D&D (2024) What's In D&D's New Starter Set?

From the SlyFlourish discord Scioio202 notes that the Polygon and Gizmodo articles say that the set encourages each player to take in the role of DM and it tries to make it easier to start DMing.

That’s awesome! I’m very interested in how it does that.

I’ve advocated for a “choose your own adventure” style DMing tutorial like the player tutorial in the original Red Box.

darjr said:

From the SlyFlourish discord Scioio202 notes that the Polygon and Gizmodo articles say that the set encourages each player to take in the role of DM and it tries to make it easier to start DMing.

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My youngest has occasionally voiced the desire to run a game since we started her with the original My Little Pony RPG, although she's never followed through on it. I suspect we might be able to get her to run things with this new boxed set.

Whizbang Dustyboots said:

My youngest has occasionally voiced the desire to run a game since we started her with the original My Little Pony RPG, although she's never followed through on it. I suspect we might be able to get her to run things with this new boxed set.

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Cool!

The more I think about it the more a shared DM session makes sense for easing people into DMing. It’ll make it far less intimidating.

I want to echo what @SlyFlourish pointed out: this kind of product is really good for the whole industry, and is the type of thing that really only WotC can feasibly pull off. D&D has enough brand recognition to get parents and others to buy this type of starter set for kids, and once their foot is in the door, some of those kids will go on to love all TTRPGs, the same way most of us at least started with D&D.

So the more I think on it, the more enamoured I am of this kit, if the final product follows through on the promise of these prototypes, at a reasonable price point.

I hope they also think to publish accompanying, brief actual play sessions using the kit, and direct new players to them via the manual. Hey, you know who would be a PERFECT person to create and host such videos? Amy Dallen.

michaeljpastor said:

Yeah, this is very much like the Return to Dark Tower playmats and cards. It actually looks even better. I really like those dice (like I need more).

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You can get those dice right now. They are the D&D Adventure Dice (Fighter Class: Red) from Sirius Dice.

Which makes me think these AREN'T the dice that will ship with this box set. Because THOSE ARE PRICEY! Multiple sets at $25 a set? In a starter set?

BruceWright said:

You can get those dice right now. They are the D&D Adventure Dice (Fighter Class: Red) from Sirius Dice.

Which makes me think these AREN'T the dice that will ship with this box set. Because THOSE ARE PRICEY! Multiple sets at $25 a set? In a starter set?

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Yeah, I had been skeptical that we were going to get dice with class (?) logos on different faces. Different colors? Sure. But if they're trying to squeeze costs to keep prices down, every extra bell and whistle adds up.

Have multiple dice sets been confirmed for Heroes of the Borderlands? Because what's on the table at Toy Fair probably isn't indicative dice-wise of what's in the box.

Also can't wait to fight that "Cobalt Warrior".

BruceWright said:

Have multiple dice sets been confirmed for Heroes of the Borderlands? Because what's on the table at Toy Fair probably isn't indicative dice-wise of what's in the box.

Also can't wait to fight that "Cobalt Warrior".

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I believe Polygon said there would be multiple dice sets.

SlyFlourish said:

$50 for the core books feels almost like a loss leader. These books are huge, high quality, and were really expensive to produce I bet. Same price as the smaller ones from 2014.

Edit: the core books aren’t likely a loss leader but they certainly provide less of a profit margin with the $50 price tag than other books or products. $50 MSRP at a FLGS means $25 back to WOTC which has to cover the entire production of the book, art, physical production cost, shipping, and more.

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The 'make it up with volume' approach.

As you have often said, once you have the books in your hand, you're done with your dependency on them. If getting the seed of the system into more hands is the goal, I'm all for it, as it supports the larger ecosystem of developers in the 5e space, including variants, forks, add-ons and what-not.

BruceWright said:

Also can't wait to fight that "Cobalt Warrior".

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Wait no longer!