Quote from: Exploderwizard on May 06, 2025, 03:04:41 PMSome of the most popular games are a blend of B/x and AD&D. The simpler rules procedures from B/X are combined with the extra character options and other bits from AD&D. Games such as Advanced Labyrinth Lord, and OSE does this. The B/x rules are more streamlined and faster in play and and all of the extra race & class options are attractive to players so it makes sense to combine them like this.

I would venture nearly all games were a mix of the two. Some AD&D games were really basic D&D with AD&D classes/monsters as the rules were more clear. That would be our particular AD&D game.

Our basic games were mostly 'pure' but we'd have the occasional AD&D class

Quote from: RNGm on May 06, 2025, 02:57:12 PMThanks and I appreciate the answers.  In retrospect, wall/paragraph of text probably wasn't the best choice for formatting a series of questions!  Just moving right into X after B seems like a popular and obvious choice but I'm surprised more folks didn't stick around at the bottom for a while trying out new races/classes for example.

Honestly character death was such a thing at low levels that you have plenty of opportunity to play whatever. It was the ones who survived that you held on to.

It wasn't exactly a character funnel, but if a dungeon had spiders in it or anything that paralyzed you were probably going to lose someone.

My group of friends and I played Basic up until we saw an Advanced game, then we jumped ship so quick your head will spin. By 1983 Basic was for the beginners and those too dumb to "get" advanced. That thinking is still with me at times, and I have to nip it in the bud, when people discuss Basic D&D.

Being kids, we really misunderstood a lot of rules that ended up taking a lot of the danger away (though not the fun). For instance, we completely missed the difference between HP and HD and that 4HD medusa went down with a single dagger thrust. Oops!

Given all that, we only ever played homebrew my brother created - the module provided (Keep on the Borderlands) just confused the crap out of us. So we went through Level 1 of a dungeon - he made a bunch of rooms and stocked them with monsters and treasure). And then we went through levels 2 and 3 of the dungeon and, with no money yet for the AD&D books, we then proceeded to level 3A, 3B, 3C...3Q, I think is when we finally got AD&D and realized all our mistakes. By that time, we had amassed an army of NPCs and other minions and we did conga-line combat. I remember one dungeon level being willed with what was essentially amniotic fluid floor to ceiling. Some others did have a main boss on it. My brother was pretty creative and we never got bored.

I'm sure adult players of D&D at the time would have shuddered and run away from us, but we had a blast, we eventually learned how it was supposed to be played, and me and my friend are still playing RPGs 46 years later (my brother dabbled a bit about 20 years ago, but that's about it).

We did also dabble in Gamma World and got my parents to try a one shot of Boot Hill (my mom played a school ma'rm with a two-shot derringer on her hip and she killed her enemy).

Quote from: RNGm on May 06, 2025, 09:16:39 AM

Quote from: migo on May 06, 2025, 08:43:53 AMMy experience of actually using Basic was combined with AD&D. I think a lot of people did that hybrid, going from basic to advanced instead of from basic to expert. Basic wasn't actually all that different from the beginner boxes for AD&D.

Thanks.  Another gap in my knowledge base then as I thought the basic set WAS the beginner box for AD&D throughout the 70s and 80s.   That seems like a fair amount of unnecessary overlap.  Out of curiosity, what benefits did AD&D provide to you versus just switching to expert beyond races as an option for classes instead of being a class and additional classes potentially I assume?

It's quite simple. The benefit provided was we had the AD&D 2e Player's Hanbook and we didn't have the Expert set. The books we had were mostly gifts from older kids who didn't play anymore.

BX was where I got to first DM. Folks got it for me for Birthday and puzzled over it and then ran it.

It is to this day my go-to for ease of learning and running and the sheer freedom BX gave a DM to do as they pleased.

BECMI I have tried. But it is a horribly overwrought mess that feels too obsessed with complexity for complexitys sake. And was really not fond of the Mystara setting that was also way overblown and overcrowded compared to the prior Known World. I treat the two as completely different settings.

We played characters up to around level 9-10 usually. (with a little guesswork to get levels for Halflings) It was surviving that far that was the real challenge. Very few of the safety nets of later D&D. Not even any bleeding out like in AD&D! 0 HP was DEAD and you either hoped someone had a raise dead spell or you dragged the body back to someplace that could and might be asked a fee or tasked a quest for it.

The modules are damn good too. The pack in ones especially. But BX had a nice run of modules across its span.

And BX is what was played for Record of Lodoss War.

Quote from: Jason Coplen on May 06, 2025, 03:35:56 PMMy group of friends and I played Basic up until we saw an Advanced game, then we jumped ship so quick your head will spin. By 1983 Basic was for the beginners and those too dumb to "get" advanced. That thinking is still with me at times, and I have to nip it in the bud, when people discuss Basic D&D.

Greetings!

*Laughing* Very true, Jason! Yeah, I started playing with the Holmes rulebook. The blue or teal coloured magazine-like book, with a dragon and treasure on the cover. I remember that the Character Levels were limited to Level 3. My parents played D&D with me. *Laughing* My mother played a savage barbarian-like Fighter and my father played a righteous, crusader Cleric. My friends of course played as well. My mother bought me sets of dice, and several boxes of Grenadier miniatures.

I think we all played with that until I got the AD&D books for Christmas when the AD&D books first hit the market. 1978 or something. And yes, as soon as we got the AD&D books, Basic D&D was left far behind, as we viewed that rule-set as the simple starter-set for kids.

AD&D was THE REAL RULES, FOR THE COOL PEOPLE! *Laughing*

People nowadays get all excited about BX D&D, but honestly, back in the day, noone gave a fuck about Basic D&D at all. It was laughed at and mocked, or just consigned to being the basic starter set D&D. It was not taken seriously or viewed as a serious game or a serious rule set like AD&D was seen. The basic game was fine, but the real rules were to be found in AD&D. I remember Dragon Magazine talking about the new upcoming AD&D rules, and noone paid any attention to Basic D&D. At the D&D clubs at school, everyone was excited and talking about AD&D, and certainly not Basic D&D.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK on May 07, 2025, 08:01:11 AMAD&D was THE REAL RULES, FOR THE COOL PEOPLE! *Laughing*

People nowadays get all excited about BX D&D, but honestly, back in the day, noone gave a fuck about Basic D&D at all. It was laughed at and mocked, or just consigned to being the basic starter set D&D. It was not taken seriously or viewed as a serious game or a serious rule set like AD&D was seen.

Even as a 90s gamer (but 80s kid!), that would have been my elitist gut reaction as well in retrospect had I been introduced to it earlier.  That's part of why I started looking at it recently as I kept on hearing much more about B/X and BECMI more than OD&D or AD&D (either edition) in the OSR space which I found surprising.

Out of curiosity, do you make any choices with character advancement in B/X/CMI after the initial creation?   I watched a character creation video and it seemed like the only choices you made were race, class, and gear but otherwise it looked like the progression afterwards had no real choices and you just progressed linearly up the ladder.  Does that change with Expert's levels 4-14?   Maybe it was my introduction to OSR via Shadowdark but I kind of assumed you rolled on an ability/power/whatever chart periodically with levelling up.

Quote from: RNGm on May 07, 2025, 09:21:13 AMOut of curiosity, do you make any choices with character advancement in B/X/CMI after the initial creation?   I watched a character creation video and it seemed like the only choices you made were race, class, and gear but otherwise it looked like the progression afterwards had no real choices and you just progressed linearly up the ladder.  Does that change with Expert's levels 4-14?   Maybe it was my introduction to OSR via Shadowdark but I kind of assumed you rolled on an ability/power/whatever chart periodically with levelling up.

With some of the optional rules for skills or weapon mastery you make occasional choices. Other than that, not really, though there are probably some niche cases I forget. I only have access to those through the Rules Cyclopedia, as I never got any boxed set past Expert. So not sure exactly when they were originally introduced.

Quote from: RNGm on May 07, 2025, 09:21:13 AMOut of curiosity, do you make any choices with character advancement in B/X/CMI after the initial creation?   I watched a character creation video and it seemed like the only choices you made were race, class, and gear but otherwise it looked like the progression afterwards had no real choices and you just progressed linearly up the ladder.  Does that change with Expert's levels 4-14?   Maybe it was my introduction to OSR via Shadowdark but I kind of assumed you rolled on an ability/power/whatever chart periodically with levelling up.

Even in AD&D you don't really make choices during advancement. The classes are what they are. At X level you get Y ability (spells, extra attacks, whatever) You may get some weapon proficiencies or NWP if you are playing 2e/OA.

Mentzer basic added choices for fighters to be paladins, knights, or avengers at higher levels, but we had moved to AD&D for characters by then.

Quote from: SHARK on May 07, 2025, 08:01:11 AMAD&D was THE REAL RULES, FOR THE COOL PEOPLE! *Laughing*

People nowadays get all excited about BX D&D, but honestly, back in the day, noone gave a fuck about Basic D&D at all. It was laughed at and mocked, or just consigned to being the basic starter set D&D. It was not taken seriously or viewed as a serious game or a serious rule set like AD&D was seen. The basic game was fine, but the real rules were to be found in AD&D. I remember Dragon Magazine talking about the new upcoming AD&D rules, and noone paid any attention to Basic D&D. At the D&D clubs at school, everyone was excited and talking about AD&D, and certainly not Basic D&D.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

A problem with Basic is that the demi-humans are too typecast. An elf is an elf with no variety. That's the creators setting version, and not mine. I want all sorts of types of elves, and dwarves, and hobbits.

We thought nothing of Basic when Adanced came out. A few years later half the D&D groups were playing RuneQuest and Rolemaster and Tunnels & Trolls. I'm not saying Basic sucks, but there's reasons everyone left it in the past. It does get a ton of attention in the OSR, though. Beats me as to why.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on May 07, 2025, 10:06:13 AMWith some of the optional rules for skills or weapon mastery you make occasional choices. Other than that, not really, though there are probably some niche cases I forget. I only have access to those through the Rules Cyclopedia, as I never got any boxed set past Expert. So not sure exactly when they were originally introduced.

Weapon Mastery was in, oddly enough, the Master Set. I never used these when playing BECMI originally, but after the Cyclopedia came out I ran a game that included all the optional rules including skills.

To echo a few points others have made, when I got AD&D, BECMI was quickly dumped and I actually gave away all my books; that was a mistake in retrospect, but at the time it made perfect sense. We either played AD&D, MERP, Palladium FRP, or C&S; Basic D&D was a joke. But I got the Cyclopedia because it seemed cool to have a single book for a simpler game and figured out it was pretty cohesive and easier to understand vs. AD&D. So, I dunno...BECMI was kind of a mess after Basic and Expert because the rules were spread out way too much. Race-as-class definitely has a different flavor compared to race-and-class; it depends on what kind of game you want, although the Gazetteers had plenty of optional classes for demi-humans.

The OP asked something about what you did after level 1-3; is this specifically directed at Holmes? I ask because I know BECMI was produced in such a way that it was obvious you needed the next set to continue; I was too young for B/X (even though I remember seeing it in Toys-R-Us as a kid), so no clue there. Essentially, BECMI was levels 1-36 and it was assumed if you started with Basic, you'd go to Expert, then Companion, etc. Reading Holmes, it's obvious AD&D was the "next step", although like I already said, we completely abandoned Basic when I finally got my AD&D books. That was a lot of mowing yards over the summer, and they were second-hand from some kid my brother knew. By that time 2nd edition had already come out, so I never had the opportunity to get new ones from the gaming store; every AD&D book I have (I think 3 complete sets?) are all from used book stores.

This is just dredging up memories from a bygone era when RPGs were about actual play instead of merely theorycrafting.

Quote from: Jason Coplen on May 07, 2025, 01:20:49 PMA problem with Basic is that the demi-humans are too typecast. An elf is an elf with no variety. That's the creators setting version, and not mine. I want all sorts of types of elves, and dwarves, and hobbits.

We thought nothing of Basic when Adanced came out. A few years later half the D&D groups were playing RuneQuest and Rolemaster and Tunnels & Trolls. I'm not saying Basic sucks, but there's reasons everyone left it in the past. It does get a ton of attention in the OSR, though. Beats me as to why.

There's some magic in B/X that defies categorization. For me, I didn't care for race as class. Heck, it still isn't my preference. If anything, I'd go the other extreme, with race being even more split up. Likewise, there were a few additions to spells and monsters and what not that I like better in AD&D. 

But as far as rules go, I'd still play RC over AD&D now.  It's also funny to me that there have been several OSR products that are essentially going for B/X simplicity with AD&D options. Clearly, that kind of effort strikes a chord in people. However, they all draw the lines in slightly different places--and none of them draw the lines where I would exactly.

So I'd say that people are chasing that magic--the magic of the original experience with B/X as it was and the prospect of a similar magic without some of the things that annoyed at the time.

Quote from: RNGm on May 06, 2025, 10:44:24 AMThanks again for all the responses.  It does seem like folks graduated right out of basic into Expert or AD&D pretty quickly then instead of sticking with it for a while which admittedly was the point.

At the time, I think there were several reasons for this shift:

- AD&D seems more "adult", as the perception of regular D&D was it was for "kids". IT was the "safe" version.

- AD&D had better modules. D&D had KoTB and a handful of others, but AD&D had the classics: the GDQ series, T1 and eventually the ToEE, S series, A series, etc.

-just more players. When playing at the game store, it was AD&D when it came to fantasy RPGs. At a con, it was AD&D as well, especially for tournaments. AD&D quickly usurped regular D&D as far as the fantasy game of choice.

-the dangerous appeal. With all of the Satanic panic in the early 80s, AD&D was the game often cited. With that, there's a certain dangerous appeal to young adults and kids to such a thing. The surge that AD&D had from 1980-84 was incredible, and this was in part due to AD&D being in the press.

Quote from: Tristan on May 07, 2025, 01:13:30 PMEven in AD&D you don't really make choices during advancement. The classes are what they are. At X level you get Y ability (spells, extra attacks, whatever) You may get some weapon proficiencies or NWP if you are playing 2e/OA.

Mentzer basic added choices for fighters to be paladins, knights, or avengers at higher levels, but we had moved to AD&D for characters by then.

That's true and I sort of forgot about that even from my 2nd edition readings.   I got my real start in D&D (and fantasy RPG gaming in general) with 3e.