Quote from: jhkim;547158I don't relish trying to explain THAC0 in particular.

There's no such thing as THAC0 in B/X. You use to-hit charts on your side of the screen instead. There's *nothing* to explain to the players, besides rolling a d20.

Quote from: Benoist;547162There's no such thing as THAC0 in B/X. You use to-hit charts on your side of the screen instead. There's *nothing* to explain to the players, besides rolling a d20.

Indeed. Copy down the chart once and your ready to go. Its even on the Basic Set's Character sheet IIRC.


JhKim: You might look at "Ancient Odysseys: Treasure Awaits" for a simple D&D like game. If old school or retroclones won't work.

Quote from: Silverlion;547163Indeed. Copy down the chart once and your ready to go. Its even on the Basic Set's Character sheet IIRC.

Like I said before - the issue is that they've already learned and enjoy playing games with the later tradition of rising armor classes and d20 + bonuses vs target number.  

Going from this to chart lookup will, I expect, feel like a pointless backwards step to them.  

I had this issue when I was running the PS238 RPG (based on the HERO system) last summer, where you roll under target number of 11 + OCV - DCV on 3d6.  The math of that was a repeated annoyance compared to the simpler system of games they knew.

Labyrinth Lord is B/X with ascending AC and it's free.
However, if you just can't get past it being old school D&D, you might check out Barbarians of Lemuria.

Quote from: Aos;547168Labyrinth Lord is B/X with ascending AC and it's free.

I think you're thinking of another game. I recall LL being B/X, period. S&W has dual ACs. And I think Basic Fantasy and C&C have ascending ACs.

I actually don't think a retro-clone fits John's needs. However, if the issue were *solely* THAC0 or table look-ups, that's a non-issue, since as I mentioned Target 20 can replace the attack system of any of the retro-clones and still keep the feel.

The problem is getting that 4e-ish tactical choices without going all in. I think you can approach it on a DIY basis with Microlite 20 and a couple bolt-on options, since M20 is derived from 3e but strips it way down. You just add back in a small subset of the things the kids are expecting.

Edit: I vaguely recalled someone working on a 4e version of Microlite20, so I went looking for it. I have no idea how this will play out, or if you can (more or less) play 4e modules with this, but here goes:

http://www.dominowriting.com/Microlite4e.pdf

Quote from: Aos;547168Labyrinth Lord is B/X with ascending AC and it's free.
However, if you just can't get past it being old school D&D, you might check out Barbarians of Lemuria.

Thanks - I didn't know that about Labyrinth Lord!

I'm looking for old school D&D.  I'm now looking at Labyrinth Lord along with Pathfinder Beginner Box and Hackmaster.  (Barbarians of Lemuria sounds like potential fun for something else - but not for what I'm looking for here.)

Quote from: jhkim;547185Thanks - I didn't know that about Labyrinth Lord!

I'm looking for old school D&D.  I'm now looking at Labyrinth Lord along with Pathfinder Beginner Box and Hackmaster.  (Barbarians of Lemuria sounds like potential fun for something else - but not for what I'm looking for here.)

Apparently I'm wrong about LL. I'll have to look. I've read so many clones that I'm having trouble keeping them straight.

Edit: I was thinking of S&W. I moved from S&W to LL/BX and just transported over ascending AC without ever really noticing that I had done so. Weird.

Hoody hoo!  

A good friend of mine just gave me a copy of Pathfinder Beginner's Box and the Swords & Wizardry Core Rules!  I'm going through them now.