Recent Approaches to OD&D

What brought this on was that I just published FMC Basic on Itch, and wanted to reflect on how the way I play OD&D has changed over the last few months. For a while, my skirmish rules were it (of which you can find the 'final' version in FMC proper) because they felt like a direct translation between the mass warfare of Chainmail and the so-called 'alternate combat system' in OD&D.

The gist is that any number # of ~1 HD figures can combine their attacks into one like a # HD figure; for example, 4 orcs can combine their forces and attack like a 4 HD figure. This relies upon a # HD figure adding # to attack and damage, so our 4 orcs fighting like Voltron add +4 to attack and damage.

I fell out of love with this subsystem because although it condensed multiple figures into one unit, the rules themselves felt more arbitrary like they were still holding onto awkward D&D conventions. I don't like adding the same number to attack and damage, especially when that number eventually overpowers the random factors in both rolls.

In FMC Basic, I sort of side-stepped this specific question in favor of demonstrating a more general approach to OD&D (especially: one where characters are strictly instances of 'class definitions', having no statistical variation, making it very easy to pick up and play—in view of an arcade approach to playing the game, so I can justify saying "I'm a fighter with 5 hit points" without elaborating). Like, this booklet is straight up how I play OD&D FLAILSNAILS.

What if I were running OD&D, rather than playing it? I would be tempted to basically handle it like Into the Odd, except using a scheme more similar to bog standard D&D, as per my simple monsters post. Players (typically) get d6 damage dice, monsters get dice from d4 to d12, and armor is from –0 to –3. That way, group attacks can be handled as straightforward dice pools without there being a multi-step procedure to resolve any of the minutia.

But that feels like a harder sell, when like I said this is ultimately for me to justify calling out a character rather than going through the motions about it. The problem is that, at least in our modern context, a rulebook is something you either take wholesale or not at all, rather than a set of related but not strictly attached guidelines. If FMC Basic were a set of possible games rather than a game, it would be a lot harder to say "This is how I want to handle my character."

I think this is the point at which the rulebook medium is insufficient for my needs, and honestly that's alright with me. Mostly here to vibe anyway.