Meditations on BECMI/Classic

[Betote]

BECMI and 3.X are two very different birds. I'd say they're almost opposites. While BECMI is all about a focused dungeon crawling, with clear, explicit roles and a "wing it" spirit for everything else, 3.X is much more systematic, with a simulationist approach (I don't want to start discussing what "simulationist" means here).

For what I've seen of 4E, it is closer to BECMI than to 3.X. This isn't better nor worse, just different. I plan to run a 3.5 game on Friday and a Rules Cyclopedia one on Sunday, and I'm sure they'll both be equally fun, although with very different playstyles.

IMO, this summer we'll have "evoluved" versions of the greatest fantasy RPGs of 20 years ago:
OD&D/BECMI -> D&D 4E
RuneQuest -> RuneQuest
AD&D -> Castles & Crusades
Rolemaster -> D&D 3.5

 

[Mouseferatu]

I have a cherished copy of the Rules Cyclopedia. I pull it out and read through it every now and again. Haven't played using those rules in ages though.

I'm really interested in Mouseferatu's claim that 4e reminds him of BECMI/Rules Cyclopedia. That would be fantastic in my opinion.

It does, indeed, though I think it's important to clarify that point.

I'm not saying that the mechanics of 4E are very much like BECMI. Anyone who's followed 4E so far already knows that.

What I'm talking about is, and I apologize in advance for the fuzzy/unclear nature of this, in the "feel" of the game. To me, there's something about 4E's combination of rules and style that just feels, not identical to BECMI by any means, but more like it than 3E or even 2E ever did.

I don't know if I can clarify or quantify that. I can't point to any specific detail and say "This is like Basic!" It just feels, to me, like the two games are closer in spirit than either are to 3E.

Whether that's good, bad, or meaningless to anyone but me--or whether anyone else will even wind up feeling the same, or if I'm just a freak --I wouldn't dare speculate.

 

[Remathilis]

I'll start by saying I love Classic D&D. First edition played was Rule Cyclopedia, and its still special in my heart. Most of my friends have played from 2e on (though some recall RC).

However, I don't think I could ever *really* go back home, so to speak.

compared to the chaos of 1e/2e and the convolution of 3e, BECMI is a godsend. Its simple, its compact, its pretty much everything D&D should be boiled down into a wonderful package. However, its a bit too compact these days. I recall the big selling point for me to jump from BECMI to 2e was that you could have race/class combos; not all dwarves were fighter and elves fighter/magic users. Two-tiered alignment made more sense to me as well (Chaotic vs. Chaotic Good). I've seen clerics with spheres and domains, necromancers and illusionists, half-elves and gnomes as races, bards and rangers, banded mail and bardiches. In short, BECMI is a bit TOO limiting for me to really be happy beyond an occasional nostalgic romp.

I also don't think I could ever stomach being a "thief", with their d4 hd*, eight thief skills, and x2 backstab again. Or a fighter, who has nothing to look forward to but another Thac0 drop and perhaps better saves. Heck, I'm not sure I could stand being a cleric and having to memorize cure light wounds in a spell slot! Oh, and you could forget about level limits!

However, I do hope that 4e takes from it some of the best qualities of BECMI and 3e and blends them. The speed and elegance of BECMI with the options of 3e would be a perfect mix. I'm not sure they can ever succeed, but why not strive for perfection...

* BECMI thieves have d4s. As do Magic-users. Clerics have d6. Fighters d8. AD&D raised the value of each HD by one, cept poor M-Uers.

 

[Jack Daniel]

I'll start by saying I love Classic D&D. First edition played was Rule Cyclopedia, and its still special in my heart. Most of my friends have played from 2e on (though some recall RC).

However, I don't think I could ever *really* go back home, so to speak.

compared to the chaos of 1e/2e and the convolution of 3e, BECMI is a godsend. Its simple, its compact, its pretty much everything D&D should be boiled down into a wonderful package. However, its a bit too compact these days. I recall the big selling point for me to jump from BECMI to 2e was that you could have race/class combos; not all dwarves were fighter and elves fighter/magic users. Two-tiered alignment made more sense to me as well (Chaotic vs. Chaotic Good). I've seen clerics with spheres and domains, necromancers and illusionists, half-elves and gnomes as races, bards and rangers, banded mail and bardiches. In short, BECMI is a bit TOO limiting for me to really be happy beyond an occasional nostalgic romp.

I also don't think I could ever stomach being a "thief", with their d4 hd*, eight thief skills, and x2 backstab again. Or a fighter, who has nothing to look forward to but another Thac0 drop and perhaps better saves. Heck, I'm not sure I could stand being a cleric and having to memorize cure light wounds in a spell slot! Oh, and you could forget about level limits!

However, I do hope that 4e takes from it some of the best qualities of BECMI and 3e and blends them. The speed and elegance of BECMI with the options of 3e would be a perfect mix. I'm not sure they can ever succeed, but why not strive for perfection...

* BECMI thieves have d4s. As do Magic-users. Clerics have d6. Fighters d8. AD&D raised the value of each HD by one, cept poor M-Uers.

Well, BECMI/RC remains my edition of choice, but since it *is* so simple and "wingable," it's also very house-rule-able. I find that the restricted character classes have a completely beneficial effect on my gameplay. It wasn't at all difficult to change the thief class into an expert who could pick his skillset (and for the heck of it, I gave 'em d6 hit dice and something like AD&D's improving backstab), or to add a few special abilities to the fighter class to make them competitive with high-level magic-users (actually high-level fighters in my BECMI games feel a lot like AD&D kensai).

I *love* that demihumans are classes in Classic D&D. It really reinforces the archetypes and makes humans as desirable as they ought to be. Want to be Frodo or Gimli or Legolas? Great, play an elf or a dwarf or a halfling, but you have to stay true to that character type. Want to be a wizard or a thief or some other fantasy trope? Wow, look at all the humans living in this fantasy world all of the sudden... (since I switched back to classic, I've noticed a startling upsurge in human PCs, and an equally surprising dearth of half-dragon/half-celestial tieflings with elemental bloodlines).

Level limits? Easy to drop those too. In fact, Chapter 19 of the Rules Cyclopedia tells you how.

I freaking love the simple alignment system (if the PCs can only choose Law/Neut/Chaos, that reflects an underlying assumption that the heroes are the good guys by default--no player can put "evil" on his character sheet and use it as a justification to ruin the campaign for everyone else)!

 

[Spatula]

#4: Lack of finicky restrictions. This was particularly noticeable with the magic-user, whose spells were mind-blowingly free of limitations by 3.5E standards. Obviously, this had its down side--the M-U totally dominated the session, racking up a spectacular kill count against a horde of troglodytes, then winning the final fight thanks to his possessed body's innate fire immunity. But I was struck by the... well, for lack of a better word, the "gung-ho-ness" of the spell list. The designers were obviously looking to make the spells do Cool Stuff, to be exciting and fun to use. By comparison, 3.5E spells feel like they were written by accountants and tax lawyers.

Well, 3e's spells are the natural consequence of having spells that do Cool Stuff while trying to keep the magic-user balanced against other classes. I don't agree that 4e is going back to "classic" D&D on this point, because for one thing 90% of all the spells that we've seen have been damage spells (easy to condense those down to a few lines, and rather "blah" on the coolness scale - it's the spells like magic jar that cause problems), and for another, classic D&D was all about how awesome the (mid-level+) MU was compared to everyone else. Which I do not think 4e is aspiring towards - probably why spells no longer do Cool Stuff (relative to what we have now) in 4e.

#5: No maps, no minis, no battlemat. Our group has gotten into the habit of using minis and battlemats for 3.5E, but we played Classic without, and it really punched up the energy level. There wasn't any mapping either.

No one mapping the dungeon on graph paper = not really kicking it old school.

So, how does all this relate to 4E? Well, obviously 4E gets rid of iterative attacks, and combat is by all accounts quicker.

Rounds are quicker, combats last as log in real time from what people have been saying. You're simply not going to see OD&D-speed combats with all the tactical options present in 4e.

Basic D&D is great for one-shots, precisely because the rules are so simple and easy to pick up. Over the long term though, its flaws become more obvious. Like Remathilis, I could never go back for good.

 

[Jhaelen]

Let me start by saying that my introduction to D&D was with the AD&D 1E rules. It was a bit later that I participated in a BECMI campaign. While I had fun playing it I never felt the rules were as good as the AD&D rules.

#2: Ruleset limited in scope, but within that scope, very decisive.

I think that's the decisive point

It's THE main difference of BECMI, 1E & 2E compared to 3.X.

At least in my experience what may appear like a blessing in retrospect quickly evolved into a situation that was a lot worse than 3.X:

Exponential growth of house-rules.

By the time I was playing 2E I had so many house-rules, I doubt the game would have been recognizable by anyone as D&D - well, okay, I'm exaggerating a bit, but it was real bad. The problem with house-rules is: You have no idea (at least initially) if they are even remotely balanced.

I suffered from extreme burnout after a couple of years playing 2E and stopped roleplaying completely for about a year. Then I tried lots of other RPG systems among them all-time favorites of mine, like Runequest and Ars Magica. Then 3.X made me return to D&D with a simple promise:

Having a rule for every situation.

But it doesn't come without a price, as we now know.

It also looks like there's a shift toward removing finicky restrictions from spells and special powers--albeit balancing them better--and if arithmetic isn't being removed, it is at least being stripped down and simplified. And it seems the scope of the ruleset is being reduced somewhat. So in a lot of ways, we appear to be moving back toward Classic.

I'd say, 4E is an attempt at a compromise between the simple fun of old and the careful balance and rules coverage of late.

There's a wargamey fun to battlemat combat, but last night convinced me that it's a mistake to break out the minis for every fight. I'd like to be able to play out the lesser battles in "story-space" and only switch to minis for the big boss fights.

I sort of share that feeling. While I greatly enjoy the tactical nature of combat which I consider to be the major selling point of D&D, I would very much like D&D 4E to offer an alternative light-weight system to be used for the less important combats. Ars Magica has something like that. Then again you might argue: If the combat isn't important, why play it out at all? Maybe the new social encounter rules could be adopted to decide on the results of minor combat encounters as well?

For everyone who has or can get hold of a copy of the Classic rules, I really encourage you to give them a whirl, if only for old time's sake. It offers a different perspective on the game, one that's easy to lose in the minutiae of 3.5E and the anticipation of 4E. Classic has its flaws, to be sure--a lot of them--but it has its strong points too.

Maybe, I really should.

I'm a different person now than I was 24 years ago. My expectations about a game and what I consider fun have changed over time. I now prefer a more casual playing style, getting rid of simulationalist aspects that don't add to the fun.

So maybe I'll like BECMI D&D now better than I did in the past. But I think, I'd really like to see the 4E rules first and give them a try. Until then I'll continue with my 3E campaign - I'd really love to bring a campaign to its conclusion for the first time!

 

[Dausuul]

Well, 3e's spells are the natural consequence of having spells that do Cool Stuff while trying to keep the magic-user balanced against other classes. I don't agree that 4e is going back to "classic" D&D on this point, because for one thing 90% of all the spells that we've seen have been damage spells (easy to condense those down to a few lines, and rather "blah" on the coolness scale - it's the spells like magic jar that cause problems), and for another, classic D&D was all about how awesome the (mid-level+) MU was compared to everyone else. Which I do not think 4e is aspiring towards - probably why spells no longer do Cool Stuff (relative to what we have now) in 4e.

Actually, I'd say 3E spells are the natural consequence of trying to impose balance after the fact on the BECMI/AD&D spell list, rather than scrapping the whole durn thing and starting over with a better sense of what belongs where.

Case in point: Animate dead. In BECMI, and even through 2E, you could raise literally armies of skeletons and zombies with this spell. That was Cool, and was in fact the whole point of the spell; it was what evil clerics used to create their shambling hordes of doom. In 3E, somebody noticed that armies of undead were just a wee bit powerful for a 5th-level cleric in a dungeon-crawling scenario, and so they slapped a Hit Die cap on it and added a costly material component. Now animate dead was balanced (sorta), but much of its Cool was lost.

What I'd prefer would be to kick animate dead upstairs to the level 7-8 range (spell level, that is--character level 13 to 15), and make sure it could only raise fairly weak undead. That wouldn't unbalance dungeon crawling, since regular human-type skeletons and zombies die if a CR 15 monster so much as walks by on the other side of the street. Add a smallish material component so you have to work at least a little bit for your undead horde, and there you go.

Part of the issue is that 3E focussed so obsessively on dungeon crawling that it sort of lost sight of the larger picture. A spell like the one I just described isn't much good in the dungeon, but kicks ass in a political/military campaign. Since BECMI explicitly shifts to political/military stuff as you head into the Companion levels, it was natural for it to incorporate such magic. (See also massmorph, the BECMI spell that lets you disguise an army as a bunch of trees. What does that do for you in the dungeon? Virtually nothing. When you're leading an army? It rocks.)

We don't yet know if 4E will have that same broadening of focus at later levels; though it seems a natural consequence of the Heroic/Paragon/Epic tiers. On the other hand, if I recall correctly, one of the designers said PCs at high levels would be doing fundamentally the same things as PCs at low levels. Ah well, here's hoping.

No one mapping the dungeon on graph paper = not really kicking it old school.

Yeah, well, no one said we had to revert completely. Besides, I was making up most of the dungeon on the fly, so mapping would have been fairly pointless.

Basic D&D is great for one-shots, precisely because the rules are so simple and easy to pick up. Over the long term though, its flaws become more obvious. Like Remathilis, I could never go back for good.

Me neither... I think. But that doesn't mean we can't look to BECMI for ideas on how to improve the experience of later editions.

So maybe I'll like BECMI D&D now better than I did in the past. But I think, I'd really like to see the 4E rules first and give them a try. Until then I'll continue with my 3E campaign - I'd really love to bring a campaign to its conclusion for the first time!

Perhaps I should clarify. I wasn't saying everybody should go back to Classic and run a whole campaign. I was just suggesting that it's worth taking an evening to run a BECMI adventure and re-connect with what I found to be a cleaner, faster game--even if that game may not be suitable for long-term play.

 

[Sir Sebastian Hardin]

I began playing in 3.0 and I am a Spanish-speaker, who lives in Peru and the hobby is relatively new here. So here's my question: what does BECMI stand for?

 

[Dausuul]

I began playing in 3.0 and I am a Spanish-speaker, who lives in Peru and the hobby is relatively new here. So here's my question: what does BECMI stand for?

BECMI = Basic, Expert, Companion, Master, Immortals.

Classic D&D came in five boxed sets. Basic, the red boxed set, covered levels 1-3. Expert, the blue box, covered 4-14. Companion, the cyan box, covered 15-25. Master, the black box, covered 26-36. Immortals, the gold box, covered what happened when you went beyond 36th level and transcended mortality to become a god.

 

[howandwhy99]

Mr Dausuul you are dead on for how we play D&D. We play original and it is very much the same. We prefer and do use minis and battlemaps however. Not the pre-drawn revealed maps, but to each his own.

Your 3rd comment is particularly important and one that I think is forgotten far too much. I think it's at the root of what's derogatively being called exclusive actions or some such. But a system that says, "Do what ever you want. You can try anything is freeing in my eyes too.

You're welcome to drop by anytime you're in Atlanta. We play OD&D this way every month down here.