I swear I'm going to review the DND 4e box, but I've decided I want to DM the starter mission from it, before I review it. So I'll have to dig up some victims, actually put the starter box through it's paces as it's meant to be used, then review it. I think that's fairer.
I'm also working on reviews of the Lego Lord of the Ring sets (tl;dr: They are awesome). I've managed to acquire all but two of the currently released sets, so you'll probably get a big rush of reviews.
In the mean time, check out my friend Jamie's podcast. It's all about British History, and it's brilliant, and it's highly inspiring, particularly in keeping my medieval campaign medieval.
The British History Podcast
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Friday, June 8, 2012
On the Pathfinder Starter Box
Both Paizo and Wizards of the Coast make it really easy and inexpensive to get started playing their respective RPGs. When we were trying to decide which game we wanted to play, it quickly narrowed to DnD 4e or Pathfinder for this very reason, but then we were stumped... which one did we want to play? What was included in the box? How good is the stuff in the box? Is it really all we need to play? Luckily for us, our local game store (Guardian Games, if you happen to be in Portland, Oregon) had open boxes, and let us paw through them. I know that's not an option everyone has, so I wanted to do some quick reviews.
So I'm going to look at the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Beginner Box today, and sometime this weekend I'll do another post about Dungeons & Dragons Fantasy Roleplaying Game: An Essential D&D Starter (4th Edition D&D).
The Pathfinder Beginner Box is really impressive. It's regular price is 34.99 (You can buy it here, direct from Paizo), but you can usually find it cheaper on Amazon (linked above), so it's a little more expensive than the DnD box, but the contents, in my opinion, are completely worth it.
A quick run down of the contents: 4 pre-filled character sheets (Warrior, Cleric, Rogue, Wizard), and a few blank sheets. A full color GM guide. A full color player guide. A two-sided plastic battle map (one side has a cavern for the starter adventure, the other side is blank). A set of dice. Paper monster cut outs with plastic stands.
The GM guide and player guide have all the information you need to play to level 5. There's a truly impressive amount of information here, from a healthy variety of monsters (with the corresponding paper tokens), to a robust feat list, item list, even adventure seeds and tips on writing your own adventures.
Two things really jumped out at me from the moment we opened this box: The first was that this set is really meant to get you excited about the game, and playing. It's really a complete game unto itself. If you run high lethality adventures (you know, the kind where you don't make it to level 6...), then you never have to buy anything other than this box. Yet, it's all very accessible. I'd played a grand total of one gaming session before opening this box (A game of Call of Cthulu which we completely derailed and killed a god, was awesome), and yet I felt right at home when we opened this up. It doesn't present itself as anything more complicated or intimidating than monopoly. It's appears to be just another game with all the normal accouterments. I'm tempted to send a box to my mother, without telling her it has anything to do with DnD, and see what she does with it.
The other thing that really stands out, is that it is a quality product. Everything is full color. The books are solid construction and heavy paper. The plastic mat is, well, a plastic mat... I expect it to live more or less forever. The paper monsters and player tokens are full color, and printed on a heavy stock. Barring being stepped on or drowning in soda, there's no reason to expect them not to survive regular use.
It all just adds up to a really solid opening salvo.
To be completely honest, I love this beginner box. In fact, I love it so much that I was slightly disappointed to see that the box's clean designs and style aren't carried over into the GM guide and Player Guide. I assume the box was done after the big books, so I have hope that future revisions of the books will be more similar to the box, because I think the box is hugely accessible, in a way that the books aren't (although, by the time you invest in the books, maybe they don't need to be.)
About the only thing I think could be added, maybe (I'm of two minds about this) is something along the lines of the "power cards" that come with the DnD Box. (I'll do some more comparing of the two boxes later this week.) On one hand, I can see the advantage of having simple reminders for new players. My group is pretty mellow and helpful, so we helped each other remember what powers and feats we had, but simple reminders are nice. As a GM, I've began writing down monsters abilities on 3x5 cards, so I have something simple to refer to when I need a quick reminder. On the other hand, I can see how cards could cause players to get into the "video game" mindset, of "these are my options" and lock them out of the creative cheating, er, thinking, that makes pen and paper RPGs special and fun.
Have you used the Beginner Box? Any thoughts? Feel free to tell me in the comments, particularly if you disagree. I'm so in love with this thing, I'd love to hear from people who hate it.
So I'm going to look at the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Beginner Box today, and sometime this weekend I'll do another post about Dungeons & Dragons Fantasy Roleplaying Game: An Essential D&D Starter (4th Edition D&D).
The Pathfinder Beginner Box is really impressive. It's regular price is 34.99 (You can buy it here, direct from Paizo), but you can usually find it cheaper on Amazon (linked above), so it's a little more expensive than the DnD box, but the contents, in my opinion, are completely worth it.
The (slightly abused) contents of my Beginner Box
The GM guide and player guide have all the information you need to play to level 5. There's a truly impressive amount of information here, from a healthy variety of monsters (with the corresponding paper tokens), to a robust feat list, item list, even adventure seeds and tips on writing your own adventures.
Two things really jumped out at me from the moment we opened this box: The first was that this set is really meant to get you excited about the game, and playing. It's really a complete game unto itself. If you run high lethality adventures (you know, the kind where you don't make it to level 6...), then you never have to buy anything other than this box. Yet, it's all very accessible. I'd played a grand total of one gaming session before opening this box (A game of Call of Cthulu which we completely derailed and killed a god, was awesome), and yet I felt right at home when we opened this up. It doesn't present itself as anything more complicated or intimidating than monopoly. It's appears to be just another game with all the normal accouterments. I'm tempted to send a box to my mother, without telling her it has anything to do with DnD, and see what she does with it.
The other thing that really stands out, is that it is a quality product. Everything is full color. The books are solid construction and heavy paper. The plastic mat is, well, a plastic mat... I expect it to live more or less forever. The paper monsters and player tokens are full color, and printed on a heavy stock. Barring being stepped on or drowning in soda, there's no reason to expect them not to survive regular use.
It all just adds up to a really solid opening salvo.
To be completely honest, I love this beginner box. In fact, I love it so much that I was slightly disappointed to see that the box's clean designs and style aren't carried over into the GM guide and Player Guide. I assume the box was done after the big books, so I have hope that future revisions of the books will be more similar to the box, because I think the box is hugely accessible, in a way that the books aren't (although, by the time you invest in the books, maybe they don't need to be.)
About the only thing I think could be added, maybe (I'm of two minds about this) is something along the lines of the "power cards" that come with the DnD Box. (I'll do some more comparing of the two boxes later this week.) On one hand, I can see the advantage of having simple reminders for new players. My group is pretty mellow and helpful, so we helped each other remember what powers and feats we had, but simple reminders are nice. As a GM, I've began writing down monsters abilities on 3x5 cards, so I have something simple to refer to when I need a quick reminder. On the other hand, I can see how cards could cause players to get into the "video game" mindset, of "these are my options" and lock them out of the creative cheating, er, thinking, that makes pen and paper RPGs special and fun.
Have you used the Beginner Box? Any thoughts? Feel free to tell me in the comments, particularly if you disagree. I'm so in love with this thing, I'd love to hear from people who hate it.
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| Paper monster tokens, on their plastic clips. I was too lazy to count all the monster tokens, but there are a lot... |
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| The selection of monsters is really impressive. |
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| Pretty Character sheets. I was a little sad when we printed out some of the official character sheets from Paizo, and they aren't the same. I really like these. |
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