5 room dungeons

 I mostly only play one shots anymore, so I've gotten a lot of mileage out of certain 5 room dungeons, like the one in the Red box Basic set. I've gotten pretty bored of it now though, there's only so many times you can kill Aleena and be interested in it. My last player tried to use a healing skill to bring her back to life, which I think is precluded by getting a magic missile through the chest. Still, I let him roll for it and I fudged the results anyway.

Apparently there's a case for running megadungeons for open table play, but I think a mega-dungeon is too much for a group of level 1's. A simple 5 room dungeon, the equivalent of a haunted house, should be enough for the first adventure for a group of lowbies. Once they gain wealth and power, then they can strike out into deeper and more dangerous ruins.

Why do we always start off killing rats and goblins in RPGs? Why aren't haunted mansions more of a thing? Abandoned buildings really should be more of a standard adventuring location for level 1s.

You ever notice that the monsters in the original DOOM and DOOM II are all basically mutated humanoids? The Imp, sure, is just a human with spikes, but even the pinky Demon has the limbs and torso of a man, just strangely proportioned. The Spider Mastermind is a human brain on a robot walker, not an animal brain and not a spider in any other way. Even the Cacodemon is a human eye and mouth sans the rest of the body. I like to believe there's some subconscious knowledge there that the id software team probably weren't aware of, that the demons are all twisted aspects of humanity. Also notice that they've all shed all their clothes away. The zombies retain their human clothing and weaponry, though. 

I prefer humanoid enemies in my games as well, but maybe I just lack the imagination to come up with weird eldritch lovecraftian foes.

I've been using BECMI D&D for my one shots but I've fallen out of love with the system. I briefly considered B/X, but then it dawned on me (actually my wife gave me the idea) to just use OD&D. Which is actually a really genius idea, if you think about it.  AD&D kind of sucks for one shots because character creation can take upwards of an hour, especially with players new to the system. Players used to modern D&D struggle with the concept of Race-as-class, but OD&D is simple and straightforward and hopefully fast enough that the party can get to play in a few minutes.

The problem with OD&D is that players usually have questions about basic mechanics, which are not explained in the books. Really simple stuff like how much damage does flaming oil do and how far can it be thrown? Every DM just makes a ruling on the spot but IMO an official rule does exist in every other version of D&D so why not just use that? AD&D specifically has a half page chart describing the outcome of throwing a flask of flaming oil in excruciating detail, and since it's penned by the same author as OD&D I figure its a natural fit. I figure running OD&D and filling in the rules with AD&D is probably the most natural way of running it.

But most people who run OD&D use it as a license to run wild with their imagination, which was kind of the original point of the system and kind of also what killed it and prompted the publication of AD&D.