Original Scenarios Resurrected

Best Selling RPGs - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com

JoeNuttall

Legendary Pubber
Joined
Jan 19, 2020
Messages
351
Reaction score
829
I've started a new series Original Scenarios Resurrected, wherein D&D scenarios from the 70s are republished (for free!) with the permission of the authors, usually together with extra contemporaneous material.

So far I've released two installments:

Original Scenarios Resurrected I: The Solo Dungeon (1977, Richard Bartle)
Richard Bartle (creator of the first ever MUD, MUD1) published this solitaire dungeon in 1977. Here it is presented alongside the original manuscript, and a transcript of the original introduction. Unlike the more usual Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style, where you cannot deviate far from a preset script, this is an implementation of a dungeon crawl where you wander around mapping the dungeon free to make choices that your character could.

Original Scenarios Resurrected II: The Complete Barbarian (1977-79, Brian K. Asbury)
Brian K. Asbury wrote dozens of articles in the late 70s/ early 80s, contributing to White Dwarf, Imagine, Fiend Folio, and several UK fanzines (Trollcrusher, Chimera, Underworld Oracle, Demonsblood). He wrote the first ever Barbarian Character class, published in White Dwarf #4, together with a Barbarian-only adventure "The Halls of Testing" published in Underworld Oracle 4. Here I present the dungeon together with the character class, and the updated version for AD&D from White Dwarf #13.

There's quite a bit more to come, so I thought I'd post future updates here for anyone that's interested in original OSR material.
 
Joe, you're doing great work in historical preservation.

I'd actually never seen this barbarian. I never cared for the weirdly structured UA version. and never personally played with it.
 
I was pleased to see there was so much appreciation for The Barbarian, thanks.

Part III is now up:

Original Scenarios Resurrected III: The Temple of Psaan (1980, Andrew Ravenscroft)
Andy Ravenscroft provided me with a lot of the information for scenarios in 1970s fanzine for my Complete Timeline of Early D&D Adventures, and here is one of his own scenarios, from The Beholder #11. This is a short scenario, based on the first chapters of L. Sprague de Camp's novel "The Fallible Fiend". Unusually for fanzine submissions we have here the original manscript which shows how a personal dungeon was fleshed out for publication. Both the original manuscript and the published version are included.

More to follow...
 
Part IV is now up.

Original Scenarios Resurrected IV: The Complete P'teth Tower (1978/79, Brian K. Asbury)
This is Brian Asbury's (author of Kandroc Keep, The Asbury System, and The Barbarian) solitaire adventure from Trollcrusher #13 and #17 combined with a previously unpublished part III, a revised part I, maps added, and all combined into a single solitaire. Brian prepared this for publication in 79/80 but Games Publications went under, so it was never published - until now, 43 years later!

More to follow...
 
Part IV is now up.

Original Scenarios Resurrected IV: The Complete P'teth Tower (1978/79, Brian K. Asbury)
This is Brian Asbury's (author of Kandroc Keep, The Asbury System, and The Barbarian) solitaire adventure from Trollcrusher #13 and #17 combined with a previously unpublished part III, a revised part I, maps added, and all combined into a single solitaire. Brian prepared this for publication in 79/80 but Games Publications went under, so it was never published - until now, 43 years later!

More to follow...
The link had an extra character (fixed in my quote above), but even going to the page, I don't see how to download the PDF, only view it.
 
The link had an extra character (fixed in my quote above), but even going to the page, I don't see how to download the PDF, only view it.
Try clicking on the pop out box/arrow in the upper right. For me, that opens it in a new tab with a download option.
 
Try clicking on the pop out box/arrow in the upper right. For me, that opens it in a new tab with a download option.
Heh. now it does. Earlier it did nothing...
 
After a short delay due to some building work (never again, never again!) I've now put up the next republished original 1970s D&D scenario - Original Scenarios Resurrected VI: Clearwater Caverns (1979, Andrew Ravenscroft) from Demonsblood #4. This is a short low-level cavern exploration adventure that shows a naturalistic approach to dungeon design, including possibly the earliest RPG cave map that looks anything like a real cave system. I've included the whole of Andy's original subzine "The Raven Croaks #2", with explanatory commentary and a couple of associated bonus monsters.

Hope you enjoy it, more to follow soon.
 
I know it's been a while, but here it is at last - the next republished original 1970s D&D scenario - Original Scenarios Resurrected VII: Kandroc Keep (1979, Brian Asbury). This is a solitaire adventure, originally published as a stand alone scenario for a party . It is for a party of 6 of second level, so works as a follow up for either P'teth Tower or The Solo Dungeon. This is one of the adventures which I previously had seen nothing of beyond its cover, so it's been great fun to see it, play it, and publish it. Hope you enjoy it, I doubt many of you will have seen it before - more to follow soon.

kandroc%20keep.jpg
 
Last edited:
The next installment in my series republishing 70s/early 80s D&D scenarios Original Scenarios Resurrected VIII: The Devil's Quagmire is now up. This is quite an extensive creepy wilderness scenario from the pages of The Beholder. It is for a party of 6-9 characters of levels 3-4, and recently had a great review over at Prince Of Nothing. It details a "series of islands of solid ground in the heavily-overgrown swamp, connected by trails of questionable safety". It was written by Andy Ravenscroft and is republished with his permission.

1680279814504.png
 
I'm very pleased to be able to present the next in my series republishing original early D&D scenarios - Original Scenarios Resurrected IX: Kandroc Keep II (1980, Brian Asbury). This is the previously unpublished sequel to Kandroc Keep (which was #7 in my series) and the only known copy - a photocopy of the original manuscript prepared for publication before the publisher went bust - has languished in a drawer for the last 40 odd years. Kandroc Keep is a solitaire adventure, originally published as a stand alone scenario for a party. This is the second level, the entrance to which was included in the original Kandroc Keep. This was great fun to play through, and I'm very excited to be able to share it with you all.temp.png
 
Last edited:
I'd almost forgotten about this thread:shock:!
 
Someone conjure a Mod!

Seriously, though, nice work J JoeNuttall in collecting, cleaning up, and making available all the gaming history. Some I've never heard of, and some I haven't seen since I was a kid, but all amazing nonetheless...
 
Thanks for moving this and for all the encouraging feedback. It's been great to be able to let people see these hidden gems once more.

Now, which one(s) of those do you recommend for Mythras:grin:?
Well, that's easy. The Devils Quagmire (Original Scenarios Resurrected VIII: The Devil's Quagmire) is a wilderness exploration (of a giant swamp) with various creepy locations (tribes, mystical objects, evil temples etc). It could easily be reskinned for any of the Runequest branch of gaming. It's actually Moorcock inspired, so might work best with the Stormbringer lineage of RQ rules.

Whereas the others are very D&D, this was released just at the point that non-dungeon adventures were starting to be published so is part of the wave of adventures that forged the path that Runequest took. People forget Runequest started with dungeon crawls like D&D, but whereas TSR decided to stick with dungeons Runequest took to this new environment so well and abandoned the dungeons almost entirely so that it became in later years a defining feature of the game (in the Runequest vs D&D arguments I see in magazines/fanzines of just a year or two later).

I should perhaps do a series on the early Runequest scenarios to see this early evolution but I actually know very little about Runequest so it would be a voyage of discovery for me. In particular I'm not really certain of the which came first of certain aspects of scenario design. E.g. who first did naturalistic caverns as seen in Snake Pipe Hollow (RQ) and Hellpits of Nightfang (RQ by an established D&D author) and Clearwater Caverns (D&D).
 
Thanks for moving this and for all the encouraging feedback. It's been great to be able to let people see these hidden gems once more.


Well, that's easy. The Devils Quagmire (Original Scenarios Resurrected VIII: The Devil's Quagmire) is a wilderness exploration (of a giant swamp) with various creepy locations (tribes, mystical objects, evil temples etc). It could easily be reskinned for any of the Runequest branch of gaming. It's actually Moorcock inspired, so might work best with the Stormbringer lineage of RQ rules.

Whereas the others are very D&D, this was released just at the point that non-dungeon adventures were starting to be published so is part of the wave of adventures that forged the path that Runequest took. People forget Runequest started with dungeon crawls like D&D, but whereas TSR decided to stick with dungeons Runequest took to this new environment so well and abandoned the dungeons almost entirely so that it became in later years a defining feature of the game (in the Runequest vs D&D arguments I see in magazines/fanzines of just a year or two later).

I should perhaps do a series on the early Runequest scenarios to see this early evolution but I actually know very little about Runequest so it would be a voyage of discovery for me. In particular I'm not really certain of the which came first of certain aspects of scenario design. E.g. who first did naturalistic caverns as seen in Snake Pipe Hollow (RQ) and Hellpits of Nightfang (RQ by an established D&D author) and Clearwater Caverns (D&D).
Thank you:thumbsup:!

I think I'm going to slot it in my setting in its entirety. So far almost all of it is in the "fine to re-write" category:shade:.
 
Thank you:thumbsup:!

I think I'm going to slot it in my setting in its entirety. So far almost all of it is in the "fine to re-write" category:shade:.
Interestingly, on the subject of wilderness vs dungeon adventures in the late 70s, this wilderness scenario started out as a wilderness level of a dungeon (in a similar fashion to level 3 of Caverns of Thracia, but in this case miles across), then it escaped the dungeon. One of the future scenarios I'm publishing is the original dungeon it came from.
 
Interestingly, on the subject of wilderness vs dungeon adventures in the late 70s, this wilderness scenario started out as a wilderness level of a dungeon (in a similar fashion to level 3 of Caverns of Thracia, but in this case miles across), then it escaped the dungeon. One of the future scenarios I'm publishing is the original dungeon it came from.
The wilderness dungeon is a underexplored idea IMO.
 
Interestingly, on the subject of wilderness vs dungeon adventures in the late 70s, this wilderness scenario started out as a wilderness level of a dungeon (in a similar fashion to level 3 of Caverns of Thracia, but in this case miles across), then it escaped the dungeon. One of the future scenarios I'm publishing is the original dungeon it came from.
I'm running the Devil's Quagmire on Sunday. Now the question is, what do the notations mean... 5/19/3+1/2-9 for a Large Hound?
And I should know in order to translate it, because I'm going to be running it with Mythras:thumbsup:!
 
Blissfully unaware of any OSR games, I'm gonna guess :
Monster lvl 5
AC 19
3 attacks +1
Damage 1d8+1
How wrong am I? :hmmm:
...with the permission of the authors...
Out of curiosity, how do you track down the author of a 50 yo scenario? Or who actually holds the rights?
 
Out of curiosity, how do you track down the author of a 50 yo scenario? Or who actually holds the rights?

At least with the former, Google and Linkedin are good starts. Not many people who were writing scenarios for hire in the 1970s aren't senior citizens, but a number of us are still out there and plugging away, and self-identifying on forums. I've been tracked down by a number of people over Scarlet Pimpernel, over the years.

As far as the rights go, I note that all but one of the pieces Joe put up were either self-published or in fanzines/APAs; the authors never relinquished the rights. The exception ... mmm. White Dwarf continues to be published by GDW, and depending on the submission contracts of the time, they may continue to have rights to the work. (Granted, as far as I know, the UK has some regulation similar to 17 USC §203, whereby the author can reclaim rights over a work, or there's a time-expired limit if there hasn't been current publication.)
 
The exception ... mmm. White Dwarf continues to be published by GDW, and depending on the submission contracts of the time, they may continue to have rights to the work. (Granted, as far as I know, the UK has some regulation similar to 17 USC §203, whereby the author can reclaim rights over a work, or there's a time-expired limit if there hasn't been current publication.)
White Dwarf at the time only asked for single reprint rights in the contract, but they had copyright of art and layout so for that particular entry (the original D&D Barbarian class) I did an OCR job on it.

For the non small press stuff a lot of it is in print. TSR is available (though irritatingly not always in its original form) and Judges Guild is mostly in print or cheap (not all though) and the Wee Warriors stuff has been reprinted recently. There's also Tonisborg and El Raja Key. Rules to the Game of Dungeon is free at PlayingAtTheWorld. The A&E stuff is also for sale.

If anone here wrote any of these early scenarios (or knows anyone who wrote) I'd love to hear from you.
 
Blissfully unaware of any OSR games, I'm gonna guess :
Monster lvl 5
AC 19
3 attacks +1
Damage 1d8+1
How wrong am I? :hmmm:
I think you read it better than me (I thought it's denoting the HD for the purposes of saving rolls).

The adventure writer did give notations like "sword +2 HD, so +2 damage in AD&DMM" in it...suggesting he was using multiple attacks still, in 1980:grin:!

I'd keep that in mind when determining #AP and combat style values:thumbsup:!


Also, I just posted a challenge: "Run Devil's Quagmire in a non-D&D system of choice and report". It's on the front page as of now:angel:!
 
I’d love to read a RQ series if you decide to take the voyage of discovery.
 
I'm running the Devil's Quagmire on Sunday. Now the question is, what do the notations mean... 5/19/3+1/2-9 for a Large Hound?
And I should know in order to translate it, because I'm going to be running it with Mythras:thumbsup:!
That's in the notes at the end. It's AC / hit points / hit dice / attacks+damage.
So that's AC5, 19hp, 3+1HD, Damage 2-9. It's not clear if the damage is bite or slobber.
Out of curiosity, how do you track down the author of a 50 yo scenario?
I just looked online in all the usual places. It's definately been easier to find those who had an unusual name!
I’d love to read a RQ series if you decide to take the voyage of discovery.
Interest noted :-)
 
That's in the notes at the end. It's AC / hit points / hit dice / attacks+damage.
So that's AC5, 19hp, 3+1HD, Damage 2-9. It's not clear if the damage is bite or slobber.
...wow, I was right, after all:shock:?

Works for me:thumbsup:!

I just looked online in all the usual places. It's definately been easier to find those who had an unusual name!
Yeah, in SEO, the unusual names roll with Advantage, I've been told...:grin:

Interest noted :-)
And interest seconded:shade:!
 
It's once again time for the next installment in my series republishing original early D&D scenarios - Original Scenarios Resurrected X: The Tomb of the Waning Moon (1979, Russ Stambaugh) aka The Return of Athelfrogg. This is the previously unpublished sequel to Quest for the Fazzlewood (aka O1: The Gem and the Staff), and was run as a tournament for MichiCon VIII in 1979 - (no need to have played Athelfrogg's adventures in Fazzlewood first).
It's a two-player puzzle/clue based one-hour tournament with plenty of opportunity for hair-raising escapes or ignominious death, and we had a blast running it with 4 players as two teams one after the other one evening a couple of weeks back. Both teams made it - but only just. I include a full review and the outcome of our playtest.
Big thanks to Russell for letting me share it and Adrian for providing the scans.

Tomb%20Waning%20Moon%20Advert%20cropped.jpg
 
Last edited:
Banner: The best cosmic horror & Cthulhu Mythos @ DriveThruRPG.com
Back
Top