5e Starter Set, Who has played it?

[Shiftkitty]

I'm not crazy about the speeding through the first three levels. Those were always the levels where we saw the best character development. Yeah, you can develop at higher levels, but we tended to enjoy taking the "rank amateur" levels as a chance to develop personalities, flesh out details, and other such things with typical low-level adventures that blossom into larger things. Rushing through those levels makes me wonder why not just create a level 4 character and start there? To each his own, though. I do enjoy the rest of the game.

[Fjw70]

I'm not crazy about the speeding through the first three levels. Those were always the levels where we saw the best character development. Yeah, you can develop at higher levels, but we tended to enjoy taking the "rank amateur" levels as a chance to develop personalities, flesh out details, and other such things with typical low-level adventures that blossom into larger things. Rushing through those levels makes me wonder why not just create a level 4 character and start there? To each his own, though. I do enjoy the rest of the game.

It's all about managing the wildly variable expectations of the player base. In the time of 3.5 many people would start characters at 3rd level and complained that levels 1-2 were a waste of time. So 4e came along and a 1st level character began with the power level of about 3rd level character and a bunch of people complained that they missed those low power levels.

So in the comprise edition (5e) the standard progression moves you through levels 1-2 pretty quickly so those that don't care much for those levels can get it over quickly. Then those they really like those levels can slow the progression down and savor them.