วีดีโอ

I'm totally fine with Beck.

Thanks Justin! Never owned this set but thanks to your review I’ll pick it up before our characters pass name level.

Another great video, and I want to know “what happened to Beck!?”

Really enjoying this series. I wouldn't mind seeing more from Bec. I liked how you integrated his story in the videos. I never got a chance to play the CMI portion of BECMI, so it is a treat to see all that great art and hear your thoughts on it. I've been intrigued to try a kingdom management style game, but also I'm terrible at book keeping and math. My strengths have always been the storytelling and NPCs of the game. So I'm not sure how good of a GM I'd be for those aspects of the rules. Anyway, looking forward to the next set and video!

Bring back Beck

We did attribute checks for all classes for appropriate skiils including for the Theif and also rolled percentile dice for extraordinary success (Move Silently for back stab, Pick Locks quietly). Also if the percentage dice succeeded but the attribute check failed, we called it as a nornal success.

I picked this up in PDF form for war machine and…I just didn’t get it. But you do a good job showing why you like it and how it launched you into a fun new world!

Great post as always, Justin! Enjoying learning about the development of the game. Glad to hear that you're almost back from the Plague :-) To echo others in the comments, I'm happy to hear more about Beck, and like your idea of doing some solo play. Looking forward to the Christmas Eve post, dude, but given your workload, amazed that you manage to fit it all in!

I always viewed the Companion Set as offering more options for your later play throughs. The genius of BECMI is that each set builds upon the information from the previous one. Later play throughs let you apply the options you did not have before.

Loving the series, I've had the Rules Cyclopedia for years but have just started reading theough BECMI. I've got 2 of 3 levels mapped and stocked for the starting adventure, it's been great!

More BECMI? Excellent! 😀

Fantastic video again! Love this series!

Great video my Brother! I would like to wish you a wonderful holiday season

Hey Justin, I hope that you are feeling better after 'The Plague'. I just wanted to say that this is a great video. I love the diorama matching the cover. I, myself, never played BECMI as I started with AD&D but I love your history of the game. On a personal note, I would be interested in seeing a solo BECMI game to see how it plays, if you’re interested in such a thing.

Correction- I attributed the preface to Brian Blume, whereas it was actually dedicated to Brian Blume (big letters where the author signature often is). So that was my bad, and big thanks to Frank for pointing out the discrepancy!

Wups -- the Preface (by me) ended with a Dedication to (TSR co-founder) Brian Blume. He didn't write anything for BECMI tho.

boy, you were quick! well done! waiting for the master and the immortal, and then the sky is the limit :)

Thanks so much for this video series. It's a good place to point my friends when I tell them _WHY_ I prefer to run BECMI. I asked in the Expert video, but only just today: How did you print? Do you have a color printer? Did you take it to a printer? Also, what lsize is the binder and thickness of the sheet protectors? Thanks so much!!

very nice and clean informative video Justin. I didn't grow up with this stuff but it's cool learning the history

Dominion Rules Again, I liked these the first I saw them. However, I couldn't help but feel that the dominion disasters and the like were lacking guidance. A roll table for random events would have been much better than a mere list. Later on, I have noticed another issue: Dominion Income giving XP. I would remove this. First of all, at these levels, minor dominions do not give enough XP to matter. However, major dominions give so much XP that every baron should be already a max level in their class! Duke Stefan Karameikos has ruled for three decades a grand duchy whose population is in the hundreds of thousands. He must be clocking around 100 000 XP from dominion income per month! How come he is just on 15th level? In short, the dominion income giving XP is breaking the game world. I have the same issue with GAZ 3 magical research giving XP. I want to like it, I really do, but it becomes a way to either double dip (gaining XP for getting the treasure and then also for spending it), and worse, a way to launder your Dominion Income into XP that the other classes cannot do.

War Machine It was an excellent system and a revelation when I read it the first time. That being said, it has some significant mathematic/reality check issues. 1. Level of the troops hardly matters. It is just +2 per level, meaning your troop of a hundred 8th level guys will end up fighting more or less evenly against 101 guys of 1st level, given equivalent training, equipment and leadership. FIX: Use the Total Level rather than the Number of troops for the Troop Ratio modifier later on. Thus, those 100 8th level guys would get 8:1 bonus against 100 1st level guys. 2. By contrast, the name level bonus is broken beyond belief if you have a team of elites. A pair of 9th level fighters would get a bonus of +200 from being a unit of 100% name level or above, and thus be able to beat up several hundred of 8th level fighters. By contrast, if the Dynamic Duo is suddenly joined by a troop of 100 1st level fighters, their bonus collapses to +4, and they struggle to fight against an equivalent group of 102 1st level fighters. FIX: Make it +2 per 1% OR a person, whichever is worse. Thus, those two 9th level guys would get +4, and hence their behinds handed to them by 100 8th level fighters, as they should. Now the name level characters act as officers and champions, as they should. 3. Troop Ratio calculation implies that merely having a 1% advantage in numbers confers the same benefit as having 50%. This seems way too generous. You should need a significant advantage of numbers. FIX: Make it that you need to have the ratio to get the bonus. Thus, 1.01 to 1.49 gets no bonus, 1.50 to 1.99 gets the +whatever, and so forth. 4. This is more of a personal gripe... I dislike how granular the Training BFR calculation is, requiring me to know exactly how many battles the unit has won or lost during the last year, how many weeks they were in training and months on duty, etc. I would much rather have these as a general modifier at the end to go to BR: Militia -20% of BFR, High morale elites +20% of BFR. Something like that. But this is more of a personal preference, as I said.

Yessssss 🤘🏻🤘🏻🔥

Bring back Bec.. Give the man a castle.

Fixing Thieves Thieves have gotten done extremely dirty throughout BECMI, IMHO. We fixed thieves in the following ways. First of all, the thief abilities became skill proficiencies (that the actual thieves got for free), and under our system, they increased automatically when the character gained levels. So that part stayed the same. However, they generally started higher, so that even a low level Thief could actually accomplish something. Secondly, generous positive modifiers at the start (cheap simple locks/traps and the latter being barely hidden), as well as a failure to remove a trap or picking a pocket not leading to tripping the trap or getting caught; these were for actual fumbles. At higher level, negative modifiers as you are no longer dealing with off-the-shelf human contraptions (when it comes to the good stuff, that is). No no no, this is Krugmeister 3000, by the famed Locksmith himself, only a Master Thief would have any chance with this one! Luckily, you are one. The difference between breaking into someone's jewelry box or the bank vault. Thirdly, we boosted the backstab damage as well. Normally, x2, but at 12th level x3, 24th level x4, and 36th level x5, as well as allowed 'ranged assassinations', as long as the opponent was unaware and staying still or travelling at a low speed and a predictable way, such as a noble riding through a parade on the streets. Fourthly, Thief should probably get 1d6 hp per level, rather than just 1d4. Most thief backgrounds tend to involve the School of Hard Knocks and life in the streets, and they are likely in a much better physical shape (if they survive and are not starving) than the sedentary mages. Their cardio ought to be good, after running away from all those city guards so many times! Now, I am not saying that this made a thief as good as other classes, but at least I think it is a step in the right direction.

I have a bunch of comments on the various subsystems, but yeah, it would have been great to have these options earlier. By the time you are 15th level, the scale mail and even the banded mail are far far far in the past, with all fighters, clerics, dwarves and elves in magical plate mails more often than not. As for the Druid, I firmly believe that the option would not be unbalanced from 1st level onwards. Especially as the Cleric gives up the Turn Undead ability, which is VERY important ability that the Cleric has. To be honest, Druids work better as NPCs, IMHO, unless the campaign is very wilderness/exploration heavy.

BECMI/Rules Cyclopedia is my favorite D&D, although I add in a tablespoon of Shadowdark as well. Great videos so far, you earned my subscription. Could you tell us about how you printed them, binder size and sheet protector thickness? I know NERD!!!

It's Xmas already!

I did actually use the mass combat system a few times in my adnd games

Bring on the Beck!

Bring back Beck! Bring back Beck! 😂 Don't let anyone except you and your awesome, devoted fans guide your choices for the channel. 😎 Mentzer is not a TH-cam expert. Great video. Poor poor thieves.

Great video Justin. Thank You for this perfect showcase and I am really looking forward to Master Set on Christmas Eve. 😊

Nicely done! I appreciate all the effort you put into this!

MERCI !

BECMI Forever! Long Live King Elmore!!

Correction on the Fate system - it's not half-and-half plus and minus, it's two plusses, two minuses, and two zeroes. There's also another system I'd like to inform you of: the system used in Legends of the Wulin, where you have a pool of d10s, you roll to gain sets of matching dice, and *then* decide on your actions based on how many sets you get - and the number of matching dice is placed in the tens place, while the number on the dice goes in the ones place, meaning a set of four sixes is a roll of 46, plus whatever bonuses you have to the skill or combat stat.

Best version ever!

This is a very useful video. Thank you. I feel like the tabletop RPG hobby is dying and I'm not willing to invest anymore money. I have a couple friends that I play with but other than that there's no reason to buy expensive books.