Running a session of Basic D&D -- my game group's experience

[Bullgrit]

I've offered to run a Basic D&D (Moldvay edition) game session for my group, and they've accepted. I've actually offered a few times through the years, but this is the first time they've agreed.

I started D&D with the Basic edition. One of my Players started with OD&D (1974), another Player started with AD&D1 (early to mid 80s), and the third Player started with D&D3 (2002-2003). So at least two of my guys have no previous experience with BD&D, and the other two of us hasn’t had the experience for around 30 years or so.

My goal with this one-shot is to get and give a little taste of the old, classic D&D play feel. So I’m going to use a classic module, and I’ll run everything right by the book. And this is where I have a slight problem.

The adventure module I plan to use is: B1 In Search of the Unknown – it’s a classic dungeon crawl, with plenty of classic monsters, traps, tricks, puzzles, and gimmicks. Strangely, though, what it doesn’t have plenty of is treasure. For those who don’t know or remember, B1 maps out and describes the dungeon areas in great detail, but it leaves the monster and treasure placement up to the DM.

There are 25 monster encounters listed in the back of the book. The text says to use only 16-20 of these encounters, but because there’re 56 rooms in the dungeon, I’m going to place all 25 encounters somewhere. That will still leave over half the rooms empty of monsters. (Random wandering monsters are 1 in 6 every two turns.)

There are 34 treasures listed in the back of the book. The text says to use only 15-25, and the treasures are relatively very small – at total gp value of just 2,841 (counting all 34). That’s not much gp (or xp) for a two-level dungeon of 56 rooms. In fact, it seems extremely cheap compared to other classic modules I’ve read – even the Caves of Chaos (in B2 Keep on the Borderlands) has a total treasure of 29,852gp (over 10 times the B1 amount).

There are, at least, several magic items to be discovered, including 1 cursed item – ironically, a bag of devouring, which could in theory destroy some of their discovered treasure and make their loot take (and xp award) even lower.

If I were designing this dungeon, with an eye on playing the numbers, I’d put enough xp on the first dungeon level for a party of six 1st-level PCs to reach 2nd level if they fully completed (secret rooms and all) the first dungeon level (assuming all beginning PCs survived the dungeon level completion – not at all a sure thing by BD&D standards).

Then enough xp on the second dungeon level for a party of six 2nd-level PCs to reach 3rd level if they fully completed (secret rooms and all) the second dungeon level (assuming all PCs survived the dungeon completion – not at all a sure thing by BD&D standards).

You may think this leveling is too fast or too slow, but this is what I would like. It’s enticing to the Players. But with the dungeon as written – with only 2,841 gp – it’s not likely (arguably not possible) a group of 6 PCs would gain a single level even by fully completing both levels of this adventure. Wouldn’t that be rather disappointing? To complete a whole dungeon and still all be only 1st level?

So, I’m considering placing enough treasure in the dungeon to make this level-gain formula happen. (Again, assuming they fully complete everything, and all survive.)

Or, maybe I could use the Basic D&D rule book to roll the entire dungeon randomly? I’m thinking, though, this is a lot of work.

But whichever I do, would it be a “fair” example/test of classic Basic D&D if I increased the treasure in a published adventure? Hell, my Players may not care to play more than this one game session, regardless of the treasure/experience haul their PCs get. But then I’d hate for them to decide they don’t like the game because for all their work in the adventure, all they ended up with a rather pathetic/unexciting reward.

What do you think?

Bullgrit

 

[samursus]

My advice...run B2.

OR, if you have it, the In Search of Adventure B1-9 compilation/mash-up that came out. It takes bits of many of the B series modules and ties them together in a mini adventure path.

I think it starts out with part of Castle Caldwell from the very module you are running. But then goes on to Journey to the Rock?... Palace of the Silver Princess etc... I loved it.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

I think B1 is B1 for a reason ... TSR learned from it.

If I were a new player, I'm fairly sure I'd enjoy B2, B3, or B4 much more than B1, but if you're set on running B1, definitely up the treasure. Basic's appeal is its streamlining, and there's no need to adhere to B1's crazy stinginess to get the Basic experience.

 

[darjr]

Yea, I would do B2.

Also consider B3 Palace of the Silver Princess

And if it is a one shot I would feel alright to put in game ending epic treasure. The Demonslayer forged by the elvish kings of old, near to gods. The one ring. A small toy flying ship that on command turns into a real ship with a ghostly crew waiting for the possessors every command, to wisk them off to the aether. Blow their minds.

Just be prepared to game master the next session with all that good stuff in play....

 

[Bullgrit]

I decided against running B2 for this one-shot because to really play it as it was written, the PCs should start at approaching the Keep. The Keep part of the module is mostly only role play -- meeting potential allies, learning rumors, getting directions. Then the PCs should start exploring the wilderness to find adventure. All of these would take at least the first game session of a campaign, and with the wilderness exploration, possibly a second and third game session, before finding the Caves of Chaos where the meat of the adventure is.

Since we're all experienced role players, and role playing is role playing no matter the D&D edition, I want to start right in on the actual dungeon crawl, using the game mechanics -- the part where Basic D&D is different than our usual D&D3.

I could skip the Keep section of B2 and just start them standing in the CoC ravine, but that just wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be playing the module as it should be played.

B1 starts the PCs going right into the dungeon. Since we may only play this one game session of Basic D&D, I want to jump right into the play style and game mechanics of the edition. I want their BD&D PCs to fight BD&D monsters, get caught by BD&D traps, find BD&D treasure. I want the Players to experience the heart of BD&D.

That's why I'm not going to run B2. I love B2 -- it's in my top three classic D&D adventures of all time -- and I'd love to run it. But with only one game session for sure, it's a slow starter. If I were going to run a full campaign of BD&D, I'd start with B2.

B3 is a badly designed adventure module. I don't like it.

The B1-9 compilation, I just don't own. (I own B1, B2, B3, B4, and B9 individually.)

And if it is a one shot I would feel alright to put in game ending epic treasure. The Demonslayer forged by the elvish kings of old, near to gods. The one ring. A small toy flying ship that on command turns into a real ship with a ghostly crew waiting for the possessors every command, to wisk them off to the aether. Blow their minds.

I like that idea. But, as I'm trying to give an honest BD&D play experience, I think that would kind of be cheating ;-)

Bullgrit

 

[howandwhy99]

B1 is a primer on building a dungeon. The distribution used for monsters, treasure, and traps is up to you. I don't know if collecting treasure earns XP in BD&D, but treasure is balanced as a reward in and of itself as it is another resource. I think you can sacrifice it for XP, IIRC.

Overcoming a challenge is made more difficult when treasure is used against the PCs. The treasure is usually another reward instead of XP for the over-and-above difficulty it gives. If they kill a monster before it can drink a potion, then they get the potion. If they do not, then the challenge increases with both loss of a reward and a greater threat. So how one plays matters.

When balancing encounters by level I'd make sure to add in every resource-based aspect in it. The basics I can think of are: dungeon level 1 = a spectrum of Monsters (avg lvl 1), Magic items (avg lvl 1), Equipment (avg lvl 1), Environment (avg lvl 1), and Traps (avg lvl 1), with amounts based upon the level's spatial area.

 

[Psikonetic]

I actually was bit by the nostalgia bug myself and wanted to go the Basic D&D route, albeit in a different form (See my sig for details), however I couldn't decide upon a B series module for a test run that could be done in one or two sessions myself, much like you.

My solution was a bit different
Depending on the amount of conversion you're willing to do and your resources, a good choice is some of Goodman Games DCCs, they have a very old school Basic feel about them and many start right in front of the dungeon, there are several small modules (like The Transmuter's Last Touch) that can be finished in a session or two as well as the compilation book The Adventure Begins which features many starter dungeons. Yes, you'd have to convert the monsters over, but it's a simple swap of the monsters they describe with similar Basic monsters as they are all about the same in terms of challenge.

If that's not your cup of tea, Brave Halfling Publishing made a few .pdf adventures for Labyrinth Lord which is a Basic D&D Retro-Clone for 1st level players.

I haven't detailed the numbers on any of them to see if they hit your goal of advancing a level, nor does it fulfill your "playing a classic module" but they certainly have the feel of one and can evoke the same sense of playing a classic.

You can also ignore all that advice and go with one of the 80's B modules.
However, I'll chime in with agreeing that B1 isn't the strongest module out there and many of the later B modules surpass it, if you're really trying to have that wonderful look back that ends with a big fight, a big treasure, and a step up the level ladder, you might want to look outside B1.

 

[Droogie]

This is extremely weird that this thread is here, because i literally just came home from a one-shot of B2., Unfortunately, Not many people showed up; I guess the DM underestimated player interest for walking down memory lane, but I digress.

I will say this: If you try to run the module as-is, the players may get frustrated. you might think maintaining the fidelity of the original module is "staying true", but that doesn't always translate to "fun". Even in the old days we used to tweak the modules, so why can't you do it now?

If you run B1, kick the treasure up a bit. If you run B2, go ahead and hand-wave the encounters at the keep. In our game this afternoon, All we did was meet a couple people, rolled for a few rumors, and we were off. The DM wanted to get us into the adventure quickly, and we had no problem with this. Even with this abridged quickstart, we still got a good feel for "old school" once we were in the caves, so you don't have to worry about that.

Character generation was fast, although our ability scores were so awful (3d6, roll x 6) that the DM gave us a few extra points to spread around. HP were rolled fairly for the most part. My dwarf had 4 hp. Our Thief had...2.

Rules-wise, I'd say rose-colored glasses is an understatement. Beer goggles, more like it. To be fair, we do realize it's a very old system, and that there is a fanatic community of retro gamers who eat this stuff up. Still, some of us couldn't help scratching our heads over some of the design: AC goes down? I role d6 to search, but percentiles to look for traps? What's with these goofy saving throws- save v. wands? Dragon breath? Turning to stone? Elf, Dwarf, and halfling are classes? Wha? After being spoiled by modern rules-lite systems, It was hard to get used to again, but we soldiered on.

Play experience? In spite of the strangeness, gameplay chugged along at a nice clip once we got into the groove. Combat was quick and deadly. Corpses piled up, friend and foe alike. I will say though, if you want your players to have the satisfaction of leveling up during you session, you have no choice but to dump more treasure on them, fiddle with the xp system, or hand out mission/ story awards. Even though B2 has more treasure than B1, the amount of coins and baubles we found during our one session was a pathetic tiny fraction of what we needed to level and the amount of XP you receive from monsters is laughable. This, even after we managed to kill the ogre on the lower levels.

I might sound overly critical, but we did manage to have fun for what it's worth. Would we play it again? Nope, but it wasn't a wasted afternoon, at any rate.

 

[ExploderWizard]

For a one shot, I woudn't worry too much about such things as treasure placement or XP awards. Make the envirornment challenging and fun. Arrange the risk to reward ratio to taste for your players and have at it. If the game ends up turning into a mini (or regular) campaign there will be more time to discuss all these concerns with the group.

Let us know how it goes.

 

[Wik]

Were I to do a oneshot BECMI game, I'd have each player start off with around 3,000 XP or so. This is enough that there is a reason why a player would take a wizard over an elf as a character class, and to show one of the reasons why it isn't necessarily horrible to the thief (plus, you get the "true" BECMI party, in which everyone is at a different level... back when I played it for a while in the early 90s, it seemed to be a rule that the Cleric always had the most hit points!)