Small dungeons

I like small dungeons better than large mega dungeons of interconnected corridors. Instead, I envision a “dungeon” like the single family residence of the monster. There would be only a handful of inhabitants and all the rooms they need to live in, such as a place to sleep, a place to eat, and a place to put their stuff. I also like the idea that, should you run into a monster in the dungeon, it is the monster. 

As for dungeon ecology, I consider it more natural to link dungeons across the over world, where monsters would have their own territories and travel networks. It makes much more sense that two feuding races of monsters would be claiming overlapping territories, than living in close proximity with each other, separated only by a few hallways and doors.

Running small dungeons like this means that your map scale would have to be much more precise and smaller in scale than a 6-mile hex. Alternatively, if you use large hexes, then each hex should have multiple chances of finding a lair. Multiple small lairs actually generate more interest in wilderness travel and provide a unique element to it.

Encumbrance in OD&D

 Encumbrance in OD&D is very simple to calculate. You add the weight (in gold coins) of your armor, weapons and shield together to find your base encumbrance. This value will mostly determine your movement rate. All the other small inventory items you might have, such as 50' of rope, iron spikes, torches etc., are all combined together to a flat value of 80 gold piece weight, or 8 pounds total.

  A standard man in OD&D can carry a maximum of 3000 gold piece equivalent weight. Your equipment and inventory is a fraction of that, generally less than half if not less than a third of the total. That means that most of your free carrying capacity will be taken up by the actual gold pieces you are carrying.

  The whole point of OD&D is to carry as many gold pieces as possible out of the dungeon. Every mechanic in the game is either in service to this goal, or is directly affected by it. It is largely the weight of gold coins that will increasingly slow you down as you travel.

  I found this gameplay loop to be quite satisfying. As a result, though, the silver standard is a bad fit for OD&D, and this simplified encumbrance system is a bad fit for AD&D. The reward feedback of AD&D is different, the primary motivator of that game is to level up XP. AD&D has a stricter, more granular encumbrance system, that is more in service to the simulationist nature of that game.

  Honestly, I found that OD&D encumbrance is easier on the DM, but players who are used to later editions of D&D take a while to adapt to it. Its also not as immersive as AD&D's encumbrance system, and it leads to players not really caring what's in their inventory. Which is fine, for a one shot. The sores of AD&D's math heavy encumbrance system are well known, but it forces players to engage more with the game.

House Rules for 5e

 This is not a typical campaign as I am using a host of variant rules aimed at making this a more engaging and immersive experience. Please read on for details:

Character Creation

Allowed Races: Human, Elf, Dwarf, Gnome, Halfling, Half-Elf, Half-Orc, Dragonborn, and Tiefling

Allowed Classes: Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard

Character stats can be generated by using Standard Array or Point Buy.

You may choose starting gold or background equipment for starting equipment.

PHB races and classes only. Subclasses and spells from only one of the following books of your choice: Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, Volo’s Guide to Monsters, and Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything.  

Races and Classes not listed above are not allowed in this campaign. No Unearthed Arcana allowed, no homebrew.

Skills

Please only roll skill checks when I call for them. Any skill rolls that I did not call for will result in an automatic failure. 

Persuasion, Deception and Intimidation are not mind-control, they will not function like a Charm Person spell.

Milestone Levels 

Levels will be gained for completing story milestones and time played. The time required per level is shown below:

Tier	Hours of Play to Gain a Level
1	4
2	8
3	12
4	16

Variant Rules

Variant: Encumbrance 

We are using variant encumbrance rules from the PHB.

 If the total weight you carry is 5 times your strength score, your speed drops by 5 feet. If it is 10 times, your speed drops by 20 feet and you have disadvantage on ability checks, attack rolls, and saving throws that use Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution.

You cannot automatically convert currency to the most convenient coinage. You have to carry coins individually until you can convert them at a banker or money changer.

Magic Item Variants 

Potion miscibility.

Wands don't recharge and have a finite amount of uses. To "regain" the charges of a wand, you will have to craft it again.

Roleplay

I prefer role-playing over "roll-playing". This means that I will ask you to describe your character's actions before you attempt to roll the dice. I will ignore any dice rolls that I did not call for. 

I generally assume that your character knows as much as you know, so if you have knowledge of the lore and history of a place, item or monster, you can just convey that to the rest of the party. 

I do not follow the "rule of cool".

Death and Recovery

If your character dies, you may create another one of the same level.

Solo OSR is boring

 The AD&D 1e DMG contains everything necessary to play the game solo. It is full of tables that can generate every aspect of the campaign, from the governmental form of a city down to the disposition of an individual NPC. However, it provides the barest guidelines on interacting with all that content, preferring to leave it to the discretion of the DM. A binary question-and-answer oracle could be used to fill in this gap. I find the term "GM emulator" to be a bit misleading, as they don't actually fulfill the function of the GM, which is to play the world in response.

  By the book, there's not a whole to do in OSR games beyond traveling into the unknown, encountering monsters or friendly NPCs, engaging in combat, and recovering loot to level up to recover more loot. They really do rely on the strength of the DM to make the game interesting.

When I play RPGs live, I play from the perspective of my character and focus from personal point of view. When I play solo, I feel more like an omnipresent narrator that watches other characters take action as I roll for them.

Why I chose AD&D 2e

 In running 1e I ran into a consistent set of problems in my games that I just wanted to remove. The Half-Orc race, the Assassin and Monk classes, the wild power level of the Paladin, and Psionics. There was a lot I liked about 1e, too, such as the existence of Paladins, Rangers, Druids, and Bards, the really technical nature of stats, it’s reckoning of time and combat, and the attention given to equipment and weapons. I was considering cutting and splicing it all together into my own shitbrew, but then I found a game that does just all of that already; and that is AD&D 2e.

2e is not perfect - it’s reckoning of the combat round and weapon speed factor is inferior to 1e, it jettisoned the weapon vs AC table in favor of a much simpler damage type chart, replaced the table of repeating 20’s with THAC0, made character creation for Magic-Users, Clerics and Thieves more complicated by essentially adding subclasses, and incorporated the infamous non-weapon proficiencies.

For NWPs, I straight up will not use them, as I hate skill systems in D&D’s rigid class based game. The M-U (now called Wizards) spell school choice and the Cleric sphere choice is not something I personally like but players like having more options and it adds a bit of flavor to the classes. The Thief class benefits greatly from the points system. It’s going to be very hard to let go of 1e’s extremely technical combat, so I probably won’t.  Other than that, everything else from 2e flows seamlessly from 1e, so I don’t anticipate any conversion issues.

I envision my 2e game as playing very differently from my 0e one. My OD&D game is all about free form actions and occasionally instant death, where every action is adjudicated by out-of-game logic, while my AD&D 2e game will be beholden to the dice mechanics and graven rules.

The Monstrous Compendium is actually really neat, too.

Heroquest reprint

 If nothing else, it’s cheaper than buying the miniatures and furniture separately, though I’ve already invested in half of that when I cobbled together the pieces for advanced Heroquest out of spare parts.  AHQ also has a solo mode and a set of rules for using the original Heroquest pieces, so I’m looking forward to using them with the reprint. I don’t hate the new art, I’m just glad it’s not a radical redesign, and the Barbarian still exists and is recognizable.

My biggest gripe with Greyhawk

 Most of all, I hate the stupid names. How the fuck are you supposed to pronounce Furyondy or Nyr Dyv? That’s not counting the places that are actual puns. Many of the places are named after people Gygax knew in real life, like Perrenland, the Duchy of Urnst, the Duchy of Geoff, or the County of Sunndi. These names add texture to the place, it’s true, but it also makes the setting feel very personal, full of in-jokes and self-referential humor, like it’s actually Gygax and his friends’ campaign, and not really a place for other players. Playing in Greyhawk feels like squatting in someone else’s home.

The actual playable content of Greyhawk, however, is pretty great. I highly recommend the 128 page box set over the 64 page folio, if only because the box set actually includes the original folio with no alterations as well. Only the crabbiest, highest self-aggrandizing grognard would recommend otherwise. The second booklet comes with actual, concrete game content in the form of weather statistics and random encounters, which make the prep just that much easier. Be warned though, as a Gary Gygax product it still requires a lot of prep.

The 2e and 3e eras of Greyhawk content are heavily focused on meta plot, so I tend to ignore them completely, but they do flesh out the world and mitigate the tongue-in-cheek aspects of it, so there’s that.