OD&D Emergent Solo Campaign - Session 1

A new experiment of mine. Playing OD&D 1974 rules as written using the Solo Dungeon Adventures random dungeon generator published by Gary Gygax in Strategic Review 1.
► Read my blog: solodungeoncrawler.blogspot.com

[@thomasboynton1]

Two minutes in and your detailed breakdown of the rules and history of the game make me feel seen; I have the same niche fascination. I feel like I could talk with you at the pub about this for hours!

[@steveyoungwork]

An Unexpected Surprise! Looking forward to this very much!

[@johnhein1663]

Welcome back! AD&D is where I started back in the day. This is great.

[@bronsongorham]

Yay! You're back! Love your solo play videos.

[@M0RGue0Nslaught]

Great to have you back! I stumbled upon your channel recently as I was looking for OD&D actual play content. I have to admit I'm really impressed by your dedication as well as your calm and immersive way of storytelling! Just finished the "how to" playlist and was so excited to see there's a new video! You're doing a really good job there sir, your videos are an invaluable source of inspiration! Thank you very much

[@PirateMF]

If you are not already up on it, check out Bandit's Keep Actual Play for another great OD&D Solo campaign

[@freddaniel5099]

I am impressed with the insight you have regarding the original game, and its later iterations. As a player who started with the little brown books and nothing else, I recall that in those early years D&D was approached in one of two ways. Either a referee chose a preferred method for combat and exploration, adding procedures to flesh out the rules as needed, and produced something similar to the more standardized later editions. OR the referee attempted to use the books with all their suggested subsystems and freely switched between many different aspects in emphasis during play. The latter approach involes a number of distinct combat resolution mechanisms, allowing the referee to switch between them to achieve various play experiences, while resulting in a more flavorful game. I believe the original game reads rather like "a stream of consciousness" where the authors include a number of distinct ideas with minimal organization. It may be looked at as a "toolkit" from which to build a game. When I think about a campaign that at various times will involve dungeon crawling, man-to-man and mass combats, wilderness exploration and survival, and jousting with other knights errant per King Arthur and Chainmail, I think "this would be a campaign to hold one's interest for years".

[@vinimagus]

Yay! Tom, we've missed you dearly! Cheers, V

[@RB-sz9gv]

Really enjoying your channel. Especially MYSTARA. BECMI is the best. Death at every corner and glory IF you survive.

[@vinimagus]

You're really upped your game, Tom. This is even better than the already great adventures you had published. I also realize you're finding your balance between attentiveness to detail and keeping things rolling (e.g. the simpler version of the food of war, which is good enough, really). Meaning don't beat yourself up and have fun. 10/10 video for sure. :-) V

[@MichaelBacaArtist]

Glad to have you back! This channel is highly underrated.

[@koohii3301]

Thank you for you work, all your videos are of high quality and I appreciate that

[@Chaoclypse]

This is absolutely excellent content. Very inspiring and educational!

[@mrJarmusz]

I thought that the channel stopped uploading materials, but it turned out that YT stopped sending me notifications... Great job, it's great to listen to you!

[@KS-vy7dk]

Always happy to see another episode. And I like seeing new groups head out on adventure as well. Well done as usual.

[@derrickcarlton1288]

I wanted to tell you that I appreciate all of the hard work and dedication you put into these videos you do. I always love watching your channel. Thank you very much for being such a great individual. Much love Sincerely Derrick Carlton

[@Robocopster]

Cool. Here’s some info about the “alternative combat rules”: I was listening to Rob Kuntz talk about the D&D games he played with Gygax. He said that they never used the Chainmail rules unless there was some kind of mass combat. He thought the “so called alternative combat rules” were a “strange appellation” because they only used those for D&D combat. Mr. Kuntz did mentioned that Gygax included references to Chainmail because it would be a clever way to market the new fantasy game “upstream” to the gamers who had already purchased Chainmail.

[@SoloDungeonCrawler]

thats massively interesting. anywhere i can find this conversation? would love to have a listen.

[@Robocopster]

@@SoloDungeonCrawler kzbin.info/www/bejne/bIGtYYlofrplrsU

[@Robocopster]

@@SoloDungeonCrawler at about the 13 minute mark is where Kuntz describes the D&D play testing with and without Chainmail.

[@Robocopster]

Considering that Gary had many mouths to feed, I think it was likely that he was more intent on getting the original game sold than making sure people played the game in a specific way. He probably had a nice list of Chainmail devotees to whom he could market his pencil and paper rpg game as a “miniatures game” even though he didn’t play it as one.

[@retrodmray]

​@@RobocopsterBut, sir, do you have a link to this conversation video? It would be awesome to watch! Thnx 👍 🤓

[@retrodmray]

So cool to have you back, sir! 🤓👍

[@strawpiglet]

Love it. Nice to see you back.

[@christopherbollinger86]

This is wonderful. Maybe my new favorite series that you do.

[@MarkHyde]

What needs to be said is there are legal restrictions that OSR games have to abide by, hence why a lot of their combat descriptions appear the way they do - if you really want the kind of sticking to the authorial intent of combat you do indeed have to go to published texts from Gary. Missed this upload - looking forward to the series. Great work.

[@squirekev]

Good to see more OD&D. While I wish someday you'll give AD&D a crack at solo, OD&D seems well suited for solo play. Exploration emphasis works well for this type of game, with an effective, impartial Referee. If one can't trust their own judgement, who can one trust? heh

[@Vukassin]

The editing is really incredible, the flow is much nicer. I tend to listen to more narrative rpg solo plays since I tend to zone out and just hear long descriptions of dice results or stats and such, which is useful when playing but not something to listen to in the background. Really you could replace certain actions or room sizes with simple natural descriptions and it would feel like a novel unfolding.

[@ProudfootUnderhill]

This is awesome. Following!

[@IrrationalExuberance]

Excellent! I got the latest printing of Swords & Wizardry, but it seemed like they had to handwave certain parts of the rules / make stuff up, so I am definitely interested to hear your approach to OD&D!

[@sergeantrorhak]

Great ! A Very interesting play :)

[@SentientSoup]

Thank you for directing me to the entire story Tom! 😁

[@garland336]

Welcome back :D

[@ClownKenny]

Awesome, I've been missing these videos

[@steveyoungwork]

Classic Solo D&D done Well, What more do we need!

[@lennyburkett550]

A couple of observations. per OD&D rules no missile fire into a melee is not allowed as was the case when the elf shot at the ghoul. Also I found it interesting the ghouls made 2 attacks. I know the greyhawk supplement added additional attacks for certain monsters, but this was not present in the 3 original books. Great stuff overall.

[@SoloDungeonCrawler]

you should check your brown books again as multiple attacks by monsters are a thing but only against normal types (level 1 characters) any combat not involving a level 1 character or single hit die monster is considered fantasic combat so its one attack per round otherwise its 1 attack per combat level or per hit die. Strategic review issue 2 sheds some light on this and brown book ii has something in there as well. in regards to firing into melee, i dont allow it but i think i overlooked this at first. as im getting more and more acquainted with the combat system im rectifying my approach. i do allow missile fire into non active melee (melee that has not started but figures have moved into melee range)

[@lbur7119]

@@SoloDungeonCrawler very true I forgot about the hit dice rule. I guess it would be able to make 2 attacks against any character aside from a fighter who technically is a 1+1 hit dice creature

[@lvl5Longbowman]

I was waiting patiently for your content.

[@Lowe505]

perfect just perfect this is outstanding D&D content

[@sheldonfranklin4802]

I'm looking forward to the conclusion of the Lost Mines of Phandelver episodes. At least finishing the Cragmaw Hideout.

[@lubrez3097]

Hi Tom, I love your videos! I was wondering what your approach might be for scaling monsters toward a party of 1-2? Forgive me if you did mention it in the BECIM videos and I somehow haven't noticed. I did watch them all, but its a lot of info! :) Google isnt really netting me much help thus far. Thank you!

[@kmanamk]

the real deal

[@Yoloman147]

Good stuff.

[@ChuckBarchuk]

Dude, I love the character sheets and, in particular, the font. Do you by any chance know the font that is used?

[@ponkarta2012]

Hello there, really like your video presentation ❤. The reason why i play OD&D is that i couldn't find many friends play with me 😅. Just subscribe you 😊🎉

[@bignumbers]

What happened to Magnus Ironheart?

[@mlundequist]

Yes I was looking through the transcript and when the 5 character faces popped up around time stamp 26:50, Magnus Ironheart did not appear nor is in the game any further this session. I was curious what might have happened to him?

[@finncullen]

Don't you mean Gygax 180ed his approach to Game Design? If you 360 it you end up going in the same direction as before

[@dragonchr15]

Wasn't the skill check for the doors redundant? There is no real consequence to failing so technically she would have found the door eventually....which makes sense in real life as more skilled rogues would find it faster, but if it was there, it would be found EVENTUALLY....

[@SoloDungeonCrawler]

The consequence for failure is the time it takes to try again. Time is very important because Wandering Monsters checks must be made periodically and one unlucky encounter could put an end to the whole adventure.

[@dragonchr15]

@@SoloDungeonCrawler good point....but something else came to mind after I posted the original...you based her finding the door on a succesful check of some kind. Was the door there already or you equated success with a door being found, even if it was not there. Or put another way, a door exists, a succesful skill check finds it versus no door exists and a successful skill check is meaningless other than to waste time as you pointed out....I mean even a level 20 rogue is not going to find a hidden passage that is not there

[@reddnacpil4420]

180 bro

[@Ray47nl]

I am amazed someone took the effort to explain these rules in depth. I was just wondering what books you are using. For now i got Chanmail 3rd edition, men & magic, Underworld and wilderness adventures and ad&d players handbook. Can you make a list of all the books, cards and sheets you are using?