There and Back Again

In a book in my role playing game collection there lived a rule set. Not a nasty, dirty, complicated rule set, filled with bewildering rules and an whiff of incomprehensibility, nor yet a dry, bare, sparse rule set with nothing in it to get your teeth into and extend it: it was the Moldvay, Cook & Marsh D&D B/X rule set, and that means comfort.

It's been a long journey for me starting some time in 1981, at the age of 14, when I bought the Moldvay D&D Basic set (I forget if I bought the expert set at the same time or later on). It wasn't the first role playing game I experienced, that was SPI's Dragonquest but it was the first role playing game I bought and in which I was a dungeon master.

Looking back I honestly can't recall many of the specific details of playing B/X all those years ago. I know I played with my best mate at the time; just the two of us. I know he had the AD&D books and me the B/X. I suspect we played some weird hybrid of the two systems, taking it in turns to DM or play.

However, when I got to polytechnic in 1985 I recall playing mainly Runequest and Call of Cthulhu and although I ran a short lived D&D campaign I seem to remember it was using the AD&D books.

Once I left polytechnic I continued to role play with the people I'd met there and in fact still play occasionally with them to this day and during the interceding decades we played Middle Earth, Rolemaster, Shadowrun, Aftermath! & GURPS, our role playing time tailing off as we moved away, got married, had kids ..

And so I arrived in 2016 with my eldest 7 years old. We were going away camping and I thought it would be cool to try some role playing with him if the weather kept us in the tent. So I looked about the role playing scene, probably for the first time in 30 years, and found a RPG called Hero Kids that look interesting. Needless to say the weather was great and so no role playing was done.

However the following year my eldest was doing a project at school on the ancient Greek culture and I decided to bite the bullet and write a scenario for Hero Kids that tied in with his project. Fortunately it was a success. Both my wife, eldest & youngest all enjoyed it and suddenly my interest in role playing was rekindled again - not that I'd ever stopped completely; remember I mentioned I still played occasionally with my old polytechnic friends.

So I looked up in the attic and dug out my role playing collection which had been boxed up since we'd relocated to Sri Lanka in 2003. Fortunately it was all in remarkable condition; although more by luck than judgement. I cleared out the floor to ceiling book case next to my bed and filled it with my old RPG books.

In December 2017 I did some online research and found a number of games shops existed in my local area (Derbyshire in the UK) and posted messages asking if there were any RPG groups running with spaces. Fortunately there were and I signed up for a weekly Pathfinder group in my local town & a monthly D&D 5e group in a neighboring town. I bought the players handbook for both as to be honest I'd heard of neither system before; well to be honest I was only vaguely aware of AD&D 2e and had not heard of BECMI let alone D&D 3e & 4e ..

I enjoyed playing in both groups and soon joined a weekly AD&D 1e group and a monthly B/X group and even started DMing a duet with my wife with D&D 5e. One week I played 4 days out of 7 - I hadn't played so much since I was in polytechnic and I was loving it.

In September 2018 my eldest started 5th year at school and his topic was Vikings and Saxons. This was too much temptation not to do some more role playing with him, my wife and youngest too. However, I had a dilemma. Hero Kids was just not satisfying enough for me & Pathfinder, D&D 5e & AD&D 1e I felt were too difficult to teach the boys. This left an obvious candidate. Moldvay, Cook & Marshes B/X. I already had the books, the system is simple to learn and I'd had a blast playing it myself in the couple of monthly sessions I'd been able to attend.

I created a B/X Viking & Saxon based scenario, admittedly using resources from across three systems; B/X, BECMI & AD&D 2e.

and I ran it for my wife and boys

It was a success and Sneaky Shadows the thief, Bowdorion the elf & Golgorion the fighter are creating their own history in Mystara, the campaign setting I opted for the campaign.

So I have returned full circle and indeed been there and back again. It has taken me over 35 years to realise my favourite role playing system is the one I first DMed all those years ago ..

Don't get me wrong. I love AD&D and enjoy playing in all my groups; Pathfinder, D&D 5e & AD&D but if I was on a desert island and had to pick just one system to play it would be D&D B/X. The simplicity and expand-ability strike a cord that no other RPG ever has to quite the same degree.