Coming This Fall ... - Bill reveals the essential facts about the upcoming Essentials products! [Wizards of the Coast D&D]

"The Essentials line consists of 10 key products that will always be in stock and will form the core of the Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game experience moving forward. Each product is designed to provide a more streamlined, more directed, and less expensive experience for the user. These products don’t replace the existing Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, or Monster Manual. They represent a separate pathway into the game."

Perhaps I'm jaded by my early years of D&D, but I'm not jumping up and down about the newly announced Essentials products. It was 1979 when I was in Anderson's Bookstore in Naperville, IL.  I saw the Basic D&D purple box set and totally freaked over it. I devoured it when I got home and soon I had convinced the group of neighborhood guys to play the game with me. We never stopped playing until I moved away years later

Little did I know, until much later, that there was a way cooler version of "grown up" D&D. But our group was kind of tied to the Basic, Expert, etc... sets so that is what we played for quite some time. We eventually switched. But I always felt just a little sad that I didn't start playing Advanced until much later.

Now back to our current time and I'm reading about a "Basic" set. This time, at least, the rules will be the same. The characters will be the same. But I wonder who is essentials marketed to? Is it kids? Is it adults who just want to try it without buying all the books? Perhaps its just the way my brain works, but having just a little taste of D&D through the essentials just doesn't give me enough information to know if I'll like it. I want to know ALL the things my dwarven fighter can do from level 1-30 when I first roll up the character.

Perhaps I've missed the point completely because of my previous experiences with "Basic" D&D box sets. Is this just a revenue stream thing? Instead of drinking from the fire hose, people can take a few sips from Essentials, and then decide if they want to drink from the fire hose or just keep sipping from the Essentials line? WotC states clearly that this does not replace anything. Its a separate "pathway" into the game. However they also mention that there is new character builds for a number of player classes. I imagine all of that will be accessible if you have a D&DI subscription, but not for people who already own the books.

Its also supposed to be less expensive. I certainly can agree with that. The smaller paperback books are also cheaper to produce as well. But the one very curious line in the whole article was "10 key products that will always be in stock". So what does all this repackaging mean? Well it looks like some cost savings measures being taken by WotC (hey they are a business you know!). Essentials is a less expensive per player cost for WotC to keep in stock, and of course the cost to start playing is reduced a bit as well. I'll be looking at the average cost savings at later date. If this saves everyone money and helps get the game out there and keeps WotC going then I guess maybe I should jump up and down. But I don't have to buy the books! :)