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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Willie the Duck" data-source="post: 8460667" data-attributes="member: 6799660">Full disclosure: I started with an unholy amalgam of BX, BECMI, and parts of 1e that we cobbled together with little regard for any contradictions. So I have a love of both BX and BECMI for nostalgic reasons.Even beyond the thief abilities and immortal rules, BECMI's 1-36 setup seems to be a whole lot of empty space looking for purpose. Once you hit name level, a lot of things really plateau (even with the additional skill and weapon mastery and similar subsystems, you mostly just get more of the same). Spellcasters keep changing until the get Cleric 7th and Magic User 9th level spells in the upper teens, but after that there's a whole bunch of white space that seems to be there to hit some number that made sense to Gary and Mentzer numerologically (be it 6x6=36, or just a level 1-3 basic set and then 11-level books after that). All of TSR D&D suffered from the issue that many-to-most people didn't end up wanting to retire their character* or settle down and lead a castle, army, or nation when they hit name level, yet the developers never figured out what else specifically to do otherwise. BECMI just suffers the most in that it has 26-27 actual (more well-defined than, say AD&D) levels to go at that point (plus the whole demihumans have level limits... but then kinda sorta get to keep advancing in weird totally-not-levels, which makes the whole thing look extra making-it-up-as-you-go-along). *although many a campaign did collapse at about this pointPersonally I like some parts of BECMI like the idea of domain rules, weapon mastery, the eventual (Gazetteer driven) skill system, and the whole quest for immortality thing. Thing is, the implementations of most of those is nothing special, by OSR standards, so I'd rather see someone else's take on such things. Worlds Without Number does domains and social groups and such better, Beyond the Wall does skills better (both are super simple, but if you want to keep advancing in a skill you get a +2 per skill point put into it, rather than the glacial +1 per 4 levels BECMI had). Most OSR combat rebuilds are more balanced (and boy howdy easier to read than that chart in the Masters rulebook or RC) than the weapon mastery rules.</blockquote>

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