The “Adventures in the East Mark” boxed set showed up
Tuesday while I was still struggling to put together my analysis of the 5th edition
“Dungeons and Dragons”. I though what better than an old fashioned wrestling
cage match to decide who was better. So in this corner we have: the “Boast from
the Coast”; the “Rattle from Seattle”; four time world champion Wizards of the
Coast (WoTC) 5th Edition “Dungeons and Dragons” Starter Set. And in
this corner we have the “Game from Spain”; “Windmill Tilter Extraordinaire”; `Extra-Dimensional
Publishing “Adventures in the East Mark” Red Box English translation. Let’s get
ready to ruuuumbleeee!!!!!!
Round 1 Box
12x12x1.5 East Mark
9x12x2 Starter
Advantage Starter (fits in the
Magazine box I organize stuff with)
Round 2 Box Cover
East Mark Guy with sword and shield
fights Red dragon
Starter Guy with sword and shield
fights Green Dragon
Draw
Round 3 Box Contents
East Mark 1 book, 1 pencil, dice,
crayon, dungeon masters screen
Starter 2 books, dice, 5 pregens, 1
flyer/blank character sheet, cardboard (to fill that extra 0.5”)
Advantage East Mark because who
needs cardboard. Seriously use that 10 cents for cardboard on 10 pages of
content
Round 4 Dice
East Mark “old” school red dice
with white dice crayon
Starter prepainted blue dice
Advantage Starter because I hate
coloring dice
Round 5 Celebrity introduction
East Mark Frank Mentzer
Starter we don’t need no
celebrities (besides we fired them all at one time or another)
Advantage East Mark
Round 7 Attributes
Same Six both ways
Draw
Round 8 Combat
East Mark Old school side vs side
initiative, crazy ass movement slowed by three because
Starter Individual initiative,
smaller movement
Advantage: Depends East Mark is
true its old school roots I have found more modern approaches more playable
Round 9 Adventures
East Mark Large sandbox region and
two beginner adventures
Starter Small town and four linked
adventures
Draw I am more excited about the
East Mark, but the Starter has more content.
Round 10 Equipment
East Mark has stuff and boats
Starter has stuff
Advantage East Mark
Round 11 Character Creation
East Mark full rules
Starter five Pregens
Advantage East Mark
Round 12 Adventuring
East Mark rest. Carry capacity,
illumination, doors, traps, outdoors, getting lost, climbing, swimming, air
travel hirelings
Starter travel, jumping, climbing, swimming,
resting
Advantage East Mark
Round 13 Levels
East Mark experience to level 20
Starter experience to level 5
Advantage East Mark
Round 14 Spells
East Mark to level 6 arranged by
level and class
Starter to level 3 arranged
alphabetically
Advantage East Mark
Round 15 Monsters
East Mark 60+ monster descriptions
Starter 27 monsters including some
NPCs
Advantage East Mark
Round 16 Treasure
East Mark Gems, Jewels 80+ magic
items up to +5
Starter 13 magic items!? Nothing
better than +1
Advantage East Mark K.O!!!
Looks like Starter is going down for the count, no there’s
the tag in, leaping into the ring Basic Edition web download
Round 10a Equipment
East Mark has stuff and boats
Basic has stuff and boats
Draw
Round 11a Character creation
East Mark full rules
Basic full rules
Draw
Round 12a Adventuring
East Mark rest. Carry capacity,
illumination, doors, traps, outdoors, getting lost, climbing, swimming, air
travel hirelings
Starter travel, jumping, climbing, swimming,
the environment, illumination, food and water, social interactions, resting,
between adventures, lifestyle expenses, downtime activities
Advantage East Mark hirelings more
important than that other stuff.
Round 13a Level
East Mark experience to level 20
Basic exp to level 20
Draw
Round 14a Spells
East Mark to level 6 arranged by
level and class
Basic to level 8 arranged
alphabetically
Draw 8th is better than 6 but a
long way down the pike. By level is better than alphabetic
No help on round 15 monsters or round 16 treasure
Round 17 Races
East Mark Human, Dwarf, Elf,
Halfing
Basic Human, Dwarf, Elf, Halfing,
but subraces
Draw Slight advantage basic for
subraces but who cares
Round 18 Classes
East Mark Cleric, Dwarf, Elf,
Halfing, explorer, mage, paladin, thief, warrior
Basic Cleric, Fighter, Rouge,
Wizard
Advantage East Mark I am not a big
fan of the class as race system, but even with those classes knocked out East Mark
has more variety than Basic. Basic hold a glimmer of hope with subclasses, but
since only one choice of subclass per class was included; this does not yet
expand the variety.
Round 19 Alignment
East Mark Law Neutral Chaos
Basic the full nine
Advantage Basic
Round 20 Personality and Background
East Mark none
Basic whole chapter for randomly
rolled features
Advantage East Mark because who
needs that junk
Final score card
East Mark versus Starter: 9 rounds East Mark, 2 Rounds
Starter, 5 drawn
East Mark versus Starter and Basic:7 rounds East mark, 4
rounds Starter and Basic 9 drawn
So the judges decision goes to EAST MARK.
Seriously East
Mark as a mostly complete game is a better box set, than the incomplete Starter
set. Starter gives enough of a taste to run the canned adventure but then
leaves you hanging. The downloadable Basic does at least allow you to generate your
own characters, but does not include enough extra for someone to write their
own follow-on adventure. I would have been happier with the starter, if they
had added the 32 useful (without that personality and background junk) pages on
character creation to the game rules. Now I have to print them out myself.
People on the web appear to be using print-on-demand to produce their own Basic
rulebook, another revenue stream lost to WoTC (given that they already on
DrivethruRPG, I think it might of taken WoTC a whole day to set up a
print-on-demand option themselves). Perhaps I am being “Old School” in wanting
a dead tree version, but wait a minute WoTC went “Old School” by producing a
dead tree boxed set to begin with.
P.S. I was going include a round of "over 175,000 fans of DnD" who may have opened the .zip file they downloaded versus 427 folk who had to put their money were their mouth was, but I am clearly too biased to judge fairly.
