Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="teitan" data-source="post: 7949439" data-attributes="member: 3457">I never really got to play BX, I played BECMI as noted in the Basic thread. I honestly view BECMI and B/X as different games because of the added layers that Mentzer brought in that made BECMI almost as complex as AD&amp;D2e was but in a more logical manner aside from the Race as Class thing, which I totally didn't understand why it was a thing even though my first exposure was the White Box. I'd gotten so used to AD&amp;D with race and class separate that I didn't connect the dots that other than the Thief class, the race as class element was basically just playing OD&amp;D with some experience requirement modifications. B/X is, from my reading and nutshell analysis, a more favorable thief and less cluttered system that shows how the core D&amp;D design is extremely elegant without all the barnacles of Non Weapon Proficiencies, skill systems, weapon proficiencies, psionics and blahdee blah. Stripped of all that, as B/X is, is a remarkably simple, efficient &amp; elegant system for an RPG that I think gets to the root of why D&amp;D is popular. It's simpler than the majority of so-called &quot;rules lite&quot; games while having depth. The lack of fiddly bits allows players &amp; DMs to focus on the story and the numbers take a back seat when necessary. When I played BECMI &amp; enjoyed it, it was stripped by the DM of Weapon Mastery and the like, no Mystics or Druids. The only flaw was the thief sucked. B/X doesn't have quite so much thief suckage.&nbsp; Heck, reading got me to buy Lamentations of the Flame Princess, which is a B/X derived system and it's very well done and the alterations to the thief make it work even better. I've thought about extrapolating it into an AD&amp;D game and integrating a simple skill system based on it.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="teitan, post: 7949439, member: 3457"] I never really got to play BX, I played BECMI as noted in the Basic thread. I honestly view BECMI and B/X as different games because of the added layers that Mentzer brought in that made BECMI almost as complex as AD&D2e was but in a more logical manner aside from the Race as Class thing, which I totally didn't understand why it was a thing even though my first exposure was the White Box. I'd gotten so used to AD&D with race and class separate that I didn't connect the dots that other than the Thief class, the race as class element was basically just playing OD&D with some experience requirement modifications. B/X is, from my reading and nutshell analysis, a more favorable thief and less cluttered system that shows how the core D&D design is extremely elegant without all the barnacles of Non Weapon Proficiencies, skill systems, weapon proficiencies, psionics and blahdee blah. Stripped of all that, as B/X is, is a remarkably simple, efficient & elegant system for an RPG that I think gets to the root of why D&D is popular. It's simpler than the majority of so-called "rules lite" games while having depth. The lack of fiddly bits allows players & DMs to focus on the story and the numbers take a back seat when necessary. When I played BECMI & enjoyed it, it was stripped by the DM of Weapon Mastery and the like, no Mystics or Druids. The only flaw was the thief sucked. B/X doesn't have quite so much thief suckage. Heck, reading got me to buy Lamentations of the Flame Princess, which is a B/X derived system and it's very well done and the alterations to the thief make it work even better. I've thought about extrapolating it into an AD&D game and integrating a simple skill system based on it. [/QUOTE]

Verification