Basic D&D

[The Grassy Gnoll]

Does anyone still play Basic D&D? Red Box/Expert etc.

ive introduced some friends to 5e and showed them the AD&D PHB. Their reaction was, how the hell did this game last so long? Then I showed them the basic set players manual and they were so impressed with the walkthrough adventure (Bargle etc), saying that they would definitely have played that.

got me nostalgic for some proper old school three alignment race-as-class D&D.

 

[MNblockhead]

No, but I've played Dungeon Crawl Classics for that old-school feel.

I'd play a Basic D&D one-shot any day, but not interested in another d20 / fantasy campaign. So many games to play, so little time.

I do like paging through old books and modules for the nostalgia. Another thing I love about the DCC book is that they got a lot of the old 70s/80s artists to do the art for the book. Very nostalgic for a new book.

 

[Salamandyr]

<raises hand> Starting a new game tomorrow evening, using B/X (ie the best ruleset).

 

[Zardnaar]

I have the PDFs of the Rules Cyclopedia but I am more inclined to use clones these days so when I play B/X I use ACKs or Basic Fantasy. A lot of the B/X adventures are very good still, we recently played X8 Drums on Fire Mountain and tweaked it a bit adding a bit of a story to tie it to my world a bit more. Also I do not use THAC0.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

[another hand raises] Just finished a mini-campaign about 6 months ago using the B/X with smatterings of BECMI and all of the Gaz's. Also used some of the stuff found on Dyson's web site ( https://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/ ) on his "House Rules" page. Some really great stuff! Meshed perfectly with my own d12 tables and whatnot.

Basic D&D (any version, really) has just enough info to let the DM and players run wild with their imaginations without colouring outside the lines, so to say. One of my 4 "Top 3 Favourite RPG's" (yeah, I said 4...sue me ).

PS: If you want a good "clone", we used "Dark Dungeons" for about two years. https://gurbintrollgames.wordpress.com/ to get a DL.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Ancalagon]

I just ran a GLOG session, which is a derivative of BX (or BECMI?... I'm not sure). It's based on fast character creation, ease of rule learning, lower levels of power and flattening the power curve between casters and magic users. The rules are also very "hackable" - it's super easy to create a custom race or class.

You get hp for eating lunch

the spells are wonderfully creative.

I like it so much I might convert my 5e game to it.

 

[Ancalagon]

It's also my impression that the "retroclones" are pretty popular, and that the "lamentation of the flame princess" is seen as perhaps the best of the bunch.

 

[Henry]

I still bust it out for conventions sometimes, as I can use about a dozen pages of quick ref sheets to help people build their characters, pass those around the table, and both level PCs and replace PCs super quickly.

 

[ccs]

Every couple of years I'll happen across a B/X game at GenCon.
Other than that it's been ....10 years now since I played anything more than a single 4hr convention game of this.

And that's fine.
Basic might have been my 1st D&D in Xmas 1980, and it was certainly like throwing a bucket of gasoline on a fire concerning my imagination.... But after about 2.5 years of Basic & Expert? We (myself & the kids I played with) were mostly moving on to 1e AD&D. Basic was just too limited option wise. Heck, the 1st house rule we ever created was about 6 months into the game - we added cleric, wizard, thief options for the non-humans. We ran both systems for the next year or two, though increasingly 1e {still my favorite edition }. And finally, sometime after the Companion set (but before the Master set) we went completely 1e for our D&D. I wouldn't play this version of D&D again until the mid 90s. Then, as now it was one shot con games interspersed by years.

 

[Zardnaar]

Every couple of years I'll happen across a B/X game at GenCon.
Other than that it's been ....10 years now since I played anything more than a single 4hr convention game of this.

And that's fine.
Basic might have been my 1st D&D in Xmas 1980, and it was certainly like throwing a bucket of gasoline on a fire concerning my imagination.... But after about 2.5 years of Basic & Expert? We (myself & the kids I played with) were mostly moving on to 1e AD&D. Basic was just too limited option wise. Heck, the 1st house rule we ever created was about 6 months into the game - we added cleric, wizard, thief options for the non-humans. We ran both systems for the next year or two, though increasingly 1e {still my favorite edition }. And finally, sometime after the Companion set (but before the Master set) we went completely 1e for our D&D. I wouldn't play this version of D&D again until the mid 90s. Then, as now it was one shot con games interspersed by years.

AD&D is almost one shot for me. Every now and then we do a few shot game of ACKs which has options or C&C.