D&D General Basic Rule Set Help

[Mannahnin]

Pretty much the publication date. Any module after 83 is BECMI, which happened partway through the B and X module series which started in 81. The only things pre-BECMI are earlier B and X modules.

Everything later with different module codes or none are BECMI or later stuff. If you look at the narrative extra descriptions in the Basic PDFs it will say the publication date for them. Most of Basic is post B/X.

Rules Cyclopedia is basically a compilation BECMI BECM stuff and the later Basic boxed sets are just redoing levels 1-5 without system changes so those ones are all useable with BECMI with zero mechanical contradictions.

BECMI is mostly B/X but the thief has a significantly different (worse) progression in BECMI and there is a bunch of high level stuff that gets different (plus BECMI master set introduced weapon mastery which is not in base B/X at all). For a module the B/X ones are going to be fully compatible with BECMI. Holmes has a few little bits of weirdness but will still be 95% compatible as written.

This is what I was doing to write, basically.

Slight nitpick: Whether the BECMI Thief has a different and worse progression than the B/X Thief depends on how high level you actually play to, and which version of the E for Expert rules you're looking at.

As originally printed, the (dark blue, Larry Elmore mounted fighter vs. dragon cover art) 1983 Expert set has the exact same Thief skill percentages as the (medium blue, Erol Otus wizard scrying on fighter and M-U facing dragon cover art) 1981 Expert set. They only retroactively altered the Thief percentages to make space for higher level advancement once the Companion set was published in '84. They also altered saving throw progressions and a couple of classes' XP/level progressions. TSR printed an errata sheet for that and started including it in Expert sets after that. It might also have been distributed in Dragon Magazine.

Unfortunately the Rules Cyclopedia also carries forward the Thief nerfing.

More discussion of the errata sheet here:

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[aco175]

There is also the basic rules for the 5e system. Most of this one can tell the difference right away though. If you are looking for a gift for someone it might help.

 

[Andvari]

Mentzer has stated he sort of regrets using 36 levels and wishes he'd set the maximum to 20 instead. 10 years ago he also posted an idea for a revised thief class: https://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=17008

 

[Flying Toaster]

Slight nitpick: Whether the BECMI Thief has a different and worse progression than the B/X Thief depends on how high level you actually play to, and which version of the E for Expert rules you're looking at.

As originally printed, the (dark blue, Larry Elmore mounted fighter vs. dragon cover art) 1983 Expert set has the exact same Thief skill percentages as the (medium blue, Erol Otus wizard scrying on fighter and M-U facing dragon cover art) 1981 Expert set. They only retroactively altered the Thief percentages to make space for higher level advancement once the Companion set was published in '84. They also altered saving throw progressions and a couple of classes' XP/level progressions. TSR printed an errata sheet for that and started including it in Expert sets after that. It might also have been distributed in Dragon Magazine.

My friends and I learned to play with B/X and BECMI c. 1985-86 before graduating to AD&D 1E (post-UA). At the time we did not entirely understand the already fairly convoluted edition history of the game.

I got a mint or near-mint copy of the 1981 Moldvay Basic Set (including module B2) several years after it went out of print. An older friend then gave me his old copies of the 1981 Cook/Marsh Expert rules booklet and the matching module X1. Another friend had the newer 1983 BECMI line of box sets up through at least the Master set. We could always tell the two product lines apart based on the cover art by Erol Otus and Larry Elmore, plus the obvious differences in the interior art and layout. One day we compared our two Basic rule booklets, just out of curiosity, and since we did not find any discrepancies we assumed that the rules were identical.

It was only years later that I learned that there were minor differences between B/X and BECMI by reading threads here on EN World. Our standard way to handle situations not covered by the rules was ability checks done by rolling your ability score or under. We somehow assumed that this was RAW for all editions when in fact it only appeared in B/X, not BECMI or AD&D. We must have learned it from B/X or from older kids, and just never noticed that it did not appear in the newer rules.

The same-age friend who had the BECMI rules liked them and wanted to keep using them even though the rest of us had moved on to AD&D. I always preferred the more numerous character options of AD&D, so I never even bothered to buy the BECMI sets myself. In retrospect I should have tried to play a BECMI campaign with that guy as DM, while playing AD&D with my other friends.

 

[Flying Toaster]

B/X and BECMI are compatible, though not identical. Holmes was a real outlier. My impression from reading histories is that Gygax was very hands off with Holmes, who injected lots of his own ideas into the product. As to which each was made for, I think the best bet is to look at publication year.

The When We Were Wizards podcast says that J. Eric Holmes MD was a doctor who played “white box” D&D with his sons and thought the game needed an introductory version. Holmes volunteered to write it himself for free, so no surprise that Gary Gygax agreed. Perhaps Gygax was so hands off because he was already preoccupied with writing the AD&D books.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

As has been said, they're all interchangeable.

But when written:
Holmes - B1
Moldvay - B2 to B4, X1 to X2
Mentzer - B5 to B12, BSOLO, X3 & beyond, XSOLO

 

[Voadam]

As has been said, they're all interchangeable.

But when written:
Holmes - B1
Moldvay - B2 to B4, X1 to X2
Mentzer - B5 to B12, BSOLO, X3 & beyond, XSOLO

From the extended description on B2 Keep on the Borderlands:

Product History

"B2: The Keep on the Borderlands" (1979), by Gary Gygax, was printed by TSR in December 1979. It was probably TSR's twelfth adventure, and the first one to use a full-color cover, rather than the monochrome covers that had been used for the previous 11 adventures.

Basic Sets. Like its predecessor, "B1: In Search of the Unknown," this adventure was created for use with the first edition of the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set (1977), created by J. Eric Holmes. Once it was printed, "Keep on the Borderlands" immediately replaced "In Search of the Unknown" in the Basic boxed set.

However, "Keep" is much better known as the adventure packaged with the second edition Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set (1981), which was revised and updated by Tom Moldvay. It remained a part of that package throughout its life (1981-1983).

 

[Reynard]

From the extended description on B2 Keep on the Borderlands:

Product History

"B2: The Keep on the Borderlands" (1979), by Gary Gygax, was printed by TSR in December 1979. It was probably TSR's twelfth adventure, and the first one to use a full-color cover, rather than the monochrome covers that had been used for the previous 11 adventures.

Basic Sets. Like its predecessor, "B1: In Search of the Unknown," this adventure was created for use with the first edition of the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set (1977), created by J. Eric Holmes. Once it was printed, "Keep on the Borderlands" immediately replaced "In Search of the Unknown" in the Basic boxed set.

However, "Keep" is much better known as the adventure packaged with the second edition Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set (1981), which was revised and updated by Tom Moldvay. It remained a part of that package throughout its life (1981-1983).

So I started with the Mentzer Basic Set (BECMI) and it did not come with a separate module like B2. it included a "teaching" dungeon that progressed from solo adventure portions through "and now, young DM, fill out the rest of this dungeon!" which I still believe is the reason so many of us took to DMing so early. But another element of that "adventure" was it had a memorable villain (Bargle) and a built in hook (revenge for Aleena's death). I have never really thought deeply about how that set must have created different expectations than the previous sets with B2 or B1. Was the Mentzer set part of the Hickman revolution era? We were learning about adventures as stories?

 

[Andvari]

It was only years later that I learned that there were minor differences between B/X and BECMI by reading threads here on EN World. Our standard way to handle situations not covered by the rules was ability checks done by rolling your ability score or under. We somehow assumed that this was RAW for all editions when in fact it only appeared in B/X, not BECMI or AD&D. We must have learned it from B/X or from older kids, and just never noticed that it did not appear in the newer rules.

Interestingly, ability checks made it into the Rules Cyclopedia (page 143).