from earlier starters (anybody else remember the "Adventure Game" 3e had?) to know what questions people would ask about. Sure, 5e is a dead simple game, especially in the starter, but it's not like anybody knows how to teach it to someone else.

VeliciaL
2014-07-25, 03:26 AM
I'd say a larger issue with the review is that Pathfinder is teaching a game that's fifteen years old, well worn and polished (such as it is). 5e is teaching a game that's brand new, unrefined, and not well understood. I would be shocked if the Pathfinder game were not presented in a better fashion, even if it didn't cost twice as much. There's been a dozen extra years to get the kinks worked out from earlier starters (anybody else remember the "Adventure Game" 3e had?) to know what questions people would ask about. Sure, 5e is a dead simple game, especially in the starter, but it's not like anybody knows how to teach it to someone else.

What struck me from the comments is that some of the things that the players liked about the Pathfinder set over 5e - notably, sidebar explanations of the rules and monster profiles - isn't necessarily available in other Pathfinder products. (Although I can't really check myself, since I don't own any). The Pathfinder box definitely builds on stuff they've learned from experience.

brocadecity
2014-07-25, 05:53 AM
Just a quick comment on the test qua test. One thing that dnd did a good job of doing with the starter set was make some really robust character sheets. They include most of the rules for most of the actions that players can take. When i ran it with 4 players, 3 of which were new to roleplaying in general, neither the rogue or fighter character had to look up the rules because they had the rules in front of them (this surprised me because i was worried about their not having a book), so the going to the book problems discussed happened mainly for casters (which i obviated by photocopying the spell list for both casters ahead of time-not something i should have done, but eh
, also not a huge deal.

I suspect that by using hand rolled characters instead of the pregen, the players DID have to go to the rules a lot because things like action surge weren't written on their sheets. I would consider-this would be a flaw to the starter set if the starter set even mentioned the possibility of using basic rules to do this. The players, in essence, saw all of pathfinders aids for basic players but didn't get to rate said aids for dnd (unless the author also transcribed rules for action surge,sneak attack, spell memorization into character sheets). That seems problematic.