OSR What's the best introductory BX/OSR scenario for new players and DMs?

[The Sigil]

Surprised no one has yet mentioned B11 - King's Festival. While it's not technically BX, it is BECMI, which is a very close cousin, and B11 actually does a pretty good job of walking a new DM through, you know, DM'ing in my opinion. Pages 3 through 9 are a DM tutorial with the following section headers (note the "Dungeon Master's Problem Guide" section which goes over a lot of scenarios that a new DM is likely to worry about):

• Getting Started
• Characters
• Equipment
• Preparing to Play
• The Organized Dungeon Master
• Time and Movement
• Experience and Experience Points
• The Descriptive Dungeon Master
• Monsters and NPCs
• Running Combat
• This is a Role-Playing Game!
• The Dungeon Master's Problem Guide

- The PCs do Something Awkward
- The PCs Don't Do (or Find) Something They Should
- A PC Tries an Action Not Covered in the Rules
- Quiet Players
- Disruptive PCs and Players
- Characters and Alignment
- You Make a Major Blunder
- A PC Dies

To say nothing of some of the "Adventure Clock" on Page 20 to help with Timekeeping.

Is all of the advice great? No. Some of it is somewhat dated to its time, but I still think it's one of the best BECMI resources I've seen for new DMs. A few sample quotes follow that I think are still relevant today:

"You can recover from almost any error. The first thing to remember is that no one expects you to be perfect."

"...you should have a back-up plan for providing [critical] information or item (such as a key) the PCs need to complete the dungeon. Just move the clue to another location where the PCs will find it."

"...if it is plain that the player insists on playing a character who is disruptive and creates problems, that player should firmly but politely be asked to leave the game. Disruptive PCs and players have been the death of more than one gaming group."

" ... If there were no possibility of a PC dying, the game would probably lose its thrill. Occasionally, a character will perish. But this should not happen often, unless you are being careless with the strength of enemies facing the PCs or cruel. "Killer dungeons" are dreadful and should be avoided at all costs."

 

[Gus L]

What I like about r/OSR is when people actually post something they created. What I don't like is how many posts are just game recommendations, and then especially when the chud-dy types come out

I can't fault that - but I don't think most of it today really touches on "OSR", which is fine in that we're in a Post-OSR period and the sort of ultralight/classic system with 5E sensibilities is one of the dominant Post-OSR scenes. Sort of the equivalent of 1980's Pop-Punk vs. 1970's Punk.

One of the primary things that depresses me about r/osr though is that it seems to me to largely be people reinventing the same ideas and same mechanics that were published on some OSR blog 10 years ago. Every few months someone comes in all excited because they have figured out slot encumbrance or proposing that "shields must be splintered". It's a place without memory or a significant connection to actual OSR design or play.

 

[Gus L]

Surprised no one has yet mentioned B11 - King's Festival.

Is all of the advice great? No. Some of it is somewhat dated to its time, but I still think it's one of the best BECMI resources I've seen for new DMs. A few sample quotes follow that I think are still relevant today:

The short answer is that it's very much a BECMI adventure - meaning it can be summed up with the reoccurring BECMI design mantra "The monsters attack until killed" ... more specifically the advice isn't terrible, nor is some of the keying, but what it teaches a new referee strikes me as some basic techniques of "Trad" design. What the "five room dungeon" is to Contemporary Trad Design, something like B11 is to 1980's Trad. Mainly it lacks any real exploration aspect, little opportunity for intrigue/RPing, and the most bland cartoony approach to fantasy.

I know it's popular among certain Post-OSR groups who see the goal of play as preserving an idealized version of 1970's - 1980's play unchanged and who presumably find it's lack of creativity, Law v. Chaos ethics, and strict adherence to vernacular fantasy positives, but for me it's one of the worst of the B series.

This was my review of it a decade ago:

B11 - King's Festival - Review

KING ’ s FESTIVal That's a Cool Cover with Solid 80's Beefcake B11, Kings Festival is in many ways the opposite of B10-Night’s Dar...

dungeonofsigns.blogspot.com

Today I see it in a more critical light.

 

[The Sigil]

Mainly it lacks any real exploration aspect, little opportunity for intrigue/RPing, and the most bland cartoony approach to fantasy.

This is certainly a fair criticism, though I would argue that any adventure that attempts to give a deep example of each of combat encounters, realistic ecology, large swathes of exploration content, chances to engage in RP and intrigue, etc. will contain sufficient material as to disqualify it as an "introductory" module. As I have commented elsewhere, the most important operational word in the request for "the best introductory module" is "introductory" - I think the "best" module which incorporates everything you seem to be looking for will lose out on "introductory" in lieu of "best."

I know it's popular among certain Post-OSR groups who see the goal of play as preserving an idealized version of 1970's - 1980's play unchanged and who presumably find it's lack of creativity, Law v. Chaos ethics, and strict adherence to vernacular fantasy positives, but for me it's one of the worst of the B series.

I admit to not being super-familiar with the OSR scene, but it was my impression that in general OSR gamers seem to be looking for some combination of:
1. Reduced Rules Complexity
2. Nostalgia/"Old School Feel" (how does this differ from "preserve an idealized version of 1970's-1980's play" I wonder? Serious Question)
3. Using a system they are already familiar with (this is more for the older crowd that played these games and doesn't want to learn a new system, either due to laziness or more likely being happy enough with the old system to tolerate using it in lieu of using a more recent system with different - not necessarily more or less in number or severity - issues)
4. Quick character creation (Kind of goes with #1), which means characters can be more disposable.

I don't want to hijack this thread with a discussion of OSR, so I will just note having read your review from a decade ago that it seems that your issue with the module is mostly that it doesn't fit with your personal sensibilities (which your statement above kind of agrees with, noting it is popular with other groups "but for [you] it's one of the worst" and which your comments here and in your blog suggest that you found it over-simplistic and wanted something a little deeper/larger in scope, which is an opinion you are certainly entitled to for a "module" but I think it's worth pointing out as an experienced player looking for depth in a module, you are not really the "introductory" module's target audience.

This was my review of it a decade ago:

B11 - King's Festival - Review

KING ’ s FESTIVal That's a Cool Cover with Solid 80's Beefcake B11, Kings Festival is in many ways the opposite of B10-Night’s Dar...

dungeonofsigns.blogspot.com

Today I see it in a more critical light.

Thank you for linking this, it was an interesting read and I will probably poke around that blog for some more reading.

 

[The Sigil]

Undermountain? DL2 - Dragon's of Story Arc? Railroad of the Slavelords? B10 - Welcome to the World's Smallest Orc Hole?

Going to assume you meant "B11 - Welcome to the World's Smallest Orc Hole" since you seem to speak highly of B10 - Night's Dark Terror elsewhere.

 

[Gus L]

As I have commented elsewhere, the most important operational word in the request for "the best introductory module" is "introductory" - I think the "best" module which incorporates everything you seem to be looking for will lose out on "introductory" in lieu of "best."

Here's the thing though... OSR play and B/X play (Not BECMI - because play style is the major difference) is a style focused on exploration. Combat, intrigue, and puzzle solving are all part of it, but in general it's about what I like to phrase as "The procedural navigation of a fantastical space." The other aspects of play support the exploration and discovery involved in it. Plus and again ... King's Festival is boring.

I admit to not being super-familiar with the OSR scene, but it was my impression that in general OSR gamers seem to be looking for some combination of:
[...]
2. Nostalgia/"Old School Feel" (how does this differ from "preserve an idealized version of 1970's-1980's play" I wonder? Serious Question).

Now you are right that the "OSR" is hard to pin down, and really not worth it. I do want to comment though on the place of nostalgia within it. You are correct that for a few OSR folks strict emulation of older games and systems has long been their goal. "Playing like Gary Did" and all that nonsense. I say nonsense because that's the fundamental trick to nostalgia - just as it was for homesick Swiss mercenaries when the term was coined. You can't actually get back to the past, you can't return to your own even, (same river twice blah blah blah...) because the present and everything else has intervened and changed you, but also because nostalgic pasts are by definition idealized. Most of us (I hope) aren't actually yearning to a game of D&D in a 1980's wood paneled basement with a bunch of 12 year olds on Summer vacation ... we're yearning for the simplicity of youth and the fun of discovery and creativity that these memories evoke, or that we have assigned to the idea of rec-room, youth D&D even if we never experienced it.

Now practically that means that efforts at nostalgic recreation are never actually the same as the thing they want to recreate. If we want to use nostalgia productively we can recognize this and examine the nostalgic impulse rather then fruitlessly trying to recapture a lost time through rote repetition. I'd like to think that the relationship between the more successful (and the OSR has been successful) part of the OSR and nostalgia is this one: examining old rulesets and memories to decide on what elements of play one wants to create/capture and how they might do it? Basically asking "Why was that old game so fun?"

For many, especially in the most productive and formative years of the OSR (roughly 2012 - 2017 by my estimation) this nostalgic aspect was about using old simple systems for A) online play (to overcome the grownup issue of not having time to play, and gathering up a community of fellow players easily for campaigns and drop in tables etc.) B) capturing some of the wonder that fantasy had when we were young - which often meant stepping away from tired Gygaxian vernacular tropes (orc holes and +2 swords etc) for weird ideas and weird spaces that the players had to figure out as they played. This last one I think is a big distinction between OSR and actual 1970's/1980's play. The simplicity of B/X was a perfect shared springboard because of its adaptability and approachability, allowing the OSR author or referee to create their own strange worlds with a sharable and comprehensible baseline. Things like Deep Carbon Observatory and Anomalous Subsurface Environment to me are quintessential OSR adventures.

I could obviously go on. I will stop. Here's a link to some more ideas on how exploration works in old systems from my current blog that might help explain my position on B11:

The Classic Dungeon Crawl

All Dead Generations is first an effort to understand how and why classic (pre-1990 or so) fantasy table top roleplaying games were enjoyabl...

alldeadgenerations.blogspot.com

Note that the blog name is a specific reference to nostalgia, and it's dangers.

Also yes, my dislike for it is largely that it is boring. I think this is more then just taste though - boring setting, by which I mean "vanilla", The Forgotten Realms, or Gygaxian vernacular fantasy stifle the imagination - they teach the referee to look to cliches for world building and adventure design rather then to imagine their own fantastical settings. This is partially because they are so "full" - almost every detail is already written, and new ideas are often precluded by the established. I think it's something bad to teach new players and referees. Better a scenario filled with mysteries and hints that the players and referee can fill in themselves.