OSR Why B/X?

[Parmandur]

I legitimately believe a number of you can't imagine what it would be like to have to parse those things. I think it is obvious on its face that AD&D and 5E are related but different games. You are coming at the question with decades of experience and not thinking about how it would work for a person who has never encountered either.

Moat people are only going to know 5E, fair. Yet still the fully adequate for even a newbie conversion notes are quite small.

 

[overgeeked]

I legitimately believe a number of you can't imagine what it would be like to have to parse those things. I think it is obvious on its face that AD&D and 5E are related but different games. You are coming at the question with decades of experience and not thinking about how it would work for a person who has never encountered either.

It’s a rather ridiculous thought experiment.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

What was the question, again?

Why B/X?

Oh, yes.

• Nostalgia - gives me a tingly feeling
• Streamlined and comprehensible rules
• Stylish and evocative
• Fast to get started and fast play
• Dead easy for noobs
• Some classic modules
• I don't need an 18-wheeler to take the ruleset to another venue
• I don't get confused after 2 martinis
• Nostalgia - makes me pine for my lost youth

I'm a huge fan of B/X, as I think it's perfectly adequate for having tons of fun.

 

[cbwjm]

I legitimately believe a number of you can't imagine what it would be like to have to parse those things. I think it is obvious on its face that AD&D and 5E are related but different games. You are coming at the question with decades of experience and not thinking about how it would work for a person who has never encountered either.

I do agree with you. I can easily take a monster from BECMI or ADnD and make it work in 5e because I know both systems well enough. Someone coming from 5e with no experience of ADnD would be quite confused I think. Even something like AC, why are they so low? Why does a dragon have a worse AC than an orc? What is thac0? For a new player, I think it would be confusing as hell if they didn't have a conversion doc ready to go.

 

[Ondath]

I legitimately believe a number of you can't imagine what it would be like to have to parse those things. I think it is obvious on its face that AD&D and 5E are related but different games. You are coming at the question with decades of experience and not thinking about how it would work for a person who has never encountered either.

As someone who played 3.5/PF briefly and then played 5E, I think there is some nuance to this. There are some core mechanics (attack/damage roll mechanic, ability score/modifier distinction - albeit with different conversion rates -, classes and their primary story functions etc.) that are very much the same in AD&D and WotC-era D&D. In another thread, there was a discussion about how many AD&D 2E monsters were ported almost straight to 3E, and later mathematically balanced for 3.5. But that connection was diluted more and more, and now WotC-era D&D is its own beast.

I kinda liken the progression of D&D editions to Windows editions. The B/X-BECMI line are DOS-based home Windows editions, while AD&D is Windows NT. Then in the early 2000s, the company combined the branding of the two lines and rebuilt the game using the NT kernel (3E). That kernel has been improved ever since, it has some weird subsystems that date from 1989 for nostalgia/compatibility reasons, but it also changed drastically.

I have a personal project I'm working on on the side, which is essentially trying to recreate 5E in the OSE kernel. That way, all traditions of D&D can genuinely be played using the same chassis (OSE Basic/OSE Advanced/OSE New School?), kinda fulfilling D&DNext's modularity promise that was never fulfilled. However even trying to align the fundamental math of the two editions is pretty difficult, and I'm a full-time research assistant who needs to finish his PhD fast, so I had to put the project on the backburner as soon as I started it. One day I will finish it though...

 

[Willie the Duck]

5E is not a "version" of AD&D in any meaningful sense. They share a bunch of terminology and a few core mechanics, but little else.

It is the same naming convention that computer operating systems use, and different 'version's of those are often broadly noncompatible. In automobiles, the term is 'model year,' but it is the same principle.

Nah, no reason to be diplomatic, when the situation is of such epically comical incompetence. TSR fudged up normal publishing terminology and practice beyond recognition because of a desire to take away royalties from Dave Arneson, and it didn't even work. The result was massive product confusion which continues down to this very thread.

Diplomatic to the other participants in the thread.
Regardless, that's. the. point. D&D and AD&D (i.e. "different games") was nonsensical except as an attempt at dodging royalty payments. "Editions" as AD&D and AD&D 2nd Edition used them deviates from the publishing standard (although probably not dictionary) meaning of the term. The different iterations of the game most closely resemble differing versions of the same product line, by which I mean they can be ostensibly 'the same thing,' yet at the same time broadly different* either in outward appearance or underlying mechanics. *or not. Sometimes you just change the thimble and iron for whatever are now included in Monopoly sets.

 

[Voadam]

Again: hand a new player a 5E PHB and a AD&D MM and tell them to use them together.

Again. Seems about the same as handing them a 3e or 4e PH and telling them to use the AD&D MM.

Not a 5e only D&D issue.

OD&D, Basic lines, and AD&D 1e and 2e are fairly compatible with some specific differences in each, similar to 3e, 3.5, d20 Modern, and d20 system games being roughly intercompatible, while 4e and 5e are pretty much their own things as much as the the Pre d20 and d20 things are separate from each other but recognizably D&D.

All are recognizably D&D, particularly when you compare them to say White Wolf d10 RPGs, Shadowrun's d6 systems, or things like GURPS or Fate or Savage Worlds or Warhammer. Most have stats and combat systems but arguably a bunch more differences between them and any edition of D&D than between any edition of D&D with any other edition of D&D.

 

[Reynard]

Guess I shoulda put that in the Unpopular Opinions thread!

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Regardless, that's. the. point. D&D and AD&D (i.e. "different games") was nonsensical except as an attempt at dodging royalty payments. "Editions" as AD&D and AD&D 2nd Edition used them deviates from the publishing standard (although probably not dictionary) meaning of the term. The different iterations of the game most closely resemble differing versions of the same product line, by which I mean they can be ostensibly 'the same thing,' yet at the same time broadly different* either in outward appearance or underlying mechanics. *or not. Sometimes you just change the thimble and iron for whatever are now included in Monopoly sets.

So, I have to disagree with this.

First, "Advanced D&D" was not cooked up just to avoid royalty payments. That's a common misperception, but the reality is a lot more complicated. TSR had a good faith belief that Arneson was only due royalties on the sales of the original OD&D ruleset- not any additional material. It's more complicated that that, and I suggest reading Game Wizards (I think I've mentioned this a lot recently) to get the full details, but it's not true that the purpose of AD&D was to dodge royalty payments.

Next, the delineation of lines. The first Basic was not "Basic" was we normally think of it, but Holmes Basic, which was actually a cleaned up version of OD&D. Inserted into it was a reference to the forthcoming AD&D.

When you view it that way, it makes a lot more sense. AD&D wasn't a "new edition" per se. And Basic certainly wasn't a branching line.

Instead, Basic was the cleaned up OD&D rules. AD&D was also OD&D, except with all the supplements, a bunch of additional previously published material (such as Strategic Review and Dragon articles) as well as some new material, edited and put together. But Holmes Basic was just levels 1-3, and was more of a "starter set" to the Advanced D&D. Even though Holmes had different rules than AD&D, because ... reasons.

The later Moldvay/Cook B/X and Mentzer BECMI was the result of the litigation, and also looked back to OD&D, albeit with revisions (such as race-as-class). While this was interoperable with AD&D, it was also a different game.

The idea of different "editions" only arose with 2e, which became confusing because, unlike future editions (3e, 4e, 5e), 2e was just AD&D (1e) but edited and changed up a little. But there was nothing that was fundamentally different about it, which was not true for the later edition changes starting with the WoTC era.

TLDR; trying to understand what is, and isn't, an edition in D&D is an exercise in frustration, other than acknowledging the actual editions and reasoning from there.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Again. Seems about the same as handing them a 3e or 4e PH and telling them to use the AD&D MM.

Not a 5e only D&D issue.

OD&D, Basic lines, and AD&D 1e and 2e are fairly compatible with some specific differences in each, similar to 3e, 3.5, d20 Modern, and d20 system games being roughly intercompatible, while 4e and 5e are pretty much their own things as much as the the Pre d20 and d20 things are separate from each other but recognizably D&D.

All are recognizably D&D, particularly when you compare them to say White Wolf d10 RPGs, Shadowrun's d6 systems, or things like GURPS or Fate or Savage Worlds or Warhammer. Most have stats and combat systems but arguably a bunch more differences between them and any edition of D&D than between any edition of D&D with any other edition of D&D.

All of them use similar terms, and all are presented and marketed as D&D, but that doesn't mean they're all basically the same game.