Nostalgasm

[Reynard]

While on vacation in Burlington, VT I stopped by Quartstaff Games and was able to pick up a copy of the Metzner "blue book" Expert rule book for four bucks.

The Red Box was my introduction to the game, and certainly holds a special place in my heart, but it was the Expert set that defined D&D for me. Hunting down Bargle in the Basic Set dungeon was fun, but Threshold was where my first PC really came to life and, shortly thereafter, I first created and ran my own D&D adventures.

As much as I adore the 1E DMG as a treasure trove of ideas and advice, and as much as 2E was the game with which I truly "grew up" as both a gamer and an adolescent to young adult, BECMI is the foundation of my very existence as a gamer.

And as much as I love my RC, there's an irreplaceable quality about those red, blue, green and black books.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Mine were the Moldvay & Cook/Marsh versions but I hear ya!! . As cool as AD&D is there really is something awesome about basic, you have everything needed to run campaigns from 1st to 14th level for both players and DMs in 128 pages.

 

[Reynard]

There's a part of me that wants to try and run Kingmaker using the BECMI rules. As much as I love Pathfinder, I would drop it in a second for BECMI if I could convince players to do so.

 

[delericho]

That more or less mirrors my experience. Although I still have the two books from the Basic Set, and can't find my Expert book anywhere

However, I don't think I would ever go back to a pre-3e version of the game, except as a one-shot deal. The quirks in the ruleset would very quickly drive me insane. While it's great in my memory... I think it's probably best left there.

(Which, actually, was also true of the D&D cartoon. I loved watching it as a kid. But watching it again with adult eyes was painful.)

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Mine were the Moldvay & Cook/Marsh versions!!

I think Basic version warring is still against the CoC EW!

 

[ExploderWizard]

I think Basic version warring is still against the CoC EW!

If its Basic then its all good. Don't be hatin. Nothing but love here.

 

[Wild Gazebo]

I played the Basic set and I devoured the Expert set!

I think I'll go open that box right now....

 

[Summer-Knight925]

I was born in 1993.

I convinced a few other people my age to play 1e (they play 4e, I was raised on 3e)

favorite edition by far is 1e. At least for me, one player kept rolling his eyes because "my elf isn't elven enough" which made me want to tear his throat out (which I did...in game terms of course, nothing like griffions killing the elven magic-user!) and he went home

the rest of the adventure was awesome, everyone else agreed that he was bringing us down...nothing like exploring that castle of ruined proportions only to find there are 2 dugeon levels (I sort of made this up on the fly as we went along, mitfu for the win people) and the human cleric was able to crawl out alive (during the final battle the dwarven fighter and the human magic-user died, all thanks to a nifty ogre king, woot for ogre kings!) and return to the village (the village of Nona-mii) to get the other players to make new characters (a human fighter this time, and an elven mage who is 'elven enough' for that player)

so 1e is awesome and I cannot give you enough cool points (not experience...that only goes so far).

Now I don't have any of the boxes...but I have the books and it's enough

our next game is scheduled for next month (thanks to our game cycle) and we're looking at adding a few others to our group...someone who doesn't complain about being 'not elven enough'

 

[pming]

Hiya

There's a part of me that wants to try and run Kingmaker using the BECMI rules. As much as I love Pathfinder, I would drop it in a second for BECMI if I could convince players to do so.

You could do what I did...go to Lulu and buy all my players a copy of Dark Dungeons (softback). I bought one for myself, one as a 'table copy' and then got myself one of the color hardback delux. That's 6 softbacks plus a delux hardback. Best $200 I've spent on RPG stuff in, literally, decades.

After I presented them each with their own rulebook, the first question I got was "So, you wanna play this game now?" (they're a bit sick of me wanting to try different games all the time). I said, "Sure, in the future, maybe after we're done with Josh's Council of Thieves campaign". A few weeks later we finished. When asked what they wanted to do..."Dark Dungeons". Cool!

Anyway, long story short(er)...I'm DM'ing the Paizo AP Second Darkness, using the Dark Dungeons rules. We are all LOVING IT TO DEATH! The players are starting to fall back into their old RPG selves. That is, they are starting to think of "What do I want to do?" when encountering something...be it creature, puzzle, trap, location, item, etc. They are getting away from their more recent mindset of thinking "What can my character do?". HUGE difference. The older rules are all about what the PLAYERS could think of doing, as opposed to more recent (re: post 2e) rules which tended to focus on what the CHARACTERS could think of or do.

Dark Dungeons. Buy it. Read it. Love it.

EDIT: On Kingmaker...that was the other AP I seriously considered. I still may end up doing that one...but it will be after Second Darkness. Probably with the same characters. I will probably use the DD rules for war ("WarMachine" rules for mass combat ala BECMI), with modifications based on how Kingmaker tries to do it. Of course, the PC's are likely to be much higher level than 1st...heheh. So there will definitly be some 'fixins' going on. But when you have 36 mortal levels to play with, and then 36 more immortal levels...well, that's a lot of wiggle room.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Stormonu]

Moldvay/Cook was where I really cut my teeth on the game, so I hear ya. Oddly, I always did like it better than 1E.

I know there's been a lot of OSR stuff coming out lately - beyond the rulebooks, has anyone been making modules specifically made to mesh with the old BECMI version of the game?