I DM'ed that starter campaign for my friend and a group that eventually included five other players. In a climactic session in Cragmaw Castle we were even joined by his dad (who played an orc monk).
Sometime after that my friend handed me a box of old D&D material that his dad wanted to donate to the group. It looked like this:
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| The Red Box - with art by Larry Elmore |
Inside was a bunch of older D&D modules from the 80's and the DM's Rule Book and Player's Manual for the basic set (part of the expanded Basic-Expert-Companion-Master-Immortal collection or BECMI).
This was really exciting - some ancient treasure or arcane lore connected to this game of ancient treasures and arcane lore. I enjoyed leafing through the old yellow pages and looking at the retro aesthetics of D&D in the 80's, (so much Farrah Fawcett hair and chain mail that looks like lycra!), but in terms of incorporating this stuff into my game - I didn't see how. I was looking for session content rather than different ways to play and whilst these books had goblins and evil wizards etc I couldn't quite decode the stat blocks or convert them easily to my 5e game.
Fast forward a decade and I'm more aware that some people really prize elements of what they call 'Old School' D&D. I'm not really sure who might be reading this, (this isn't really an OSR blog given that most adventures I've made are for 5e), but if the Old School Revival isn't a familiar thing to you, you can get a bit of a primer by reading the Principia Apocrypha. The upshot is that some procedures and principles, with which D&D has formerly been played, produce a very different experience which, (although it can be deadlier and involve tracking things like torches and encumbrance), can be pretty fun.
With me so far? Alright, so...
A week ago the podcast Between Two Cairns reviewed an old module from the 80's called
BSOLO The Ghost of Lion Castle. Now it's time for that dog eared old box from my friend's father to reenter the story because guess what one of the modules sitting inside was...
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| Ghost of Lion Castle by Merle M. Rasmussen |
I gently took it out of its resting place and got ready to read ahead of listening to the review. This is were I made my first discovery:
"Hey, this is a solo module!" - So now I've decided to play it instead of just read it, which means I have to start looking more closely at those old rule books. This is great! I'm finally giving this thoughtful gift from my friend's dad some propper time. I pick a pregen character (they're all magic usesrs) and head to the gates of Lion Castle...
(mild spoilers for the adventure ahead)
I die.
I try again - and die three more times.
At this point I'm feeling skeptical about the module. I'm all for high lethality but having your 3hp character die to a portcullis you have no choice but to pass under doesn't feel fantastic.
But I persist. I get lucky with the portcullis and also snag some magic items that give me something to work with. I start mapping the space on some grid paper - a central conceit of this module is that your character has a magic map and journal that teleports back to the starting tavern when you die so future adventurers can learn from your mistakes. At this point I'm getting quite into the mapping (see below):
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| Mapping Lion Castle |
The space is starting to become coherent to me and I'm figuring out safer paths through the castle without getting into risky encounters with monsters (seriously, it's like a quick draw competition - lose initiative and you're dead).
I'm actually having a lot of fun. Partly because of the module, partly because I'm getting to take some older rules for a spin but also because I'm getting to play a character in a world which, as a pretty commited GM, I don't often get a chance to do.
I'm definitely not doing everything 'right'. Should I be adding a dexterity bonus to this? What number does this monster need to roll for a save? Why the hell does a portcullis require a 'save vs wands'!? But I run with what makes sense and keeps the game moving.
Then, as my character stands in a dark corner of the dungeon, contemplating what to do next, I see something written on the entry for the room I'm in:
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| The body of Cortayo |
'The body of Cortayo' - The name is the same as one of the pregens. I've recorded the deaths of other characters I've played on my map but I didn't want to write in this fragile old booklet. This must be the body of my friend's, father's character, waiting here for something like 40 years before anyone else played the adventure and discovered it.
I get very excited and look around for someone to tell but since there's nobody I make a note to tell my friend about it and then look up what equipment the pregen has on them.
By now I'm pretty hooked on solo dungeon delving. But once I solve the secrets of Lion Castle I don't have any more vintage solo dungeons to play. I have modules for group play but it's not the same, as the front loaded info for a GM takes a lot of the suspense out of the experience and they're pretty hard to run without having some of that to hand.
Part 2 of this rabbit hole will be about how I used a blank dungeon map from a zine fair and the tables in the basic Dungeon Masters Rulebook to have a follow up adventure for the character who survived Lion Castle.
For now I'll leave you with the dry bones of Cortayo on entry L.65
To be continued.
