If I'm going to set up a campaign exactly as it says to in original Dungeons & Dragons, the first obvious step is to read through the booklets and find out what they say. I've done this many, many times, so I know exactly where to find things. There's some general advice at the start of Volume 1: Men & Magic, and some more specific instructions in Volume 3: The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures. Let's have a look. (And for those wondering, I'm working from a pdf of one of the earlier OD&D printings, before they cut balrogs and hobbits and other such Tolkienisms.)
This introduction doesn't have a great deal to say about the finer details of campaign preparation, but it does advise that the referee begins building their campaign slowly, following the steps outlined in the books. It's sound advice, especially for a newbie to the game. Most of us don't have the time or inclination to plan out an entire world before starting a game, so creating the bare minimum is best for novices. It's also pointed out that doing so allows the campaign to grow at an organic pace. I'd add that doing it this way means that the interests of the players will influence the areas in which the campaign grows, and this can help with player investment.
Near the end the reader is instructed to read the three booklets in order, so that by Volume 3 they'll have the "prospective" (I think it should be "perspective") necessary to understand the game. As I said above, I've done this a lot of times. I'd recommend D&D novices read them at least twice (and if they could read the first D&D Basic Set before coming back to this version for a second read, all the better).
Page 5 lists the equipment needed to play the game: the original D&D boxed set, a copy of the wargame Chainmail, a copy of the board game Outdoor Survival, some dice; and a bunch of stationery. It must have been a big ask in 1974 to require someone who just shelled out for your game to buy two more games on top of that. It's an even bigger ask in 2025. I own a physical copy of OD&D (a late printing that I bought around 2010, back when such things were expensive but attainable). A bit of research reveals that a copy of Outdoor Survival will cost around $100-150 AUD (including shipping), while a copy of Chainmail can cost anywhere from $600 to several thousand dollars. I have a copy of Outdoor Survival on the way; the board is a necessary component for running OD&D as the books direct, and a digital copy won't fill that need. For Chainmail, at that price I'm more than happy using a pdf.
The dice and stationery I have already, of course (though I'll need to source some more six-siders to hit the recommended amount). I believe that "Imagination" is in adequate supply, and I'm more than ready to fill the requirement for "1 Patient Referee". As for "Players", I know enough gamers that I'm confident I can get a campaign up and running (probably a dozen or so folks, not even close to the upper limit of 50 given in the book). We might have to play on-line, which is a shame. I'd rather run face-to-face, but unfortunately people have lives outside of the game, and a digital get-together is easier to organise.
It's interesting to note that, despite the game billing itself as "Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures", miniatures are not required. I do find them useful for helping to keep track of where everyone is in combat, but I also find that they slow down play. And despite the aesthetic merits espoused by the books, I find that not having the correct figures for a monster can detract from that visual appeal. Not to mention the costs involved in acquiring such a suitable menagerie... My current thought is that I'll try to run battles with "theatre of the mind" where possible, only using minis or counters for the more complicated fights.
Finally, we get to "Preparation for the Campaign", which is where the prep advice actually begins. The burden for prep is placed solely on the referee, who is instructed to map out six levels of the "underworld", and stock them with monsters and treasure. Six levels might sound daunting to some, but anyone who can't or won't put that work in before the game begins is probably not ready for the continual investment that running such a campaign requires.
That's it for the advice in Volume 1. Volume 2: Monsters & Treasure doesn't have any such instructions, so we move on to Volume 3.
Because it's 1974, the prospective referee needs to be told to draw out their Underworld levels on graph paper. Special attention is given to ensuring that the referee provides plenty of ways for the players to traverse between levels, and that those connections make sense. Advising that the referee constructs at least three levels at once seems contradictory with the instruction to build at least six to begin with. Perhaps this is advise for constructing new levels, beyond the original half-dozen.
The author (Gygax, no doubt) recommends that a good dungeon will have at least a dozen main levels, with additional offshoot levels, and new levels always under construction. The "mega-dungeon" or "campaign dungeon" has an odd place in D&D history. Here, it's the default setting of the game, but it won't be too long after this that it falls out of favour. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, a game fully published by 1979, barely mention the concept. There was a fascination for mega-dungeons in the early OSR, but I feel like they've fallen out of favour again. I've never designed or run one, but I'm looking forward to trying to make this kind of campaign work.
I won't reproduce the key for the sample dungeon level above, but I'll note that most of its features are designed to confound map-making, or to drive the PCs into dangerous areas. Tricks such as barely perceptible sloping passages, rotating rooms, teleporters, endless corridors, and one-way doors abound in original D&D. Becoming lost or trapped seems to be the primary danger for PCs in this kind of design. I try to avoid running mazes and labyrinths, as they've resulted in some tedious gameplay for me in the past, but it's exactly the kind of play that the books suggest. I might try to mitigate that somewhat with my dungeon level designs, but I think that liberal and creative use of the wandering monster tables might be the key to making this style work.
There's more dungeon design and stocking advice on the following pages, including a list of "Tricks and Traps" that continues the trend of fucking with map-makers. The book recommends that the referee thoughtfully place several of the most important treasures and monsters on each level, then fill out the bulk of the dungeon by random determination. About one-third of the rooms will be occupied by monsters when using the recommended method.
Here we get into what's required of the referee to run adventures outside of the dungeon: a map of the dungeon's ground level; a map of the wilderness surrounding the dungeon; and a map of the town or village that the PCs will use as a home base. The Outdoor Survival board is recommended for "general adventures" in the wilderness. I take this to mean that it's used as a kind of abstract representation for when you want to run a wilderness adventure with minimal prep. I have my own ideas for using it in a less abstract way (which I plan to get to in another post).
The "ground level" map isn't extrapolated upon further than what's written above, and it's also all the book has to say regarding city adventures. I would have thought that a simple list of the goods and services available in town would be enough, but the book recommends a full map. I'm terrible at city mapping, so I'll probably rely on maps of real-world towns (just as I plan to use the real geography of Australia as a basis for the campaign world).
The guidelines for the "surrounding wilderness map" are given below.
I find it odd that this map is unknown to the players. Would they not know the terrain around their hometown? Even if it's not their hometown, surely the locals would know. But because we're treating this as a game, such considerations must be hand-waved or rationalised, and the rules given precedence. It's the total reverse of how I'd normally treat such things, so it will take some adjustment.
Unless I've missed something, that's the entirety of the game preparation requirements and advice given in the booklets. The steps I need to take are as follows:
- Read the damn books.
- Acquire all of the recommended equipment
- Design at least six levels of my underworld
- Design a ground level map of the area above the underworld
- Map the terrain immediately surrounding the dungeon on hex paper, with a hex being 5 miles across
- Map the town that will serve as a home base for the PCs
To the above list I would add "fill the gaps in OD&D's combat system". This is all quite a lot of work, but I'm excited to get to it. I've already done steps 1 and 2, and I have plans in my head for the rest. Besides, it's not necessary to complete all of the steps before starting to play; as the book says, you can play your first game after designing some dungeon levels. I would rather be thorough, so I have plenty of mapping to do over the next few weeks (or months, more realistically). Time to get to work!
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