Quote from: Mistwell;751425We already know they are intentionally delivering to game stores 2 weeks earlier than Amazon, for that very reason.

As any sane publisher would do.
Generally, a b&m sale is more money than a sale via Amazon.

Also, regarding the b&m question: If 5e really is depending on an Organized Play format WotC needs venues for that.

A thought about why the chargen booklet isn't in the box: maybe the team is working around some set of corporate bureaucracy edicts as best they can? I've seen that sort of thing happen in other contexts.

Maybe HQ has mandated that the box set must come in below a certain manufacturing cost and sales price because of their market and likely profit margin research. It's then up to the team to decide what is most essential in a starter, and the market research says youngsters and noobs don't mind a World of Warcraft / Diablo approach of "make 1 to 3 choices and start playing NOW!" as an intro.

Maybe the cost of making and distributing the physical booklet is being taken out of the marketing budget as a clever ploy to work around a corporate mandate.

Maybe the booklet will also end up being a free online PDF rather than a piece of web-dependent software, something that can be printed out easily by anyone in large quantities. Only the most die-hard purist could object to that if it enables a cheaper starter box and encourages beginner GMs to distribute the rules to more potential customers, right?

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;751483A thought about why the chargen booklet isn't in the box: maybe the team is working around some set of corporate bureaucracy edicts as best they can? I've seen that sort of thing happen in other contexts.

Maybe HQ has mandated that the box set must come in below a certain manufacturing cost and sales price because of their market and likely profit margin research. It's then up to the team to decide what is most essential in a starter, and the market research says youngsters and noobs don't mind a World of Warcraft / Diablo approach of "make 1 to 3 choices and start playing NOW!" as an intro.

Maybe the cost of making and distributing the physical booklet is being taken out of the marketing budget as a clever ploy to work around a corporate mandate.

Maybe the booklet will also end up being a free online PDF rather than a piece of web-dependent software, something that can be printed out easily by anyone in large quantities. Only the most die-hard purist could object to that if it enables a cheaper starter box and encourages beginner GMs to distribute the rules to more potential customers, right?

1: WOTC suffers this alot more than people suspect.

2: 4e D&D Gamma World was on a very tight budgeting leash set by Hasbro. Would not surprise me if the Basic boxed set was too in some manner. Im guessing it will be either low art, or all retread art. Will be surprised if its BW art.

3: Unlikely if theres a physical version and un-needed if its electronic only. More likely it is simply a marketing idea or mandate to tie into the Adventurer League.

4: Will be very interesting to see what direction they take. Depends on how tight a leash Hasbro has WOTC on for this one. I am still hopeful that the AL booklet is packed with the starter as an insert extra.

Current info, what little there is yet, has me a-lot more hopefull that the starter will not be a botch.

What happens if we all go out and buy the Starter Set (I want to keep calling it the Red Box) and there are pregens to take newbie up and away and through campaigns and toward the new PHB.

Meanwhile there is also a small sheet of paper with guidance and advice for using characters with the starter set that have been created with Mentzer, 1E AD&D, 2E AD&D and 3.X?*

You know, the premium reprints and digital offerings that have been flying out of WoTC recently. How would you feel?


*Oh, and 4E. How could I forget.

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;751492What happens if we all go out and buy the Starter Set (I want to keep calling it the Red Box) and there are pregens to take newbie up and away and through campaigns and toward the new PHB.

Meanwhile there is also a small sheet of paper with guidance and advice for using characters with the starter set that have been created with Mentzer, 1E AD&D, 2E AD&D and 3.X?*

You know, the premium reprints and digital offerings that have been flying out of WoTC recently. How would you feel?


*Oh, and 4E. How could I forget.

I'd be really confused and wondering why they were giving me conversion notes instead of character generation rules for the edition that I was actually buying.

Quote from: Scott Anderson;751460Yes, making a "real" RPG is HARD. But they have lots of money and lots of professionals doing it. Actually, I have no idea whether it's hard or not. The pros are making it look hard though.

Making an RPG to please yourself and three other people is not hard.

Making an RPG to please 1,000 who share your tastes is harder, but still within the capability of many hobbyists. The biggest difficulty is probably getting your hands on some decent artwork and laying the thing out well enough that it doesn't look like garbage.

Making an RPG to please 5,000 people (about the size of the more successful mid-market RPG these days) is considerably harder. It requires a degree of professionalism, flexibility, and acumen most hobbyists lack. You need to be broadly popular and accessible enough not to lose your shirt in the (relatively) big production values and print runs.

Making and RPG to please 100s of thousands of people, many of them lapsed players who played a similar game 25 years ago, and attracting tens of thousands of players new to the game and hobby - that's an entirely different kettle of fish. It's probably impossible for WotC at this point to make any decision of A or B that won't piss off thousands of advocates/opponents of A or B (some of whom will erupt on RPG forums with volcanic nerdfury, dominating online discussion). They need to make a game that will appeal to a remarkably diverse audience: people who have kept up with every edition for 35 years, people who dropped out 25 years ago but could be enticed back into the fold, people who started with 3E, people who started with 4E, people who like a simpler game, people who like complexity, people who don't really know what they want, and most difficult of all people who have never played an RPG in their lives. And they need to not only make a system that will be as broadly appealing as possible, but publish it with the best production values in the industry, and in the format that balances the interests of that wildly various audience.

Sure, that seems like an accurate summary. Where's the problem?

Quote from: Haffrung;751553Making an RPG to please yourself and three other people is not hard.

Making an RPG to please 1,000 who share your tastes is harder, but still within the capability of many hobbyists. The biggest difficulty is probably getting your hands on some decent artwork and laying the thing out well enough that it doesn't look like garbage.

Writing an RPG that is NOT just another derivative of some existing system, D&D for example is bitchingly hard unless your brain really clicks to that sort of stuff. Balancing it all is probably the big hurdle. You have everything lined up how you want. THEN playtesters do things with it you never foresaw and you realize that you now have to go back and re-balance things.

Some designers have mentioned that the mechanics is easy. Its the background and data on things that they stall at. Why some get someone else to handle that part.

Then comes editing, art, etc. And art is costly unless you are also the artist.

Quote from: matthulhu;751223It doesn't seem like the Starter Set is meant to be a beginner's box. Mearls has said it's for DMs. It seems the Set is about getting existing D&D players playing this D&D ASAP. An actual welcome-to-the-hobby "red box" might be (should be) forthcoming, although by any standard that will be confusing, if the Starter Set and BB are on the shelves at the same time.

Yeah, for now I'll assume that Pundit is right and that Wizards has some magical shit in the starter set that will be perfect for bringing in players.

Otherwise their first product is useful only by DMs and not players, and they're targeting maybe 20% of their market instead of 100%. Which would be insane.

Doesn't precisely address the marketing issue here, but a post at Enworld today says that, at the very least, WotC will have some free character generation rules on its website. About 15% of the PHB!

Same post also has pics of the back of the books.

 http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?355344-BoardGameGeek-at-a-5e-Seminar&prefixid=dndnext

"(!!!)Approx 15% of the D&D Player's Handbook will be free on WotC site to cover the basics of building characters for those getting Starter Sets. [EDIT: @thalmin mentioned the rules will be for BASIC characters (emphasis from the WotC rep)]"

Not what I was hoping for - still chargen rules in the Player's Guide, and a free app.

That's what the big noise was about?

I'm slightly underwhelmed.

Quote from: Mistwell;751425We already know they are intentionally delivering to game stores 2 weeks earlier than Amazon, for that very reason.

It's 11 days and only to stores in the Wizards Play Network.

Quote from: Saplatt;751573Doesn't precisely address the marketing issue here, but a post at Enworld today says that, at the very least, WotC will have some free character generation rules on its website. About 15% of the PHB!

Same post also has pics of the back of the books.

 http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?355344-BoardGameGeek-at-a-5e-Seminar&prefixid=dndnext

And now we can see exactly what's going in on the Starter set.  Pretty good for $20, IMO.  Especially since players will have a way to generate their own PCs

Quote from: Mark Plemmons;751570Otherwise their first product is useful only by DMs and not players, and they're targeting maybe 20% of their market instead of 100%. Which would be insane.

Releasing book after book of content geared at players - and the rules-heavy char op mode of play it encouraged - is what made me walk away from D&D in the 3E era. I find it encouraging that 5E will be a game that's simple enough where players don't need to buy books, and where most of the published content will be aimed at DMs.