I just played my first Rules Cyclopedia based game

[FriarRosing]

Now, I'll start off by saying I started playing when I was in middle school with the 3rd edition "The Adventure Begins!" starter/basic set thing. Now I'm halfway through college and had, until today, only played 3rd and 4th edition. I've always used a battle mat and miniatures or tokens or whatever. Recently I've even gotten more into the whole battle mat visual representation thing and have been collecting various little terrain things (mostly stuff originally intended for use in fish tanks).

Earlier this week I got a copy of the Rules Cyclopedia I'd ordered off of amazon and have been reading since then. I found all of it really intriguing. So today I rolled up three characters and asked my friends to play it with me. I had done absolutely no prep at all--no planned encounters, no pre made dungeons, no map of the area, no preconceived towns and NPCS. I literally had nothing. I made up the entire thing as I went.

We didn't play it like we usually do--I encouraged my players to just do whatever they wanted. Since I had no plot or setting to ruin, I figured it wouldn't hurt. It was insane. They got in a bar fight right away. The thief took the bartender hostage and dragged him off to the lair of the Orc King, where he offered him (and the rest of the party, much to their surprise) as a sacrifice. The Orc King challenged the thief to a battle and killed him. The rest of the party managed to escape, returning to town to find everyone in an uproar over the missing barkeeper. The town, working themselves into a frenzied mob, put the rest of the party in jail and ran off to the lair of the orcs. With most people in town gone, the party escaped from the dungeon, dispatched the few remaining guards and made off with half the town's loot. For whatever reason they decided to go back the Orc King's lair, where a massive battle raged. Suffice to say everyone died.

We used no battlemat. We just rolled our dice and said what happened. We didn't have to stop and think about where our characters were in exact relation to one another, and we never had to think about flanking or combat advantage. We actually played our normal 4e campaign later in the day, and I have to admit, I enjoyed the RC game more.

Now, I'm a young dude. I was raised on video games. I played video games before I ever played D&D. Before I'd ever even heard of D&D even, so the newer editions are closer to what I grew up with. They have more ideas in common, I think (not that I at all endorse the whole, "X edition is video gamey-y!" argument). I remember when I first started DMing years ago I had trouble because I kept thinking of quests and NPCs like they would be in some video game, as opposed to how they would be in real life or a work of fiction or whatever. But I'm forced to realize I may like the older version of the game more than any of the new ones. I certainly like it better than 3e. To me it says a lot that, though our little on-the-fly game lacked a lot of what our 4e game has (mapped out areas and regions, predefined NPCs, dungeons and adventures), it was more immersive. Now, maybe it was more fun because we were being more ridiculous than our normal game, what with the PCs running head first into what they know is certain death and all, but it was just more immediately fun.

The idea of just running a game on the fly with absolutely nothing to start from almost boggles my mind. It's certainly something I never would have imagined before. I especially remember in 3e that I loathed planning my adventures. It was such a hassle and the encounters I designed always ending up sucking for whatever reason. If only I'd had the Rules Cyclopedia then.

There were a few questions I wanted to ask about RC games:
1. Is Keep on the Borderlands a good way to start? I ordered it off Amazon the other day. My hope is to start a monthly sandbox style game. Was this a good decision, or would something else have been better?

2. Do the PCs have no hope for life? Though one of my player's mottoes is "I LOVE DEATH," I'm worried the brutality of the game may turn off some of my players. One player in particular doesn't like to "lose." I'm worried that it seems a single goblin can kill a level one character in one hit. I'm worried they'll just run from everything, get annoyed at having to roll new characters all the time or, the worst, get downright angry and frustrated over their characters dying. Are there any ways to help with this? Or does it matter?

3. What are the best BECMI products? Or other products I can use with the Rules Cyclopedia? Any good online resources I should know about?

4. Are there any sweet house rules people would use?

Thanks for reading my rather long winded post. I apologize if it rambles. I'm just excited for the game. I still love 4e so far, but RC is just cool in a way no other game I've played has. Maybe I just haven't played enough to discover its flaws, but it was some of the most fun gaming I've ever experienced. And it was only one short session.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

Sounds like you had a great time.

1. Is Keep on the Borderlands a good way to start? I ordered it off Amazon the other day. My hope is to start a monthly sandbox style game. Was this a good decision, or would something else have been better?

The Keep is a classic. It has a wilderness area with some encounters, a home base, and one detailed dungeon, with seeds for at least two others. The wilderness area is a little bit small for a traditional "sandbox," but you can certainly take a sandbox-style approach to it. The key is to "let the players drive."

To that end, I'd avoid introducing the adventure as a mission (e.g. "clear the caves"). Instead, suggest that the PCs have arrived at this fortress on the edge of the wild seeking fortune and glory. Let them find their own adventure hooks and clues. Maybe they talk to some merchants who were waylaid. Maybe they hear stories about a crazy dude who is sometimes seen in the woods. Maybe the man in charge of the butteries needs some stout lads to take care of a giant rodent or insect infestation that he doesn't want the Castellan to hear about. Maybe the Thief notices a newly arrived gemcutter. Maybe a maiden has disappeared in the marsh. You get the idea. Plant some seeds and let the players run in the direction they want.

2. Do the PCs have no hope for life?

Skillful play matters ("the slaughter will continue until play improves"). Hirelings (and henchman) can help a lot, too. Your players may lose a few PCs before one "takes hold" and advances several levels, but they'll catch on and play *will* improve.

3. What are the best BECMI products? Or other products I can use with the Rules Cyclopedia? Any good online resources I should know about?

B1, B2, B3, B4, X1, and X2 are all good. (See my signature for a campaign log on B4.) Check out RFisher's Classic D&D page. Check out Mythmere's Old School Primer. Check out Dragonsfoot.

4. Are there any sweet house rules people would use?

Yeah, but in the beginning, I recommend playing it by-the-book until you have a firm handle on the system and how it's designed. That's an especially viable approach with Classic D&D, which is a pretty solid system.

A couple suggestions, since you're using the RC: you should introduce a "statement of intent" phase before rolling initiative. That's part of the BECM rules, but it was left out of the RC. Another thing to be aware of is that the RC has some errata, and introduced some confusing text on movement during combat. Check out Mr. Reaper's errata document. I'd also advise leaving out "general skills" and "weapons mastery," but that's just me.

 

[T. Foster]

Welcome to the club

1. Is Keep on the Borderlands a good way to start? I ordered it off Amazon the other day. My hope is to start a monthly sandbox style game. Was this a good decision, or would something else have been better?

It's a little mini-sandbox setting with a home base with some helpful and harmful NPCs, a small wilderness with a handful of encounters, and a "monster hotel" with about a dozen small lairs mostly of various types of humanoids. There's not plot unless you insert one. None of the NPCs at the Keep have names unless you name them. If you run it "straight" without adding or customizing anything (the way most of us who got the Basic Set for our 9th birthday did) it'll be boring and suck, but because it's so open-ended, if you get creative and treat it as a toolbox you can have all kinds of fun with it.

2. Do the PCs have no hope for life? Though one of my player's mottoes is "I LOVE DEATH," I'm worried the brutality of the game may turn off some of my players. One player in particular doesn't like to "lose." I'm worried that it seems a single goblin can kill a level one character in one hit. I'm worried they'll just run from everything, get annoyed at having to roll new characters all the time or, the worst, get downright angry and frustrated over their characters dying. Are there any ways to help with this? Or does it matter?

Not much. You can pretty much expect that until they hit 3rd level you're probably looking at something like 33-50% casualty rate per session -- some players will lose a character every session, some might lose 2 or 3 in a single session (but because characters are so easy to create -- picking equipment takes longer than all the other steps combined) this isn't so much a problem. Tips for survival: 1) hire red-shirts (NPC men-at-arms) to bulk up the party's numbers (but treat them well and pay them generously, otherwise they'll run away and leave you in the lurch when combat starts); 2) run away; 3) "cheat" (not literally, as in lying about die-rolls, but as in employing "unfair" tactics -- pretending to run away to lure monsters into ambushes, use lots of flaming oil (which does more damage than any weapon or spell available to 1st level characters), bribing one set of monsters to help you fight another set, etc. -- straight-up combat is a losing proposition, so you have to learn to think outside the box); 4) if you're going to lose, and can't run away, surrender -- sure the monsters might just laugh and kill you anyway (or take you back to their lair and torture you) -- especially if you've been killing all the monsters that have surrendered to you -- but you were going to die anyway if you kept fighting so you haven't really lost anything, and they might be willing to ransom you (there are specific rules for this in Keep on the Borderlands), or you might be able to escape, or if you're chaotic you might make friends with the monsters and fight on their side when the next set of PCs shows up. The possibilities are as limitless as your imagination.

3. What are the best BECMI products? Or other products I can use with the Rules Cyclopedia? Any good online resources I should know about?

The Creature Catalogue has a bunch of new monsters that aren't in the RC. There are several more classic modules: B4 (The Lost City), B5 (Horror on the Hill), B10 (Night's Dark Terror), X1 (Isle of Dread), X2 (Castle Amber), and X4 (Master of the Desert Nomads) & X5 (Temple of Death) (a 2-part series) are all classics. X1 is sandboxy in the same manner as B2 (a huge tropical island full of natives, all kinds of monsters, and lost treasures); the others are more traditionally plot-based. The Gazetteer series gets a lot of love for adding a ton of detail to the world and a lot of extra rules (new classes and such) but I thought they were overkill and sort of wrecked the freewheeling casual spirit of this version of the game (they blurred the line too much between this version and AD&D).

4. Are there any sweet house rules people would use?

I'm sure other people can and will give you plenty, but IMO this version works just fine right out of the box (as long as you've got a lot of imagination and are willing to make a lot of rulings up on the spot when somebody tries something crazy).

 

[Treebore]

Yet another learns to appreciate simplicity. Awesome!

 

[S'mon]

Re #2 - for a game that can run from 1st level without piles of PC corpses, I give everyone a hit point kicker at 1st level. I've tried various approaches, x2 max hp does not work well (too much, makes people think they have 2 hit dice), +10 for everyone works well (because Basic D&D Clerics don't spellcast, it won't overpower them) but favours non-Fighters. Currently I favour +10 for Fighter & Dwarf, +8 for Cleric Elf Halfling and Thief (because low level Thieves suck), +6 for Magic-Users. A kicker like this deals with the '50% fatalities every fight' issue without increasing their offensive power. Also unconscious at 0, death at -10, instead of 0.

 

[S'mon]

All the early B-series modules I own are site based and most are fully suitable for sandbox play.

B1 - abandoned former dungeon residence of 2 powerful adventurers.

B2 - The Keep, and caves full of Chaotic humanoids.

B3 - Orange version - former palace of elven princess, includes optional area map

B4 - PCs start lost in desert, find underground city/dungeon

B5 - forested hill, monastery, and labyrinth of Chaos critters, very like B2

B7 - the least sandboxy, an elven temple recently fallen to evil forces

B1, B2, B3 and B5 can be integrated into the same sandbox area with trivial ease. Stick an elven forest in, and B7 becomes useable too, though unlike the others it has some time/plot elements inasmuch as the starting conditions will only happen once.

Of the X modules,

X1 is a 100% sandbox island.

X2 - The PCs are trapped in the mansion, quest to escape.

X4 & X5 - PCs on a mission, largely linear encounters, not sandboxy.

So, some of these modules can be easily integrated into a larger sandbox environment. Others, like B4, B7 and X2, depend on the GM kicking things off - "Lost in the desert, you...", "Travelling through the elven woods, you..." and "Waking up after a night's sleep, you..." - they can be dropped into a continuing campaign, but are not full sand boxes per se; and B4 and X2 put the PCs in a predicament they need to escape from/deal with.

 

[wedgeski]

Sounds like you had fun -- thanks for the report!

 

[bagger245]

*wipes tear* its these type of post which makes me smile...
I am 23 and my generation are all into computer gamey stuff, but I champion Classic D&D
as the game of choice. I started with 2nd ed and I can clearly see the diff of playstyle
compared to my friends who started with 3rd ed onwards.
Don't stop your 4th ed game, but play both and learn to appreciate both games and their
philosophy.

 

[vagabundo]

We didn't play it like we usually do--I encouraged my players to just do whatever they wanted. Since I had no plot or setting to ruin, I figured it wouldn't hurt. It was insane. They got in a bar fight right away. The thief took the bartender hostage and dragged him off to the lair of the Orc King, where he offered him (and the rest of the party, much to their surprise) as a sacrifice. The Orc King challenged the thief to a battle and killed him. The rest of the party managed to escape, returning to town to find everyone in an uproar over the missing barkeeper. The town, working themselves into a frenzied mob, put the rest of the party in jail and ran off to the lair of the orcs. With most people in town gone, the party escaped from the dungeon, dispatched the few remaining guards and made off with half the town's loot. For whatever reason they decided to go back the Orc King's lair, where a massive battle raged. Suffice to say everyone died.

Lol, this sounds like all my early games, I was self-taught using RC. I was a poor DM back then and had a poor grasp on the rules, looking back I wish I'd gotten the basic set. Still we had fun and stuck with the hobby for all these years.

I've started to introduce matless style of play with my current 4e game for all minor combats and it feels like the old days again.

I'd interested in playing some of the old modules with the original rules, as God intended, but my players are of a casual nature and like 4e. I wished I knew about any of the classic adventures when I started, I just used to make things up.

 

[Betote]

Basic D&D (being it B/X, BECMI, RC, LL or whatever fancy acronym you stumble upon) is in fact a very different beast that 3e/4e. While the WotC's D&Ds are more focused on tactical options and blockbuster combat, BD&D is more of an imagination game, a "do whatever you want and wing it on the fly". The lack of rules makes the DM feel less like 'cheating' when he makes monsters, NPCs and situations up as the game flows, so it's more open in nature.

I'd suggest you pick up B2, as it's a great mini-sandbox setting with plenty of space for you and the players to create their own adventures. If you feel you and your players are up to a bigger challenge, you could always take T1-4 (Temple of Elemental Evil) with almost no conversion needed and have a more 'epic' feel. Generally speaking, BD&D is a very good system to try "megadungeons" and, if you're confident with the rules, you can start using things like Tomb of Abysthor of Rappan Athuk (they're meant to 3.x, but another great thing about BD&D is you can make up conversions on the fly, as there are so few rules to worry about).

About lethality, I wouldn't give extra hps, as the feeling of vulnerability at the first levels is one of the things that encourage players to find creative solutions rather than straight-up charging the enemy. If you plan long-term campaigns, a good idea could be the 0hp = unconscious, -10hp = dead option that has already been suggested. That, or starting at 2nd-3rd level, although you'd be missing a raather fun portion of the game.