Solo Dungeon Crawler Blog
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Solo Dungeon Crawler is the home of old-school solo Dungeons and Dragons campaigns, how to play DnD solo, and all other solo DnD needs, such as solo D&D actual play and tutorials. You will also find information on the D&D BECMI rules and old-school DnD history. If you want to learn how to play Dungeons & Dragons solo and you love Basic D&D or old school revival/old school renaissance (OSR)..
Solo Dungeon Crawler Blog
1w ago
If one were to referee a situation in OD&D where a player character wants to try to be stealthy to either surprise and ambush an enemy, sneak past a sleeping guard or just move quietly through a corridor to negate any chance of being surprised then how would this work? Could we consider this to be subsumed into the surprise mechanic detailed in OD&D Book III “Underworld & Wilderness Adventures”? Here is what that book says regarding surprise:
“A Condition of surprise can only exist when one or both parties are unaware of the presence of the other. Such things as ESP’ing, light, an ..read more
Solo Dungeon Crawler Blog
1w ago
In OD&D most of us eventually come to the conclusion that when a creature of 2 Hit Dice or higher (whether a player character, non-player character or monster) is fighting a creature of less than 2 Hit Dice they are allowed to make multiple attacks.
OD&D Book II “Monsters & Treasure” tells us that:
“Attack/Defence capabilities versus normal men are simply a matter of allowing one roll as a man-type for every hit die, with any bonuses being given to only one of the attacks, i.e. a Troll would attack six times, once with a +3 added to the die roll. (Combat is detailed in Vol. III ..read more
Solo Dungeon Crawler Blog
1w ago
There is a rather curious piece of text that Gary Gygax wrote in Strategic Review issue 2 published during the spring of 1975. The article in question is the famous “QUESTIONS MOST FREQUENTLY ASKED ABOUT DUNGEONS & DRAGONS RULES” and regarding a combat example between a Hero (4th Level Fighter) and orcs it says:
“As they outnumber their opponent so heavily it is likely that they will try to over-power him rather than kill, so each hit they score will be counted as attempts to grapple the Hero [...]”
What’s curious about this is the implication that forces outnumbering player characters m ..read more
Solo Dungeon Crawler Blog
1M ago
I've been saying for a while now that I would eventually gather all my notes up and put together an adventure module based on my Tales of Mystara - The Palace of Evendur solo adventure. Well I finally did it. I've placed a link to the module below. I've published it as a "pay what you like" PDF on Drive Thru RPG.
To avoid the obvious licensed content, I've made some subtle changes to make the module compatible with various rules systems, including many OSR systems. I've also avoided adding setting information based on the Known World, but instead made some suggestions for setting the adventur ..read more
Solo Dungeon Crawler Blog
1M ago
I have converted my D&D characters from my BECMI solo campaign "Tales of Mystara" to OD&D characters and thought I would share my character sheets, which I designed myself. I think they have the potential to be really useful for fans of OD&D or anyone with a casual interest as they shed some light on the subject of how OD&D works. Especially elves!
I also brought in the Thief from the Greyhawk supplement so I could convert my BECMI thieves to OD&D. I haven't included character sheets for demi-human thieves as I haven't brought them into my solo game yet.
I'll include some b ..read more
Solo Dungeon Crawler Blog
1M ago
BECMI versus OD&D in the Known World
I'm currently working on episode 10 of Tales of Mystara the Palace of Evendur podcast. This is essentially (if you haven't seen or heard), a documentation of my solo D&D adventures in the world of Mystara. Recently I have somewhat come to realise that I could do more with the world of Mystara if I wasn't using BECMI D&D as the core ruleset. I realise that this is pretty controversial! But I will try to defend my case here.
Ditching BECMI for OD&D A Better Solo D&D Experience with More Emergent Play
If you have been following my YouTube c ..read more
Solo Dungeon Crawler Blog
1M ago
To host Tales of Mystara I use a free Podbean account and like all free podcast hosting platforms there are limitations. On Podbean you have a memory limit and a limit of 5 hours of episodes before it won't let me upload more without deleting older episodes. Unfortunately with this current story I am hosting the limit has been reached and so in order to upload episode 9, I was forced to delete episode 1. Not to mention I tried to correct this by sending my YouTube RSS feed to Apple Podcasts so I could overcome the problem entirely, but of course, that didn't work!!! As a result the podcast i ..read more
Solo Dungeon Crawler Blog
1M ago
Rules for recruiting retainers in original Dungeons & Dragons are ambiguous. As I like to play solo I need a robust and consistent system for handling the process. I discuss my solution in detail in my Castle of the Quest series on my YouTube channel (video linked below). But here, I've also reproduced the rules in detail for anybody who would like to try them out for themselves.
OD&D Recruitment Campaigns
Recruiting Retainers
Create a Recruitment Campaign Determine Advertising Expenditures
Expenditures are determined by the table below. Make the rolls to determine costs and effecti ..read more
Solo Dungeon Crawler Blog
2M ago
"ONCE UPON A TIME, long, long ago there was a little group known as the Castle & Crusade Society."
This is the very first sentence in the Foreword of the first Dungeons & Dragons book "Men & Magic", published in 1974. The foreword goes on to inform us that it was the Castle & Crusade Society's fantasy rules, which "brought about much of the current interest in fantasy wargaming."
The Roots of Original Dungeons & Dragons What Was the Castle & Crusade Society?
The Castle & Crusade society was a group of medieval miniature wargamers formed by Gary Gygax and Rob K ..read more
Solo Dungeon Crawler Blog
1y ago
When I first started working on Episode 2 of Radiant Light, Halloween had just left us and we were journeying into the latter part of the year with the spooky season still alive and kicking. This is apparent on the first half of the episode. Unfortunately, it has taken me a long time to get it together and put it out so it may seem a bit late when in the first half of the new year I am bringing up Halloween Competitions.
Despite this. I did run a Halloween competition across October, which was also a celebration for reaching 3k subscribers on YouTube, I am pleased to finally announce in a more ..read more