Quote from: Sacrosanct;752670Well, I guess Mearls was right.  5e is the unifying edition.  It's managed to unify the irrational 4e fans, irrational 3e fans, and irrational OSR grognards all in their hate for it.  I mean, some of things people are really getting worked up over and digging their trenches for is...well...odd to say the least.

It's like Seattle Seahawk envy from Nina fans. No logic or sense.

Quote from: JasperAK;752667It is just that at a fundamental level some (myself included) believe that character generation should not be divorced from the play experience. Otherwise I don't see this starter set being much different than Wrath of Ashardelon or Legend of Drizzt.

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Except one's a board game and the other is not.   Do you mean to seriously tell me that unless there are rules for char gen included in the starter box, that there isn't much difference between that and the games you listed?

Seriously?  That has to be a joke.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;752674Except one's a board game and the other is not.   Do you mean to seriously tell me that unless there are rules for char gen included in the starter box, that there isn't much difference between that and the games you listed?

Seriously?  That has to be a joke.

At my FLGS and my buddy's home game, I found it difficult to distinguish by listening, what games people were playing between Wrath, Legend, or 4e's intro adventure Keep on the Shadowfell.

I believe part of that is because the players in the 4e game had no connection to their characters. Some roleplaying emerged during play, but that was equal across all of the games I mentioned. I say this not as a slight against any of those games, but to reinforce my argument that unless players are invested in their characters, then they might as well be playing a boardgame. Using your own imagination is key to what TTRPGs do best.

Now of course some will take their pre-gens and roleplay the hell out of them--those people will find a good home with RPGs regardless, but others may not grok roleplaying. That's where I think generating their own characters would be beneficial. Let them use their own imagination and learn what all those things on the character sheet mean by doing it themselves.

I think generating BASIC characters help new players with the fundamental rules of the game. Simple character sheets where players have to fill in their Ability Scores, Hit Points, Saves, Calculate their AC, List their class special abilities, choose their spells, and purchase their equipment works much better to teach the game than having everything handed to them and then answering the inevitable, 'what do all these things do?'

I hate how both of these threads are now talking about the same thing. Having a difficult time remembering where I said what.

What frustrates me is that nobody on this board is the target market. My kids, my friends kids, my sister's and brother's kids each far more computer and internet saavy then the majority of us ARE the target and most of you have not one clue about what you're complaining about.

Quote from: Marleycat;752713What frustrates me is that nobody on this board is the target market. My kids, my friends kids, my sister's and brother's kids each far more computer and internet saavy then the majority of us ARE the target and most of you have not one clue about what you're complaining about.

Except my 11 year old daughter is not as computer savvy as 41 year old me. I have to constantly warn her about certain websites that may contain viruses, show her how to install/upload programs (including Minecraft/Sims), etc.

Now my 65 year old parents are another matter. They call me up and ask me to help them with their computer issues as well.

You can't shortchange our generation.

For myself, having something in a book implies a type of tangibility that the 'cloud' can never really duplicate.  I've had gaming books in places where I didn't have power and I didn't have internet connection.  These days, with smart phones and such, it's probably less of an issue.  But as long as I can read, books are compatible with whatever technology I do or do not have available.  

Anything outside of printed material becomes a little more suspect.  I certainly have computer games and files that I can no longer access - the technology has advanced to the point where they are no longer useful.  Books never go out of date.

Personally, I'd be afraid of 'permanent changes' that I didn't care for.  Imagine if the original theatrical release of Star Wars (Episodes 4-6) was gone forever because it had been 'updated online' for us and that was the only way you could ever see it.  That's the type of tragedy you can avoid with a physical product.

Quote from: Endless Flight;752718Except my 11 year old daughter is not as computer savvy as 41 year old me. I have to constantly warn her about certain websites that may contain viruses, show her how to install/upload programs (including Minecraft/Sims), etc.

Now my 65 year old parents are another matter. They call me up and ask me to help them with their computer issues as well.

You can't shortchange our generation.

You have a point. Thing is the character generation piece isn't relevant to her because one she has you and two you know WotC's URL is safe.

Quote from: Marleycat;752744You have a point. Thing is the character generation piece isn't relevant to her because one she has you and two you know WotC's URL is safe.

Yeah, but it's another step in the process that's kind of unnecessary. She has to get my permission to use certain sites, even Wizards'. I'm sure a lot of parents have this kind of control over their kid. If she just buyed a set with the creation rules inside, this step is avoided. It speeds things up to skip a step. Yes, I would allow her to download the PDF file because I would like to read it myself, being a gamer. Who knows what other parents might say? What if some kid's parents are really strict about computer access?

Not having chargen does not bode well under any circumstances. There is no way in hell you can persuade anyone that this is a selling point.

I fear that it very possibly means that whoever put this together decided that chargen is "too complicated" for the new guy. Which either underestimates new players or means they haven't learned this particular lesson from 4e.

Whether it "cripples" the starter set, we'll see. But it's not a good sign in any case.

Quote from: Marleycat;752713What frustrates me is that nobody on this board is the target market. My kids, my friends kids, my sister's and brother's kids each far more computer and internet saavy then the majority of us ARE the target and most of you have not one clue about what you're complaining about.

FWIW I have two kids of my own, run RPGs for a local high school and organise a local under 14 year old event at my local RPG Con. Despite it seeming like younger players may have more ready access to the internet and be tech savvy, a PDF download presents a bigger barrier than you would expect. For one, many younger players are restricted or monitored when it comes to downloading off the net.

More importantly, younger players tend to have a shorter concentration span and a good chunk of them will only play with what's in the box and think that's the limits of what an RPG is capable of. They may well lose interest following down a link noted in the box to another document. In comparison, if the character generation was in the box then this would help shape their understanding of what they hold in their hands from the get go.

When dealing with younger players or new players, you need to give them a glimpse of what they are getting into in the first experience they have. The entirety of it. You don't want to overload them, of course, but omitting a core part of the appeal of the hobby is not a good approach for the target market.

Quote from: Saplatt;752380About one in twelve here. I easily post more in one week than the rest of my real-life crowd has posted in their entire collective lives.

Yeah, I don't know a single other gamer that posts at all, let alone like I do.  I'd guess that forum posters make up maybe 5% of the fanbase, if that.

You can find that with any hobby, or any other thing, for that matter. How many motorcycle riders post about their bikes online? .005%? More? Less?

Forums are kind of a dying breed in the age of Twitter and Facebook anyway.

Quote from: Endless Flight;752771You can find that with any hobby, or any other thing, for that matter. How many motorcycle riders post about their bikes online? .005%? More? Less?

Forums are kind of a dying breed in the age of Twitter and Facebook anyway.

Well that sucks. If there are no forums what is the internet good for? Boobie pictures?

Quote from: Marleycat;752791Well that sucks. If there are no forums what is the internet good for? Boobie pictures?

It does suck!!! It's hard to pull people away from those evil social media sites.

Quote from: Marleycat;752713What frustrates me is that nobody on this board is the target market.

My bad. I must have heard something wrong about bringing people back into the game, appealing to everyone, whatever D&D style you like, and so on. Silly me. The kids will buy their boxed sets on their own. It wouldn't come to my mind to offer them myself thinking that'll feature the greatest strengths of tabletop role playing games right out of the box.

The thing is, if nobody's the target market on this board, these are that many people who will shrug and not get the starter set for Christmas because it doesn't include the features they think should be there to introduce their kids to pen and paper RPGs on their own, via the box. I know I wouldn't. I'd get Moldvay Cook instead at this rate. Or Pathfinder Beginner Box. Or whatever.

I mean, for WotC to say they want to bring back people and everyone's together playing D&D and stuff, you'd think they'd give some thought about how their products are bought, by whom, and how the hobby actually spreads more often than not: from person to person, from role player to newbie, and not magically to newbies directly cold turkey picking them up like this. Now, with all the competition for attention the kids are bombarded with, I bet you that is even less true than it ever was during the 80s.