OD&D vs B/X and BECMI

Again, what’s striking to me is how much is the same. I was initially under the impression that AD&D was a compilation of everything OD&D, while the “Basic” strain of D&D was a restructuring by different authors using the same underlying principles. But after cross referencing the source rule books a few times, I’ve come to the conclusion that that’s not the case at all. The rules and information in the Moldvay and Mentzer sets are very similar as what’s given in the three original D&D booklets, just vastly improved in clarity, organization and explanation.

Like the Moldvay set, OD&D basically runs on a d6 system, not just for weapon damage but for resolving success of most situations, such as finding hidden doors and avoiding traps. The d20 is only used for combat resolution on the alternate combat table. OD&D is notorious for how much of its game system is actually not detailed in its core books, and those gaps are filled in by the Basic and Expert sets.

It actually gives me more confidence in considering the whole line of "Classic" D&D rules to be one continuous strain beginning with OD&D and re-edited right up to its last revision with the Rules Cyclopedia.

The modern OSR attitude seems to be that OD&D and B/X/BECMI are two different strains of the game, but I believe that part of that might be driven by an urge for purism in rulesets and a highly elitist attitude among OSR gamers. During the '80s and '90s when these books were in print, there was no distinction between the flavors of Classic D&D since they were all branded as the same, and I think the OSR attitude is an overreaction to that which focuses on the most minor differences in wording and table values.  And this is understandable, since most OSR games owe their very existence to minor differences in wording and table values, and legally could not exist without them.

Coming back to D&D, the high degree of compatibility between the successive versions makes it much more useful to cross reference between them, and to use the information in one book to fill in the gaps of the other.

Traps and Thieves solo

There is an oft-repeated ruling that every character has a 1-in-6 chance of detecting a trap in a 10'x10' area if they spend a turn searching for one. This ruling exists only in the Moldvay Basic set, and not in BECMI or AD&D. The closest I can find is in volume III of OD&D Underworld and Wilderness Adventures: "Traps are usually sprung by a roll of a 1 or a 2 when any character passes over or by them. Pits will open in the same manner".

 To me this means that there is a chance that the trap will be triggered, not that it will be found. Managing traps while playing solo is actually quite tricky, since it seems very silly to have your characters rush headlong into a trap you have placed yourself. However, using the guidance from OD&D, its possible to manage traps independently of DM/Player metaknowledge with a new procedure:

For every room that has a trap in it, if the players pass through the room, a trap will be sprung on a roll of 1 or 2 on a six-sided die.

This seems a fair method to me and saves me from either triggering every trap automatically when my characters move into it, or avoiding them all completely.  A Thief character can use his class skill to detect a trap beforehand and the Cleric could cast a Find Trap spell, while the Fighter and Magic-User would be the helpless victims of fate.  Unfortunately this method encourages "roll play" instead of "role play". Finding traps, deducing their nature and avoiding or overcoming them is one of the most inventive and engrossing parts of live D&D play, and that element is completely removed in solo play.  Unfortunately in this manner D&D turns from a game about ingenuity and imagination into one of probability and statistics.

A similar procedure exists in B2: Keep on the Borderlands for falling into a pit trap, where PCs in the front rank will fall in on a 1-2 on d6, and PCs in the second rank will fall in on a roll of 1.

The random dungeon generator in AD&D also provides options for pit traps and the like, but in that case pits are sprung on a chance of 3-6. Arrow traps and spear walls do instant damage, 1-3 per missile, while poison, gas, acid and the like force a saving throw. All of these traps, if not found by a Thief, would be sprung automatically, making AD&D more deadly than the earlier systems.

Perhaps a middle ground can be reached where after the trap is detected, overcoming it is an exercise in spending equipment and PC abilities to disable or avoid it.  The only other option would be to borrow D&D 4e/5e's "Perception" checks.

Locked chests are easier to handle. Depending on the size of the chest and the strength of its construction, a Fighter can force it open with either a Lift Gates or Bend Bars attempt. Magic-Users have an infamously easy "Knock" spell, and the Thief can use his class skill.

Moldvay vs Mentzer

What's striking to me is how much is the same between both. Even short, throwaway rule guidelines from the Moldvay book are carried faithfully forward by Mentzer into his revision. It's clear to me that Mentzer did not intend to change the rules much at all, merely re-edit and present them in a more expansive, instructional format. The few changes he did make are mostly to be more generous to players, for example encumbrance limits are raised. The big exception are the Thief skills, which were a casualty of marketing - they had to be stretched out to 36 levels, so their actual gain per level is slower, which makes the Thief more useless for longer.  The actual mechanics, however, such as movement, speed, combat, item prices, etc. are exactly the same.

Neither Basic set contains a method for random dungeon generation. Instead they contain guidelines on building a dungeon and how to stock it, but the actual layout and method is left up to the DM.  The Mentzer Basic book is actually the same as the earlier revision's, just expanded. This makes the AD&D random dungeon generation table (copied from an article from TSR magazine) unique.

The big pillars of the OSR community are the Moldvay, Cook and Marsh B/X sets, and Allston's Rule Cyclopedia. The BECMI sets sort of get lost between them, since they're assumed to be superseded by the Rules Cyclopedia. The value of B/X and Rule Cyclopedia is that they're both written as reference works, and thus much easier to look up during actual play, while the big flaw of the BECMI sets is that the rules are divided between Players' books and DM's books, and the rules, items, and magic lists are scattered between the 5 sets, making them tedious to look through during a campaign.

Fans of B/X prefer its "simplicity". Restricting itself to 14 levels (though it Cook's Expert hints at 36), the Basic and Expert sets cover dungeon crawling and overland adventures, which is the same focus as D&D's original Underworld and Wilderness Adventures, and to it's proponents that's all you need. It's hard to argue otherwise, since modern D&D doesn't do anything different.

The Rules Cyclopedia, on the other hand, combines everything from the development of the Basic/Classic line into one book. This means it pulls in optional material such as skills and demihuman classes from the Gazetteer books, the large scale combat and dominion rules from the Companion set, and the weapon mastery and immortal paths from the Master sets, and even some hints from AD&D 2e. It takes an "everything but the kitchen sink" approach to the rules and those who have it give it nothing but praise for combining everything about D&D you would ever need into one volume.

However, people who quibble about the rules differences between the editions are barking up the wrong tree.  The Rules Cyclopedia replaces some of the edits put in by Mentzer by carrying forward the original rules written by Moldvay, but then in other places uses the same text as Mentzer's BECMI set. The Classic D&D line does not have the major differences between editions that AD&D 1e and 2e, or D&D 3, 4, and 5e have had.

Underworld and Wilderness Adventures

The actual method of how to play D&D is contained in this volume. Men and Magic and Monsters and Treasure describe the things in D&D and how to use them, but the actual explanation of what to do in the game is written in Underworld & Wilderness Adventures.

And there's not a lot in there. The first section describes dungeons and how to build one followed by a brief discussion on how to explore it, with a couple of short asides on how to actually use some of the items detailed in the equipment list.* This is followed by a discussion of combat procedures in the dungeon, which explicitly directs readers to Chainmail for an in depth explanation, or they can use the very sparse charts from the alternate combat system in volume I.

The next section is Wilderness and it basically directs the reader to Outdoor Survival for the actual exploration rules and a map on which to play. A short discussion on converting the Outdoor Survival map for D&D play follows, and the rest of the book is taken up by combat procedures on land, aerial and naval.

What's striking is what's missing. There is no discussion of roleplaying, no mention of town adventures, of chats with NPCs, no instructions for the creation of a campaign or set up for heroic quests. D&D is primarily and explicitly only about combat, on a 1:1 figure scale in a fantasy setting either in the underworld or overworld, with monsters and heroes.  What people actually consider an RPG to be is completely absent.

Maybe all of that is contained in the supplements and Strategic Review magazine, but then that would mean that to canonically play D&D as an RPG requires a whole host of sources beyond the basic 3 booklet set.  Everything I've mentioned that was missing is actually in AD&D and the later Basic sets.

*which I found way more helpful than most other D&D source books since this information is not restated anywhere else until the Mentzer red book.

The only OD&D revision that I like

http://mahney.blogspot.com/2009/03/ultimate-sandbox.html

Difficulty Checks

UPDATE: I no longer like Difficulty Checks at all, and I never use them.

I like the 5th edition skill check system, despite the fact that it is the most hated feature of modern D&D to OSR circles. I liked them even back in 4th Edition, when they were part of the Skill Challenge encounter system, and in my 5e games I run skill challenges all the time.

Frankly, I find the d20 + ability modifier + proficiency bonus (optional) mechanic to be simple, elegant, and nearly universal for resolving undefined actions. It's a much better system than 2e's Non-weapon proficiency and 3e's skills. The 2e and 3e systems were actually very restrictive on characters who didn't choose the skill, as it meant that the player could not even attempt an action that they didn't have the skill for. The 5e system is very different, choosing a skill only applies an optional ability bonus, and anything else can be attempted simply by rolling a d20 and applying an appropriate attribute modifier. This actually frees player characters to attempt anything, and their chance of success is modified by their personal attributes.

I like this system so much I'm back porting it into my 1e game. This solves a lot of issues I have when resolving the outcome of player actions. Otherwise, I either have to give players a 100% chance of success solely dependent on their ability to convince me that their plan would work, or invent some contrived system involving percentile dice, or a chance out of 6, or something else complicated and obtuse. That sort of refereeing led to all the exceptional cases and disassociated mechanics that plague the 1e DMG.

The 5e difficulty check is the best iteration of the mechanic. The result of the modified roll is compared against a difficulty class table that is universal for player characters of all levels, and the referee only has to choose whether the difficulty of success is easy, moderate, hard, or nearly impossible. This is quick, simple, and usually able to reach the consensus of the players without argument.

But importantly, this is invaluable in solo play when there is no mechanic for solving a problem. The OSR technique for overcoming an unknown obstacle is to convince the dungeon master of your action's attempt, but this cannot be done solo. You either give yourself a 100% chance of success, or avoid the attempt entirely. A difficulty check now allows you to play solo and attempt anything, with the vague notion that your success or failure is fairly adjudicated by the dice and the makeup of your player character. That might be too modern of an attitude for OSR D&D, but it works too well to be dismissed out of hand.

And this whole thing was inspired by me asking the question "how do you open a lock without a thief in the party?"

and here's some answers I like: https://followmeanddie.com/2015/02/21/locks/
http://initiativeone.blogspot.com/2013/07/has-osr-mostly-embraced-thieves.html
https://blog.d4caltrops.com/2008/06/rules-cyclopedia-hacks-and-house-rules.html

The Cleric Problem

The Cleric class started life as a pastiche of Peter Cushing's portrayal of Abraham Van Helsing in Hammer Horror's Dracula movie.  I love that movie.  Dave Arneson was very liberal in using '70s pop culture in his early roleplaying sessions, and in one game he had been playing with two teams against each other where one of the players created an evil vampire named Sir Fang who had become too powerful to stop, so the proto-cleric class was created as a counter.  When Gary Gygax included the class in the original Men & Magic booklet, he retrofitted them to reflect the Crusaders of Militant Religious Orders and tasked them with the power of turning undead and casting miracles.  Mechanically, they were the midway point between the Fighting-Man and Magic-User classes with a unique spell list which included 3 healing spells and the ability to resurrect allies from the dead, which lead to the unintended consequence of their role being reduced to healing bots.

The problem came when Gygax's players asked the natural question "Where do the Clerics' powers come from?"  Gary Gygax's flippant answer was originally "the gods" but as his players pressed the issue, he created two fictional dieties, St. Cuthburt and Pholtus, and then eventually antagonistic dieties, and then it spiraled out of control into a whole pantheon and cosmology based around alignment charts and planar existence and spheres of power, and other assorted overly complicated junk.

Every OSR blogger trying to make a retro clone or attempting to streamline their own game has tackled this problem one way or another.  Some throw out the Cleric class altogether, others change their nature into being some kind of atheist heal bot, and yet others go down the 5e path of giving each Cleric a unique spell list dependent on the individual god they serve.  To me, these are all bad solutions as they solve a problem by creating even more problems, are based on an erroneous understanding of mythology, and tend to dilute the essence of the class.  And it all comes back to Gygax's misstep in mentioning that a Cleric's powers came from "the gods".

Now, Gary Gygax has stated that he felt that including real world references to God and Satan were inappropriate for a role playing game. I read an anecdote of a group where the DM stipulated that Cleric players had to pray to the actual God for their abilities, and it caused an uneasy awkwardness at the table. So I totally agree with that sentiment and even revised my own homebrew setting to throw out references to real world churches and religious organizations, but a really elegant solution was hiding under our collective noses the whole time.

According to some Christian traditions, Saints who are thought to be in Heaven can intercede on the behalf of parishioners and are prayed to themselves. Though there was a real, historical St. Cuthbert, the one invented by Gygax bears no relation to him and can easily be a purely fictitious patron for Clerics and other religiously motivated characters. And for antagonists, the Monster Manual is full of lists of Devil Princes and demons for evil clerics to beg for favor.

Personally I cannot conceive of a world set in the Middle Ages that doesn't have a strong Christian influence in everything from deed, to dress, to song, to architecture.  Every fantasy world tries to handwave that away, and I feel that it cheapens the setting a bit. Settings that rely on a pantheon of gods would better reflect the Roman world of Classical Antiquity than the Medieval Era.

This method of using St. Cuthburt as a stand-in for a religion that mimics, but isn't explicitly Christian, creates an elegant context for the Cleric's spell list and abilities, and a justification for the existence of the class.  Having religious characters as a player class adds an element of immersion to the game, beyond just having holy men and priests as background NPCs.

So, in my setting, there exists only one deity, however nobody prays to that deity directly.  Instead the Patron Saint of the land is St. Cuthburt, and all faithful direct their worship to him as an intercessor on their behalf, and the devoted seek to gain his blessings and favor.  Those blasphemous that seek unholy power would be fallen Clerics that have studied the teachings of St. Cuthburt, but seek to corrupt and reverse them for selfish means.  The knowledge such used could be used to summon demons and devils from the lower planes.  Druids and Rangers, who take neither side in the battle between good and evil, instead call upon the animistic spirits of Nature.

This resolves neatly with the alignment chart, as St. Cuthburt would dominate the Good alignment and Nature worshippers would have to remain Neutral, and followers of other beings would fall into the Evil categories. It also fixes Alignment Language into something understandable - the language of Law and Good would be the language used by the Church in formal discourse, as a stand in for Latin, the language of Neutrality would be the words spoken to commune with Nature, and the language of Evil would be reversed and corrupted forms of the language of Good. This would also explain why evil clerics are subject to the same weapon restrictions as their good counterparts, because to do so otherwise would rob them of their power.

tl;dr to fix Clerics, use a monotheistic campaign setting.  All worship is based on the Good/Evil alignment axis. The patron for Good is St. Cuthbert, for evil Asmodeus or any other devil prince, for Neutrality is Nature animism. The class breakdown follows:
Clerics and Paladins: St. Cuthburt, and Paladins can only be Lawful Good.
Druids and Rangers: Nature worship
Evil Clerics: Corrupted teachings of St. Cuthburt.

links:
http://blackmoormystara.blogspot.com/2011/01/bishop-carr-first-d-cleric.html