2025 Starter Bundle - Heroes of the Borderlands Nitpick

Trust me, a simple on the rails adventure can play quite similarly to a number of existing board games. Betrayal at the House on the Hill, for one. Not necessarily built for roleplay and "can I try this" moments, but there can be a lot of common ground.

Quote from PinkRose>>

Because I've been quoted, I'll respond. 
If someone wants to tell their friend "hey, let's play this cool board game. I think you'll like it, though it doesn't actually have a board." Totally fine. I'm not a gate keeper.
If the company that makes the game decides it's a board game, it is indeed as someone said earlier, an over-simplicfication for the masses. That disturbs me. I don't want to trick anyone into buying it. I want people to know what they are getting. Why not just "a game"? 

A board game has a definition, or an assumed definition, as does a roleplaying game. If the company that makes the biggest RPG calls their RPG a board game, I feel that waters down what an RPG is. 

"Calling D&D a board game is what's often referred to as a "lie to children"" This was a nice way of putting it.

 Given your above response, I feel you may have misunderstood the "lies to children" philosophy.

Quote from The_Ace_of_Rogues >>

Trust me, a simple on the rails adventure can play quite similarly to a number of existing board games. Betrayal at the House on the Hill, for one. 

There's board games that are literal dungeon crawlers, such as Descent or Gloomhaven.

Borderlands has been my go to starter adventure for almost every new group since 1979, until 5e started making quality starter adventures (like Lost Mine of Phandalin). I last used it with my current group just 4 years ago. So I was eager to get this as much for nostalgia as for content. But it’s a tough decision.

Part of me was going to get the bundle, despite the fact that all of my gaming is now virtual. But that shipping cost puts it past the price I am willing to pay. When Dragon Queen came out, they chose to refund shipping, realizing that buying from Amazon with free shipping would take away from direct sales.  I understand that shipping costs them money, but it still irks me to have to pay it.

My other concern (actually more a question) is that these digital  pre-orders never quite give us enough information. Will any of these tokens be alternative art to what the Monster Manual gives us? Will there be new monsters which are not currently in the Monster Manual? What will the digital dice be like? Will they have cool effects (like the LEGO) dice or just another skin with nothing really special about them? Will the digital set have cards like the “board game” version? The recent VTT announcement said that we would soon be able to have “handouts”.  Will they start off that feature with the cards from Borderlands?

I don’t suppose anyone here has answers to these questions, but they all factor into my purchasing decisions.