BECMI versus OD&D in the Known World

I'm currently working on episode 10 of Tales of Mystara the Palace of Evendur podcast. This is essentially (if you haven't seen or heard), a documentation of my solo D&D adventures in the world of Mystara. Recently I have somewhat come to realise that I could do more with the world of Mystara if I wasn't using BECMI D&D as the core ruleset. I realise that this is pretty controversial! But I will try to defend my case here.

Ditching BECMI for OD&D

A Better Solo D&D Experience with More Emergent Play

If you have been following my YouTube channel "Solo Dungeon Crawler" then you may have engaged with my Castle of the Quest videos. In this series I'm playing OD&D and quite frankly the more I have come to understand this simple (yet complex) set of rules the more I have come to appreciate its brilliance.

When I first started doing YouTube videos about playing Dungeons & Dragons solo, I made a point of recommending the BECMI rules as one of the better places to start a solo adventuring journey. So, has this changed? Well... yes and no! In my first blog article in the series "How to Play D&D Solo" which was somewhat a write-up of the YT series of the same name (with some corrections made!), I recommended, specifically "Basic D&D" and I went on to describe its various versions, which included the Holmes rules, the Moldvay rules, and finally the Mentzer rules, which evolved into BECMI through its various box sets, which were eventually compiled into the Rules Cyclopedia.

I specifically pointed to the Mentzer rules as the best place to start for the following reasons:

1.  It was the final iteration of the Basic D&D rules.
2. The purpose of Basic D&D was to make the game even easier to learn than its predecessors. i.e. OD&D.
3. D&D solo adventures were actually published for use with the Frank Mentzer Dungeons & Dragons rules, which are a great resource for getting a taste for solo gaming.
4. One of the main tools I intended to use for  solo gaming "Gary Gygax's Solo Dungeon Adventures" article published in Strategic Review issue 1, was created for the original game and as I explained in the original article: the original game and Basic D&D are very closely related.

So to summarise this argument, I chose the BECMI Red Box for solo D&D because it was an easy to learn evolution of OD&D, with a few solo adventure modules written for it and my main solo gaming tool that I was building my solo gaming approach around, the "Solo Dungeon Adventures" article was written for OD&D, and would work well enough with the BECMI Red Box Basic set.

To further conceptualise my argument: BECMI was chosen because it was easier to learn than OD&D.

But what about the "Known World" or "Mystara" the official campaign setting for BECMI, which I have set my podcast in? Personally, I think OD&D can do it justice, with a little twist! Not too long ago I came across a post on the Piazza forum entitled "More OKW documents" which had links to some scanned pages. The poster explained, in January 2022:

"Bill Wilkerson, a player in Tom Moldvay's and Lawrence Schick's Original Known World (OKW) campaign (c.1976-1979), graciously met with me at a copy shop in Akron this morning, and we scanned the contents of his accordion folder."

These articles contain OD&D house rules, character sheets, campaign prep notes and even an adventure called the "Quest for the Sacred Sceptre". The original article can be found at https://thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?t=28766.

These documents might prove monumental in my quest to integrate the Known World a.k.a. Mystara into an OD&D campaign and don't forget this is originally where the setting started in the first place! This doesn't mean I'm going to alter the timeline, or revert setting information back to how it was between 1976 and 1979. These documents are just useful reference for integrating the setting into the rules or more precisely, if a situation comes up where for whatever reason the OD&D rules as written don't cover it then these documents may help me make a ruling.

An original map of the Known World

The main reason I am doing this, as I said at the start of the article, is that I believe I can do more with Mystara if I use OD&D rules. My reasons for this are as follows:

1. OD&D is a much more emergent ruleset in the sense that just by playing it as instructed the referee creates and evolves the world. I find this to be less true with BECMI and I don't want the world necessarily to feel static. I want to build upon what is there. For example, a wilderness adventure in OD&D is much more likely to result in new monster lairs being present, which could lead to new important locations that have some influence on the world.
2. The rules are simpler, allowing the campaign to change state faster and an emergent story to flow.
3. There is still so much to discover about OD&D that has been largely forgotten by today's standards. Using these rules in a well known campaign setting with various popular adventure modules will be a great thought exercise which may uncover some hidden truths that I previously didn't notice.
4. The more I play OD&D the more fun I find it. I love it! Doing this will help me show you why I do.

I could probably sit here and think of more reasons, and many will come up throughout my actual play, I'm sure, but I'll let my reasoning rest there for now and just get ready to implement this new approach. So, prepare yourself that either towards the end of episode 10 or at the beginning of episode 11 of Tales of Mystara - the Palace of Evendur, a conversion will take place!