Prydain as a campaign setting?

[Marc_C]

Beyond the Wall seemed closer mechanically to B/X Basic D&D than 2e to me.

Does it use race-as-class or are classes separate from races?

 

[Voadam]

Does it use race-as-class or are classes separate from races?

Yes and no from what I have read of the rules.

Stats are B/X scale, Multiclassing is an optional rule that turns two classes into essentially a hybrid instead of the full powers of both in 2e style.

Dwarves, elves, and halflings are in a free supplement.

Races get specific classes, sometimes a specific multiclass hybrid option defined playbook class.

Dwarven Adventurer is a Warrior like a core book human Warrior with some different charts, while a Dwarven Rune Caster is a specific multiclass class.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Those books are what got me into the fantasy genre. lloyd Alexander was ahead of his time as well, as in an era of sword and sorcery where men were the heroes and women were the objects of their lust, the most intelligent and brave character in the whole series is a girl. Eilonwy is to Prydain as Wang Chi is to Big Trouble in Little China. That is, they are the real heroes of the story even if they aren't the literal protagonists.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Those books are what got me into the fantasy genre. lloyd Alexander was ahead of his time as well, as in an era of sword and sorcery where men were the heroes and women were the objects of their lust, the most intelligent and brave character in the whole series is a girl. Eilonwy is to Prydain as Wang Chi is to Big Trouble in Little China. That is, they are the real heroes of the story even if they aren't the literal protagonists.

Me too. They are incredibly solid young adult literature before that was a well-recognized thing which stand up today. Eilonwy was one of my first literary crushes, and it's nice looking back to see that she is indeed an active and un-helpless character (although both her and the male protagonist often get saved by the actual-adult-soldier types on several occasions). Overall, I like the mix of comedic and lightheartedness and the absolute bleak and terrifying moments. I remember seeing the movie (which seems to be a mix of the first two books, IIRC) and being rather disappointed, but I know a number of people of a certain age grew up with it and consider it as precious as I do the books.

Is Beyond the Wall a PtbA game? I see the use the term 'Play Book' in the description.

This seems to be a case of 'this term was not cemented as meaning only this one thing when this system was first published.' The BtW playbooks are more akin to lifepath character generation, or maybe D&D 5e background rolls -- bits of character background which is determined by dice roll and includes both mechanical benefit (something like having grown up working as a smith's apprentice gives you +1 Str and a craft skill) and potential adventure hooks or PC/NPC relationship options.

Beyond the Wall seemed closer mechanically to B/X Basic D&D than 2e to me.

Like most OSR games, it can be seen as most like almost any of the TSR-era D&Ds depending on what you consider most important. It certainly leans towards the less-tables (after character creation, and for things like what attributes do) and less convoluted rules system that the oD&D (pre-supplement I), B, BX, and BECM line had. It has multiclassing (different from either AD&D types. More like how Sine Nominee's Worlds Without Number does it - if you take half-caster and half-warrior types, you get half of each of their class abilities). Races, when they exist, just offer a smattering of pure-class and hybrid class options (just like any of the other splatbooks). IIRC the elf offers a caster-warrior option that includes the pieces of each that I really wanted for my 'human raised by elves' character (whereas the 'human raised by elves' character option was a warrior-caster with the parts of warrior and caster I didn't want, so I asked my GM if I could use the rules for one, but the concept of the other).

Fundamentally, it is the lifepath/background/playbook part, the skill system (roll under relevant stat, each level of pertinent skill gives you a +2), and most importantly the tone (you are not big bad heroes, everything past the village wall is scary, you are going there because you have to -- yet not a grimdark system) that makes the game.

 

[Mannahnin]

Lovely books. I have often told (over the years) folks looking for books for their children that Lloyd Alexander's take on "a series of books with a juvenile protagonist, who grows up as the series itself grows more mature" is better than Harry Potter did it, and in a fraction of the page count. The first three are absolutely wonderful kids' lit, though the fourth book (Taren Wanderer) has a bit of a jump in maturity and I struggled with it a little as a kid.

I too have stolen the Cauldron Born and a few other concepts for D&D here and there. Beyond the Wall does seem like a perfect choice for it.