Wednesday, September 13, 2023

OSR Commentary - The Unholy Combination B/X & Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Together

 When it comes to B/X Dungeons & Dragons I'm often left thinking about B/X Dungeons & Dragons. And this blog entry picks right up from here on the blog.  And the legacy of Dungeons & Dragons. Expert D&D expanded the horizons for players by several orders of magnitude from Basic. 












The PC options increased, the stakes became higher, the adventure possibilities climbed, and yet there seemed to be more. That more was the expansion of the wilderness with Expert. And within the wilderness were some epic level monsters. Dragon Turtles, purple worms, elemental threats, all of thes hinted at the wider universe within B/X. 
We literally used a combination of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition and B/X without any thought back in the early Eighties that these were separate games. And we had a blast playing with all of the dungeons we plundered. 
There's something so satisfying about creating your own dungeon and letting your players plunder it. I've used both B/X dragons & the various Dragons from the Monster Manual as boss monsters for entire regions in various campaigns. Because the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual is one of the most recognizable monster books ever made. And still get's attention at the table top. 

































B/X is excellent for a quick beer & pretezels sort of mini pickup game & yet mixed with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition both systems compliment each other very well. And there are several reasons for this: 
  1. Both B/X & AD&D first edition are easily intgrated into each other. The systems because of thier very mathmatics and systems fold into one another. 
  2. AD&D is easily adaptable for both the players and the DM and this falls right in line with the design ideals of B/X D&D.
  3. B/X is designed for adventure & campaign play as easily as it gets. And this one of these strengths of B/X that compliments Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition. 
  4. AD&D has a ton of resources such as the AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide that has  connotations for B/X. 
  5. The adventures & modules of AD&D can easily be ported over to B/X and vice versa. 





















B/X Dungeons & Dragon and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition combined allow the DM to have a solid system to easily have the players transition and move as the campaign play allows. 

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.