OD&D, by the book, is an inferior game to Advanced Heroquest. My primary sources of complaint are:

• Encumbrance
• The primary modifiers of encumbrance in OD&D are your armor and weapon, and everything else is assumed to weigh 80 gold piece equivalent. The rest of your weight limit is determined entirely by how many gold coins you carry.
• In Heroquest your move speed is modified by armor, and everything else only adds up to your weight limit, until you cannot carry anymore. Again, you are mostly only concerned about how much gold you can carry.
• Gold for XP
• In OD&D, Gold and Monsters both grant XP. In Supplement I: Greyhawk and later, monster XP is trivially small, to the point of not being worth the fight
  
• In AHQ, the only way to level is to pay for training with gold. Monsters also drop gold when they die, such that it can be considered equivalent to an "XP value", however gold has more uses than just as a means to level 
• The Gold feedback loop
• Taken as a whole, the above two points illustrate that both games stress the need to dungeon crawl for gold, but the gold economy and feedback loop is stronger in AHQ 

Further complaints

•  Time tracking by steps-per-turn
• This is much easier to track on a board game with an actual grids or a ruler, than it is to convey and track abstractly in theater of the mind 

• Exploration
• AHQ still allows players the thrill of exploring the unknown
• The method for finding secret doors (actually, generating secret doors) puts more control in the hands of the players while counterbalancing that with a DM's wandering monster check 
• Traps
• AHQ d12 spot and disarm chances make finding several common traps much simpler than OD&D.
•  I like it more than a 2-in-6 for every trap. I also see this as a framework, I can imagine any new trap and give players an X-in-12 chance for finding it. This is assuming that they haven't sussed out the "secret method" planned by the GM of finding and disarming it.
  
  This also straight replaces the Search/Spot/Perception rolls of the d20 system. In fact I think that roll is a flat answer to the problem of finding traps that OD&D has. Importantly, I like the d12 chance because it sets the chance of finding on a per trap basis, and not per character ability score. This is more logical to me and cuts out the need to put a modifier on the perception roll to detect trap.

• Spells
• OD&D Magic-Users know every spell in a spellbook of appropriate level, and can create new spells at the cost of 1,000 gold and a week of research. However, they can only use a limited number per day, and must rest before casting another
• AHQ Wizards also know every spell, however they must roll at the beginning of each round to see if they have enough spell points to cast. This keeps their gameplay dynamic and allows them to be useful more frequently than the OD&D magic-user
• NPCs
• The given NPC Hazard encounters in AHQ are a lot of fun
• Henchmen are easier and less punitive to recruit
• OD&D's morale and loyalty system is better, however
  

For a straight dungeon crawl, AHQ is better than OD&D. What OD&D offers above AHQ is the chance to do more, to journey in the overland and  engage with NPCs. Also maybe build a stronghold and go flying or sailing, but nobody really does that. OD&D shines when you lean into its role as a free-form RPG.

I really do like OD&D and I've run several games with the system, but I've always found it lacking in some pretty big ways and have ended up needing to create many more rulings per session. For a strict dungeon crawl, the more solid rules of AHQ are better for a more enjoyable evening of play.

BONUS:

• No f@#$ing DM 
• AHQ can be played out of the box without a DM, while in OD&D the notion ranges from absurd to plausible with extra procedures and oracles
  

AD&D 1e loyalty

 BtB, henchmen have a 50% loyalty chance. This number is modified by charisma score and several properties of the individual, such as alignment, training, treatment by liege, length of service, etc.  It looks like all this stuff should be calculated ahead of time and written on the henchman's sheet somewhere, or kept in a separate log by the DM, and incrementally modified when appropriate. It's another level of bookkeeping in an already bookkeeping heavy game. 

Instead, it's possible to only calculate these numbers when necessary, and instead of summing them into a static challenge target, turn them into modifiers to the dice roll. The base score to fail a loyalty check remains 50%, but now all the modifiers are reversed and added to the d100 die roll. It's a simple algebraic equation:

    BtB: 50% + modifiers > d100 score

Just reverse it to become: 50% > d100 - modifiers

This will take longer at the table, but I am becoming much more amenable to spending time at the table, than spending time outside it to get stuff done. AD&D itself is a very cumbersome game where doing even simple things BtB can take a very long time fiddling around with dice math.

Cracking the solo code

 Turns out that I’ve been playing solo wrong. Apparently it’s better to first decide what your character wants to do and then generate the world in response, than it is to generate the world first and then try to move your character through it like an automaton. With the latter method, I found most GM Emulators to fail in usefulness since I would be doing all the GM roles anyway, and I found them to be better used as “Player Emulators” where their oracles and tables were better suited to controlling the PCs.

DM Yourself is a great new product that puts the focus back on the solo player acting only as a PC and not as a GM, to drive the story forward. 

 Every procedure in D&D is longer and slower than doing that same action in real life 

cRPGs

 I liked Pathfinder: Kingmaker better once I created a character not as a "protagonist", but as a fit to the party. That game is more about managing a 6 person party than it is about playing a single individual main character.

Most of the guides online say that your choice between focusing on magic or melee doesn't matter in Divinity: Original Sin 2. This is false, magic has significantly deeper gameplay and most of the combat is built around the interactions between different magical effects. Physical combat and damage doesn't have nearly the variety, unless you play as a polymorph. I didn't enjoy D:OS2 until I had a full magic caster party.

Pillars of Eternity has the best controls for console. The 2D backgrounds are also better than every other game that use 3D backgrounds. The isometric perspective on a fully 3D modeled game gives me motion sickness.

Baldur's Gate sucks. Baldur's Gate II sucks more. I never felt like I was playing AD&D while playing those games, instead I felt like I was playing any generic BioWare game.

Fixing problems with Storm King's Thunder

1. Restrict the size of the map

 The given Sword Coast map is too big, and the given quests force characters to journey to extreme ends on glorified fetch quests. It's better to restrict the campaign area to the region shown in Harshnag's map, which is more or less bounded by the ancestor burial mounds. Even this is a bit too wide, as it includes the cities of Neverwinter and Luskan and some of the Sword Coast., but the players might want to journey to such iconic cities themselves, and to restrict the map further requires moving some of the burial mounds.

2. Put the Giants in actual war

There's a beautiful two page art spread of a Storm Giant and a Fire Giant about to clash, but this event never occurs in the module. In fact, beyond assaulting the initial towns in Chapter 2, the Giant Lords don't really do much of anything except waiting for the players to show up. Instead of that, the main goal of the Giant Lords should be changed to fight the other Giant Lords. The purpose of their incursions into settled lands is to expand their territory and take such from the others. There should be opportunity for frequent clashes between true Giants and their armies, with the small folk caught in the middle. That prospect seems far more terrifying as a plot device than what's written in the module.

Where to put the Giants' war

Chapter 2, the assault on the towns should be the beginning of the Giant Lord's incursions into smallfolk lands. After that, in Chapter 3 and beyond, true Giants can be encountered fighting with one another. Several Giant territories share borders and can be struggling with each other, such as Frost and Stone, Stone and Fire, Fire and Hill. Cloud Giants technically could be fighting anyone.

Making the Giants' war the central theme of the adventure

As written, the events of the town of Nightstone make little sense and leave too many unanswered questions. A better solution would be to make it the focal point of a battle between Hill Giants and Cloud Giants, both of which were after the titular Nightstone. This would be the first town that the PCs encounter in this way, and would foreshadow the later incursions

3. Turn the Giants into allyable factions

The Giant Lords are all obviously evil, by intending to increase their own power at the expense of everyone else. However, the players can play the Giants against each other, and possibly cause one to lead them to the Temple of the All-Father. It adds more interest to the game than Harshnag just randomly showing up, and puts meaning behind the puzzle to the Giants' portal.

4. Turn the Overworld into a Barbarian Wilderness

"Know, oh prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars"

 When the PC's meet Elves, they meet the Wild Elves of the Forest, who are uninterested in peaceful negotiations so much as they are interested in protecting the location of their forest homes. The humans that the PCs meet are Barbarian Tribesmen, following the territories and motivations listed in Chapter 3. Human settlements take inspiration from Viking and Gallic settlements of the early Medieval period.  Orcs, Gnomes and Trolls need no adjusting to fit this theme.

The Dwarves are Scottish

Simply that. Taking inspiration from the Troll/Fyre-Slayers of Warhammer, the dwarves of Citadel Adbarr and Citadel Felbarr are vaguely Celtic Highlander proxies that love smithing. They also live in above-ground sod houses. Because Braveheart. They're also strongly allied with the Fire Giants, who taught them to smith.

5. Get rid of all references to other 5e campaigns

The Ring of Winter quest in Icewind Dale that goes nowhere and cannot be resolved without playing Tomb of Annihiliation. The Cult of the Howling Hatred. Blagothkus's Son. Klauth and the Cult of the Dragon. Just throw them all out.

Thoughts on RotF and SKT

 Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden is actually a good adventure module to come out of 5e. Leaning into horror and high fantasy tropes, the designers have delivered an adventure dripping with theme, creativity, and identity. Even the low level encounters are unique, such as a sentient plesiosaur in a frozen lake, and the marquee villain of the adventure, Auril the Frostmaiden, is finally engaging on her own. It’s not perfect, and suffers from pacing and railroading problems like every other 5e adventure, but it’s a step up from the others, at least.

Storm King’s Thunder, on the other hand, is one of 5e’s worst adventures, sitting near the bottom with the likes of Hoard of the Dragon Queen. It has grindingly terrible pacing issues and an overall lack of focus in the campaign which results in feeling like the ending comes out of nowhere. And, it requires the DM to basically write half the module himself in order to run it.

And yet, I find myself possessed by a desire to modify, tweak and home brew SKT into something playable and fun, while my interest in RotF remains mostly academic. I think that’s because RotF is good enough on it’s own, and to play it you would have to do little more than run it as written.  There’s also a significant overlap between the two adventures- one of the main quests in SKT revolves around Frost Giants attacking Icewind Dale in search of a magic ring. These giants are also worshippers of Auril and seek to extend an everlasting winter over the North. RotF already prominently features Frost Giants around both Icewind Dale and the abode of Auril herself, so importing SKT’s material into it would be redundant. But going the other way, and importing material from RotF into SKT would flesh out a truncated and ill defined quest line and add more content to a barren section of the map.

Realizing that I could take the story of Auril herself and graft it onto the Frost Giant princess and keep the rest of SKT intact, and in fact improve it by doing so, completely shattered my interest in running RotF. SKT itself is more a tale of high adventure, of confronting dangerous foes and exploring savage lands. When I first bought it, I was on this huge “Barbarians” kick and the appeal still remains. The Savage Frontier is an ideal setting in which to explore those themes and play through some straight tropes, instead of the more atmospheric horror of RotF. I have no problems with double dipping as well and running RotF right after SKT and revisiting the Frozen North storyline twice.

For home brewing SKT, I imagine throwing out the plot as written but keeping mostly the setting info and keeping the conflict itself in broad strokes. The Giant Lords and their plans will remain, but the adventure would be more faction driven as the players could choose which Giants to ally with. As for the infamous third chapter, I see that more as barbarian adventuring against other tribes of men, elves, dwarves and orcs, and I’m looking forward to exploring those tropes. For the Frost Giants, not to give too much away, I would replace the Jarl with his daughter, make her a Chosen of Auril and grant her possession of the Codicil of White, wherein she gains the power to extend the Arctic regions southward.