BECMI D&D is overrated

[Voros]

Morgan Ironwolf > Aleena

No way dude. No. Way.

 

[Self Saboteur]

Always bothered me there was no way to save her.

 

[Bunch]

Always bothered me there was no way to save her. View attachment 69829

Jesus saves
Whoever Aleena worshiped didn't
Choose wisely!

 

[Self Saboteur]

Jesus saves
Whoever Aleena worshiped didn't
Choose wisely!

 

[Sharrow]

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.

The xWN games also have a skill system that owes a great deal to (Classic) Traveller, which is a great starting point.

 

[Sharrow]

Always bothered me there was no way to save her. View attachment 69829

And thus the point that in D&D games character die, and sometimes you can't do a damned thing about it is very effectively made, especially to lonely teen-aged boys.

 

[Mankcam]

My nostalgia trips for the first few years are the FF books, RQ2, MERP, D&D B/X, and D&D BECMI Red Box (sort of).

The D&D BECMI Basic Set Red Box cover art does definately brings back good vibes. And I didn't own it at the time, but a friend had that D&D BECMI line, that's how pervasive it was. It just seemed to capture D&D in a nutshell, it was so identifiable.

Despite the nostagia of the cover, this version of D&D still feels kinda bland after the earlier edition, and the best thing about it is the cover art.
I don't even think it's a mechanics thing (both have wonky rules and are pretty similar), it's more an overall flavour thing for me.
D&D really did seem to lose it's edge around this time.

We disliked the proliferation of those D&D BECMI boxes as well, we felt that was just muck-raking. I felt that everything had already been covered in the earlier D&D B/X set, and would of prefered that consolidated as one new box set and be done with it.

This was the 1980s, there was no internet unless you were some kinda hacker-whizzkid from the movies, so it was long before the MMO scene that eventually followed. Rules for Walking-Tank-Warriors and Demi-God characters just felt so far away from the kind of stories that we rambled with. None of that stuff gelled for us, so we never played too far into the BECMI line, we all stayed around the Basic and Expert boxes if we did get D&D to the table.

My cousin's friend still ran the previous edition, D&D B/X, and viewed the new D&D BECMI line as having a bunch of 'optional boxes' that he didn't want to play. He was unhappy that adventure modules for them kept getting pushed, heh heh. I must admit that I preferred his D&D B/X books and flavour to my school friend's D&D BECMI boxes.

I remember being an early teen and loving the cheesy grittiness ('adultness') of Sword & Sorcery, yet by our mid teens it had all gone homogenised with very safe High Fantasy like Dragonlance and D&D cartoons and such. This was a step back for us, we felt it was aimed at making us feel younger, not older. That wasn't gonna fly with teens, heh heh.

We loved the Classic Fantasy vibe of the earlier D&D B/X (and some of those later Gazetteer publications looked quite good for D&D BECMI), but in reality we mainly ended up playing hours and hours of RQ2 and MERP because hit locations and criticals totally rocked, and both RQ and MERP were really cool. We just felt much less straight-jacketed as GMs and PCs.
I ended up going down a BRP GM path (RQ2/3, CoC, SB), and my mate ended up a very big ICE GM (MERP, RM2/3/RMSS, HARP, etc)

Today the most contemporary versions of these still hold pride of place in my bookshelf - Mythras (BRP) and Against The Darkmaster (ICE)

So if you were to go back in time and ask me to grab my favourite Red Box, then it probably wouldn't be the first box below, and it definantly wouldn't be the second one either, heh heh:

 

[Triumvir]

Every so often I look at Basic, and start thinking about tweaks, like flattening the power curve by buffing low-level PCs and curbing the weird magical transhuman excess of high level; making classes more flexible by dropping the arbitrary limitations; adding in more weapon and non-weapon proficiencies; and then I realise I am trying to force D&D to do what RQ or other systems do out of the box, and give up.

 

[Rob Necronomicon]

I get the whole nostalgia thing. While D&D basic/expert was my first ever game and I loved it at the time. I think I was 13.

But after that, I played Dragon Warriors (which I still love to this day) and WFRP 1e (that and 2e arestill one of my favs!). So those two are where my nostalgia heart really lies. And a bit of CoC1e and Stormbringer but those came a little later.

 

[Baulderstone]

The only thing that BECMI did better than B/X was the CYOA tutorial to familiarize people with the concepts of an RPG. However, that isn't necessary in a world where everyone picking up D&D has played JRPGs, Skyrim, or seen an actual play. Other than that it's just an inferior version of B/X padded out to 5 boxed sets with dumb, unplaytested mechanics that hardly anybody uses for no other reason than to sell more stuff.

 

[sharps54]

The only thing that BECMI did better than B/X was the CYOA tutorial to familiarize people with the concepts of an RPG. However, that isn't necessary in a world where everyone picking up D&D has played JRPGs, Skyrim, or seen an actual play. Other than that it's just an inferior version of B/X padded out to 5 boxed sets with dumb, unplaytested mechanics that hardly anybody uses for no other reason than to sell more stuff.

That was basically my take away when I finally got B/X in my hands as an adult.

 

[gruagach]

The only thing that BECMI did better than B/X was the CYOA tutorial to familiarize people with the concepts of an RPG. However, that isn't necessary in a world where everyone picking up D&D has played JRPGs, Skyrim, or seen an actual play. Other than that it's just an inferior version of B/X padded out to 5 boxed sets with dumb, unplaytested mechanics that hardly anybody uses for no other reason than to sell more stuff.

 

[Dyrnwyn]

I have run Companion-level BECMI/RC D&D before, so there are at least a few of us out there. And I still want to try to run a 1 to 36 game sometime, just to see if it can be done.

Aa for the Known World/Mystara setting, there's a lot that I like for a setting that doesn't try to overthink things and succeeds at providing a lot of things for PCs to do. But then there's stuff I don't care for too (i.e. Alphatia) -- if I ran it today, I'd probably focus more on the older material.

 

[DeadBob]

The only thing that BECMI did better than B/X was the CYOA tutorial to familiarize people with the concepts of an RPG. However, that isn't necessary in a world where everyone picking up D&D has played JRPGs, Skyrim, or seen an actual play. Other than that it's just an inferior version of B/X padded out to 5 boxed sets with dumb, unplaytested mechanics that hardly anybody uses for no other reason than to sell more stuff.

Harsh, but fair.

I personally had been looking forward to Companion when it came out, mostly based on what had been talked about in the X part of B/X, promising higher level cool stuff for other classes (like Thieves) and armies-and-kingdom level stuff.

I can't say I was all that thrilled with what we ended up getting.

I never had much interest in the final two boxed sets and had moved on to a variety of other games years before anyway.

 

[BedrockBrendan]

I am fine with both. I think mostly I just remember reading the Menzter boxed set and it getting me excited to play. When I first played D&D the GM rolled everything and I still am not sure which version of D&D he was using (though I remember him running a module that looked like one of the B series). But all those details were behind the screen. Still I do recall that boxed stirring my imagination. I would mostly play and run AD&D though. And when I did play basic it was almost always in a friends campaign who ran it with the Rules Cyclopedia (which I always thought was pretty cool). I got a chance to play Moldvay with Adam as a GM and I thought that was great (I hadn't used it before, though I remembered my uncle having that version in his attic). I found Moldvay very inspiring in its presentation and simplicity (I still like the original white boxed set so it appealed to me).

 

[Neon]

Pfffft!... your opinion is, like... overrated.

 

[Baulderstone]

I have run Companion-level BECMI/RC D&D before, so there are at least a few of us out there. And I still want to try to run a 1 to 36 game sometime, just to see if it can be done.

Aa for the Known World/Mystara setting, there's a lot that I like for a setting that doesn't try to overthink things and succeeds at providing a lot of things for PCs to do. But then there's stuff I don't care for too (i.e. Alphatia) -- if I ran it today, I'd probably focus more on the older material.

That's a fair point. While I am not a fan of the BECMI boxed sets, BECMI did have a much longer lifespan that allowed it to produce a lot of setting material and adventures. It also did a better job of providing a wide range of race-as-class options. The downside was that these classes often had their abilities spread out over 36 levels, meaning they need to be tinkered with to make them practical at the table.

 

[Fenris-77]

I find BECMI to be a diminishing returns kind of thing. My enjoyment is best described visually - B E C M I

 

[Bunch]

I find BECMI to be a diminishing returns kind of thing. My enjoyment is best described visually - B E C M I

This!

I don't think I ever had a pre 3E game go above level 13. So CMI would be more theoretical to me than real.

I never really noticed a huge difference between BX and BE. I encountered BX first so I like it more.

 

[Akrasia]

I started with Holmes, so that version will always have a special place in my heart (despite the chits). But the colour covers of B/X by Erol Otus, along with Trampier’s glorious PHB cover, fired my 11 year old imagination like nothing else. In those early games I used a poorly understood mishmash of Holmes + Moldvay + Gygax rules, but we still had great fun. By the time the Mentzer version came out, my interest in D&D was focused primarily on AD&D. And I didn’t like the new covers (I‘ve never been a fan of Elmore’s work).

When I got back into “old” D&D two decades ago (out of disgust with 3e), I obtained the RC and loved it, but ended up preferring good old B/X, in part for aesthetic reasons (cooler art) but also because the rules were better for level 1-10 play.

So yeah, B/X > BECMI.

Regarding:

Today the most contemporary versions of these still hold pride of place in my bookshelf - Mythras (BRP) and Against The Darkmaster (ICE)


View attachment 69851

Mythras and Against the Darkmaster are the two games that I play the most these days (Mythras and its immediate ancestors, MRQII & RQ6, since 2011).

Since, by the mid-1980s I was primarily playing MERP and BRP, it seems that I have come full circle, almost four decades later…

 

[Fenris-77]

This!

I don't think I ever had a pre 3E game go above level 13. So CMI would be more theoretical to me than real.

I never really noticed a huge difference between BX and BE. I encountered BX first so I like it more.

I never found the domain management part of the game particularly compelling. Not that I played it much, I don't think anyone did, but the games where I did I didn't find it memorable. I don't think the D&D rules in any version really lean into domain management that well. Just my two cents.

 

[Chris Brady]

If I ever run D&D again, it'll be BECMI just to spite you naysayers. Aleena died for your sins.

View attachment 69798​

I'm willing to play any D&D.

Except 3.x and it's derivative. I'm still burnt out of that one.

 

[Baulderstone]

I never found the domain management part of the game particularly compelling. Not that I played it much, I don't think anyone did, but the games where I did I didn't find it memorable. I don't think the D&D rules in any version really lean into domain management that well. Just my two cents.

I was just about to mention that myself. The problem with domain management in D&D is that it is an entirely different system that doesn't get added in to a game until late in a campaign. The game I have played that had working domain management have it in place from the start, with Ars Magica being a good example.

 

[Fenris-77]

I was just about to mention that myself. The problem with domain management in D&D is that it is an entirely different system that doesn't get added in to a game until late in a campaign. The game I have played that had working domain management have it in place from the start, with Ars Magica being a good example.

Forbidden Lands also has it built right in from the get go, although those two system handle that in very different ways.

 

[Baulderstone]

Forbidden Lands also has it built right in from the get go, although those two system handle that in very different ways.

Yes, and Dave Arneson's original D&D started as only domain management and warfare, with the roleplaying adventures growing from that.

 

[Fenris-77]

Yes, and Dave Arneson's original D&D started as only domain management and warfare, with the roleplaying adventures growing from that.

If there was a strong faction game component to early D&D I suspect I'd be happier with high level play.

 

[Baulderstone]

If there was a strong faction game component to early D&D I suspect I'd be happier with high level play.

The faction system in many of Kevin Crawford's games is a good way to handle it. You have domain-level factions created for the setting. Once per in-game month, the GM takes a turn for each faction, determining their action. The players can join and attempt to take control of faction or even start their own. Even if the players don't get ever control a faction, they are a meaningful part of the game, not something suddenly pops up at 12th level.

 

[Fenris-77]

The faction system in many of Kevin Crawford's games is a good way to handle it. You have domain-level factions created for the setting. Once per in-game month, the GM takes a turn for each faction, determining their action. The players can join and attempt to take control of faction or even start their own. Even if the players don't get ever control a faction, they are a meaningful part of the game, not something suddenly pops up at 12-level.

Yup, Crawford does factions well. I really like the faction game from ORE too but that's a little more work to rationalize with a D&D rule set.

 

[Baulderstone]

Yup, Crawford does factions well. I really like the faction game from ORE too but that's a little more work to rationalize with a D&D rule set.

Yes, Reign is another good example.

 

[T. Foster]

Harsh, but fair.

I personally had been looking forward to Companion when it came out, mostly based on what had been talked about in the X part of B/X, promising higher level cool stuff for other classes (like Thieves) and armies-and-kingdom level stuff.

I can't say I was all that thrilled with what we ended up getting.

I never had much interest in the final two boxed sets and had moved on to a variety of other games years before anyway.

An interesting thing I learned from Jon Peterson’s Game Wizards book was that the original (c. 1980) intent for the D&D Companion was that it was going to be an actual companion - a collection of optional and expanded rules drawn primarily from the OD&D Supplements. High level play would’ve been part of that because higher level spells, tougher monsters, and more powerful magic items were all included in Greyhawk and Eldritch Wizardry, but it wouldn’t have been the whole thing.

The idea of the race to level 36 and achieving immortality being the core “story” of the game and extending the “tier” idea where Companion shifts from wilderness exploration to domain management the way that Expert shifted from dungeons to the wilderness, and then Master shifting again to the multiverse and quest for immortality, seems to have been Frank Mentzer’s idea (and it was all theoretical - none of that higher level material saw actual play until years (and in some cases decades) after it was published).

The original conception would’ve likely ended up being a lot closer to AD&D, which is likely at least part of why they changed it (since TSR at the time was still trying to maintain the legal fiction that D&D and AD&D were separate games so that they only had to pay Dave Arneson royalties on the former).

 

[Dyrnwyn]

When I ran higher-level BECMI, I usually started the PCs there from the outset. There are also at least a couple of modules that start with the premise "Here's your domain you've been granted/inherited/etc" and then kick things off from there.

Plus, there was always the option to keep adventuring at Name level and above, with different character options (such as the paladin/knight/avenger options for fighters), if PCs didn't want to do the domain thing.

I just think having the options and modularity is nice. It's like how I wouldn't always want to use, say, all the rules in Mercenary, High Guard, or other books if I was playing Traveller, but I like that they are there.

 

[Silverlion]

I have run Companion-level BECMI/RC D&D before, so there are at least a few of us out there. And I still want to try to run a 1 to 36 game sometime, just to see if it can be done.

Aa for the Known World/Mystara setting, there's a lot that I like for a setting that doesn't try to overthink things and succeeds at providing a lot of things for PCs to do. But then there's stuff I don't care for too (i.e. Alphatia) -- if I ran it today, I'd probably focus more on the older material.

I'm willing to give it a try!

 

[RangerRupert]

I owned but never really played B/X. Like a lot of kids in the early 80s, I got them as Xmas presents, but dove into AD&D ASA&P.

Looking back at B/X from my current perspective of decades of gaming, I see a really solid game that I would very much like to play.

 

[Fenris-77]

I owned but never really played B/X. Like a lot of kids in the early 80s, I got them as Xmas presents, but dove into AD&D ASA&P.

Looking back at B/X from my current perspective of decades of gaming, I see a really solid game that I would very much like to play.

B/X is probably the most consistent and solid of the early D&D rules sets. If you're interested, the recent Dolmenwood KS is based primarily on B/X and based on the beta PDF I've gotten so far is going to be fantastic.

 

[AsenRG]

I think the BECMI part of the title is superfluous.

 

[Mankcam]

Heh heh I remember initially thinking the Basic Set Box was just a primer, to be followed by the AD&D book as the main game.

'Dungeons & Dragons Fantasy Adventure Game Basic Rules' in a box with dice, and 'Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Players Handbook' as an important looking hardcover book. Kinda really easy to see why that was confusing, heh heh.

I think this was how I first saw encountered it in the shelves in our small town toy shop/hobby store - a random D&D Basic Set box sitting next to single AD&D PHB Hardcover book, perhaps next to a cardboard cover adventure module or two, and that was their entire rpg stock.

I remember it was all very confusing trying to work it out, as the only other time I had seen the game was a brief scene in the ET film, which I had found just as interesting as the alien itself.

Ah that memory goes way back...

 

[Zeroth_Law]

The xWN games also have a skill system that owes a great deal to (Classic) Traveller, which is a great starting point.

Indeed! I love the 2d6 skill resolution mechanic, as I'm sure I've mentioned before elsewhere on here because it ensures that people who are good at certain things are reliably good at those things. I totally get why some people dislike skills in OSR (and also why KC games aren't typically described as "true" OSR) but it makes perfect sense to me.

 

[T. Foster]

The D&D Basic Set as an intro to AD&D was literally how it was created and marketed and intended to work in 1977-80 (the Holmes-edit Basic Set). But in the wake of the Arneson lawsuit and need (for legal purposes) to differentiate D&D and AD&D TSR decided to keep D&D as a separate and distinct game, so in 1981 the Basic Set was revised and instead of pointing to AD&D it was made to point to the new D&D Expert Set which updated and replaced the OD&D “Original Collectors Set” (the 1974 rules) which was finally taken out of print, and the two lines coexisted in a weird and confusing parallel.

The 1981 BX sets never mention AD&D as if it didn’t exist, and it was only in the 1983 Basic Set that they finally added a paragraph in the back explaining that AD&D was a separate game with more detailed rules for tournaments that could be safely ignored because with these sets you’re playing “the original game” (and only in the Rules Cyclopedia in 1991 that they finally published official guidelines for how to convert between the two to run AD&D adventures with D&D rules and vice versa).

This separation also had the weird side-effect that after 1980 (until, like, 1999) there was no introductory starter set for AD&D. So almost everybody still started with the Basic Set but then had to choose whether to “graduate up” to the Expert Set or to AD&D. Almost everybody chose the latter, which is kind of surprising since the books themselves told you to do the former (but I guess the hardback rulebooks and way bigger supply of modules were too tempting for most kids to resist - that plus Dragon magazine being like 90% AD&D content).

 

[Sharrow]

Indeed! I love the 2d6 skill resolution mechanic, as I'm sure I've mentioned before elsewhere on here because it ensures that people who are good at certain things are reliably good at those things. I totally get why some people dislike skills in OSR (and also why KC games aren't typically described as "true" OSR) but it makes perfect sense to me.

You say that, but last week one of the characters in my WWN game managed to fail three skills checks in a row, when they needed 8+, and had a net +4 bonus. The player was not amused.

 

[Nick J]

The D&D Basic Set as an intro to AD&D was literally how it was created and marketed and intended to work in 1977-80 (the Holmes-edit Basic Set). But in the wake of the Arneson lawsuit and need (for legal purposes) to differentiate D&D and AD&D TSR decided to keep D&D as a separate and distinct game, so in 1981 the Basic Set was revised and instead of pointing to AD&D it was made to point to the new D&D Expert Set which updated and replaced the OD&D “Original Collectors Set” (the 1974 rules) which was finally taken out of print, and the two lines coexisted in a weird and confusing parallel.

The 1981 BX sets never mention AD&D as if it didn’t exist, and it was only in the 1983 Basic Set that they finally added a paragraph in the back explaining that AD&D was a separate game with more detailed rules for tournaments that could be safely ignored because with these sets you’re playing “the original game” (and only in the Rules Cyclopedia in 1991 that they finally published official guidelines for how to convert between the two to run AD&D adventures with D&D rules and vice versa).

This separation also had the weird side-effect that after 1980 (until, like, 1999) there was no introductory starter set for AD&D. So almost everybody still started with the Basic Set but then had to choose whether to “graduate up” to the Expert Set or to AD&D. Almost everybody chose the latter, which is kind of surprising since the books themselves told you to do the former (but I guess the hardback rulebooks and way bigger supply of modules were too tempting for most kids to resist - that plus Dragon magazine being like 90% AD&D content).

The words "Basic" and "Advanced" also had a huge impact on me and my friends when were were 12. Basic implied, "it's for babies" and Advanced promised a more mature and sophisticated game. Maybe things are different now, but back then, nobody I know at 12 wanted to be thought of as a child or a baby.