Quote from: ggroy;385666If this is their intention, they'll have their work cut out for them.

Well, there's no point in making Essentials look like the old Red Box for new and current 4e players...

Seanchai

Thanks for the link, AM.  I was looking at one of those the other day, but it was not the most recent version.

Does anyone know if the Essentials boxed set will contain dice?  That right there will tell you if the target audience is totally new or relapsed players.

As an aside, am I the only one who still blanches at the novels being in the front?  That catches me off guard every damn time.

Quote from: jrients;385780As an aside, am I the only one who still blanches at the novels being in the front?  That catches me off guard every damn time.

It's the Randomhouse catalog- that's what they send to bookstores. I assume that's what the bookstores expect to see? I dunno.

Page 17 of the catalog says the red box will contain "6 polyhedral dice"

QuoteDesigned for 1–5 players, this boxed game contains everything needed to start playing the Dungeons & Dragons
Fantasy Roleplaying Game, including rules for creating heroes, advice for playing the Dungeon Master, a solo play
adventure, and group-play adventure content. Learning the game has never been so easy!
Several different character races (dwarf, elf, halfling, and human) and classes (cleric, fighter, rogue, and wizard) are
presented, along with powers for each race and class.
Game components:
• 32-page book for players, with rules for character creation and a solo adventure
• 64-page book for Dungeon Masters, with the rules of the game, advice on how to run the game, and adventure
content
• 2 sheets of die-cut tokens for characters and monsters
• Cardstock character sheets and power cards
• Double-sided dungeon map
• 6 polyhedral dice
The initial run of this product features a nostalgic box design that hearkens back to the original “Red Box” — the
1st-Edition Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set. This packaging will be available for a limited time. Future print runs
will feature a more contemporary 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons box design.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;385782It's the Randomhouse catalog- that's what they send to bookstores. I assume that's what the bookstores expect to see? I dunno.

Yeah, I'm sure most bookstores are way more interested in the novels.  I just find it depressing when it is so clearly demonstrated that D&D, which is a sideline to Hasbro, is also a sideline to the book buyers.

QuotePage 17 of the catalog says the red box will contain "6 polyhedral dice"

I missed that even though I was specifically looking for that.  Must be on account of the brain.  Anyway, my point is that active gamers who don't play D&D probably don't need to be sold a set of polyhedrals.  The expense and hassle of including the dice indicates to me that the target audience is newbies and/or folks who have been out of the hobby for so long they have no idea where their dice are.

Quote from: jrients;385814Yeah, I'm sure most bookstores are way more interested in the novels.  I just find it depressing when it is so clearly demonstrated that D&D, which is a sideline to Hasbro, is also a sideline to the book buyers.

I think it has always been like this.

QuoteI missed that even though I was specifically looking for that.  Must be on account of the brain.  Anyway, my point is that active gamers who don't play D&D probably don't need to be sold a set of polyhedrals.  The expense and hassle of including the dice indicates to me that the target audience is newbies and/or folks who have been out of the hobby for so long they have no idea where their dice are.

That is a strong possibility, but it could also be quasi-nostalgia.  I don't recall a TSR boxed set that didn't have dice in the olden days.  Of course, that would also be an appeal to the lapsed players.

I will take exception to your first point about non-D&D players and their dice, however.  The vast majority of games - especially recent ones - tend to not have the plethora of polyhedral dice.  Starting with Traveller, but really picking up steam in the White Wolf era, the single type of die seems to rule the day.  This is especially true for dice pool systems, for obvious reasons.  I would expect an avid V:tM or GURPS player to have piles of d10s or d6s respectively, but not both, and certainly not a similar pile of d4s or d12s.  Star Frontiers was unusual in the inclusion of just 2d10; Gamma World had the full set.  I don't recall if Gangbusters or Boot Hill had dice included, but I recall they still used the full range.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;385773
Here's the catalog.

Running slightly further off-topic for a moment...

"D&D Gamma World" is listed in the catalog, as are its two expansion boxes.  There's no mention that I could find of the booster card packs, which were going to be concurrent with the main box set.  

Are the boosters not going to be available through the book trade?  The D&D boardgame and dice sets are in the catalog, so it would be weird if you could buy the GW box set at the bookstore, but had to roll down to the comics shop or FLGS to get the rest of the mutations.

Quote from: StormBringer;385824I will take exception to your first point about non-D&D players and their dice, however.  The vast majority of games - especially recent ones - tend to not have the plethora of polyhedral dice.

Yes, but they're trying to sell to people, not RPGs.  Do you think that the number of people who only own 20d6 because they play HERO or 500d10 because they play Exalted is large enough to be relevant to WotC's math?

Quote from: RandallS;385774While I know you aren't advocating this position, I still have top point out that I have read fantasy stories where one of the main characters had an experienced with a particular monster in their early life and therefore had some uncommon reaction (near phobia to "wipe them out") to that creature from then on. Of course, this is mainly in fantasy written before 1985 or so.

Not sure what the point here is.

Novels don't do exactly this (though there are plenty of novels out there in which characters have adversity which affects them forever after), but even so, why do we care. It sounds likes RandallS had a lot of fun in a campaign because of this.

I wish folks would get over the fact that games aren't novels and appreciate games for what makes fun in a game.

Quote from: StormBringer;385750I know you aren't actually advocating this position, but I wanted to chime in and add that if the current version allowed for play as a Medium Damn Hero, or even possibly a Medium or Big Regular Hero, I would be all over it.  I think I speak for a number of other Vintage Games fans as well.

QuoteUmm, yes.  Just wanted to chime in with that.  The Rules as Written are built for Heropes, capital H, with the intention of moving far past mortality very, very quickly...which elminates any grittier games very quickly.
Great for epic stuff, for Gllgamesh, for Arthuraiona stuff...
Just not for gritty games with evn a hint of mortality.

Quote from: jrients;385847Yes, but they're trying to sell to people, not RPGs.  Do you think that the number of people who only own 20d6 because they play HERO or 500d10 because they play Exalted is large enough to be relevant to WotC's math?

Well, yes.  You seem to be saying that non-D&D players will have several full sets of dice handy.  I am saying 'probably not'.  While the appeal for newbs is probably a greater factor, those lapsed players have presumably been playing other games, the vast majority of which don't use multiple different dice.  They typically use d6s or d10s.  A devoted White Wolf player probably hasn't seen a full set of dice in close to a decade.

Quote from: jrients;385847or 500d10 because they play Exalted

Hey now, you can get by fine with just a hundred.

...if you're sharing them.

Quote from: Peregrin;385905Hey now, you can get by fine with just a hundred.

...if you're sharing them.

LOL makes me think about the time we played Vampire the Masquerade with Elysium rules.

Quote from: Hairfoot;385282This, for example, is an excellent breakdown of dissociated mechanics, which are something many people don't like about 4E, and it's just one of many blogs that do so.  People read those things, then disseminate the information through message boards and word of mouth.  Surely you don't believe that that sort of information is ignored by enquiring minds.

I have two boxes worth of D&D 3.5 material from when I ran and played 3.5 an few years ago, much of it the official WotC material.  I don't own a single D&D 4e product, not even the core rulebooks, precisely because of this and similar criticisms.  

I want a system to have mechanics that represent things in the game world.  I want it to be a sort of "physics engine".  Dissociated mechanics are worthless to me.  Worse than worthless, actually, because using them detracts from the experience for me.  

Quote from: Hairfoot;385282It's never been about 4E being "bad".  It's about it not being the universal super-RPG that the fans say it is.

For me, it's much simpler than that.  They moved the style of the game from something I liked and could enjoy to something I don't like and want nothing to do with.  The shift to dissociated mechanics creates a hostile environment for certain styles of play.

Personally, I've never met a game system that I liked right out of the box.

First thing I do when I read through a new RPG is mentally tick off the bits that I would rather get rid entirely, or at least heavily alter.

I don't even know why I do it...I guess I've just never found a game that did exactly what I want it to, for whatever genre I want to use. There are some that come very, very close...but not close enough.

Which is why my 4E game is so drastically houseruled.

Quote from: John Morrow;385952I have two boxes worth of D&D 3.5 material from when I ran and played 3.5 an few years ago, much of it the official WotC material.  I don't own a single D&D 4e product, not even the core rulebooks, precisely because of this and similar criticisms.  

I want a system to have mechanics that represent things in the game world.  I want it to be a sort of "physics engine".  Dissociated mechanics are worthless to me.  Worse than worthless, actually, because using them detracts from the experience for me.  

Vreeg's First Rule of Setting Design.
"Make sure the system you choose matches the setting and game you want to play, because eventually the game WILL match the system/ruleset".  

So I am in total agreement with you.