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I generally like Colville, his joy at playing RPGs and his knowledge of older systems make him (and Chris Perkins - largely same reason) my favorite contemporary design guys. What he's saying here is also think largely correct. Especially: A) Playtesting is important B) Shorter, largely...

Yes, it's precisely that B5 is a post 80's TSR product. I don't think AD&D does much better given the general disorganization, though as you say there are some good passages in the DMG about running less linear games. Unfortunately the circumstances of AD&D's production (as a collection of...

I don't know about a good thing. Many people enjoy the contemporary play style and it's not my place to say they should enjoy the one I like instead. But for me the main issue is the mechanics of 5E don't work very well dungeon crawling, even as they manage to preempt the areas where...

So I think this may be a misconception. Though a lot depends on the adventure and the edition. Certainly it's true that some of the later 1E, most 2E - 4E adventures often have a combat focus, early 1E and prior adventures, which are the ones that generally get praised and talked about, aren't...

So others have discussed the magic item issue, but I think what you are running into here is two-fold. First, and a minor issue, "Fighter's Challenge" isn't a very good adventure... it's part of the 1992 2E glut of content, and because of era and specific goal of creating a two player...

Agreed. Random equipment (especially a 3D6 set of options for each class) can both speed up character generation and if you add a few bits of color really help build the setting. Here's a general example from Necropraxis' wonderful post on basic equipment geneeration...

The Caves of Chaos/Keep on the Borderlands are not a single session adventure. Despite the adventure's size it's a sprawling place. The way to make things into a one shot is to make it into a very directed mission. "Recover X from the goblin lair", "Meet with the orcs of the X tribe, and not...

In the other thread on this I had some similar capsule observations on the B series to yours here - agree that best of isn't exactly great always... Horror on the Hill's specific issues (and it's pretty good overall) are specifically related to the type of games I like to run. That is the...

Specifically the ones that harunmushod mentioned in his other post: r/OSR, ENworld, and the OSR and OSE discord servers. My impression of these spaces is that they vary, but generally are largely populated by users without a long-term attachment to OSR and POSR design. That is they tend to be...

This is what's odd here to me. Even last year the recommendation in the same spaces would likely have been for newer/OSR stuff: Tomb of the Serpent Kings, Lair of the Lamb (FABULOUS and FREE!), Winter's Daughter, Prison of the Hated Pretender (mine I admit), or Sleeping Place of the Feathered...

B5 (Horror on the Hill?) is okay. It has a nice enough regional set up, but the main dungeon suffers as it's a monster zoo with some unnaturally forced decisions and the strong combat focus of mid-era TSR. Honestly of the B's B4 (if you want to do the rest of the work) and B2 (If you can run a...

Don't feel too weird I was talking with several fairly well known post-OSR and OSR authors (both older era folks like me and new guard NSR types) and we all find r/osr both frustrating to read and pointless to post on. Not only is it hostile generally, but especially hostile to people making...

This is interesting data - though a small sample size I'd think. As someone who was part of the OSR scene and publishing in it from 2011 through 2019 and then Post-OSR spaces since then it seems to reflect a specific fragment or category of players in those spaces or scenes that is made up...

Personally, I think B1 was is rather mediocre at best having both run it as my first foray into refereeing back in 1982 and having read and run it more recently (2013 or so). It's stocking tables and rules lead to a scenario that is poor in everything a dungeon should be: interactivity...

King's Festival is not an adventure I like very much. A decade ago when I was reviewing the B-series, its the last one I did. I didn't think of it positively then, but I was pretty critical of most of the B-series based on my then understanding of 2010's OSR play goal. I still don't love B11...

I feel like I said a bit more than "."? I suspect the quote was an accident ... but ... While I wasn't remotely talking about whatever's next for WotC ... I suppose the point that RPGs and specifically D&D fandom has always held a wide variety of groups with distinct goals is worthwhile. A lot...

Perhaps this is a hot take ... but ... I also disagree with JB - largely because I don't think any of the early D&D games "hold up" well past about 6 or 7th level, and I find AD&D - at least the original versions of its rules that I've read a jumbled mess (an inspirational one but...) I...

The image is of Alena. In the BECMI Basic set intro adventure she is an NPC who is killed for the player's backstory.