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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mannahnin" data-source="post: 8640823" data-attributes="member: 7026594">Amusingly, the original Holmes Basic set, the only one which was purely an introductory beginners' game, still had separate race & class, as it was an adaptation of OD&D, in which they were originally separate (although demihumans didn't have a lot of options).Race as class was first introduced in the 1981 Moldvay Basic & Cook Expert, then continued in 1983's Mentzer BECM series.  Apparently part of the intent was indeed to be simpler for new young players, but part of it was also that B/X was prompted by one of the Arneson lawsuits over royalties on AD&D 1E, and TSR wanted to make the "Dungeons & Dragons" game more distinct from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.Right, I think this is the approach most people who enjoy race as class take.  The idea is that demi-humans are DIFFERENT. They operate by different rules and don't do all the same stuff humans do, and this mechanizes part of the setting.  I'm generally a fan of this approach, though I still enjoy games that have them separate.Given the ease of designing racial classes in the B/X framework, you can also flesh them out with more options if you want to.  Adventurer, Conqueror, King takes this approach in building on B/X, giving demihumans more options without making them the same as the human classes.Thankfully the level caps are significantly higher in B/X than they are in OD&D.  In B/X Halflings cap out the lowest at 8th, Elves at 10th and Dwarves at 12th, which isn't too bad when the max level in the game is 14th.Definitely one thing I think is neat about the racial classes in B/X is just being able to have elves pay more xp for being a straight up fighter/mage with some extra abilities.  Elves ARE badass.  But taking the same amount of xp to hit 2nd level as the Fighter needs to hit 3rd is a cost.  My most successful OSE character from my online play during the pandemic has been a Half Elf from advanced OSE.  He has notably inferior spellcasting compared to a full Elf, but advances faster.  There are multiple times I've rued that (and not having the immunity to ghoul paralysis!), but OTOH, there have also been multiple encounters where I would have died if I was lower level, due to having fewer HP.If you're doing a one-shot with characters starting above 1st level in pre-WotC editions, you always want to specify the number of xp rather than the level for characters to be generated.  If you specify 20,000, for example, your Magic Users will be 5th level, but your Elves will still be 4th.5 Torches Deep does this.  If you're human it has you roll 3d6 in order, but you can swap two.  Demi-humans get a fixed above-average value for their main ability scores, and roll others on 2d6+3.</blockquote>

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