Because why not? Over on the Mewe White Box Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game Group, we were having a little discussion about the game in general and if anybody still played it. It’s then that I realized that I haven’t written anything about White Box in a long time. So I figured what the heck. Let’s make it a regular feature.

I think the best way to start this ball rolling is to go into why I like White Box. The reason is pretty simple. I love to hack rules and make all sorts of house rules to better fit the current campaign better. White Box is perfect for that. The mechanics are simple and familiar to most. Making any changes really doesn’t cause the kind cascade failure that you might have in some of the later editions of D&D. I don’t want to call White Box rules lite. It isn’t. It’s not crunchy either. It’s what I like to call rules efficient. It has what you need. It has a system that you can add anything else you want. And doesn’t burden with all sorts of rules minutia.

That being said, it’s also incredibly compact physically. Just one tiny digest-sized book. I remember when I was pitching an old-school game to my old gaming group who had mostly only played 5E. I whipped out the rule book and said, “We could play this.”

“Cool,” they said, “Is that the Player’s Handbook?”

“Yes, it’s the Player’s Handbook. And it’s the Dungeon Master’s Guide and Monster Manual. All right here.” They really didn’t believe at first that all that material could be condensed down into one little book.

It is cheap. Heck, if you want PDF’s it’s free! You can grab hard copies on Amazon or Lulu for under $5. That’s why I have like four or five copies of it.

Since it’s an old-school game, that it makes basically compatible with material for other retro-clones which give the GM plenty of material for their campaign. And there’s plenty of material specifically written for that. But I’m saving that for another post.

What else could you ask for?

And with that. Roll dice. Kill monsters. Take their stuff. And have fun!