Getting Back To Basics - OSR Burnout & Basic Dungeons & Dragons Commentary

Sometimes you have to get back to your roots & tonight was one of those times when I pulled out the older D&D editions to get a quick read through. For some ideas & to simply get back to Basic D&D  for a moment.


 


Its good to take a walk through various editions of the Dungeons & Dragons. Since my Internet & on-line time is at the moment limited by computer issues. I've had time to get back to Basics & in this case its actually back to Moldvay Basic D&D. The reasons for this are actually pretty simple there are several monsters and concepts that I want to borrow for my Accursed Atlantis campaign. Moldvay  for me is the third incarnation of OD&D that I got into way back in 1981. With white box OD&D, Holmes, and then the Moldvay/Cook Basic/Expert sets following those up.
"With the revision of the Basic Set, discrete rulesets for higher character levels were introduced as expansions for the basic game.^[9] The Moldvay Basic Set was immediately followed by the accompanying release of an Expert Set edited by Dave Cook that supported character levels four through fourteen, with the intent that players would continue with the Expert Set.^[2][10] The revised rulebooks were visually distinct from the original rules: the Holmes booklet had a blueprint-style pale blue cover, while the Moldvay Basic Set and Cook Expert Set booklets had bright red and blue covers, respectively."
Now I mentioned OSR burnout because basically I've been off line for several days and the OSR marketing and design machine keeps cranking out titles faster then I can keep up with on social media. That's fine with me as a blogger because what I generally do simply go back to the old TSR Seventies and Eighties catalogs to put myself into the mind set of what got me first excited about D&D.


If you want to know what the real differences are between Holmes, Moldvay, and Mentzer D&D there is a very good break down here.
Sometimes there are tid bits and ideas that can be culled from the original editions and reused such as the monsters that seldom get a workout on the table anymore. Living Statues and some of the insects stick out in my mind as well. Driver ants, tarantella spiders, robber flies, and so many others but the Thoul sticks out.

There are monsters such as the Thoul which only appeared in Basic; which too me seemed straight up a Swords and Sorcery style monster that some mad wizard would cook up. Part Hobgoblin, part Troll, part Ghoul; Thouls are created by a mad wizard at some long ago time and sometimes show up in part of a hobgoblin king's bodyguard. They appeared in the  B10 Night's Dark Terror adventure & I've been itching to use them ever since. Time to dust off these nasties for Accursed Atlantis.


A quick note about UKB10 it was designed to take campaigns into The Expert set;"It was designed specifically for campaigns transitioning from the D&D Basic Set to the D&D Expert Set. The player characters (PCs) journey from a farmstead into uncharted wilderness, where they encounter new hazards and contend with a secret society. The adventure received a positive review from White Dwarf magazine."  A quick trip down memory lane and I've got a few great encounters cooked up for next week's game.
Sometimes there's nothing like the old school to get the blood working and the ideas flowing.