BECMI: not D&D?

[an_idol_mind]

With all the talk of the flavor changes in 4th edition making the game not D&D anymore, I got to thinking...

Imagine a D&D game where the designers didn't include the half-orc, half-elf, or gnome as races. In fact, there are really no races at all; you are either a human with a choice of four classes, or you are one of three "demi-humans" who are classes themselves. There are no demons or devils at all. The gods themselves have been taken right out of the game, replaced with beings called immortals. The Great Wheel doesn't exist. Levels go up to 36 instead of 20, and there is no multi-classing whatsoever. You can't be a paladin unless you're a 9th-level fighter, and druids don't get a wildshape ability -- in fact, they don't exist at all unless your DM allows an option rule that gives your 9th-level cleric a chance to become a druid. The spells have no Greyhawk surnames in front of them, and the mind flayer isn't included in the core rules.

Based on how many people claim that 4th edition won't be D&D anymore, it's interesting to see how different the game that actually was Dungeons & Dragons for close to two decades is absolutely nothing like what most people consider quintessential D&D.

 

[Remathilis]

Based on how many people claim that 4th edition won't be D&D anymore, it's interesting to see how different the game that actually was Dungeons & Dragons for close to two decades is absolutely nothing like what most people consider quintessential D&D.

I find (and people will correct me) when you hear people talk about "old classic D&D", they are talking about either first edition, the Holmes/Moldvay sets, or the Gygax/Anderson pamphlets. Few, it seemed, ever played or stuck with the BECMI (Menzer) set beyond BE. Fewer still didn't mix some manner of 1e (or later, 2e) in with it. So I'm sure some purists (or anyone who owned the Cyclopedia) would recognize a game of D&D without Mordenkainen's Sword, Balors, or gnomes-as-PCs as "old skool" but just as many probably never played, didn't notice, or didn't care about such things and thus these "back to basics" elements seem Un-D&D to them.

On the other hand, some of us are stoked by the "BECMI-ing" of D&D

 

[WayneLigon]

Excellent point.

 

[Jer]

I find (and people will correct me) when you hear people talk about "old classic D&D", they are talking about either first edition, the Holmes/Moldvay sets, or the Gygax/Anderson pamphlets. Few, it seemed, ever played or stuck with the BECMI (Menzer) set beyond BE.

I know I'm probably in the minority, but I despised running 1e AD&D. I stuck with B/X D&D for a long time. You're right that we rarely went beyond the Basic/Expert sets with our games, but that's because the Expert set was the "sweet spot" - once you got up to Companion level characters you were fiddling with building strongholds, running domains and conquering your neighbors. That was fun once, and taking those characters into Master levels was also fun, but really, the "best" games of my youth were the ones hitting 3rd-10th levels.

Fewer still didn't mix some manner of 1e (or later, 2e) in with it.

Heh - I tended to only use Monster Manuals from 1e AD&D. For 2e I ran a Planescape campaign using B/X rules - that was a trip. But in general you almost had to mix in some AD&D stuff early on because there was so little support for the system beyond the boxed set and the modules (the Creature Catalog was a godsend when it finally arrived, even if it mostly just compiled monsters that had appeared in various adventure modules).

But I never pulled in the various races or spells from the AD&D PHB - the race/class thing in D&D was too different to pull in races without doing some work, and the spell lists in AD&D just seemed to be filled with a bunch of useless "filler spells" - most of the "best" spells seemed like they were on the wizard and cleric spell lists already.

 

[mhensley]

This is why all this talk of devils and demons doesn't sound like D&D to me. What about the Thouls?

 

[Barastrondo]

Morgan Ironwolf is my iconic.

 

[Maggan]

Based on how many people claim that 4th edition won't be D&D anymore, it's interesting to see how different the game that actually was Dungeons & Dragons for close to two decades is absolutely nothing like what most people consider quintessential D&D.

For me, BECM D&D is the iconic version of the game.

/M

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Agreed.

Aside from the Spelljammer (and to a lesser extent Dark Sun) settings for AD&D 2e, BECMI D&D's fluff is far, far more appealing to me than AD&D/3e's, and its rules far more than AD&D. Indeed, I dumped AD&D entirely once I realized it would be faster and more fun to convert Spelljammer to BECMI.

 

[Wormwood]

What about the Thouls?

And just like that, I'm eleven years old again.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

Morgan Ironwolf is my iconic.

I've purchased several used copies of the B/X books, and in every single one someone used a pencil or pen to emphasize Morgan's nipples. That was you, wasn't it?