Zardnaar
Legend
I have been thinking about this thread for a while now. Basically my idea is to read through the adventure line for the old BECMI adventure modules. So why now? Goodman Games is releasing a new book with the original B1 and B2 adventures along with conversions of them to 5E+ added material. Also interesting is the BECMI Rules Cyclopedia has been added to print on demand. Also in a lot of ways 5E borrowed a lot of concepts from BECMI. The tiers of play, magical weapons and armor topping out at +3, the tiers, Basic D&D, the drive towards simplifying the game, and the starter set one could argue all came from BECMI vs AD&D, 3E and 4E.
Some of these are very famous and usually turn up in the lists of various greatest D&D adventures of all time (B1- B4, X1) while others have more or less fallen off the radar of the D&D player base (usually the CMI part and the later half of the B/X part). I will be going through them and sharing my thoughts on them in regards to converting them to 5E. To be fair I will also take into consideration when they were made, what the goal of the adventure was, and how interesting they are to read. Note this is mostly an impression, I do not have time to play through them obviously. I suspect you could probably play for several years in weekly games using the original BECMI rules, clones of those editions or converting them to 5E.
They will be not be marked down for being an example of their times although I might comment on some things such as cheesecake art or other 80ism's. So they will not be penalised for B/W art of dubious quality, being to simple, or having copious amounts of treasures. I also will not mark it down for what may be sexist or racist by modern standards (rescue the princess, Polynesian orcs, some of the art work etc). The product line was an example of an organic world (The Known World/Mystara), and some cultures there are based on real world cultures so you have things like fantasy Arabs riding flying carpets interacting with D&D Djinn's. You also have things like fantasy Teutonic Knights doing things in parts of the world not to far removed what they got up to in the Baltic states. Early D&D drew heavily on medieval myths, tropes and legends sprinkled in with things like Arabian Knights and the myths of Greece and Rome.
The things I will be looking at are.
1. Is this adventure interesting/ a good read. Basically do I want to play it. If it was a bad adventure back then obviously the appeal of converting it to 5E is not really there unless the conversion fixes mechanics that made the adventure bad. Older adventures tended to not have a particularly strong hook or metaplot so I won't judge them to badly for that.
2. How easy is it to convert to 5E? Some of these can be converted to 5E more or less by replacing 6 goblins with 6 5E goblins. This approach however can backfire very very badly due to changes between the editions. For example 20 kobolds in BECMI could be rough but you had things like larger parties and sleep spells. 20 kobolds in 5E is a probable TPK to a low level party (potentially back then as well depending on various factors).
3. Overall impression of the module. I will rate the adventure overall. Note this is just an IMHO and some adventure play better or worse than what you can pick up on just by reading it. Its mostly a first impression.
What is BECMI and the Expectations?
There used to be 2 D&D line back in the day (very briefly 3), that were in print. You had Advanced D&D (which became 1E), and D&D. D&D was more basic than AD&D- you only had 7 classes/races, there was no distinction between class and race so you could be a Dwarf but not a Dwarf Fighter. The Basic line was level 1-3, expert level 4-14, Companion 15- 25 and Masters Level 26-36. The Immortal line was for PCs that have basically ascended to godhood. Put together you have BECMI. The B line was mostly about low level dungeon delving, the X (Expert) line introduced a ot of wilderness adventures, the C line was establishing domains (becoming rulers), while the Masters line was about world and continent spanning threats. The Immortal line was effectively a different game. In 5E terms it roughly corresponds to the 4 tiers of play (page 36 DMG) with the Immortals tier basically being dropped.
The expectations of early D&D are also a bit different than modern D&D. Basically a lot of modern players have wondered how players survived past level 2. For the most part the B series adventures were not that hard, party sizes were often larger (6-8 players) and you might have an assortment of hirelings and henchmen to help out. Monsters were also a lot weaker, for example Kobolds might have 2 or 3 hit points, +0 to hit and deal 1d3 damage. NPCs ere also often located in the adventure to help out (read heal) the PCs so co-operation and being a hero was rewarded. The game had things like morale checks and a high charisma was heavily rewarded in terms of trying to talk your way out of trouble (reactions were rolled on 2d6 not d20 so +1, +2 or +3 bonus from charisma was huge). Monsters would often break and run due to flunked morale checks as well so you did not have to kill everything. You might encounter a large group of orcs, mow a few of them down with archery/sleep spells and the rest would run.
The modules also have a copious amount of magic items by 5E standards but they were mostly low powered ones. You could also find a copious amount of treasure, B2 for example has over 30k gold worth of loot in it. This was because 1gp=1xp back in the day and you required 1200-2500xp to reach level 2. A Kobold was worth 5xp, a Hobgoblin 15xp. You were better off being sneaking and grabbing the loot rather than trying to wade in. Also the average sleep spell back then could knock out 18 Kobolds (or 9 Goblins/Hobgoblins) vs 4 or 5 in 5E.
This thread if people are interested will likely take several months to go through all of the modules, and like most APs might die off in the mid levels. I hope to make it to at least the C part of the BECMI line.
Some of these are very famous and usually turn up in the lists of various greatest D&D adventures of all time (B1- B4, X1) while others have more or less fallen off the radar of the D&D player base (usually the CMI part and the later half of the B/X part). I will be going through them and sharing my thoughts on them in regards to converting them to 5E. To be fair I will also take into consideration when they were made, what the goal of the adventure was, and how interesting they are to read. Note this is mostly an impression, I do not have time to play through them obviously. I suspect you could probably play for several years in weekly games using the original BECMI rules, clones of those editions or converting them to 5E.
They will be not be marked down for being an example of their times although I might comment on some things such as cheesecake art or other 80ism's. So they will not be penalised for B/W art of dubious quality, being to simple, or having copious amounts of treasures. I also will not mark it down for what may be sexist or racist by modern standards (rescue the princess, Polynesian orcs, some of the art work etc). The product line was an example of an organic world (The Known World/Mystara), and some cultures there are based on real world cultures so you have things like fantasy Arabs riding flying carpets interacting with D&D Djinn's. You also have things like fantasy Teutonic Knights doing things in parts of the world not to far removed what they got up to in the Baltic states. Early D&D drew heavily on medieval myths, tropes and legends sprinkled in with things like Arabian Knights and the myths of Greece and Rome.
The things I will be looking at are.
1. Is this adventure interesting/ a good read. Basically do I want to play it. If it was a bad adventure back then obviously the appeal of converting it to 5E is not really there unless the conversion fixes mechanics that made the adventure bad. Older adventures tended to not have a particularly strong hook or metaplot so I won't judge them to badly for that.
2. How easy is it to convert to 5E? Some of these can be converted to 5E more or less by replacing 6 goblins with 6 5E goblins. This approach however can backfire very very badly due to changes between the editions. For example 20 kobolds in BECMI could be rough but you had things like larger parties and sleep spells. 20 kobolds in 5E is a probable TPK to a low level party (potentially back then as well depending on various factors).
3. Overall impression of the module. I will rate the adventure overall. Note this is just an IMHO and some adventure play better or worse than what you can pick up on just by reading it. Its mostly a first impression.
What is BECMI and the Expectations?
There used to be 2 D&D line back in the day (very briefly 3), that were in print. You had Advanced D&D (which became 1E), and D&D. D&D was more basic than AD&D- you only had 7 classes/races, there was no distinction between class and race so you could be a Dwarf but not a Dwarf Fighter. The Basic line was level 1-3, expert level 4-14, Companion 15- 25 and Masters Level 26-36. The Immortal line was for PCs that have basically ascended to godhood. Put together you have BECMI. The B line was mostly about low level dungeon delving, the X (Expert) line introduced a ot of wilderness adventures, the C line was establishing domains (becoming rulers), while the Masters line was about world and continent spanning threats. The Immortal line was effectively a different game. In 5E terms it roughly corresponds to the 4 tiers of play (page 36 DMG) with the Immortals tier basically being dropped.
The expectations of early D&D are also a bit different than modern D&D. Basically a lot of modern players have wondered how players survived past level 2. For the most part the B series adventures were not that hard, party sizes were often larger (6-8 players) and you might have an assortment of hirelings and henchmen to help out. Monsters were also a lot weaker, for example Kobolds might have 2 or 3 hit points, +0 to hit and deal 1d3 damage. NPCs ere also often located in the adventure to help out (read heal) the PCs so co-operation and being a hero was rewarded. The game had things like morale checks and a high charisma was heavily rewarded in terms of trying to talk your way out of trouble (reactions were rolled on 2d6 not d20 so +1, +2 or +3 bonus from charisma was huge). Monsters would often break and run due to flunked morale checks as well so you did not have to kill everything. You might encounter a large group of orcs, mow a few of them down with archery/sleep spells and the rest would run.
The modules also have a copious amount of magic items by 5E standards but they were mostly low powered ones. You could also find a copious amount of treasure, B2 for example has over 30k gold worth of loot in it. This was because 1gp=1xp back in the day and you required 1200-2500xp to reach level 2. A Kobold was worth 5xp, a Hobgoblin 15xp. You were better off being sneaking and grabbing the loot rather than trying to wade in. Also the average sleep spell back then could knock out 18 Kobolds (or 9 Goblins/Hobgoblins) vs 4 or 5 in 5E.
This thread if people are interested will likely take several months to go through all of the modules, and like most APs might die off in the mid levels. I hope to make it to at least the C part of the BECMI line.
