Beyond the BECMI D&D Boxes, Episode 1: The Creature Crucibles

[@jasonjacobson1157]

Groovy!

[@booksbricksandboards783]

Thank you for the comment and view!

[@MrSteveK1138]

Gnome with a CHA of 8: "I'm a monster! rawr" Tiefling with a CHA of 20: "Anyway, back to me..."

[@booksbricksandboards783]

I thought the filed teeth were interesting as well lol.

[@NerdyLiches]

Appeasing the Evil Algorithmic Overlords. Nice to see these books.

[@booksbricksandboards783]

My favorite lich, the SteveLich!

[@kuraishinobi]

Awesome video and I appreciate you digging further into the BECMI line.

[@booksbricksandboards783]

If the video performs particularly well, I will get to more videos in the line a little sooner. Either way I have plenty of future BECMI related videos eventually.

[@stevenkennedy4130]

He's back. And so am I. Thanks for the share!!

[@booksbricksandboards783]

Thanks Steve! Appreciate you buddy!

[@davidrobertson5996]

Just back in from Edinburgh, fed and watered, and see that there is a new BB&B post! The Gods are truly smiling upon us... Excellent content as always, Justin! I never knew about these products, and while interesting to see like this, I don't think I will be getting them. I can see how it could be cool to run a game as the monsters, but as you said, as soon as players learn about the negative levels, it might turn them off the idea. I wonder what is next for our intrepid DM as he mulls the mysteries of the DnD universe...

[@booksbricksandboards783]

Dave, welcome back! Funny you should mention that question… I added up the official classes for BECMI, not including Dragon articles or those found in adventures, and would you believe there are 72? I’m considering a video that covers the full run of 72 classes, where they were found, and how playable they are. Thinking of calling it… “Keep it Classy”

[@davidrobertson5996]

@@booksbricksandboards783 That sounds great, and extra points for the name 🙂

[@booksbricksandboards783]

I have some ideas for the thumbnail brewing already too! Lol

[@davidrobertson5996]

@@booksbricksandboards783 Oh, one thing that did fire in my brain as you were talking was how much I would love to be a wer-seal and just go around being a jerk and stealing people's stuff from piers and harbours 🙂

[@booksbricksandboards783]

lol. The game within the game

[@AceneDean]

Yay! More BECMI🎉

[@booksbricksandboards783]

Thanks for watching Dean!

[@LoudApeNation]

“The Werwolf finally gets thumbs”. I laughed out loud! 😂

[@booksbricksandboards783]

You know the TSR XP tables always have looked a little unusual, but the differential in the XP tables here was pretty striking. Lol.

[@simontemplar3359]

oh heck yeah! This was wild! You know, the idea of a centaur having its own mount built in is outstanding. That had never occurred to me. Well played, sir!

[@booksbricksandboards783]

It’s the Optimus Prime of the fantasy world. Roll out!

[@dangarthemighty0980]

I'm a monster rawr. 🤣 Great video my friend, thank you for sharing this and giving us this fantastic overview. 😊

[@booksbricksandboards783]

Thanks for watching buddy!

[@wanderingbardagain6945]

Another great video. Seeing you flip through the woodland folk book made me realize that my friend had this one. We never used it but I remember the layout of the book and some of the art. Thanks for bringing back that lost memory. :)

[@booksbricksandboards783]

Very welcome. Some of these products, even if you never used them again, have value for the memories. I can remember the very first time I opened Night Howlers, and the excitement of playing a werewolf. Classic age of gaming.

[@davidpaul1970]

Creature Crucibles. A good place to start this new series.

[@booksbricksandboards783]

Thanks Dave!

[@risusrules]

Orcs of Thar! Rawr! Monster characters and partial adhoc armor was glorious! My Goblin Giant Rat Tamer was fun to play, as well as my Orcin Boar Rider.

[@booksbricksandboards783]

I have a copy of Orcs of Thar on PDF , but I really need to pick up a physical copy of that one.

[@risusrules]

@@booksbricksandboards783 Same now that you've stirred my nostalgia like Koolaid!

[@booksbricksandboards783]

@@risusrules kobold Kool Aid!

[@drmann15]

Your summary of these products is so detailed, well organized, and very helpful. It’s greatly appreciated by me as someone who has never played BECMI but plans to convert my 3rd edition-onward peers into switching to this version of dnd.

[@booksbricksandboards783]

That is a great compliment thank you! The fact that everything is on DriveThru RPG now is huge. I have the full set of Crucibles, but I spent the $20 to have PDF’s too, as it made researching more convenient. For new gamers, it means they don’t have to pay scalper prices to get these if they want them.

[@HermieMunster]

Didn’t know these even existed, I have the Gazetteers so was aware of the playable races in the Orcs of Thar. Something else to add to the BECMI pile!

[@booksbricksandboards783]

They are pretty awesome if you can get them at a reasonable cost, but they can get quite pricey. Luckily, whole set on PDF was less than $20.

[@sqidvishus]

Fantastic overview! I am glad you covered the potential disappointment of players not being a "real" monster at the beginning of the campaign. I think a solo Pegataur would be a nice choice.

[@booksbricksandboards783]

Yeah, that was the big letdown for me as a kid. You weren’t any more ahead than the other players at the start. Pegataur included some rules related to weapon mastery, which I thought would be true for Centaurs as well.

[@anarionelendili8961]

@@booksbricksandboards783 Well, you shouldn't be any more ahead than the other players at the start (with the exception of the demihumans who dominate the early game, grumble!). The answer to wanting to play a full power monster is to play a higher level game, of course. Or that everyone plays monsters. :)

[@booksbricksandboards783]

@@anarionelendili8961 I think the combination of the last two are the best way to experience the monster play.

[@JeffreyBrining]

Great series! Thank you!

[@booksbricksandboards783]

There is a lot of ground to cover in BECMI. Hopefully the viewers want to see some more still!

[@DMTalesTTRPG]

Yay!

[@booksbricksandboards783]

thanks for watching!

[@DMTalesTTRPG]

@ no worries!

[@booksbricksandboards783]

It is appreciated!

[@AceneDean]

Werebear solo 🎉

[@booksbricksandboards783]

Might not be bad… the werebear is one of the more agreeable lycanthropes, so it makes a good choice to run in a group as well.

[@AceneDean]

@ It would be a lot of fun to watch you bear arms and bear hug your enemies to bear heaven. 😆

[@booksbricksandboards783]

The bear does get a bonus bear hug attack when both claws hit, makes that trip to “bear heaven” all the more likely. Reminds me of the Dan Marcotte song, “The Owlbear Song”. “Have you hugged an owlbear today? Has an owlbear hugged you? Have you felt its beak or fur feathered arms, rip your body in two?”

[@davidpaul1970]

And here's my thought as a DM: if I'm going to permit my PCs to play monsters it will have to be in a special campaign. Maybe they all start out as "normal" classes and then are cursed. All of them. A custom campaign is how I would make it work. Otherwise, monsters are for killing.

[@booksbricksandboards783]

Pretty similar to what I suggested.

[@anarionelendili8961]

Just to repeat my comment from the community post: I'll admit, I am not that much into The Creature Crucibles. I think they work better in their own niche variants (light-hearted aerial gnomes with biplanes, etc), rather than in 'vanilla BECMI', but since it is the latter I am mostly interested in, the PC line left me cold. But then again, I am a bit of a minimalist when it comes to the playable races/species anyway. :) With the exception of PC3 The Sea People, which I think was a very nice (and possibly needed) addition to do underwater adventuring.

[@booksbricksandboards783]

What are your thoughts on using the guidelines to create more unique enemies for players? I think that is a big upside of the series as well.

[@anarionelendili8961]

@@booksbricksandboards783 Well, there was always the possibility of the GM just adding HD to various monsters. Even Basic had higher HD leaders of the humanoids, and Dragon rules had explicitly +-3 HD depending on the size of the dragon (and later even more). Was it the Master Set that came up with the monster spellcasters (repeated in the RC)? So that was kinda there already, too. You also mentioned the Orcs of Thar. So I would not see this as a big bonus, especially, as you pointed out, once they hit the normal monster, that was pretty much it for most of the special abilities. I could see some advantage in the lycanthropy rules in case a PC gets infected and doesn't get healed in time, but that would be very much a variant campaign. Wee Folk are pretty much concentrated in one corner of Alfheim, Serraine is one single flying city (cool as that is), and the Barony of Malinois-something is a speck in Glantri. Whereas the Sea Peoples is the whole dang ocean! It opens up the underwater adventures to the normal PCs in a way that the others don't, which is why it gets much higher marks. Also, it adds a lot to the setting, allowing the GM to come up with plenty of new stuff, whereas the other ones are way more niche.

[@booksbricksandboards783]

@ very fair points. I still could see running a vigilante campaign, where players started as fully leveled lycanthropic characters, but their human forms are first or second level. They go about doing their business without revealing their true identity. That could be fun. But it would be a specialty campaign for sure.

[@williammoore9794]

I liked these expansions. Although I preferred using the monster classes as high ranking NPCs/enemies rather than playable characters. I also liked the ideas set out in the campaign settings and adventures. The Druj librarian in Serraine. The evil Treant (36 level?) questing for immortality. The Glantrian mage who lives in the Sea Kingdom and kills underwater opponents by polymorphing them into cats. And plenty of others. One thing about the monster PC rules in both these and GAZ10 was starting at 0 level. Human PCs don't start at "Normal Human" and neither do demi-humans. So why should the monster PCs? It doesn't make sense! (Particularly for gnomes and many of the Fairy classes as they are more or less demi-humans).

[@booksbricksandboards783]

For gnomes, I would use the suggestion in the Rules Cyclopedia, under the converting from AD&D. The solution there was a modified Halfling and I liked it quite a bit!

[@anarionelendili8961]

Huh. I was sure that there would be a comment 17 min after posting. :)

[@booksbricksandboards783]

I know, I was starting to feel less loved! Lol

[@dangarthemighty0980]

​@@booksbricksandboards783Sorry, Justin I got wrapped up in some stuff with my daughter and then started reading my book. Just picked up my phone a little bit ago and saw your video had dropped.

[@booksbricksandboards783]

lol. I know I can count on you being there man. Life comes before KZbin!

[@dangarthemighty0980]

@@booksbricksandboards783 Don't I know it. We got the roofers starting work soon and I haven't been able to post on my channel with it being chilly and not being able to film inside, due to the mess.

[@booksbricksandboards783]

@ glad you are seeing progress buddy!

[@davidferris6709]

Is it the same authors or different people?

[@booksbricksandboards783]

Each one is a separate author. That said the design is similar enough, mechanically I think they had a mandate. Fluff is pretty varied, but the nuts and bolts are pretty much same across the board!