BECMI D&D is overrated

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Gabriel

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At least for me.

BECMI isn't the big nostalgia draw for me that it is for many people. BECMI was just something I happened to get at ToysRUs around 1990 when they were selling the box sets for $5 apiece. I never really played it.

B/X is where the nostalgia is for me. Whenever I've drifted back to "Basic", it has always been B/X which I've actually run and played. To tell the truth, I've never played in a "D&D" game where things actually progressed past 8th level and the rules were still being used. I've played a couple of times after 8th level, but it always becomes freeform after that. So Companion and Master are completely superfluous. B/X covers things more than sufficiently.
 
I missed B/X, the red box Basic set was my first RPG and I had all the BECMI boxes but we moved onto AD&D 1E pretty quickly. I didn’t read B/X until I got back into gaming but I prefer it to BECMI these days. That said I think that red box is still one of the all time best starter sets out.
 
I couldn't agree more. I played BX as a kid and I never want to play it again.

But I do like a lot of the OSR stuff, like BtW or TSL.
 
I’m not a fan of BECMI at all. I think BX is a pretty good distillation and clarification of OD&D but that the CMI additions (and the changes made in E to accommodate them - slowing down thief skill and MU & cleric spell progressions, removing some of the top level spells & monsters) are a big ol’ mess that weren’t playtested prior to release and make the game worse rather than better. I also don’t like the implicit setting that the world is filled with level 30+ NPCs (like Alphatia’s ruling council of 1000 level 36 magic-users) so anybody below about 25th level is a flunky nonentity for only to be sent on fetch-quests by their betters.
 
BECMI D&D is overrated
100% agree. I think a lot of gamers are cheapskates who mistakenly equate "big book with lots of rules" with "value"
  • Even 40 years later B/X is an example of concise and elegant design, rightly upheld as the gold standard for OSR
  • BECMI has additional rules and sub-systems that are inelegant and almost certainly not playtested
  • The BECMI has art by Elmore and Easley that elicits a Target family-friendly high fantasy feel. B/X is mostly art by Otus, Dee, Willingham, that brings a pulp sword & sorcery comic book feel.
  • B/X has far more realistic expectations of how long a campaign will last and an appropriate power level for characters.
  • BECMI makes the thief even worse and classes have 36 levels of bloat.
 
I am probably a bit younger than most pubbers, but I grew up immersed in video games, movies, television, and books all inspired by D&D and I have to say that not only were my eyes opened once I tried 5e but my mind was blown once I started looking into B/X-derived games and the RC. It was like the ideal game that I had always wanted but could never exist as a video game.

AD&D (especially 2e) and 3.PF, on the other hand, are manmade horrors beyond my comprehension. I do like how the AD&D 1e DMG is just stream of consciousness rules from Gary, and some of it is neat, but there's something so smooth and satisfying about B/X. My favorite game system - xWN (Stars, Worlds, Cities, etc.) - is built atop the bones of B/X with the lightest hint of 3.PF+ D&D character customization and it pretty intelligently runs to level 10. Beyond that the game kind of grinds to a halt, as others have said.

I'm sure there are lots of other really great games out there, but sometimes divine inspiration just strikes and something really special just springs forth like Athena from Zeus' forehead or the first Black Sabbath album.
 
Is BECMI some huge nostalgia trip somewhere that I don't know about? I'm pretty middle of the road GenX and while the Redbox Mentzer set was my first exposure to D&D/RPGs, and I was instantly drawn in by the awesome Elmore box art and all of the interior illustrations, that's about where I see anybody's Nostalgia begin and end when discussing Mentzer Basic/BECMI.

Anyhoo. Sure . . . overrated. Got it.
 
When I started playing, around 1980, and through the 80s, we used whatever rules the kid running the game owned. We considered them largely interchangeable. We were probably doing a lot wrong, and making many mistakes, but we had fun.
sharps54 said:
I do quite like the alternate history of Mazes & Minotaurs :hehe:
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I've never understood the concept of not needing retro-clones, because the originals exist. Most clones' tweaks and additions are improvements to the original rules, IMO. My preferred way to D&D is Swords & Wizardry. I love the baked-in options, and to me it has just the right amount of crunch. Plus, you get stuff like Mazes & Minotaurs.

Edit: Not saying there's any connection between S&W and M&M, just that M&M is an example of a cool clone IMO.

Most of the D&D we played BITD was probably a combo of B/X and Holmes, until Mentzer came along. Everyone used the Monster Manuals, Fiend Folio and Deities & Demigods, but the only rules I ever remember being used at the table back then were from box sets.
 
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Monty Python | GIFGlobe
 
Gringnr said:
When I started playing, around 1980, and through the 80s, we used whatever rules the kid running the game owned. We considered them largely interchangeable. We were probably doing a lot wrong, and making many mistakes, but we had fun.

I've never understood the concept of not needing retro-clones, because the originals exist. Most clones' tweaks and additions are improvements to the original rules, IMO. My preferred way to D&D is Swords & Wizardry. I love the baked-in options, and to me it has just the right amount of crunch. Plus, you get stuff like Mazes & Minotaurs.
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Retroclones are nifty, but the changes they incorporate often they remind me of stuff that would have once been magazine articles, had magazines survived and B/X actually gotten more love BITD.

Noting against them at all. Often I'm very impressed with the creativity and the reskinning involved for other genres. But I do often feel they could be 6-10 page modification articles or settings (or the length of old modules at most) rather than full games, if only there was a good venue that existed for that sort of thing.
 
DeadBob said:
Retroclones are nifty, but the changes they incorporate often they remind me of stuff that would have once been magazine articles, had magazines survived and B/X actually gotten more love BITD.

Noting against them at all. Often I'm very impressed with the creativity and the reskinning involved for other genres. But I do often feel they could be 6-10 page modification articles or settings (or the length of old modules at most) rather than full games, if only there was a good venue that existed for that sort of thing.
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Perhaps, but if I'm only going to buy one set of rules, why not buy the set that has the changes I like baked in?

The last set of official D&D rules I owned was the hardback AD&D books, which I sold in the '90s.
 
Gringnr said:
Perhaps, but if I'm only going to buy one set of rules, why not buy the set that has the changes I like baked in?
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I often like different rules tweaks for different games or different settings or different feels.

So I end up with multiple retro clones.

For me, it work better if it was shorter and more modular. plus, it would be easier to write .
 
Just as with the retro-clones, everyone seems to have their own favorite iteration of "classic" D&D. I'm not sure BECMI is "overrated," though, as B/X seems to be the preferred flavor of D&D among the OSR, arguably the standard bearers of classic-style play. BECMI and Holmes seem to me to be more "niche" versions. Which is not to say that they're obscure by any means. But these days, if you assume that someone means B/X when they say "old D&D," you'd usually be right.
 
It was BECMI for us in the mid-late 80s, so that is where all my nostalgia lies. I never even realised there were previous versions until getting back into the hobby in my misspent middle age. OK, I suppose I must have known when I was a kid that there was an AD&D1e, because I had the 2e core books, but 1e didn't impact me at all back then.

As stunning as this ignorance may sound, I very recently had genuine trouble explaining the concept of previous editions to a potential player on discord. I mean, it's called 5th edition; that implies there were previous ones, right?
 
BECMI is rarely what people rave about. The CMI part hardly anyone played. So you're really left with BE v BX. BX is better if you already know how to play D&D style games or roleplaying in general. BE is better for one person who has nobody to learn from and is reading the text to learn what roleplaying and D&D are. I think the BE boxes are excellent at teaching someone who then goes on to form a group and teach others.
 
Basic in general is too deadly at first level. And I still maintain it's unjustly so. Everyone else gets a Hit Die for level zero. To my mind that's a better patch than the traditional maximum Hit Points at first level house rule. And that first level drags out unless the DM hands out crazy amounts of treasure, like Treasure Type A per goblin treasure. You won't survive killing your way to second level without gratuitous healing potions or a staff of healing.

Personally, Magic Users need more spells, Thieves need better chances of success, especially with Picking Pockets which should have been the bread and butter of any street urchin. Sure they're great for climbing walls and tying the rope at the top.

One thing I don't think is clear enough is that characters can still hide and sneak even if they aren't Thieves.

But Basic is cleaner and better organized than Advanced and Advanced is still really deadly at first level though it does hand out about 50% more Experience Points for killing monsters because you get them for the Hit Points not just the Hit Dice.

I've never been a big fan of D&D but I did like it better when you could offer players better characters and more options than D&D gave them when pitching other games. It's a damn superhero game these days so I guess Exalted is the only upsale game at this point. Too bad 'more like Tolkien' ain't the selling point it once was.
 
I like BECMI well enough, I do think that skills for thieves need to be better than both B/X and BECMI, I like some of the things added in the big Cyclopedia (weapon mastery, helps make fighters a lot more interesting), are either better than the other? I don't think so, B/X got so much right, and BECMI did others right. Both have flaws.

I do agree that 14 levels is saner than 36, albeit I think the optimal would be 12.
 
I think my favorite basic rule book is the Black one from the Rules Compendium era. It's a reference work instead of a tutorial. It goes to 5th level instead of third, in a perfect world it'd go to tenth level.

If I was patching B/X and BCXMI I'd give every one a d6 hit die for level zero, wizards and clerics would get bonus spells equal to their Intelligence or Wisdom modifier as appropriate for casting and spell books, Thieves would get to add their Dexterity to their skills but they'd cap out about 20 points lower than what the chart shows to compensate for it. There'd be a single to hit table that integrates the weapon verses armour table and give bonuses by class and level. :grin:
 
Spellslinging Sellsword said:
BECMI is rarely what people rave about. The CMI part hardly anyone played. So you're really left with BE v BX. BX is better if you already know how to play D&D style games or roleplaying in general. BE is better for one person who has nobody to learn from and is reading the text to learn what roleplaying and D&D are. I think the BE boxes are excellent at teaching someone who then goes on to form a group and teach others.
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I agree that the 1983 Basic Set is a better teaching tool than the 1981 version, and I also prefer the Elmore & Easley art (I’m okay with Erol Otus’s “Dr Seussy” style but was never a fan of Dee, Willingham, or Diesel), and if you’re using that it makes sense to also use the 1983 Expert set that matches it in organization and art/graphics style, but it bugs me that they made changes to ”make room” for the higher level sets - slowing down progressions and holding back some of the content (spells and monsters). 1981 BX is effectively a self-contained complete game; 1983 BE not as much. (But will also admit that those differences are pretty minor and don’t show up until about 9th level and it took me about a decade to notice them - in the day we all mixed & matched 1981 & 83 sets interchangeably and thought the art was only difference).
 
Elmore's art is my favorite of the TSR fab four, and one of my favorite of all time.

That said, I never much liked his material for BECMI. The only one of the cover paintings I really like is the one for Expert. The only interior image that really sticks with me is the one with the elf, dwarf, and halfling.
 
I never cared for Elmore's art, tbh. I'm not saying it's bad, but it just seemed so "polished" compared to other RPG artists. Willingham, Otus, Dee, and others gave D&D a sort of "underground comix" vibe that was lost once D&D started getting bigger.
 
The Holmes set was my introduction to D&D. I was aware of the old White Box (a friend's brother had it), but never actually played it. My friends and I moved to first edition AD&D straight from the Holmes boxed set, those those two editions are my old D&D nostalgia sets.

Having said that, I was more than happy to move on to games without classes or levels as soon as they came out, and that has remained my preference.
 
Honestly, I think both when it comes to the rules themselves and their presentation, this is really all about the narcicissm of small differences.

Or to put it in meme form: They're the same picture. One with a horrible font, one with one column too many. Pick your favorite overrated fantasy artist.

I quite liked the RC, though.
 
Gabriel said:
Elmore's art is my favorite of the TSR fab four, and one of my favorite of all time.

That said, I never much liked his material for BECMI. The only one of the cover paintings I really like is the one for Expert. The only interior image that really sticks with me is the one with the elf, dwarf, and halfling.
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