OSR BECMI, how do you say it?


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Cruentus

Adventurer
Bee-Ex and Beck-me. Saying each letter sounds strange to me. Of course, I spent 20+ years in an organization built upon acronyms. So making up words based on the acronym was a major part of the job, we never just used the letters.
 

Andvari

Hero
Beck me. Although when I played it in the 90s we just said "Dungeons & Dragons." If the acronym was in use back then, we didn't know about it.
 

I type them out a lot more than I say them, but mentally in my head they can interchangeably be B.E.C.M.I, beck-me, Mentzer, 'the Mentzer boxed sets,' or 'the five colored boxed sets' depending on the needs of the conversation.
 


Iosue

Legend
I say “beck-mi” in my head when I see it written out, but have never had an occasion to say it out loud. Back in the day, we just called it D&D, distinct from AD&D.

Which brings me to own personal, private peccadillo. I hate when people refer to B/X or BECMI or RC as a whole as “Basic D&D.” It wasn’t basic. The Basic Rules, such as they were, only covered the first three levels. If anything, it should be called “Expert D&D”, since that was where the bulk of the play was. And certainly by the time you get to the Master Set of BECMI, the game is as complex and baroque as AD&D.
 

Snarf Zagyg

Notorious Liquefactionist
I say “beck-mi” in my head when I see it written out, but have never had an occasion to say it out loud. Back in the day, we just called it D&D, distinct from AD&D.

Which brings me to own personal, private peccadillo. I hate when people refer to B/X or BECMI or RC as a whole as “Basic D&D.” It wasn’t basic. The Basic Rules, such as they were, only covered the first three levels. If anything, it should be called “Expert D&D”, since that was where the bulk of the play was. And certainly by the time you get to the Master Set of BECMI, the game is as complex and baroque as AD&D.

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