Hail, and well met!

I use this space to document my solitary travels through the infinite worlds of tabletop roleplaying games. This blog captures session two of The First Solo Chainmail Campaign, where I’m using the Mythic Game Master Emulator to run an entirely solo Original Dungeons & Dragons actual play using Chainmail to resolve combats!

This is a fairly detailed actual play. If you’re new to the hobby, I want you to know that this level of detail is far from the typical notetaking that occurs during a solo roleplaying session. These actual plays are recorded in this format for entertainment purposes only. Please don’t feel compelled to spell everything out like I have, or even to take notes at all while playing!

I sincerely hope you enjoy this collision of a modern solo roleplaying system with the original fantasy roleplaying game. Now, let’s dive into the actual play! Happy delving, and fight on!!

~ The Lonely Dungeoneer

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Session 0
Session 1

Session 0

Let’s begin with an objective. My primary goal in this campaign is to (nearly) legitimately raise a solo OD&D player character to the second level without using supplementary rules, such as Scarlet Heroes for instance, to supercharge my character.

I’ve created and lost nearly a dozen parties now in the depths of black Gygaxian dungeons. They’ve been done in by mythical creatures (the latest were a pair of gargoyles, grrr), insidious traps, and even treachery. I’ll let you in on a secret, if you weren’t already aware: OD&D is challenging!

I have several other roleplaying titles lined up that I’m excited to play, but they’re currently collecting dust on the shelf because I can’t rest until I see even one single character come back from the depths relatively intact, and with enough experience to earn the second level. It’s funny that this will be my first time to meticulously document a campaign in blog format, as I anticipate it to become a spectacularly paranoid dungeon crawling affair.

This campaign will indeed employ the 1974 Original D&D rules as its roleplaying system, sometimes described as 0e. I’m playing with only the three little brown books, a playing style commonly referred to as 3LBB OD&D:

Book I: Men & Magic
Book II: Monsters & Treasure
Book III: The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures

Although the famous early roleplaying campaigns predate the release of OD&D, this set of rules was the first commercially available roleplaying game and serves as a landmark origin point for the hobby. Learning to play is an act of archaeology. In fact, you’d be much better off to just buy one of its many retroclones instead (Swords & Wizardry White Box is my personal favorite 3LBB clone).

Men & Magic describes the kinds of characters that could be played. These were originally only the Fighting-Man, the Magic-User, and the Cleric, and even this is an upgrade from the Hero and Wizard available in Chainmail. Later supplements introduced new character classes, such as the Monk, Assassin, and Paladin.

There were also four mechanically meaningful ancestries to choose from. Dwarves are exceptional dungeoneers and the only characters able to wield the mythic +3 Magic Warhammer. Elves are class hybrids, given the ability to swap between the Fighting-Man and Magic-User classes from adventure to adventure along with a knack for finding hidden doors. Halflings are stealthy deadshots and humans are the only characters that can infinitely level.

Monsters & Treasure provides a fairly complete bestiary of fantasy creatures to encounter and an assortment of magical items (some quite comical) to discover. The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures gives guidance on how to run adventures either in the overworld above or in the dungeons below.

The 3LBB moniker distinguishes one kind of play from other campaigns played using any of OD&Ds official supplements:

Book IV: Greyhawk
Book V: Blackmoor
Book VI: Eldritch Wizardry
Book VII: Gods, Demi-gods, & Heroes

Of these, I’ve found that Greyhawk seems to be the most popular for contributing the Thief character class and variable weapon damage among other innovations. In this campaign we will stick to the original three books and Chainmail as our roleplaying system. Constraint breeds creativity!

But what exactly is Chainmail, and why should we care about it?

When reading through the recommended equipment listed in Men & Magic, you’ll notice a requirement to own another set of rules. These rules, an earlier release by Jeff Peren and Gary Gygax known as Chainmail, are actually a set of wargaming rules for medieval miniatures with a fast-playing take on mass combat.

They also, interestingly, included a Fantasy Supplement for running such fantastic mass conflicts as The Battle of Five Armies. We can realistically consider OD&D to be an extension of this supplement to the Chainmail rules. Its publishing made it possible to zoom in on one heroic individual making independent decisions in the middle of a larger fantasy universe.

This heritage means that OD&D depends heavily on Chainmail for combat mechanics. In fact, Chainmail provides not one, but three different combat systems! The mass combat system is quick and dirty, the man-to-man system is cinematic, and the fantasy combat system is drawn out and heroic.

OD&D itself also provides an Alternative Combat System (still very heavily dependent on Chainmail), but the more interesting point here is that this alternative would go on to become the familiar and default d20 combat system in all future D&D titles! In this campaign we will exclusively explore the three combat systems provided by Chainmail, and I’ll dive into each of the mechanics as we reach them.

Earlier I described my leveling goal as ‘nearly’ legitimate, and that’s because this time I plan to fight dirty. Firstly, with my latest wounds still feeling fresh, I’ve just generated an unmodified character with impressive scores in strength, wisdom, and charisma! Rest assured that we will put that charisma to good work, searching far and wide for the best possible crew of dungeoneers rather than accepting the whims of chance in their random creation. I plan to use a Mythic Magazine article covering the “Gather a Crew” trope to help make this happen.

Next, because I’m dying to spend extended time with a megadungeon, I’m planning to insert into our game world the knowingly friendly and yet iconic Caverns of Thracia module by Paul Jaquays. I’ve never set foot in these caverns myself, but I’ve read about others’ expeditions, and it seems like a great module for giving low-level players an initial edge.

It’s important to note here that early roleplaying games tend to make wilderness encounters far more dangerous than dungeon encounters. The idea was for parties to first prove their mettle in the local dungeon before venturing out into the wider world. This is the role that The Caverns of Thracia will serve in our campaign.

Finally, I’m going to graciously provide my dungeoneers with a slightly better chance of survival by employing a well-structured death and dismemberment table (they might disagree with this being considered a benefit). My sincere hope is that the combination of my roleplaying effort in assembling a tiger team, the presence of a canonical low-level megadungeon, and a last resort in the death and dismemberment table will give me all of the edge I need to achieve my lifelong goal of legitimately (nearly) raising a solo OD&D player character to the second level!

As always, I’ll be using Mythic as my solo roleplaying oracle. This is the solo roleplaying system to own, and I truly cannot recommend it enough. In this campaign we’ll use the Mythic Game Master Emulator 2e along with an assortment of advanced variations and options taken from the Mythic ecosystem. I’ll refer to these options along the way as they come up.

The_Caverns_of_Thracia

And now, with an introduction out of the way, let’s dive into the actual play!

Session 1

Adventure 1

Character Creation

Grünfeld (I’ll drop the umlaut sometimes for ease of typing) is a cleric of the Van Helsing variety as inspired by the early Dave Arneson campaigns. I’m envisioning him as a monster hunter, perhaps just barely scraping by financially, before finding and latching on to the insane idea to form an expedition and explore a dungeon. While I plan to eventually build up an entire dungeoneering party, I’ll consider Grünfeld to be my primary player character. His name comes from my current favorite chess opening.

I was honestly coming into this campaign prepared to roll and reroll ability scores until I found exactly the character I wanted (no, I’m not bitter about losing my last party, stop asking), but to my delight the very first character rolled was so great that I had to keep him! I immediately made him the protagonist of a new campaign and decided to blog the new attempt at glory. As outlined in OD&D, each of his ability scores were randomly determined by an unmodified roll of 3d6.

New Original D&D Character
Grünfeld

STR: 3d6 = 16! 
INT: 3d6 = 8 
WIS: 3d6 = 17! 
CON: 3d6 = 13 
DEX: 3d6 = 10 
CHA: 3d6 = 15!

I should mention here briefly that I will never, under any circumstance, fudge dice. If I don’t like something I could possibly throw it out (there’s a structured way to do this fairly we could possibly steal from the older book Mythic Roleplaying), but I’ll communicate the choice to subvert the dice along with their actual result rather than fudging rolls to achieve the outcome that I want. My poor pride couldn’t handle a victory won this way.

As mentioned earlier, OD&D provides exactly three classes. This keeps things simple. Each class designates one ability score as its prime requisite, a score of special importance that applies either a bonus or penalty to experience gained in that class based on the score.

Grünfeld would net a 10% bonus to all XP gained in either the Cleric or Fighting-Man classes for having a score of 15+ in their prime requisites (Wisdom and Strength, respectively). He can even potentially swap between these classes for having scores of 16+! Grünfeld’s intelligence, however, would result in a penalty of -10% to experience gained in the Magic-User class.

I chose the Cleric character class for Grünfeld based on his high Wisdom score and on the character concept I had in mind. Grünfeld being a Cleric provides hybrid flexibility, him being capable of either standing his ground in melee combat or potentially casting spells from a distance at higher levels. I’ll also choose the human ancestry, being too drawn towards a chance at near immortality to give up infinite leveling.

I want to start the campaign by exploring Grünfeld as a character before he learns about the caverns and plans an expedition. In Mythic terms, we need a First Scene! Mythic GME 2e gives a few different options for coming up with a First Scene, and I plan to combine two of its approaches to craft ours: the Inspired Idea, and the 4Ws method.

The Inspired Idea is just what it sounds like. You’ve come up with your own idea that you think is interesting or exciting, and you use that directly as a First Scene. In the 4Ws approach we roll for word pairs from elements lists provided by Mythic GME 2e to get a Who, What, Where, and Why, interpreting it all to randomly generate a First Scene.

I’ll make the assumption that Grünfeld is a monster hunter of sorts, and go with the Inspired Idea of Grunfeld negotiating a new job with a potential client. I’ll roll for the 4Ws to determine who’s offering him a job, what they need removed, where they need it removed from, and why they need it removed in the first place.

Who
Discover Meaning, Character Identity
d100 = 62, Military
d100 = 18, Creator

This makes me think that Grünfeld is dealing with an old sapper, or a medieval combat engineering expert. This fits in rather well with the setting implied by Chainmail. We can immediately infer that this world has experienced war at a scale where armies found it necessary to train and employ sappers for siege warfare.

What
Discover Meaning, Actions
d100 = 28, Defend
d100 = 97, Weapon

Something intelligent and capable of wielding weapons, like kobolds or goblins.

Where
Discover Meaning, Locations
d100 = 42, Full
d100 = 68, Peaceful

This veteran sapper has a farm now, land of their own, and is enjoying a relatively quiet existence. Some nuisance has moved onto their land and is now disturbing a peace that they worked hard to build.

Why
Discover Meaning, Actions
d100 = 51, Imitate
d100 = 43, Illness

Now this is quite a strange word pair. I think this means that the trespassing creature has possibly already become violent, inducing an anxiety in our new veteran friend that feels similar to their experiences with crisis situations during a war.

Altogether, this is plenty of material to work with. Spot on once again, Mythic. Let’s kick off the First Scene!

Scene 1 - First Scene, Inspired Idea, 4Ws, CF 5

Is the sapper an old man?

The text above is a question for the Oracle. I like to imagine Mythic being personified as something like Death from the PC dungeon crawler Fate, hovering invisibly by the table to answer our Fate Questions.

I’ll get an answer to our Fate Question from the Oracle by making a Fate Check. To do this I need to assign odds to our question. I think it’s roughly 50/50 that the veteran is a man. I also need to know the current Chaos Factor.

The Chaos Factor is a value from 1 (passive) to 9 (chaotic) that allows Mythic to control the pace of our adventure in a realistic way. We’ll update the Chaos Factor between scenes but it will initialize at 5, a middle-of-the-road value that won’t heavily influence the adventure quite yet.

To make a Fate Check, we’ll roll 2d10 and add them together. We’ll then adjust the sum with modifiers taken from our assigned odds and the Chaos Factor. If the modified result is 11 or higher then our answer is a yes, otherwise it’s a no. Extreme sums of 2-4 or 18-20 result in an exceptional no or an exceptional yes, respectively.

Fate Check
Odds: 50/50 +0
CF: 5 +0
2d10: 15, Yes

So the veteran is indeed an older man based on the Oracle’s response to our Fate Question.

What's his name?

Rolling for sounds on the Names table, we get:
d100 = 99, Yuh
d100 = 51, Location
Jaddoc

Interpreting the location result as a dock, I found the name Jaddoc. I’ll add Jaddoc the Sapper now to our Characters List, which is a list of characters relevant to the current adventure used by Mythic to inform certain Random Events.

Characters List
1-2 Jaddoc the Sapper

I’d now like to know a little more about who Jaddoc is.

Is Jaddoc a demi-human?

Fate Check
Odds: Unlikely -1
CF: 5 +0
2d10 = 14 - 1 = 13, Yes

Is Jaddoc an elf?

Fate Check
Odds: Unlikely -1
CF: 5 +0
2d10 = 6 - 1 = 5, No

How about a dwarf?

A dwarf feels like a good ancestry for a sapper.

Fate Check
Odds: Likely +1
CF: 5 +0
2d10 = 11 + 1 = 12 Yes

Did Grünfeld meet Jaddoc out at his farm?

Fate Check
Odds: Likely +1
CF: 5 +0
2d10 = 15 + 1 = 16, Yes

Let’s learn more about Jaddoc’s appearance, personality, and disposition next. I’ll use the Simplified Behavior Check from Mythic Magazine Compilation #1 to facilitate non-trivial NPC interactions.

What does Jaddoc look like?

Discover Meaning
Character Appearance
d100 = 68, Petite
d100 = 70, Powerful

Are we meeting inside his farmhouse?

Fate Check
Odds: Very Likely +2
CF: 5 +0
2d10 = 11 + 2 = 13, Yes

A gaunt man in worn leather sits down at a kitchen table across from an exceptionally short but powerfully built dwarf. The dwarf is suntanned, and lets out a heavy sigh of comfort as he offloads his weight onto a short wooden chair. Severe as Grünfeld looks, the almost comically short table and chairs somehow help him to seem more friendly and inviting.

The first thing we need to do mechanically for the Simplified Behavior Check is to roll a Disposition value for Jaddoc. Like most Mythic mechanics, this is a roll of 2d10.

New NPC Encounter

Rolling for Jaddoc's initial Disposition, we get:
2d10 = 10, Passive

Jaddoc’s Disposition describes his current level of excitement or energy when taking actions. A value of 10 or less is considered passive, meaning that Jaddoc will take a low-energy approach when acting. A disposition of 11 or more would indicate a higher-energy approach.

Jaddoc’s disposition being right at the boundary of active and passive is interesting because it means that his behavior could potentially shift rapidly between active and passive. As a part of the Simplified Behavior Check system we apply a modifier of either +2 or -2 to an NPC’s Disposition based on the current context of the interaction, which can change over time, or even fluctuate.

I’ll set Jaddoc’s Context Modifier to +2 initially, considering that we’re discussing a serious threat to his farm, of both material and emotional importance to him. This will shift Jaddoc’s Disposition to Active, meaning that he will begin the encounter acting more energetically.

Does Jaddoc speak first?

Fate Check
Odds: Likely +1
CF: 5 +0
2d10 = 5 + 10 = 15 + 1 = 16, Yes

I haven’t rolled doubles on a Fate Check yet, but I’ll try to start tracking the actual pair of numbers I’m rolling so that I can show when doubles happen. If we roll doubles at or under the Chaos Factor, then a Random Event will occur! Let’s now roll on the Simplified NPC Action Table to randomly generate an action for Jaddoc, taking into account his Active Disposition.

Jaddoc Context Modifier = +2
Jaddoc Modified Disposition: 10 + 2 = 12, Active + 2
Jaddoc Action
2d10 = 6 + 6 = 12 + 2 = 14, Seeks to End the Encounter

Immediately we get doubles! This roll was on an NPC Action Table though, so there’s no possibility for a Random Event.

Jaddoc is immediately seeking to end the encounter? This is strange, but it could imply that he’s anxious to get going immediately. Let’s already retcon some of how Jaddoc enters this scene.

Jaddoc gestures for Grünfeld to take a seat at one of the chairs sitting around a wooden kitchen table before sitting himself, anxiously running a hand through his hair before speaking.

I’m still not sure what exactly Jaddoc wants to say, so let’s clarify.

Does Jaddoc immediately explain both the problem and a solution at the same time?

Fate Check
Odds: Likely +1
CF: 5 +0
2d10 = 4 + 2 = 6 + 1 = 7, No

I’ll take this result to mean that Jaddoc isn’t convinced Grünfeld has what it takes to handle his problem. It might take Grünfeld some convincing to land this job.

Is Jaddoc dealing with an incursion of kobolds?

Fate Check
Odds: Very Likely +2
CF: 5 +0
2d10: 9 + 1 = 10 + 2 = 12, Yes

This is a great starting point, as kobolds are one of the two monster types in OD&D with only half of a hit die of hit points. Hit dice are dice that you roll to determine the amount of damage a combatant can take before succumbing to their wounds and dying. Most creatures have at least one hit die, but kobolds and skeletons each receive only half of a die.

Is it clear to Jaddoc that Grünfeld is a cleric?

Fate Check
Odds: Very Likely +2
CF: 5 +0
2d10 = 4 + 2 = 6 + 2 = 8, No

So Grünfeld’s presentation doesn’t immediately give away the fact that he’s religious. This could have implications on Grünfeld’s backstory. He might not belong to any kind of organized religious order.

As he takes his seat, Grünfeld glances out a window at Jaddoc’s slice of the countryside.

Does Grünfeld find pastures of livestock in his view of Jaddoc's land?

Fate Check
Odds: Likely +1
CF: 5 +0
2d10 = 8 + 3 = 11 + 1 = 12, Yes

Grünfeld spies a group of cattle grazing. He noted Jaddoc’s sizable herd on the way in.

Jaddoc: “I apprecciate you comin’ out here’n’all, but I’m not certain if one man can handle this job. I’ll cut straight to the chase: I’ve got bloody kobolds stealing my livestock and terrorizing my ranch hands.”

I’ll try to start laying the groundwork for flattery and social manipulation now.

Grünfeld, with one arm resting on the table, still gazing out the window: “Well, we certainly can’t allow these beautiful farmlands to quit producing food. Exactly how many kobolds do you have confirmed sightings of?”

Does Jaddoc know about how many kobolds there are?

Fate Check
Odds: 50/50 +0
CF: 5 +0
2d10 = 9 + 5 = 14, Yes

We can refer to Book II: Monsters & Treasure to understand how many kobolds are really in this region. The overworld in OD&D is comprised of a hex map, where each hex is about five miles across. We’re not playing in a published setting, and so we’ll be randomly generating hexes as we explore the map.

While Jaddoc’s farmstead and cattle ranch very well could cover a significant chunk of the hex, it almost certainly doesn’t cover the entire hex. It’s likely that there is some lair of kobolds in our starting hex whose inhabitants have discovered poor Jaddoc’s livestock and started raiding them. I’ll use the Monster Reference Table from Monsters & Treasure to determine how many kobolds are in this hex, keeping in mind that this is Game Master knowledge and not character knowledge.

Kobolds Appearing in Hex 1
10d4 = 3 + 2 + 2 + 3 + 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 2 + 1 = 23 * 10 = 230 Kobolds
% In Lair = 50% = 115 Kobolds

This tells us that there are 230 kobolds in the hex, and that at any given time roughly half of them are located in a lair. I’ll note this in my campaign log. Jaddoc has encountered some portion of the 115 kobolds that are roaming the hex.

Now that we understand a little more about the kobolds at large in the region, let’s see if Jaddoc responds to Grünfeld with the information that he wants to know.

Jaddoc Behavior Check
Disposition: Active +2
2d10 = 5 + 5 = 10 + 2 = 12, Context Action

So Jaddoc is going to take an active action related to the current context. We’re currently discussing the number of kobold sightings that have happened on his land, so I think Jaddoc wants to let Grünfeld in on all of the details about what’s happened thus far. Jaddoc may be wary of hiring Grünfeld, but he’s eager to share his experiences.

For Jaddoc to tell Grünfeld what’s happened on his farm, we need to randomly generate everything that’s already happened. I’ll make this easier by leveraging another Mythic resource. Mythic Magazine Compilation #2 has an article called Generating Compelling Backstories that gives a fun procedure for quickly coming up with the backstory for anything in your campaign. In this case, we’ll use the Backstory Focus Table to generate a backstory for ongoing developments at Jaddoc’s farm.

Each roll on the Backstory Focus Table is like an Event Focus roll for a Random Event. Once we have a Backstory Focus, we’ll roll for a word pair and interpret everything to generate an event that happened. We’ll keep doing this until we’ve either rolled the result Complete, meaning our backstory is finished, or until we’ve rolled seven times.

Backstory Event Focus
d100 = 39, New Thread

This story naturally begins with someone setting out to do something, very likely in Jaddoc’s farmlands somewhere. We’ll Discover Meaning (roll for a pair of words) on the Actions table to find out what they were doing.

Discover Meaning, Actions
d100 = 45, Flee
d100 = 50, Investment

Oh cool, so someone was out and about herding cattle when the kobolds first acted!

Was it one of Jaddoc's ranch hands that first spotted signs of a kobold incursion?

Fate Check
Odds: Nearly Certain +4
CF: 5 +0
2d10 = 3 + 3 = 6 + 4 = 10

No, it wasn’t a ranch hand, it was Jaddoc himself, and what’s more, we’ve just rolled doubles under the Chaos Factor, our first Random Event!

I’m reaching a natural stopping point here in real life as I roll that result, so I think that this is an excellent cliffhanger to end the session. In the next session we’ll roll for the Random Event to find out what exactly happened to Jaddoc out in his fields. I sincerely hope that you’ve enjoyed the start of the campaign!

If you’re interested in supporting the blog, you could do so either by clicking on one of the affiliate links embedded throughout the site, or by visiting my Patreon where I’m currently allowing the first Patron that subscribes to pick any RPG system for me to play and write a detailed textual actual play about! If you like video actual plays, you’ll find even more solo roleplaying on my YouTube channel.

I’d love to hear any comments you might have about the campaign! Please feel free to reach out at any time using thelonelydungeoneer@proton.me.

Until we meet again, happy delving, and fight on!!