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Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



Hypnobeard posted:

Which OSR game has the best mage spell list? I'm specifically looking for flavorful but kinda limited, so that mages don't turn into 3e Batman. (This is for the magic systems in SWN Revised, if it matters.)

From the weirdo DIY part of the OSR, you might get some interesting ideas from this roundup of ideas based on GLOG's wizards.

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drrockso20
May 6, 2013

Has Not Actually Done Cocaine

Sax Solo posted:

From the weirdo DIY part of the OSR, you might get some interesting ideas from this roundup of ideas based on GLOG's wizards.

Reminds me that I still need to run a game with Skerple's Flame Promerium(OSR Mecha) concept

Banana Man
Oct 2, 2015

mm time 2 gargle piss and shit

Xotl posted:

I assume it's based on the plotline in the comic where the owner of the game company promised that he'd let his nephew write some monster entries, and they all read like that because the kid was 10 or so. How many of those did they put in that book? One entry would be funny, but a pile of them would be insufferable.

I'm pretty sure that was the only one written like that, and i'm almost sure that it was the wording specifically used in that comic. The rest of them are written from hackmaster's default narrative style.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy
Friends:

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17171/DD-Rules-Cyclopedia-Basic

The Rules Cyclopedia is now available from DTRPG as Print-On-Demand

ross the boss
Oct 26, 2017

Couldn't order fast enough. I wonder when/if the used market will get cheap soon. I need to convert my 5e group to the beauty of BECMI.

Rhandhali
Sep 7, 2003

This is Free Trader Beowulf, calling anyone...
Grimey Drawer
Some of the Planescape books are going to print on demand too. I've got a copy of In The Cage: A Guide to Sigil coming so I can compare it to my original.

DalaranJ
Apr 15, 2008

Yosuke will now die for you.
I apologize for the vagueness of this question but I’m not sure how to phrase this more clearly.
For rpg gameplay, especially in rules light system, the ability for players to accurately predict potential outcomes of their actions is very important. The basis for this understanding is usually our understanding of the way things behave in reality, but an important part of RPGs being interesting and exciting is the ability for things that are impossible in real life to occur. How do we reconcile these two, especially for the case where the ‘impossible things’ are information known only by the GM.

For context, the question I am considering is “What would it look like if you made a surrealistic rpg?” and considering the flaws of some OSR works in relation to that question.

Warlocktopus
Aug 19, 2006
Post Post-Modern Man

DalaranJ posted:

I apologize for the vagueness of this question but I’m not sure how to phrase this more clearly.
For rpg gameplay, especially in rules light system, the ability for players to accurately predict potential outcomes of their actions is very important. The basis for this understanding is usually our understanding of the way things behave in reality, but an important part of RPGs being interesting and exciting is the ability for things that are impossible in real life to occur. How do we reconcile these two, especially for the case where the ‘impossible things’ are information known only by the GM.

For context, the question I am considering is “What would it look like if you made a surrealistic rpg?” and considering the flaws of some OSR works in relation to that question.

So by predicting potential outcomes, I assume you are talking something along the lines of player agency. That they can feel reasonably assured that what they do matters, and knowing that if they will mostly get the same effects if they hit something with a sword, throw a rock, shoot a gun, etc helps them feel that their characters have capabilities that will affect the world. Apologies if I've got you wrong.

But of course you want there to be surprises, right? So sometimes they hit it with the sword and it turns out to be an illusion, or they throw the rock and it suddenly sails upwards into the sky because there was an anti-gravity spot there they didn't know about, etc.

My personal guideline is: Does the unexpected reaction to their action lead to more interest, or does it simply contradict them? Am I saying to the player "It turns out that it's not what you thought, this is happening instead", or am I saying "You can't do that"?

There's various methods of doing this, but part of it for me is sort of getting players used to my style, giving them a few unexpected surprises at first but not too many so they know that they will usually be effective but every now and then a curveball will hit, and that as they venture into areas that I've given hints are "weird" they will encounter more weird elements. I also try to make it so any surprise element leaves them with options to interact with it, deal with it, or figure out what its "rules" are.

e: And furthermore that whatever toolkit their character comes with isn't made useless, it just has to be applied in a different manner.

Babylon Astronaut
Apr 19, 2012
I feel like levels and hit dice is the answer to that question, but how difficult is that to ascertain from in world observation? Usually, it is so important and trivial to deduce that it would at the center of any science or philosophy worth learning about in the D&D universe. It never is though because of concessions of the genre.

FRINGE
May 23, 2003
title stolen for lf posting

DalaranJ posted:

For context, the question I am considering is “What would it look like if you made a surrealistic rpg?” and considering the flaws of some OSR works in relation to that question.

Would Amber or Ship of Fools be helpful? (Ive skimmed them but never played them.)

Lightning Lord
Feb 21, 2013

$200 a day, plus expenses

Rhandhali posted:

Some of the Planescape books are going to print on demand too. I've got a copy of In The Cage: A Guide to Sigil coming so I can compare it to my original.

There's an error in the Planes of Chaos reprint where one of the maps is swapped for one from Mystara. It's been a problem since it was offered as PDF only and WotC never fixed it before picking that boxed set for the POD program :allears:

ross the boss posted:

Couldn't order fast enough. I wonder when/if the used market will get cheap soon. I need to convert my 5e group to the beauty of BECMI.

It looks like the reprints of some of the Gazetteers have been lowering the prices for the entire line on like ebay

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003
I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

DalaranJ posted:

I apologize for the vagueness of this question but I’m not sure how to phrase this more clearly.
For rpg gameplay, especially in rules light system, the ability for players to accurately predict potential outcomes of their actions is very important. The basis for this understanding is usually our understanding of the way things behave in reality, but an important part of RPGs being interesting and exciting is the ability for things that are impossible in real life to occur. How do we reconcile these two, especially for the case where the ‘impossible things’ are information known only by the GM.
Players are typically very concerned about their probability of success because the consequences are typically dire. Less ability to predict success would probably only be palatable in a game where the immediate consequence of failure is just "things don't go the way you want to." If you're seriously researching this concept, the best games I can think of to read are Toon and Skulduggery.

Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 16:20 on Feb 16, 2018

Paolomania
Apr 26, 2006

DalaranJ posted:

I apologize for the vagueness of this question but I’m not sure how to phrase this more clearly.
For rpg gameplay, especially in rules light system, the ability for players to accurately predict potential outcomes of their actions is very important. The basis for this understanding is usually our understanding of the way things behave in reality, but an important part of RPGs being interesting and exciting is the ability for things that are impossible in real life to occur. How do we reconcile these two, especially for the case where the ‘impossible things’ are information known only by the GM.

For context, the question I am considering is “What would it look like if you made a surrealistic rpg?” and considering the flaws of some OSR works in relation to that question.

This is why my homebrew uses “the expected thing” as RAW outcome, with risk taking as a dice mechanic on top. If you go back before OSR to improv or “make believe”, the roots of shared narrative are this building of a communal model of a reality. Things are expected to work a certain way by shared agreement (typically the expectations set by the choice of genre). There is no surreal in this context - there is only what your group agrees to be real.

Now, part of you surreal setting might be having the players explore unknown bounds of a strange genre. In this case I say it is especially important to NOT use random resolution until the bounds or ground rules of the reality have been explored. Or maybe the players don’t know but their characters would. It is not unreasonable to just offer them conversation where they ask what the consequences are and you say “your character would expect that ...”

And yes, as Warloctopus mentioned, as the game goes you create drama and interest by defying these expectations - however in such a way that resolves in discovery that fits (e.g. they lacked the specific knowledge of the situation) rather than violates the reality.

This strategy of just using non-mechanical role play to establish ground truth works for any setting and any system. After all, it is your choice when to use mechanical intervention (I.e. whether some event is both non-trivial and possible in such a way that you choose to make people roll dice). Even considering something which seems strict, for example the Rules Compendium tables for thief skills - it is your judgement call because you get to decide what mechanisms are “locks” and what walls are “sheer”.

So, TLDR: in any system, use nonrandom resolution to demonstrate the rules of the genre to the players, maybe even prompting with “your character would expect that...”.

DalaranJ
Apr 15, 2008

Yosuke will now die for you.

Warlocktopus posted:

So by predicting potential outcomes, I assume you are talking something along the lines of player agency.

Yes, of course, I was distracted from the terminology because the 'white paper' on this term, quantum ogre, is entirely about GM behavior and not at all about setting conceits.


Babylon Astronaut posted:

I feel like levels and hit dice is the answer to that question, but how difficult is that to ascertain from in world observation? Usually, it is so important and trivial to deduce that it would at the center of any science or philosophy worth learning about in the D&D universe. It never is though because of concessions of the genre.

Hmm, I think you misunderstood my question, but I'd like to address this anyway. My general take on this is similar to OD&D. Most humanoids have 1 HD and that people can immediately see when a humanoid has more, and of course monsters are many times more dangerous than humanoids. And no one really worries about it further because normal humanoids would never fight a monster, and heroic humanoids are too arrogant to care about maths.


FRINGE posted:

Would Amber or Ship of Fools be helpful? (Ive skimmed them but never played them.)

I should look at them again. I hate the 'masters of the multiverse' player conceit of Amber but that doesn't mean I should throw out the mechanics.



Halloween Jack posted:

Players are typically very concerned about their probability of success because the consequences are typically dire.

Right. The expected failure outcome in a D&D like is both "You are dead." but also "And the baddie (eventually) conquers the entire planet". I already tend to nerf this to at least 13th age level.

I haven't read Toon or Skulduggery, although I have read a couple of works that might be similar in genre like Baron Munchasen and Teenagers from Outer Space. I'll have to check them out.


Paolomania posted:

So, TLDR: in any system, use nonrandom resolution to demonstrate the rules of the genre to the players, maybe even prompting with “your character would expect that...”.

Yes, in this case, the characters are likely to have more knowledge of the setting than the players.

So my two takeaways here are: "Show before tell." and "Define stakes in terms of character knowledge."
I'm already pretty good at the latter.

Thanks, everyone.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy
Question: I know that Druids have consistently been really powerful in the post-TSR era, and I've heard of the jokes about Druid progression being ridiculously specific, but what were Druids like in old-school D&D?

Did they already have "Wildshape" and animal companions then? How good was their spell list? How did they measure up against the other classes?

90s Cringe Rock
Nov 29, 2006
:gay:
Druids as a class came in the Eldritch Wizardry supplement for OD&D, yes, the one with the naked lady on the front probably about to be sacrificed or something.

Druids as a monster were in the first supplement, Greyhawk, and I'll just paste that here because I'm lazy.

Greyhawk, pp33-34 posted:

DRUIDS: These men are priests of a neutral-type religion, and as such they differ in armor class and hit dice, as well as in movement capability, and are combination clerics/magic-users. Magic-use ranges from 5th through 7th level, while clericism ranges from 7th through 9th level. Druids may change shape three times per day, once each to any reptile, bird and animal respectively, from size as small as a raven to as large as a small bear. They will generally (70%) be accompanied by numbers of barbaric followers (fighters), with a few higher-level leaders (2-5 fighters of 2nd-5th levels) and a body of normal men (20-50).

Number Appearing: 1-4+
AC, Move, HD: Variable
% in Lair: 15%

The class version notes that if you're using it, you should change the monster entry to match. They're neutral, "more closely attuned to Nature, serving as its priests rather than serving some other diety." (sic) They're into mistletoe, fire, natural forces, and living things. "They cannot turn the undead, but once a druid becomes an "Initiate" [2nd level, you start as an Aspirant] he has the following innate powers: Identify pure water, identify plants, identify animals, and pass through overgrowth (briars, tangles, etc.). Upon reaching the 5th Circle [6th level, I assume] druids then gain the power to shape change (as previously mentioned in GREYHAWK with regard to the Druid-type monster), and when changing from one form to another they lose from 10% to 60% of any damage previously sustained; in addition they are not affected by the charm spells of woodland and water creatures such as nixies and dryads." They have a druid language, and learn fancy languages like "treant" and "green dragon" as they level. They're limited in weapons, but get to use oil. They fight and save as clerics, but with a 2 point bonus on saves involving fire.

They have to protect nature, especially trees, but this is more "KILL THE FUCKER HURTING NATURE" than actually defending nature directly, they don't have to risk their own life to defend a tree or whatever. But they can't kill animals unless they really have to, and won't kill trees, even evil forests.

They also can't be psychic, which is another new thing introduced this book.

They have really boring level titles. It's all Initiate, Xth until you get to 11th level and become one of four (four!) Druids, then one of two Archdruids, then thunderdome it out to become The Great Druid at 13th level, then you just stop levelling and start fighting Archdruids who want your title.

Their spell list is a spell list. Locate Plant, Produce Flame, Cure Light Wounds, Heat Metal, Call Lightning (if you're outdoors and there's a storm, one bolt every ten minutes), Insect Plague, Hallucinatory Forest (3" square per level), Conjure Fire Elemental, Finger of Death, topping out with Control Weather, Fire Storm, Animate Rock, Reincarnate.

It's a varied list. Warp Wood can gently caress a boat, according to the description, but it's also a volume of wood equal to a 6' spear shaft or six arrow shafts per two druid levels, sooo.

Animal Companions: not a thing. Unless you found an animal and tamed and trained it, which is easier when you can cast Locate and Speak With Animals.

As for how this compares to other classes, they're basically a cleric variant with poo poo armour and turning into a small bear.

90s Cringe Rock fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Mar 13, 2018

dwarf74
Sep 2, 2012



Buglord

90s Cringe Rock posted:

Stuff about OD&D
If you bother with Unearthed Arcana at all - and really, by and large, you should not - you also get Hierophant Druids, who are seriously :catdrugs: but in a good way.

You are stuck at Great Druid for another cool million and a half XP, then can beome the Grand Druid, at 15th. But because it's a boring bureaucratic job, you only need to stick there for 500k more XP. Then you dunk your XP down to 1 and become a Hierophant of 16th level.

Among the stuff you can do? Hibernate, disguise yourself as any other humanoid, enter all the Elemental and Para-Elemental planes, conjure a ton of elementals, enter the Plane of Shadow, and then this little gem at 23rd level.

quote:

The character gains the ability to enter any of the Inner Planes, roam Inner Plane Probability Lines (the 7th Dimension), and dwell on the Plane of Concordant Opposition...

I mean, that's some far-out stuff right there. Concordant Opposition was - before Planescape tamed it - a big, inverted whirlpool that's a patchwork of the other planes and which slowly neuters all of your abilities the closer you get to the center.

What are those probability lines? 7th dimension? No clue - and near as I can tell it is never referenced in any other AD&D material.

FRINGE
May 23, 2003
title stolen for lf posting

gradenko_2000 posted:

Question: I know that Druids have consistently been really powerful in the post-TSR era, and I've heard of the jokes about Druid progression being ridiculously specific, but what were Druids like in old-school D&D?

Did they already have "Wildshape" and animal companions then? How good was their spell list? How did they measure up against the other classes?

Focussed on knowing and interacting with nature (plants, animals), and using/ understanding the elements (and eventually the elemental planes). Shapechanging (ala Disney Merlin) was not a thing, and permanent animal domination was not a thing.

Their upper levels (1e Unearthed Arcana) were story limited like a Monk. You had to replace the current holder of the position to attain upper levels. (The top levels of Hierophant Druid were also pretty strong.) Bad memory. It was upper level of Druid that were limited ("Grand Druid" etc.) The Hierophants were "beyond" all that. The idea was they stopped focussing on just the normal prime parts of nature and starting understanding the actual elements of the inner planes directly more or less.

FRINGE
May 23, 2003
title stolen for lf posting

gradenko_2000 posted:

How good was their spell list?

I can clip more later tonight, but their spells (like all 1e stuff) were all over the map. They had staples (Flame Blade, Call Lightning), some rarely useful stuff, and the end-all damage spell Creeping Doom. (In 1e this was very strong. The damage was potentially in the mid hundreds under the correct circumstances, and HP were less inflated across the board back then.)

dwarf74
Sep 2, 2012



Buglord
Oh god creeping doom was insane.

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



Neutralize poison and cure disease at experience level 3 is nice.

IME it's a popular class for shrewd players who like to whine about being in a dungeon I guess.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy

dwarf74 posted:

Oh god creeping doom was insane.

Tracking the evolution of these things is kinda fun:

OD&D


BECMI


AD&D 1e



AD&D 2e


D&D 3.5



D&D 4e (Primal Power)

FRINGE
May 23, 2003
title stolen for lf posting
Good old 2e: "the solutions are left to the imaginations..."

RIP.

Aniodia
Feb 23, 2016

Literally who?

I'm looking to start a BECMI campaign sometime soonish, and I want to include both the General Skills and Weapon Mastery rules from the RC. However, there's not really any decent character sheets out there that have the space for both of those that doesn't look like complete dogshit. Outside of Microsoft Word, what programs do people recommend for creating your own character sheets?

hectorgrey
Oct 14, 2011
I usually use either spreadsheet software (if I'm lazy) or typesetting software such as Latex (if I want something that looks simple but nice). If you have cash, then InDesign is what I believe the professionals use.

curlys gold
Jan 17, 2018



aw hell yeah

DalaranJ
Apr 15, 2008

Yosuke will now die for you.

FRINGE posted:

Good old 2e: "the solutions are left to the imaginations..."

RIP.

At least it’s not 3e’s, you, the player, must also have a copy of the MM to figure out how this works.

Xotl
May 28, 2001

Be seeing you.
God I love DCC. And that is one badass cover.

I hope they get Harley Stroh to do some of the modules as well: I've never seen a guy churn out such consistently high quality material.

FRINGE
May 23, 2003
title stolen for lf posting

DalaranJ posted:

At least it’s not 3e’s, you, the player, must also have a copy of the MM to figure out how this works.

I wasnt being sarcastic though. There was that spirit of "they are 1hp bugs, use your imagination" as opposed to being a declared list of approved bug-kill-capable mechanisms that precluded coming up with something on the fly.

3e probably had a bug killing feat, and an immunity to small bug bites feat, and a bug bite healing feat,

Impermanent
Apr 1, 2010
is BECMI worth getting in to as someone who came in during the 3.5 era and now mostly plays things like fellowship or spellbound kingdoms or blades in the dark? If I were to try to get a game of this running, how would I get this monstrosity tamed and accessible to my players, and what sections of the rules should I use?

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy

Impermanent posted:

is BECMI worth getting in to as someone who came in during the 3.5 era and now mostly plays things like fellowship or spellbound kingdoms or blades in the dark? If I were to try to get a game of this running, how would I get this monstrosity tamed and accessible to my players, and what sections of the rules should I use?

BECMI is a lot less mechanically dense than 3.5/d20 D&D. It's still heavily steeped in dungeon crawling as the main point of the game, it just doesn't have as much specificity in how things are ruled-upon, and it's still not as "narratively-driven" as Fellowship, Spellbound Kingdoms, or Blades in the Dark.

The "bad" news is that you maybe shouldn't want to play this game if you don't want to do a dungeon crawl. The good news is that it's probably one of, if not The, most readable and teachable editions of D&D. If you wanted to give this a shot, I would pick up the Basic set and just read it and play it, full-stop, and there's very little modification that you might want to do save perhaps giving people an extra 10 HP to start with.

This is the Moldvay edition of the Basic set: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/110274/DD-Basic-Set-Rulebook-B-X-ed-Basic - it's only something like 70 pages, so it's a brisk read, and contains everything that you need to run a game.

The Mentzer edition of the Basic set is longer, but is so because it has an extended "tutorial" where you can play along in a sort-of Choose-Your-Own-Adventure model that teaches you the basics of the game by letting you play the game. A lot of the rules are also written in an explanatory, introductory tone that helps you grasp the concepts and teaches you how to be a "good" DM.

The ugly part is that if you're going to go legit, Drivethrurpg has split up the book into two separate parts ...
... one for the players: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/116578/DD-Basic-Set--Players-Manual-BECMI-ed-Basic
... and one for the DM: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/116619/DD-Basic-Set--DMs-Rulebook-BECMI-ed-Basic

Finally, the Rules Cyclopedia is the entire BECMI run in a single book, which covers enough material to last you literal years, but it's also all of the material, so it's not quite as digestible at a single go.

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17171/DD-Rules-Cyclopedia-Basic

FRINGE
May 23, 2003
title stolen for lf posting

Impermanent posted:

is BECMI worth getting in to as someone who came in during the 3.5 era and now mostly plays things like fellowship or spellbound kingdoms or blades in the dark? If I were to try to get a game of this running, how would I get this monstrosity tamed and accessible to my players, and what sections of the rules should I use?

Like gradenko said, the B in BECMI shouldnt feel like a monstrosity to tame at all. Even the B (chareter level 1-3ish) and E (level 3-5ish) together are pretty straightforward. The Expert stuff brought along a little more of the "outside" adventuring with the X series modules.

I honestly dont remember what came in when for C and M, and I never had I (heh), and I was not a part of the Cyclopedia, and it was never reprinted, so thats not a thing anymore.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy

FRINGE posted:

I honestly dont remember what came in when for C and M, and I never had I (heh), and I was not a part of the Cyclopedia, and it was never reprinted, so thats not a thing anymore.

On top of the level range increase, Companion added:
* new weapons like the bastard sword, the blowgun, the net, the trident and the whip
* unarmed/wrestling/grappling rules
* more extensive stronghold rules
* Fighter combat options
* special rules for demi-human race-classes to allow them to continue progressing past the nominal level cap
* mass combat rules

On top of the level range increase, Master added:
* the whole weapon mastery system
* siege scenario rules
* artifact item rules

drrockso20
May 6, 2013

Has Not Actually Done Cocaine
Outside of being dense and more of a reference tome than anything, the biggest flaw the Rules Cyclopedia has is that Thieves are incredibly gimped in it cause they stretched out the Thief Skills table to match it's 36 levels instead of the 14 it was originally designed for(although there's at least a dozen fixes for that floating around on the internet)

long-ass nips Diane
Dec 13, 2010

Breathe.

Impermanent posted:

is BECMI worth getting in to as someone who came in during the 3.5 era and now mostly plays things like fellowship or spellbound kingdoms or blades in the dark? If I were to try to get a game of this running, how would I get this monstrosity tamed and accessible to my players, and what sections of the rules should I use?

To echo what everyone else said, I think you’ll like BECMI (it’s my favorite D&D hands-down) as long as yourself it for what it’s intended for and don’t try to replace any of those games you mentioned playing with it. It obviously doesn’t have anything in the way of modern mechanics, but it’s good for dungeon crawls, outdoor exploration and, if you get into it, light domain management where you get to have wizards towers and thieves guilds and stuff.

Another nice thing is that there’s 30 years of house rules floating around so if you run into something you want to tweak there are tons of ideas out there.

dwarf74
Sep 2, 2012



Buglord

drrockso20 posted:

Outside of being dense and more of a reference tome than anything, the biggest flaw the Rules Cyclopedia has is that Thieves are incredibly gimped in it cause they stretched out the Thief Skills table to match it's 36 levels instead of the 14 it was originally designed for(although there's at least a dozen fixes for that floating around on the internet)
Yeah, the whole Thief class is a huge problem in BECMI.

My advice is to up their HP to d6, and then let them add (3xDex Score) or something like that to all of their skills. It's passable at least.

Impermanent
Apr 1, 2010
Thanks for all the advice on BECMI. I guess my follow-up question is: why would it be a good idea to play BECMI instead of something like Torchbearer or DCC or any of the other retroclones? What does it have going for it that other editions and retroclones don't have?

Xotl
May 28, 2001

Be seeing you.
To add to the others, I really feel it's important to repeat what gradenko said about mechanical simplicity. This is a major selling point for many, but I can't emphasize enough that even if you're tired of the LFQW stuff of 3rd ed, you're getting way, way less to play with overall. There's no feat structure, and very few special abilities and combat options overall until higher levels of the game (an extra attack for fighers at level 12 as an optional rule, for example). Weapon Mastery is the main crunch outlet for melee characters, which can start early on though it isn't detailed until the Master rules; while it's a bit fiddly and complicated ruleset many love it, and it's something that has no real parallel in any other D&D edition.

So if you have a group of players spoiled by 3.5/PF choice (even if a lot of those choices are non-choices) you may have a lot of guys getting bored by the lack of system mastery. A lot of retroclones attempt to solve this to various degrees, although it's also often championed as a feature rather than a bug.

As for the thief, pretty much everyone on the planet will give them D6 HP, and even Frank Mentzer says he screwed up with their skills progression and to just use the one found in Moldvay/Cook.

Caveats aside, I love B/X. But it is a very different mindset.

Impermanent posted:

Thanks for all the advice on BECMI. I guess my follow-up question is: why would it be a good idea to play BECMI instead of something like Torchbearer or DCC or any of the other retroclones? What does it have going for it that other editions and retroclones don't have?

Overall simplicity. Access to oceans of support material, including some of the best D&D material ever written thanks to the OSR movement.

Xotl fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Mar 15, 2018

long-ass nips Diane
Dec 13, 2010

Breathe.

Impermanent posted:

Thanks for all the advice on BECMI. I guess my follow-up question is: why would it be a good idea to play BECMI instead of something like Torchbearer or DCC or any of the other retroclones? What does it have going for it that other editions and retroclones don't have?

Well, Torchbearer is its own unique thing that doesn't really count as a retroclone/old D&D-style game despite being a dungeon crawl, so I'd say if you're looking for that desperate sense of always being one step ahead of death then I'd go for it over whatever else.

As for BECMI vs other flavors of retroclones, it just depends on what kind of mechanical complexity you're looking for out of a game. It (and the retroclones "inspired" by it, like Labrynth Lord and Dark Dungeons) are fairly simple and provide an ease of play while still being very recognizably D&D. DCC goes off the deep end and has you rolling a billion different kinds of dice, including ones you probably don't actually own. I like DCC, but it's got very different goals while still being under the retroclone umbrella.

Plus, like Xotl said, you have access to basically every old adventure you would care to revisit plus a lot of other material.

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dwarf74
Sep 2, 2012



Buglord

Impermanent posted:

Thanks for all the advice on BECMI. I guess my follow-up question is: why would it be a good idea to play BECMI instead of something like Torchbearer or DCC or any of the other retroclones? What does it have going for it that other editions and retroclones don't have?
Support and style.

Each retro-game approaches D&D from different perspectives. BECMI is a kind of 'purist' take on it - it's the most D&D of all of them, as you'd expect. The rest generally have baked-in setting assumptions that go beyond vanilla D&D fantasy.

All of those other games are great - I particularly love DCC - but it's a much different style.

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