Basic Fantasy RPG Forums

I have been asked GM DnD by son (age 9). He will be joined by friends ages 8 and 9, and parents. Some parents are veteran players (like me) but the kids and some other parents are totally new to table top role-playing. I haven't been a GM in over 27 years. Could I let the new players use the character creation of BFRPG and let the veteran player use 5e for character creation and then use BFRPG rules/monsters? I'm planning to take them through one of my old 1e modules (ToEE).

Thoughts?

Many thanks.

I chose BFRPG because I don't really want to invest $$$ in 5e materials when I have no idea if this will really take off and continue long-term or if it will fizzle out after a couple of sessions.

Why not just go all-BFRPG?

because my veteran player has already rolled up a 5e sorcerer and seems excited to play it.

I would have pregenerated characters ready to go for the players. If they are low level, give them max hit points or use the "hp = Constitution score" house rule to make them a little less brittle.

I bet you could easily take that 5E sorceror, make some minor adjustments (maybe the "to hit" number and jot down the BFRPG saving throws, adjust the modifiers to old school), and he'd be good to go for BFRPG. I'm a big believer in letting folks play the characters they'd want.

Also, there is a sorceror for BFRPG at:

http://basicfantasy.org/showcase-downlo ... 2006.0.pdf

I think you'll be putting a lot of pressure on yourself trying to run both systems at once or a hybrid system. However, whatever you decide, have a great time at the table. That's all that really counts.

faramire wrote: ↑Fri Dec 27, 2019 1:05 am because my veteran player has already rolled up a 5e sorcerer and seems excited to play it.

So they asked you to GM and then just started rolling up characters before you even said what you were running?

I was telling my brother about the plan to play BF rules with our old AD&D modules and he asked “why not just play with our old 1e rule books.” is the right answer that BF is more streamlined and eliminated unnecessary complexities of 1e (like AC and THACO)?

faramire wrote: ↑Fri Dec 27, 2019 9:51 pm I was telling my brother about the plan to play BF rules with our old AD&D modules and he asked “why not just play with our old 1e rule books.” is the right answer that BF is more streamlined and eliminated unnecessary complexities of 1e (like AC and THACO)?

BFRPG is more streamlined than AD&D. Here are a few things (none of which is meant to bash AD&D)

1. Ascending Armor Class - more intuitive for newer players
2. Consistent bonuses for all the Attributes
3. Base Attack Bonus rather than a chart
4. Shorter spell lists (though you can expand that with the supplements)
5. Everything in one book

Hope this helps.

In case anybody comes across this in the future, I would clearly point out that a character rolled up in 5e is almost certainly NOT going to work in virtually ANY OSR game, unless it's really, literally, just 3d6 six times. The hit points scale is way off. The spell abilities may be way off. They won't have any saving throw values.

I left this up because it was an honest question, but it's off topic, so I'm going to lock it now. Enough has been said, I hope, to cover the OP's needs.