🎲🐉The System Behind Exploration in Early D&D
42K views · Apr 28, 2026 · Entertainment
Comments · 426
@Rodgarcia666 · 5 months ago (edited)
Isle of Dread is a masterpiece. Cornerstone of D&D, old and new. Must have, must read, must play (at both ends) for any DM worth his salt.
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@UnmanWeston · 5 months ago
The first time I DM'd Isle of Dread, Castle Amber mysteriously appeared, mid adventure.
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@coachlarry6773 · 5 months ago
If anyone has never played Castle Amber, it’s a must play. So unique and fun. Isle of Dread is cool, it’s King Kong pretty much. But Castle Amber is really different and there isn’t a module like it.
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@carlop.7182 · 5 months ago (edited)
Isle of dread was released as an introduction for DM's and players, to show them how to do X-pert level things. Same for CM1 showed what dominion level play was, and M1 showed what Master level play was.. I never ran any of them as is, but I took ideas from them to adapt to my own campaign. I did the same for B4 (fan favorite): I fleshed out the pyramid, underground city & created a deseret-themed samdbox all around the pyramid (with encounters, hidden mini-dungeons, and leftover ruins from the city around the pyramid). I mainly took ideas from modules and inserted them in my own world (different quests, different countries & cities names). I used them as examplesto learn what is an outdoors adventure (X), dominion-level play with mass combat (CM) or high level adventures (M series). Good for teaching, but I never ran them exactly as they were presented. X2 = I changed encounters inside the castle andfleshed out Averoigne into a big sandbox. X3 helped me as a basis for creating cities. And all retroactive if you look at the 1st module of each level of play (B1, X1, CM1 & M1). in CM1, you learn how to manage a domain, you start mass combat, but you still have hex crawl & dungeon crawl elements. Same for M1 (planar travel + hwx crawl +dungeon crawl _ mass combat). You're the DM & creator: do what you want out of it. Your french pronunciation isn't as bad as you think, btw.
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@johnsorge3034 · 4 months ago
I stated playing in 75 and I love introducing new players to OD&D. I was in the Army during the 80's so I missed tons of material. Your site fills in a lot of old stuff I missed. You give me new ideas for the new players. Love the history lesson.
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@UnmanWeston · 5 months ago
Procedural play IS roleplaying. We never did voices or acting. We just said what our PCs did and reacted to encounters. The procedures formed our PCs identities.
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@DoctorJohnSmith9 · 5 months ago
Here we go! Let's push another fantastic and informative history lesson for TTRPG fans to center stage! Yet another one of Martin's great explorations of classic D&D modules!
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@UnmanWeston · 5 months ago
Our parties during the Moldvay era were always bankrolled and in debt. Modules like X3 were very difficult to find the money angle. That was what drove us to face death: cash/XP. Castle Amber was a blast because it was a slot machine. X1 was great because it was a treasure map. X3 was mostly motivated out of curiosity and we wer not dead cats.
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@UnmanWeston · 5 months ago
Erol Otus' cover giant is a caricature of Tom Moldvay. There is also a Judges Guild module that predates both I6 and X2 that features the trope of the impenetrable fog around a castle. Cant recall the name. Never ran it.
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@thomasbintliff4525 · 5 months ago
Thank you for all your hard work with putting these videos together! They’re so detailed with so much information and personal experience. Looking forward to this video. 🙂
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@mistermysh1660 · 5 months ago
2nd Edition was my intro to D&D, and I love to see how many of its concepts grew out of the previous editions. Thanks for the great vids!
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@cammybaby01 · 5 months ago (edited)
Weekly comment for the algorithm. Your vids are the only long form videos that i never miss. Normally i dont have patience for 2 hour vids, but martin make me want to watch. Thank you. Also, the adventure path Savage Tide has a bit of a redo of Isle of Dread incorporated into the story. 3 of the 12 chapters use that map and encounters. Its a great example of how to use these old modules in a new way.
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