Solo Dungeon Crawler - Solo DnD Tutorials

Continuing my delve through Len Lakofka's OD&D rule contributions that were printed in the "Liasons Dangereuses' Diplomacy zine in the mid-seventies. I uncovered an article he wrote regarding morale checks. The article was published in issue 73 of the aforementioned zine and directly followed his article of rules regarding dungeon doors (see my previous blog post). I've managed to transcribe this one without as much difficult as the other. The text is still relatively clear but unfortunately the title is incomprehensible. Len Lakofka's OD&D - Morale Checks Here is an image of the original scan: Here is my transcription (minus the title): The BLACKMOOR system (I wonder if Dave Arneson ever sent a copy to the producers of KUNG-FU) for damage is rather complex for rapid play. With a large number of figures it can bog down # some record keeping then it is easy to maintain. Damage should effect morale, physical strength, dexterity, constitution and hand-to-hand

The OD&D rulebooks and supplements never properly addressed the costs of magical enchantment nor how many experience points should be rewarded for finding magic items. There is some guidance given in Men & Magic and some further clarification in the FAQ printed in Strategic Review #2. These are useful for extrapolating some rules to cover the whole array of magical items and possible enchantments. After looking very closely at the examples of costs in Men & Magic regarding making magic items I managed to shed some light on the subject. At first glance it seems like a very incomplete list (and it may be the case that it still is), I was at a loss for ages but I had a slight epiphany eventually! If you look at the items Gary has chosen to give examples of you might break them down into the following categories: Scrolls Potions that create the effects of a spell Potions that create special abilities Enchanted arrows Enchanted armour w/out special abilities Wands Rings that cre

I previously shared a Len Lakofka article that I transcribed from an old Diplomacy Zine called “Liasons Dangereuses” discovered via the Diplomacy Zine archive. I've been doing some more digging through these scans of old zines since, and there are OD&D gems to be found therein. I’m hoping to transcribe some more bits and pieces in the coming months, but as some of these articles are badly faded away and the scans quite poor there are words lost unless of course I can find a better scan (which in many cases is difficult) or find the article republished much later in Dragon or some such more well preserved form. A recent discovery is an article written by Len Lakofka in regards to dungeon doors in Liasons Dangereuses #73. This article along with many others by the same author might be considered an authoritative take on supplemental OD&D rules given Lakofka had a close working relationship to Gary Gygax. Len Lakofka’s OD&D - Dungeon Doors The particular rules regarding d

The use of hired NPCs is heavily implied across the various OD&D rule books, but of course, a heavy amount of ambiguity regarding these "hired hands" meant that it wasn't all too obvious how to approach such a matter. The problem was however, addressed in a little more detail in the AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide and my initial attempt at producing a set of rules for both solo and group play to handle NPC recruitment was heavily based on the DMG. However, I have since rediscovered a set of "Advertising" rules included in the Judge's Guild Ready Reference Sheets (published in 1979), which provides an alternative (and slightly simpler) method. OD&D Hiring Non-Player Characters As the JG Ready Reference Sheets, as well as other OD&D third party products by the Judges Guild were popularly used throughout the mid to late seventies, it seemed appropriate to look at these rules in more detail and revisit my own rules to see how they might then be i

When it comes to modern editions of D&D following the D20 system, many player actions are resolved through what is known as an Ability Check. i.e. the player rolls a twenty-sided die adds his ability score modifier (a bonus or penalty) and compares this to a target Difficulty Class (DC). In earlier editions of the game an Ability Check was popularly carried out by attempting to roll under a characters Ability Score on a d20 but as far as I know this method does not predate (at least) Holmes Basic and possibly later products such as B/X and BECMI D&D. The earliest attempt I can find in regards to crafting some form of OD&D Ability Check dates back to June 1976 and can be attributed to Wesley D. Ives with his article in Dragon #1. However his method is rather complex and not so elegant. The article is never the less worth a read because he sets out some useful descriptions of what sort of tasks are appropriate for each ability score and this is not "sullied" by any