"The New and Easy to Master book has an equipment list that only uses flat Gold(no copper or silver)for item costs. After you hit the shop a couple times you remember the prices for everything. I can't tell you how much i love that lol
BECMI had it all. 1-36 + Immortal. Castles and strongholds, armies. Simple to learn and play and yes, you could make a demi-human cleric or whatever. They just presented the simplest way, and spelled it out for you to do much more than was written for your games. The only D&D you'll ever need. I too wore out my RC, that got retired when they started offering POD copies.
I was talked out of buying the Rules Cyclopedia when I was a kid, just starting in with 2nd Edition. I was told that it wasn't for the game we were playing and that I would be wasting my money. I wish that I hadn't listened.
Yeah it was worth the pick up back then, but if the group wasn't running it, perhaps less so. I know I was mostly running 2nd ed back in the day, but still ended up picking it up because I had a bit of extra money at the time. As the one running most of the games in my group, I was able to use some of the ideas from it in the game at least.
Haha yeah, I actually really enjoyed the demihuman race-as-class feature, especially when taken as a whole (including the specific special detection abilities many had) as it gave them their own flavor beyond the 'just a short fighter' or 'just a fighter mage' sort of thing.
Nice description, best video of the series. I started directly with AD&D in 1980, then I also purchased B,E and C later but missed the rules cyclopedia as I was in other hobbies at that time.
Thanks for watching, and glad you found it interesting. Sometimes I wish I could redo these with lessons I've learned in video production since then. Then again, I barely have time to create what I work on now. And yeah, I was very much into the rpg scene at that time, but just a few short years later I started to really get into computer rpgs, so I suppose I got lucky to have a window of interest there before being swept into other hobbies for a while. I know my personal collection of older rpg books suffers from a gap because of it.
Awesome! Like you, my first D&D experience was with the Red Box, but in actuality we nearly always played AD&D. BECMI always struck me as so complete and straight forward. I’d love to DM or play a campaign with that!
I was honestly super stoked when the BECMI rules cyclopedia was released on print on demand. I'm pretty happy with the quality of it, although I still miss my original book.
Still my desert-island RPG book if I could have just one. And they came out with character record sheets (which I still have) that incorporated a space for weapon specialization, which was super helpful at the table. And the war machine is still my favorite mass combat system. We use it occasionally for our 1e games. Quick & dirty, but adds another element to the game.
I am just so glad that it's available in print on demand now. My original copy was absolutely worthless in terms of a usable book after all these years. I still drag it out to reference from time to time, though it's been a long while since I've been able to run this system for a group.
This is what I started with. Mostly only used B and E. Now I'm poking at OSE and I'm still a tiny bit confused as to the differences between OSE (BX) and BE. Not that it matters that much. Wouldn't mind hearing more analysis on those differences though.
I could probably produce an entire video on it, but it basically boils down to a few rules that were optional/just being introduced in B/X being turned official in the BECMI series, some additional tweaks added, and some slight rescaling to support the eventual release of the companion and master rules. There's a few other differences, such as the addition or subtraction of some monsters in the core list. The differences are minor enough (aside from BECMI's stronghold rules and introduction of skills) that one can transparently run most B/X modules with BECMI, and most BECMI modules with B/X unchanged.
@@rpgcrawler Yeah. That's the picture I see. OSE is so nice and neat that I'm happy I can use it to play the DnD of my childhood even though strictly speaking it was Mentzer edition we had.
With BECMI, if I were using weapon proficiencies, I'd be very tempted to allow any class to buy any proficiency - I mean, ultimately, it gives people a little extra customisation, and the squishy wizard carrying a great sword isn't exactly game breaking when you consider that getting into melee is still likely to be suicidal behaviour, and quite frankly a crossbow seems to me to be far easier to learn to use than a blow gun...
Yeah, some of the becmi weapon masteries are a bit odd in terms of placement, at least regarding crossbows and other 'simplistic' weapons. I guess it was just a symptom of the day. And honestly, I could see allowing a magic-user willing to expend slots and time to learn such a non-class weapon mastery to do so. But in practice, I always found the quarterstaff mastery to be a bit better for magic-users. At higher levels of mastery, it granted a bit better AC bonus, and a deflect ability to knock away attacks. Which ended up being a bit more valuable, for me at least, than having an offensive weapon at hand. Of courses, then I got the odd mental image of a magic user pulling some sort of martial arts staff fighting, like something out of a wushu movie.
I play this system, and I DO give the Magic-User the use of Light Crossbow. In a recent first session game I supplied the Magic-User with a "Scroll Folio" given to him by his teacher - basically a sort of book of scrolls so that he'd have more versatility in the beginning. It's easy to imagine a MU's teacher providing them samples of simple magic to try out in the field for practice. As he levels up I'll slowly eliminate the folio.
Derp...looks like I didn't grow up on the "easy to master" black box, but the "classic" game (which also came in a black box, though shaped differently and had some plastic minis).
Haha yeah, they were real similar and easy to confuse. If I recall though, the contents were also super close, and mostly changed due to a shift in marketing at the time.
They were really similar (maybe identical text-wise), which made it even more confusing when I bought the black box a year or two ago and thought, huh, I don't remember this, and where are the plastic minis? I then picked up the classic game, which had the orange book I was familiar with, and I think it also has all the loose papers.
hate to say it you have seneschals and castellans that can look after domains when your away and you get reduced xp if your not directly running them.....and it says so in rules
Awesome. It really is. The graphics are a bit dated, but if you can handle the randomized skill use in it, it's still a very detailed game with enough content to more than justify the price tag. And if you're into modding, after you've played it a bit I can recommend looking at the morrowind graphics overhaul or other mods via nexus. They're little less easy to use than later entries in the series, but they can still be worthwhile. I do recommend playing it with no mods first though, just to get sense for it.
I maybe missed something but I hope you will start a new GM online campaign for 'new' players in 2018. I surely wanne join if so. If not, no problem, I know your time table is very tight. Another great video, thanks for your time and upload.
I >really< want to start a game for general viewers. I've been running one for patrons and have a backlog of stuff to post from that too. Thanks for watching, and if I do get that game up, whether for new or old, I'll let you know!
There was not, but there was one planned. They went over to the next iteration before it came to fruition. Page X8 of the Cook expert set references it.
your so overlooking the immortal ruleset its as thick as other box sets WOW your a newbie that doesnt want the out there fun , how aobut running your own star system .....lol
by 2nd edition the start to making it all dumbed down begins remove the immortal rules then by 5th edition its a game can be played by sub par math skills
"The New and Easy to Master book has an equipment list that only uses flat Gold(no copper or silver)for item costs. After you hit the shop a couple times you remember the prices for everything. I can't tell you how much i love that lol
Yeah, anything that makes character creation that much faster is a real boon.
BECMI is still my favorite for its completeness. It's a solid game.
You can now buy the rules cyclopedia on the DMS GUILD print on demand.
BECMI had it all. 1-36 + Immortal. Castles and strongholds, armies. Simple to learn and play and yes, you could make a demi-human cleric or whatever. They just presented the simplest way, and spelled it out for you to do much more than was written for your games.
The only D&D you'll ever need.
I too wore out my RC, that got retired when they started offering POD copies.
Definitely my favorite and probably the best book ever released for D&D in any edition.
I was talked out of buying the Rules Cyclopedia when I was a kid, just starting in with 2nd Edition. I was told that it wasn't for the game we were playing and that I would be wasting my money. I wish that I hadn't listened.
Yeah it was worth the pick up back then, but if the group wasn't running it, perhaps less so. I know I was mostly running 2nd ed back in the day, but still ended up picking it up because I had a bit of extra money at the time. As the one running most of the games in my group, I was able to use some of the ideas from it in the game at least.
The rules cyclopedia is available on Drive Thu RPG for about $32.
I started with the red box, wonderful
I have so much nostalgia for these box sets with the red box being my first introduction to role playing! Thanks for the video.
My favorite D&D. Elf is a race, AND a class, just as God intended.
Haha yeah, I actually really enjoyed the demihuman race-as-class feature, especially when taken as a whole (including the specific special detection abilities many had) as it gave them their own flavor beyond the 'just a short fighter' or 'just a fighter mage' sort of thing.
Nice description, best video of the series.
I started directly with AD&D in 1980, then I also purchased B,E and C later but missed the rules cyclopedia as I was in other hobbies at that time.
Thanks for watching, and glad you found it interesting. Sometimes I wish I could redo these with lessons I've learned in video production since then. Then again, I barely have time to create what I work on now. And yeah, I was very much into the rpg scene at that time, but just a few short years later I started to really get into computer rpgs, so I suppose I got lucky to have a window of interest there before being swept into other hobbies for a while. I know my personal collection of older rpg books suffers from a gap because of it.
In recent years I came across those books and really enjoyed reading them! It's a pity that I just can't convince any of my players to give it a try.
Awesome! Like you, my first D&D experience was with the Red Box, but in actuality we nearly always played AD&D. BECMI always struck me as so complete and straight forward. I’d love to DM or play a campaign with that!
I was honestly super stoked when the BECMI rules cyclopedia was released on print on demand. I'm pretty happy with the quality of it, although I still miss my original book.
I’ve been thinking about buying it, but would be unlikely to able to get something going here in Japan. Maybe online... 🤫
I still prefer to run BECMI.
Still my desert-island RPG book if I could have just one. And they came out with character record sheets (which I still have) that incorporated a space for weapon specialization, which was super helpful at the table. And the war machine is still my favorite mass combat system. We use it occasionally for our 1e games. Quick & dirty, but adds another element to the game.
I am just so glad that it's available in print on demand now. My original copy was absolutely worthless in terms of a usable book after all these years. I still drag it out to reference from time to time, though it's been a long while since I've been able to run this system for a group.
This is what I started with. Mostly only used B and E. Now I'm poking at OSE and I'm still a tiny bit confused as to the differences between OSE (BX) and BE. Not that it matters that much. Wouldn't mind hearing more analysis on those differences though.
I could probably produce an entire video on it, but it basically boils down to a few rules that were optional/just being introduced in B/X being turned official in the BECMI series, some additional tweaks added, and some slight rescaling to support the eventual release of the companion and master rules. There's a few other differences, such as the addition or subtraction of some monsters in the core list. The differences are minor enough (aside from BECMI's stronghold rules and introduction of skills) that one can transparently run most B/X modules with BECMI, and most BECMI modules with B/X unchanged.
@@rpgcrawler Yeah. That's the picture I see. OSE is so nice and neat that I'm happy I can use it to play the DnD of my childhood even though strictly speaking it was Mentzer edition we had.
Thanks for sharing . One of my favorite systems .
Excellent content! I really enjoyed this series!
With BECMI, if I were using weapon proficiencies, I'd be very tempted to allow any class to buy any proficiency - I mean, ultimately, it gives people a little extra customisation, and the squishy wizard carrying a great sword isn't exactly game breaking when you consider that getting into melee is still likely to be suicidal behaviour, and quite frankly a crossbow seems to me to be far easier to learn to use than a blow gun...
Yeah, some of the becmi weapon masteries are a bit odd in terms of placement, at least regarding crossbows and other 'simplistic' weapons. I guess it was just a symptom of the day. And honestly, I could see allowing a magic-user willing to expend slots and time to learn such a non-class weapon mastery to do so. But in practice, I always found the quarterstaff mastery to be a bit better for magic-users. At higher levels of mastery, it granted a bit better AC bonus, and a deflect ability to knock away attacks. Which ended up being a bit more valuable, for me at least, than having an offensive weapon at hand.
Of courses, then I got the odd mental image of a magic user pulling some sort of martial arts staff fighting, like something out of a wushu movie.
Is it wrong my Cleric was running around with a haldberg? 😁 I think I was like 8...
I play this system, and I DO give the Magic-User the use of Light Crossbow. In a recent first session game I supplied the Magic-User with a "Scroll Folio" given to him by his teacher - basically a sort of book of scrolls so that he'd have more versatility in the beginning. It's easy to imagine a MU's teacher providing them samples of simple magic to try out in the field for practice. As he levels up I'll slowly eliminate the folio.
Derp...looks like I didn't grow up on the "easy to master" black box, but the "classic" game (which also came in a black box, though shaped differently and had some plastic minis).
Haha yeah, they were real similar and easy to confuse. If I recall though, the contents were also super close, and mostly changed due to a shift in marketing at the time.
They were really similar (maybe identical text-wise), which made it even more confusing when I bought the black box a year or two ago and thought, huh, I don't remember this, and where are the plastic minis? I then picked up the classic game, which had the orange book I was familiar with, and I think it also has all the loose papers.
and i loved immortals rule set your missing the idea that its open ended and the possibilities are endless literally
hate to say it you have seneschals and castellans that can look after domains when your away and you get reduced xp if your not directly running them.....and it says so in rules
Halfling ....should have been a fighter/thief!
You are just not familiar with The 5 Shires Gazetteer.
I feel like BECMI is far more rules heavy than AD&D 2nd edition.
Hey RPG crawler great video morrowind is on sale today for 7.50$ so I'm going to buy it, I've never played before but it seems exciting.
Awesome. It really is. The graphics are a bit dated, but if you can handle the randomized skill use in it, it's still a very detailed game with enough content to more than justify the price tag. And if you're into modding, after you've played it a bit I can recommend looking at the morrowind graphics overhaul or other mods via nexus. They're little less easy to use than later entries in the series, but they can still be worthwhile.
I do recommend playing it with no mods first though, just to get sense for it.
rpg crawler my pc is horrible and I'm not handy with installing mods
I maybe missed something but I hope you will start a new GM online campaign for 'new' players in 2018. I surely wanne join if so. If not, no problem, I know your time table is very tight. Another great video, thanks for your time and upload.
I >really< want to start a game for general viewers. I've been running one for patrons and have a backlog of stuff to post from that too. Thanks for watching, and if I do get that game up, whether for new or old, I'll let you know!
Great video. Just as all the videos you make
Thanks! And hopefully I'll have another retrospective series coming up soon, just deep into research on it atm.
@@rpgcrawler already subscribed!
Wait, there was a moldvay/cook companion set?
There was not, but there was one planned. They went over to the next iteration before it came to fruition. Page X8 of the Cook expert set references it.
the concepts and ruleset of immortal rules had such potential and fun, nerfing this set was where they lost me
mass combat of companion and dominion rules and expert on seiges
your so overlooking the immortal ruleset its as thick as other box sets WOW your a newbie that doesnt want the out there fun , how aobut running your own star system .....lol
by 2nd edition the start to making it all dumbed down begins remove the immortal rules then by 5th edition its a game can be played by sub par math skills