BOXING CLEVER: EXPLORING THE WORLD OF RPG STARTER SETS

We ask, what’s in the box?

AMain artwork from Call of Cthulhu: Mansions of Madness

s much as we love them, there’s no denying that picking up a new roleplaying game can be a daunting experience. Sometimes the simple prospect of prising open a 400-page rulebook, building your characters from scratch and trying to puzzle together an adventure is enough to make another game of Munchkin seem like an appealing way to spend game night. This is where starter sets come in.

Cheap, cheerful and easy to understand, RPG starter sets are one of the best ways to ensure that a game gets off the shelf and onto the table. They are almost universally designed to offer a gentle introduction to the world of roleplaying, and while they usually lack some of the customisability that comes from full systems, there’s usually more than enough content in the cardboard kits to provide a couple months of solid entertainment.

STARTING STRONG

Writing a starter set is a rather different beast to assembling a core rulebook. We spoke to some of the industry’s leading lights about what makes the difference.

What makes for a good starter set? Emmet Byrne, Senior Producer at Cubicle 7: “Our main goal when creating a Starter Set is to introduce our games, highlight why the system and world are awesome, give players a great experience, and provide a product with lasting value.”

Logan Bonner, Pathfinder Lead Designer: “A starter set needs to be just that: enough to get you started. For something like the Core Rulebook or Bestiary, we need to make enough of everything to accommodate all levels and variety of play. A Beginner Box lets us get focused and curate a really fun experience for low levels with the most recognizable characters and monsters.”

Mark Seifter, Pathfinder Design Manager: “If possible, a starter set should be capable of working on its own as a self-contained product while also offering an easy entry point for the wider game. The new Beginner Box accomplishes both by using the rules from the full game but limiting and simplifying the number of choices to make it easier to learn.”

Should starter sets be self-contained, or a jumping-off point for the wider game? EB: We view our Starter Sets as a jumping off point – they’re your first step into these amazing worlds. We include an introductory adventure that teaches players and GMs how to play the game, but we also try to include city guides and other useful resources like reference sheets and additional short adventures that mean the Starter Set has a lot more utility beyond the first adventure.

What are the absolute essential elements of a starter set?

MS: An RPG starter set needs to come with everything a brand new group needs to build a character, learn the game, and play the game. That means a rulebook for players focused on giving them exactly what they need to build their characters and learn basic gameplay, a rulebook for gamemasters that contains the rules they need and an adventure to run designed to teach the basic game concepts, dice to roll, and then all the accessories that make running those first games easy and fun. Like maps and pawns.

EB: Dice! Ok, not really, but they are vital. The most important thing is to have an adventure that teaches the rules, makes things easy, and leaves the players with good memories. Practically speaking, you also need to have a variety of pre-made characters to cater to everyone, and some short reference sheets to help folks learn the rules.

AGE OF SIGMAR: SOULBOUND STARTER SET

CUBICLE 7 | RRP £23

CONTENTS

◗ Rule reminder sheets

◗ Brightspear setting guide

◗ Faltering Light introductory adventure

◗ Five pre-generated characters

◗ Cardboard tokens

◗ Dice set

While it may be based on the Games Workshop wargame, you don’t need to already be a fan of Age of Sigmar to enjoy Soulbound. Indeed, the only requirement for having a good time with the game is a willingness to embrace some truly over-the-top fantasy adventures and to have a good time kicking the living hell out of bad guys.

The kit itself is honestly a thing of beauty, with every facet of its contents laser-focussed on getting people rolling dice and stabbing demons as fast as physically possible.

Where most kits come with rules booklets, this one comes with rules sheets. Somehow, the writers have managed to condense down everything you need to get a basic game going onto just three pieces of paper. Martial-focussed characters can get away with just looking at two.

This is an astonishing achievement and helps to set Soulbound apart from the legions of starter sets that still require a fair bit of reading ahead. Of course, all the content that they’ve cut out does mean that the set is fairly limited in scope – you can’t make your own heroes or advance too far into the game – but there’s still plenty here to get you through a decent slice of Sigmar.

Gods