There are a lot of rules differences between B/X and AD&D, but B/X Blackrazor has me persuaded that they aren't mere rules differences. The AD&D rules naturally lend themselves to an indefinite or open-ended campaign. The B/X rules allow for such a campaign, but it requires much more intentional effort from the DM and players.
The B/X rules support campaigns that work like series or collections of novellas or short stories with overlapping characters and settings. In the Basic rules, apart from possibly interviewing the retainers, nothing but dungeon adventuring happens "on screen." Everything else is background. There is almost no need to track campaign time. The rules do specify that characters recover 1d3 hit points per day of complete rest. However, the effect of that rule is mainly just to give dungeon denizens some time to reorganize and respond to PC incursions when the PCs leave to go heal up.
The Expert rules expand the games scope to include wilderness adventures and wilderness campaigns.
Wilderness campaigns, as described on p. X19, begin much like dungeon adventures. The DM gives the players information about where they are, who the important NPCs are, and some rumors for the PCs to follow up on by traveling to locations in the wilderness nearby. The players then choose the goal of their adventure, equip themselves, and set out.
The game's focus remains squarely on adventuring, and the adventuring is described is still fairly episodic. Now, however, adventures don't have to end where they started. Exploring a wilderness area is an adventure. Traveling through the wilderness to get to a dungeon is an adventure. Traveling from city to city is an adventure. The PCs (or players) decide where they want to go and why they want to go there. Then you play out the journey, and the PCs' efforts to overcome its obstacles.
But the Expert rules also have this interesting passage (p. X4):
Most important, the characters in the wilderness campaign do not exist in a vacuum. The DM should have events going on elsewhere that may affect (or be affected by) the actions of the players. There may be any number of "plots" going on at once, and the DM should try to involve each player in some chain of events. These should develop logically from the actions of those involved. It is important not to force the action to a pre-determined conclusion. The plot lines can always be adjusted for the actions of the players.
Additionally, the Expert rules add magical research to recovering hit points as a time-consuming non-adventuring activity. They also mention various other things NPCs might do—such as building the PCs' stronghold or training animals. Those don't quite qualify as downtime activities, however, because PCs can adventure while they are happening.
Adventuring time is a resource PCs must husband at all levels. In the Basic levels, time spent uses up light sources and triggers checks for wandering monsters. Adventuring time at those levels is a matter of turns. Once wilderness adventuring begins, adventuring time also passes in days. Just as turns in the dungeon use up light and risk wandering monsters, days in the wilderness use up food and water and risk more wandering monsters. As the characters reach even higher levels, time and money become even more important resources for them. They have money to spend to on constructing strongholds, hiring specialists, and magical research. But construction, specialist activities, and magical research all take time. Adventuring takes time, and higher level characters can travel deeper and deeper into the dangerous wilderness. How the plots described on X4 evolve and develop can depend on how the PCs decide to spend their time.
If the "plots" put competing demands on the PCs' time, there will be reason for them to assign retainers to addressing some of those demands. There may also arise some cases in which a player's PC isn't available to adventure with some other PCs, but the player wants to play. Then it might be natural for a character stable to develop.
And now we come to that crucial difference between B/X and AD&D. B/X allows for an open-ended or indefinite campaign, but the DM has to take some special steps. In particular, the DM has to make sure that the evolving plots put potentially conflicting demands on PCs' non-adventuring time and create situations in which a PC is not available to adventure. The unavailability of PCs is essential, because it encourages the development of character stables and keeps the campaign from focusing on the stories of a particular set of PCs.
AD&D 1e, on the other hand, has a variety of additional built-in mechanisms that take PCs out of play temporarily: such as training for levels, recovering from having been at 0 or fewer hit points, diseases and parasitic infestations. And those mechanisms are not voluntary. (Okay, training is technically voluntary, but everyone has to do it eventually.) If you have a PC, there will be times that PC is not available to adventure, but other PCs are available. And those other PCs might not want to wait around accumulating upkeep expenses for your PC to become available again. They will want to adventure and gain treasure while your PC is away. For a player to participate, they'll need to send a henchman to help or use a backup PC. The mandatory downtime generates character stables, which in turn help to drive the indefinite campaign. An AD&D campaign that doesn't ignore the rules for upkeep, training, disease, infestation, and recovery from injury can naturally evolve into an indefinite campaign.
If you want an open-ended B/X campaign, then, you have a few options. One is to lean into those "plots" described on X4, make sure they put competing demands on all the PCs' time, and require or encourage your players to have character stables. Another is to import some or all of the AD&D mechanisms of forced downtime. For my Blacknight campaign, I've done the latter, but I admit that might be a mistake. There is something elegant about simply setting up the campaign so that characters naturally feel competing demands on their time, without having to force it mechanically. But that is certainly much easier said than done!
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