D&D General Reviewing my Original D&D one-shot

Rules: Strictly only what was in the original boxed set. No Chainmail or Outdoor Survival, no supplements, no magazine articles, no internet histories or commentary. This left me having to fill in some gaps on things like combat, but it seemed pretty functional. I tried to think like someone in 1974 would when it came to things like naming.

Preparation: Following the procedures (and some necessary extrapolation thereof) in the original boxed set, I created:

• A dungeon six levels deep with space to expand in the future, populated with both pre-set encounters and randomly generated ones.
• A broad-strokes town to serve as a home base.
• The wilderness surrounding the two, with terrains and potential random encounters.
• A lot of reference sheets (previously shared here).

Players: Five total. Three had only played 5e; one had also played 2e, Pathfinder, and Dungeon Crawl Classics (plus one 3e session); one had also played at least 3e.

Characters: One rolled up a human fighting-man, and became the group's "caller" (the one who relayed the group's decision to the referee, me). Another rolled up a dwarf fighting-man (but also considered a human cleric). Two others rolled up elf magic-users. The fifth rolled up a human cleric. They considered hiring NPCs but couldn't afford it; they did, however, pool their funds to buy a mule (Hussy) to carry some of their stuff, so they could get their speed up to 9 inches (90 feet) per turn.

Gameplay summary: They entered the dungeons of "Castle Redcrown" and immediately encountered a band of 30 orcs. After attempts to talk their way past failed, a melee led to all but one of the orcs being killed via burning oil and the magic-user's Sleep spell. They suffered their first casualty, the cleric, and took his body and their orc prisoner back to town, along with the equipment they'd looted from the orcs. (They wisely opted not to engage in wilderness exploration.)

The cleric's player rolled up his heir, a human fighting-man, who inherited most of the cleric's stuff (except what the other players had used for their own benefit). The others leveled their characters up to 2, stocked up on more oil, and threatened the orc into revealing what he knew of the remaining dungeon layout (including the orcs' territory, a gnoll lair, an evil priest, some undead, and a hidden magic-user who'd been using the orcs for protection). They left him imprisoned, but promised to free him when they returned, if his information was good.

Their second foray into the dungeon eventually led them to the orcs' lair. They laid a trap: they filled a long hallway with oil and lured orcs into it. First they used sleep, then they used fire on a second wave. They sealed the orcs' doorway (with Hold Portal and spikes) while they collected more loot, and planned to leave after. But unknown to them, the orcs had sent a force the long way around the dungeon, and tried to ambush them at the entrance. (They were alerted by the sound of their mule being attacked.) The group managed to force its way through and escape, just as the orcs at their lair had broken through the sealed door. However, it cost them two more casualties, the first human fighting-man (who turned over his caller duties to the dwarf fighting-man) and the dwarf fighting-man (who turned over his caller duties to the new fighting-man). They had to leave their bodies behind, but managed to get away.

Comments:

• We got a good laugh about of some of the early game's illogic, like all monsters having infravision but losing it if they joined the player characters.
• Among the things I had to improvise: difficult terrain such as oil-slick floors (half movement); how long oil fires lasted (went with 1d6 combat rounds); how to push through a crowd (used the rules for forcing open a door).
• The players started off rather civilized, but became really murderhobo really fast. (To be fair, it being a one-shot may have added to that attitude.)
• The characters didn't all share common as a language, which led to some telephone games when the caller wanted to negotiate with the orcs (the player who had orc didn't speak common, but did speak law, so a third player with both common and law had to translate).
• Having a caller resulted in way, way more strategizing than in our 5e games (I had to start doing 60 second countdowns to force them to resolve some disagreements). However, some players didn't like basically being outvoted.
• The players noted how hard it was to hit enemies at low levels, and were especially shocked by the lethality. (Three permadeaths in two trips into the dungeon was more than we'd had in our entire six-year 5e campaign.)
• Most were willing to play again - I think mainly so our sixth invitee, who had to drop out, could try it - but a few (all of whom started with 5e) said they vastly preferred 5e. Everyone did appreciate the insight into how the original game worked, though.

Really cool - thanks for sharing

Did the absence of a thief option have any effect on gameplay?

Mark Hope said:

Really cool - thanks for sharing

Did the absence of a thief option have any effect on gameplay?

Click to expand...

Not in the small section they went through! Thieves might have come in handy later, but not yet.

That said, the player with a dwarf character was aware that dwarves automatically note traps. So he was thinking ahead on that front!

Yeah, dwarves are great in those situations.

Was there much difference in combat ability between the characters? I'm thinking of how all weapons would have been d6, with minimal ability score bonuses. You mentioned that they struggled to hit things - did this apply to the fighting men as well?

Mark Hope said:

Yeah, dwarves are great in those situations.

Was there much difference in combat ability between the characters? I'm thinking of how all weapons would have been d6, with minimal ability score bonuses. You mentioned that they struggled to hit things - did this apply to the fighting men as well?

Click to expand...

So for context, we were using the non-Chainmail "alternative combat system" (the ancestor of every other edition's combat rules). Which means until level 4, all three classes have the same hit probability. To hit an orc (AC 6), everyone had to roll 13+ on d20.

Strength has no effect on melee attacks in the original boxed set (that was added by the Greyhawk supplement), so the fighting-men's good Strength scores didn't help them. I suppose on reflection they hit as often as you'd expect given a 40% chance, but that's cold comfort when you miss more often than not. (Though they did hit! It just accounted for far fewer orc casualties than burning oil and Sleep spells.)

Dexterity, on the other hand, did affect missile attacks... but none of the fighting-men had high enough scores. The human cleric did... but clerics can't use arrows (or quarrels), so it didn't help. (One of the magic-users had a penalty from low Dex, which probably reinforced their choice not to throw their daggers.)

None of them got far enough to acquire any magic items that could have helped, unfortunately.