Your personal B/X or BECMI (or both) story....

[jeffb]

So Fin gave us a forum to talk about it- So lets get right to the very beginning..

B/X is my fave edition of the game. TSR or WOTC. Always has been.

But I started with OD&D. Once B/X showed up on shelves-literally the 1st week it showed up, that was it for me. I abandoned AD&D and went back, just adding in the bits from AD&D we liked (spells mostly, some classes like the Ranger)

Reasons:

Clear-Many rules were explained better (or explained period)

Concise and easy to find things in- not a jumble of rules strewn out over multiple booklets and Gary's wonderful, but often hard to follow Train of Thought trying to get to the point.

Visuals- Both in the presentation of the rules, and the aesthetic. Moldvay/Cook/Marsh had a Swords & Sorcery Comic book look to it that totally resonated with me and the types of D&D games I had been (trying to) present for the last few years. I wanted larger than life action heroes, not wimpy 1st level characters with 3 HP. Of course, the rules didn't match the visuals, but those visuals have driven my style of D&D gaming more than any other single product, with Holmes Basic being the secondary driver from the visual (Sutherland Orcs! oink)

By the end of 1982 I had moved on to RQ for my fantasy fix and had abandoned D&D for the most part. A year or so later I saw the Mentzer set on shelves. What? I didn't like the look. I hemmed an hawed for weeks. Finally I broke down. KIDDIE D&D! What is with this weird art? Who is this Elmore dude? Oh yeah, he did the cover to Star Frontiers- great cover. But D&D? IDK......And again we've got horrible layout and rules all over the place in two different books, and well..... I didn't get it. Later on I won a copy of the Mentzer Expert set at a Con, and that set I appreciated more- it was not a teaching tool, but a solid reference- still not into this Elmore guy though.

These days, I'm much more enamored of Frank's edits. In fact I own his play copies of the red and blue box booklets with his penciled in eratta. Years ago I was looking for "kiddie D&D" for my then young son- I realized how good it would be to teach him. Frank offered up his set for me over @ Dragonsfoot, for shipping costs only. I paypal'ed him a more fair amount once the books arrived. He autographed them for my son too. So a neat piece of history from a set I hated back in it's prime.

Sadly my Son just didn't gel with D&D at the time, and it would take 3 more giftings of "basic sets" (3.0,3.5, and 4E) before he got into D&D.

Anyone else have fond memories (or otherwise) of their intro to B/X and/or BECMI?

[Finarvyn]

I started with OD&D. My group split a little with time where I still ran OD&D, a couple guys ran AD&D, and one liked Holmes Basic. We always played "he who runs the games picks the rules" so it was okay that we had different rules going on at the same time in different campaigns. As time passed my group mostly went to AD&D, then 2E, then I moved away from my hometown and my new group was involved in 2E, then dabbled with 3E. Essentially, my primary gaming experience bypassed most of the "classic" route.

However, I have always liked buying cool stuff. I bought the B/X DA module series devoted to Blackmoor because I was addicted to all things Blackmoor. I bought the Gazeteer collection because the covers were cool and I liked the notion of a region book for each place in the Known World. I acquired the Rules Cyclopedia, and to this day maintain that if I could only keep one RPG book it would have to be the RC. I eventually went back to buy the B/X boxed sets, well after the fact.

Sadly, my play experience with B/X or BECM is limited. I mostly bypassed that line of D&D's evolution, and that may explain why I was so slow to set up a section for "classic" on these boards. What I will say is that B/X is very well written (and since I like to cap levels early, I really don't have much need for C or M layers of the game). I feel like most pre-3E editions are pretty much interchangeable, and I used to keep the RC on hand for my OD&D games because it's such an awesome resource.

I feel like the "trademark" of the B/X game is the race-as-a-class notion. I like it. I feel like OD&D sort of set the stage and B/X developed it into its own thing. I would be interested to see if there are other aspects of B/X that make it different from other editions of the game.

I'll be lurking here to see how discussion progresses.

[jeffb]

Multiclassing is something I still despise, and I didn't like OD&D take's on Elves. B/X's (and Holmes really, but it wasn't set up as clearly as B/X) Elves I thought were a great solution to bring the features of both classes into a single class without dealing with the headaches of OD&D (choose your class for each adventure), and AD&D mess of multiclassing rules that get rode hard and put away wet. (i.e. abused)

We opened Halflings and Dwarves up to thieving as I recall.

Also, 14th level works out fine in my book as well. I never gelled with the Companion Box (cemented my dislike for the entire BECMI range).

Later on in my collecting days, I picked up the MI sets, as well as The Classic D&D set, the Rules Cyclopedia, and other 2e era "Basic" products. The RC I think is a great book, though I dislike much of the additional rules content like the wonky specializations/skills system

[tkdco2]

I started with B/X (actually just the Moldvay Basic set). I moved to AD&D soon after that because that's what everyone else was playing. Then I migrated to the USA and had to rebuild my collection. I bought the Mentzer Basic and the Marsh/Cook Expert Sets. After getting the Companion Set and the Elves of Alfheim Gazetteer, I found out the Marsh/Cook Expert had several differences from the Mentzer Expert, so I had to hunt down the latter. I collected the BECMI series and found a Moldvay Basic book.

I tend to run lower-level adventures, so I usually stick to B/X, which is my favorite anyway. But BECMI is also near and dear to my heart, so I may use it at times, especially if I decide to run a high-level game.

[Deleted]

The first handful of D&D games I played in were ran by a school faculty member when I was a wee lad, and she was using a starter set for 2e called First Quest. However, when me, my brother and our cheapskate friends got into the game we got ahold of a version we could find and afford, and that was the Mentzer Basic stuff. I never owned any of the books, though. Not until many years later when I got the POD Rules Cyclopedia. Back in those days it's more like I picked up on how the core mechanics worked and looked over the classes and spells a few times, and when I ran games I kind of loosely used what I'd learned and applied it in a very kitchen sink, loosey goosey kind of way.* Kind of like some of the weird OSR hacks coming out now, but it was just a goofy, broke hillbilly kid making stuff up in my case. We goofed around with it for a few years until we found out about girls and it was a long time after that firestorm of hormonal confusion that I remembered my first love of gaming, and that was at the height of the 3e days and I found that not the same experience, so I gave up again (at least on D&D. Still did a lot of tabletop gaming) until I found the OSR thanks to Finarvyn's take on Whitebox. Nowadays I'm having fun going back in time and studying the rules I kind of skirted around but never really bothered to master. The POD RC adorns my shelf proudly and I've had a lot of fun looking through it. I think I prefer the way I ran my games, though, to be honest. I bring a lot of that irreverence and "let's shake this and see what comes out" attitude to OD&D now.


*I'm not actually sure any of the kids who gamed with us for any length of time owned an actual book. I remember having a binder with some reeeeally badly scanned and printed off copies of choice pages from the first two (three?) booklets of the series. Like, early nineties bad quality. Literally unreadable in some cases. It's amazing how persistent my cheapness was. A cheapness and determination mixed in a unique way. I retain those traits to this day. Excelsior!

[asaki]

I just really, really love that artwork. All of it.

It's not a bad game either, I prefer to run it over most of the other editions. It's just really hard for me not to try to pop the missing/changed stuff from OD&D back into it.

Didn't grow up with it though, I ended up buying it off eBay. Started with 2E in high school, shortly before 3E came out (and all of my friends clung onto it).

I like some BECMI stuff, like Threshold, and all of the Mystara setting stuff (especially what Aaron Allston did), but other than that I think that edition is a little too hand-holdy for my tastes...and like others said, leveling up that high doesn't seem like that much fun.

Jun 3, 2020 6:24:11 GMT -6 jeffb said:

These days, I'm much more enamored of Frank's edits. In fact I own his play copies of the red and blue box booklets with his penciled in eratta.

Any way you could share this eratta with us? Anything good?

Or is there a list out there already?

edit: Wow, some of those errors are a little embarrassing...keep building was dirt cheap waynesbooks.games/2019/10/28/which-becmi-dd-rulebook-do-you-have/

[Aralaen]

B/X was my first d&d back in December’81. Ironically despite being an imaginative kid who played pretend outside, was into history etc, I had to be strong armed to the table with a guarantee that we’d play Dark Tower the next day. I was hooked, my first pc was fighter named Kerrok (named after amnesia Capt. Kirk in the episode with Native Americans). He was great door opener with 18 strength, 3 intelligence and 4 wisdom plus average remaining stats. Needless to say I wanted to play more. We got into AD&D like most not long after but I frequently returned to b/x over the years. In my exploration of OD&D I have discovered how close that B/X was to the original just better organized and explained with something’s fixed like variable weapons, race classes, even hit dice elevation etc. I think at this stage in life if I were to run old school game it would be b/x. It is a complete game in spite of references to a Companion set.

[tkdco2]

I agree that B/X is a complete game. It has everything I really need. I can probably find or make up whatever else I may need.

[jeffb]

Jun 7, 2020 15:29:30 GMT -6 asaki said:

I just really, really love that artwork. All of it.

It's not a bad game either, I prefer to run it over most of the other editions. It's just really hard for me not to try to pop the missing/changed stuff from OD&D back into it.

Didn't grow up with it though, I ended up buying it off eBay. Started with 2E in high school, shortly before 3E came out (and all of my friends clung onto it).

I like some BECMI stuff, like Threshold, and all of the Mystara setting stuff (especially what Aaron Allston did), but other than that I think that edition is a little too hand-holdy for my tastes...and like others said, leveling up that high doesn't seem like that much fun.

Jun 3, 2020 6:24:11 GMT -6 jeffb said:

These days, I'm much more enamored of Frank's edits. In fact I own his play copies of the red and blue box booklets with his penciled in eratta.

Any way you could share this eratta with us? Anything good?

Or is there a list out there already?

edit: Wow, some of those errors are a little embarrassing...keep building was dirt cheap waynesbooks.games/2019/10/28/which-becmi-dd-rulebook-do-you-have/

I'm sorry, I missed this previously.

My set is packed away due to my Wife having to take over the spare bedroom as an office, so its tough for me to get scans right now. But let me see if I can find the pics I took last year for a MEWE group.

Essentially there are a fair number of places where he is correcting tables/charts, etc. But there are some interesting bits- e.g. he wrote all over the dungeon maps in the DM book, keying them.

[jeffb]

OK.. Found them on my camera! Can only add two per post.

Some of this stuff I'm not sure why he did what he did. I probably should have asked, but I didn't want to seem like I just wanted these for my collection or I was a relic-hunter. As you can see he autogrpahed them for my son..



Edit- cant seem to delete these due to the server space issue?

Attachments:

[jeffb]

Next up

[jeffb]

……..

[jeffb]

and....

that's not all his corrections, etc. But at the time this is what I snapped pics of.

The Expert book had much less issues it seems

[tkdco2]

B/X is missing the description of the Detect Invisible spell. I just copied it from the Mentzer rules onto a sticky note and added it to my Basic Set.

[asaki]

Jun 13, 2020 6:50:04 GMT -6 jeffb said:

storage.proboards.com/1771418/thumbnailer/zUEjLvCAMIxgcFubsMJc.png

Lol, just about every D&D book I own looks like that.

So nothing too interesting...the link I posted had more errata.

[jeffb]

The errata was not really an interesting point for me.

I'm more curious about the little things- the grid dots on either side of the map. The methodical way he ticked off spells in the spell lists, The path he drew on the one map- is that the way the PCs went?

etc.

[Zenopus]

Thanks for the pics, Jeff, particularly of the Mistamere Castle Level 2 Dungeon notes! Coincidentally, earlier today I just happened to be looking at some old notes I made when I ran the dungeon about five years ago.

His penciled-in notations fit well with the original suggestions for stocking the level.

From the Basic Rulebook:

1 kobold lair (20-40 with chieftain, divided among 4-10 rooms)
1 Crab Spider lair (avoided by the kobolds)
Beetles and Centipedes
Rat (Normal and Giant)

Wandering monsters may include:
Kobolds
Beets and Centipedes
Gelatinous Cube
Undead (skeletons, zombies, ghouls)

The following penciled notes appear to correspond to suggested "stocked" monsters:
-The Kobold Lair in Room 65, with 18 of the kobolds, plus 3 Kobolds in Room 71 and an unspecified number in Room 61 (presumably guards).
-The Crab Spider Lair, with 6 spiders, in Room 41.

And these penciled notes correspond to suggested "wandering" monsters:
-A wandering Beetle in the northernmost east-west corridor. This could a Fire, Tiger or Oil Beetle per the Monster List.
-A wandering Gelatinous Cube in the corridor to the north of Room 58.
-Undead in Rooms 64 (10 Skeletons) and 40 (5 Ghouls).

Plus there are two other penciled notes:
-4 Bugbears in Room 55
-A circled "A" and a chest in Room 60. I wonder what is the significance of the letter? A trap? The key inside the cover uses circled letters for Trap Doors, but these don't include the letter "A".

And what was inside the chest?

[tkdco2]

I always find myself going back to B/X no matter what edition is current. My biggest frustration in years past was getting people to play B/X because they either preferred AD&D or they hated the race as class feature. Seriously, people cited that as a reason not to play B/X.

[Vile Traveller]

What always bemused me was that so many people claim to dislike race as class, yet most play humans anyway. 😄

[jeffb]

I understand those who dislike race as class. For example, people I played with wanted to be Hobbit Thieves, instead of Fighters

But every munchkin in the world liked Elves, and most people it seemed who played Dwarves wanted to play them as Fighters anyway. Can't recall anyone who wanted to play a Dwarven Cleric or Elven Cleric at the time. But my memory is not what it used to be.

That said, BITD, I don't know any of us who ran the game by the book. Up until Moldvay released we were playing a hodgepodge of O & A D&D leaning towards AD&D. When I went back from AD&D to Moldvay, I just used the bits from AD&D with it that we liked. Spells, Race/Class, MOnsters, Magic, etc. Some of my group however stuck with AD&D as rules (but again, it was AD&D "lite"- we never played by the book with weapon vs. ac, segments/initiative/casting, all the rules hidden away in the DMG, etc)

One thing that never seemed to be so prevalent as it is today is the idea of the character, it's building, it's story, etc integral to the D&D experience. For us, they were just a tool that allowed us to experience the adventure/wonder of the game- not a whole lot different than a monopoly piece. Thus none of us protested too much about things like race as class or limitations of classes and races based on the campaign setting, etc.

[asaki]

Jun 14, 2020 19:35:25 GMT -6 jeffb said:

The errata was not really an interesting point for me.

I was just wondering if he had any "inside info" or any changes made after publishing. Anything juicy

Jun 20, 2020 2:20:20 GMT -6 tkdco2 said:

My biggest frustration in years past was getting people to play B/X because ... they hated the race as class feature. Seriously, people cited that as a reason not to play B/X.

I don't know why people take issue with that, all they did was take the original LBB classes/races (plus Human Thief) and condense them down to the only PC options available at the time.
Just write in the book so it says "Human Fighter, Dwarf Fighter, Halfling Fighter" etc. All fixed!

[Vile Traveller]

Jun 20, 2020 7:23:34 GMT -6 jeffb said:

For example, people I played with wanted to be Hobbit Thieves, instead of Fighters. But every munchkin in the world liked Elves, and most people it seemed who played Dwarves wanted to play them as Fighters anyway. Can't recall anyone who wanted to play a Dwarven Cleric or Elven Cleric at the time. But my memory is not what it used to be.

My experience was coloured by reading What is Dungeons and Dragons by Butterfield et al. a short while before getting the Moldvay boxed set. This right away exposed me to the idea of house-rules even before I'd seen the actual rules. One that stuck with me was splitting race and class, though what I actually did was keep race-as-class and just switch the halfling base from fighter to thief. Who'd pick a halfling fighter with all those weapon restrictions? As you say, most people were happy with playing dwarves as fighters, and elves as fighter-mages. Nobody thought the trade-off in XP was worth playing an elf fighter or elf magic-user instead of the combo, because in practice you were only ever one level behind the rest of the party. All that said, however, most of us only tried out the demi-humans for a bit - before long we were all playing human characters.

HALFLINGS
Halflings are small, good-natured demi-humans averaging only 3 feet in height and weighing about 60 pounds. They are outgoing but not unusually brave, seeking treasure as a way of gaining the comforts of home which they so dearly love.

Halflings are naturally skilled in the arts of stealing and sneaking. Together with Thieves they are the only characters who can open locks and find traps without using magic to do so. Due to these abilities, a halfling is often found in a normal group of adventurers. The prime requisite for a halfling is Dexterity. A halfling character whose Dexterity score is 13 or greater will receive a bonus to earned experience.

RESTRICTIONS: Halflings use four-sided dice (d4) to determine their hit points. They may wear nothing more protective than leather armor, and may not use a shield. They may, however, use any type of weapon and armor which has been "cut down" to their size. Thus, they cannot use a two-handed sword or a long bow, but may use a sword or short bow. Halflings must have a minimum score of 9 in both Dexterity and Constitution.

SPECIAL ABILITIES: Halflings have better saving throws than most other character classes. They are very accurate with all missile weapons and gain a bonus of +1, in addition to Dexterity adjustments, on their "to hit" rolls when using them. Due to their small size and skills at dodging, halflings have a bonus of -2 on their Armor Class when being attacked by creatures larger than man-sized. When rolling for individual initiative halflings add +1, in addition to any Dexterity adjustments. Outdoors, halflings are difficult to spot, having the ability to seemingly vanish into woods or underbrush. Halflings have only a 10% chance of being detected in this type of cover, and even in dungeons there is a one-third chance (a roll of 1 or 2 on 1d6) that a halfling will not be seen in normal light if the character finds some cover (such as shadows), and remains absolutely quiet and still.

When striking unnoticed from behind, a thief gains a bonus of +4 on "to hit" rolls and inflicts twice the normal amount of damage. A halfling's upbringing includes learning how to pick pockets, climb steep surfaces, move silently, hide in shadows, open locks (with a set of lockpicks or burglar's tools), remove small traps (such as poisoned needles), and how to hear noises better than other races. As a halfling progresses in level, he or she becomes more proficient in these "thiefly" skills.

[tkdco2]

I prefer to play elves because of the Silmarillion. B/X probably shaped my preferences since I usually played elven fighter/magic-users in AD&D.

[cadriel]

The first Dungeons & Dragons book I ever got was an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition Player's Handbook. I could not make heads or tails of it - the book was a reference manual and not designed to teach 13 year olds how to roleplay.

A while later I got what was presented as a board game version of D&D:


This boxed set made a lot more sense. It had a set of "Dragon Cards" that familiarized you with all the dice and stats and terminology, and how gameplay worked as you made your way through a solo adventure. I wound up using it to run my very first game of D&D because it had, in one booklet, monsters and treasure and everything I needed. I say my first because, well, after that game, I started running AD&D 2e proper. I had figured it out, kind of, and wanted the "bigger" advanced version of the game. I was sort of a "Monty Haul" DM for a while because I wanted to play with all the magical toys in the DMG. Then I read Dragon Magazine and found out that was frowned upon, and buttoned up and became a much better DM.

In its final years, TSR kept tinkering with the formula for introductory Dungeons & Dragons. None of them seemed to take; we would go to Kay-Bee Toy & Hobby, and the board game shelves would be littered with D&D boxed sets that had been remaindered and were selling for only $5. We bought a bunch of starter sets because it was a cheap way to get dice and the one after that came with plastic miniatures. I remember finding the "First Quest" Audio CD quite funny because of the (low) quality of the voice actors.

I did, however, find out that the version I started with had an expansion, the Rules Cyclopedia, and got my hands on a copy of that (that one is now falling apart, although I have others in better shape). I loved the Rules Cyclopedia, and ran it for a bit after I finished high school and before 3e came out. I remember a friend having the Cook/Marsh Expert book but we were not particularly impressed.

It was much later that I discovered Holmes and Moldvay, and found a lot of respect for both. I've run games that are really fun with each of those sets, as well as the RC. I love Holmes as its own beast, and find the RC as my favorite incarnation of the B/X line, perhaps for slightly nostalgic reasons as well as my conviction that D&D as a complete game in one book is an idea that simply seems right. If I were starting an old school campaign tomorrow the Rules Cyclopedia would probably be my go-to.

[ThrorII]

I started with OD&D in the mid-late 70s, DM'd by one of my dad's friends. We quickly bought the Holmes starter set, and within a year 'advanced' to AD&D. I missed the entire B/X - BECMI train....never even knew they were a thing!?!?

I played "AD&D" throughout middle school (6th to 8th grade). I put "AD&D" in quotes, because in retrospect, we used the PHB for races, classes, and spells, but in hindsight either used the BX rules or OD&D rules for Dungeon, Wilderness, and Encounters. I think we used the AD&D DMG for the to-hit and saving throw charts only. I think a lot of people played this way...

I moved on to other rpgs in the mid-80s, and didn't play at all for 15 years. I jumped back in when 3.5 came along, and immediately hated all the crunch. I moved on to Castles & Crusades, and 'discovered' B/X and BECMI. B/X is my sweet spot - it is obviously one step removed from OD&D, in some cases just 'cleaned up'. The 1-14 level range is perfect, since just getting to name level is tough enough. There are things from OD&D you can 'port almost verbatim to BX if you want them (like paladins).

[tkdco2]

Back in the 80s we used to mix B/X with AD&D freely.

[jeffb]

Jun 20, 2020 11:30:23 GMT -6 asaki said:

Jun 14, 2020 19:35:25 GMT -6 jeffb said:

The errata was not really an interesting point for me.

I was just wondering if he had any "inside info" or any changes made after publishing. Anything juicy

Nah, not that I can tell. And Frankly, no pun intended, I'm not super familiar with the nitty gritty changes in Franks revisions. I never played it BITD, and I really never read/studied it or it's differences. I did find all Frank's noodling interesting- Thanks to Zenopus for the in depth look here in this thread!

[jeffb]

Jun 21, 2020 0:27:06 GMT -6 Vile Traveller said:

Jun 20, 2020 7:23:34 GMT -6 jeffb said:

For example, people I played with wanted to be Hobbit Thieves, instead of Fighters. But every munchkin in the world liked Elves, and most people it seemed who played Dwarves wanted to play them as Fighters anyway. Can't recall anyone who wanted to play a Dwarven Cleric or Elven Cleric at the time. But my memory is not what it used to be.

My experience was coloured by reading What is Dungeons and Dragons by Butterfield et al. a short while before getting the Moldvay boxed set. This right away exposed me to the idea of house-rules even before I'd seen the actual rules. One that stuck with me was splitting race and class, though what I actually did was keep race-as-class and just switch the halfling base from fighter to thief. Who'd pick a halfling fighter with all those weapon restrictions? As you say, most people were happy with playing dwarves as fighters, and elves as fighter-mages. Nobody thought the trade-off in XP was worth playing an elf fighter or elf magic-user instead of the combo, because in practice you were only ever one level behind the rest of the party. All that said, however, most of us only tried out the demi-humans for a bit - before long we were all playing human characters.

HALFLINGS
Halflings are small, good-natured demi-humans averaging only 3 feet in height and weighing about 60 pounds. They are outgoing but not unusually brave, seeking treasure as a way of gaining the comforts of home which they so dearly love.

Halflings are naturally skilled in the arts of stealing and sneaking. Together with Thieves they are the only characters who can open locks and find traps without using magic to do so. Due to these abilities, a halfling is often found in a normal group of adventurers. The prime requisite for a halfling is Dexterity. A halfling character whose Dexterity score is 13 or greater will receive a bonus to earned experience.

RESTRICTIONS: Halflings use four-sided dice (d4) to determine their hit points. They may wear nothing more protective than leather armor, and may not use a shield. They may, however, use any type of weapon and armor which has been "cut down" to their size. Thus, they cannot use a two-handed sword or a long bow, but may use a sword or short bow. Halflings must have a minimum score of 9 in both Dexterity and Constitution.

SPECIAL ABILITIES: Halflings have better saving throws than most other character classes. They are very accurate with all missile weapons and gain a bonus of +1, in addition to Dexterity adjustments, on their "to hit" rolls when using them. Due to their small size and skills at dodging, halflings have a bonus of -2 on their Armor Class when being attacked by creatures larger than man-sized. When rolling for individual initiative halflings add +1, in addition to any Dexterity adjustments. Outdoors, halflings are difficult to spot, having the ability to seemingly vanish into woods or underbrush. Halflings have only a 10% chance of being detected in this type of cover, and even in dungeons there is a one-third chance (a roll of 1 or 2 on 1d6) that a halfling will not be seen in normal light if the character finds some cover (such as shadows), and remains absolutely quiet and still.

When striking unnoticed from behind, a thief gains a bonus of +4 on "to hit" rolls and inflicts twice the normal amount of damage. A halfling's upbringing includes learning how to pick pockets, climb steep surfaces, move silently, hide in shadows, open locks (with a set of lockpicks or burglar's tools), remove small traps (such as poisoned needles), and how to hear noises better than other races. As a halfling progresses in level, he or she becomes more proficient in these "thiefly" skills.

Good stuff here- And I had that book, though long after I had started playing D&D. I haven't seen it in nearly 40 years though. There was also "Dicing with Dragons" or somesuch.

[geoffrey]

Jun 23, 2020 0:16:15 GMT -6 ThrorII said:

B/X is my sweet spot - it is obviously one step removed from OD&D, in some cases just 'cleaned up'. The 1-14 level range is perfect...

I largely agree. What I miss most in B/X is Gary's voice.

[ThrorII]

Jun 23, 2020 13:23:01 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

Jun 23, 2020 0:16:15 GMT -6 ThrorII said:

B/X is my sweet spot - it is obviously one step removed from OD&D, in some cases just 'cleaned up'. The 1-14 level range is perfect...

I largely agree. What I miss most in B/X is Gary's voice.

I can see that, but, "Gary's voice" was part of the hurdle of understanding the LBB's and 1e AD&D. Editing was not his strong suit.