Look, I am sure we all see Orcs as low-level cannon fodder, but it’s not really the case, and especially not in old-school D&D like AD&D. Orcs aren’t exactly pushovers if controlled correctly by the DM. They travel in groups, they hit hard, and often have strong allies to help back them up. If you see a small group of them, be certain to know there is normally a lot more from where they came from.

In this episode of The Black Notebook Podcast, I take a look at why orcs were genuinely feared in early AD&D, how they were presented in the rulebooks, and what made them such a serious threat to player characters. If you’ve ever wondered why old school players didn’t charge blindly into every fight, the answer may be waiting in an orc lair.

What are your memories of facing orcs in AD&D? Let me know in the comments.

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Thinking about an altar scene, one in an abandoned temple. Where the characters stumble upon it, and it’s empty. What’s their first instinct? Search it. After searching it and finding nothing. What do they do? they start placing things on top of it. Someone always does it.

Then when they put something on it, maybe it invites them into something further, like sliding to the side and opening a little door in the floor, with a Stairway down. Encouraging them to venture forth. The trick is it rewards them first. Then punishes them. I see it in play. They put a silver coin. The altar rumbles. Stairs appear. Torchlight flickers down. Excited voices. They all go.

Two rooms later, a check happens, and one character fails. Suddenly their strength is down a point, or maybe they notice they cast no shadow. I want it to feel like a trade they agreed to without reading the terms.

Maybe I could tie it to their encumbrance. Anytime they drop something on the altar, they start to feel a little lighter. it feels good. They drop an old shield, the altar takes it, and suddenly all their packs feel less heavy. It kind of tempting them to keep going. Do it a few times and have them keep feeding it. I’d track this as a DM, for every little bonus they get, a negative will happen on say the 4th or 5th time, but it wont be outright obvious. Maybe something from the altar is lurking in the shadows watching and the moment they stop offering up, it follows them, right out the dungeon to claim them as the final offering.

I dunno maybe I just crazy with weird ideas. You tell me?

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I’m sure some folks, especially old school gamers, that monsters didn’t just stand around and fight to the death like in an MMO. They actually did things like run away, or beg for mercy. Why? because we had a Morale rule. I think it's overlooked with modern D&D and I think its worth exploring in today’s topic.

In this episode of The Black Notebook Podcast, I take a look at monster morale, why it existed, how it made dungeons feel more alive, and why it created better adventures. Sometimes the most interesting monster in the dungeon is the one that survives the encounter.

Did your group use morale rules? Let me know in the comments.

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Wandering monsters were never just random fights. In D&D, they created pressure. They drained resources. They punished wasted time. They stopped players from resting after every encounter and reminded everyone that the dungeon was alive.

I often am relaxed when it comes to wandering monsters in my dungeons, mostly because, well, sometimes I don’t want to deal with combat, and I want characters to explore things a little. I put time and effort into putting things into rooms; I want the characters to find these things. I feel like wandering monsters at times is just annoying. BUT I am WRONG; they are there to remind players their characters are never safe, and spending too much time exploring, making noise, and running about will surely attract “friends”. So take a listen to the podcast or the video and give me your thoughts on the situation.

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Can a character with bad stats still matter in D&D?

In this episode, I talk about “Hopeless Characters” in old school D&D, using the Holmes Basic blurb and AD&D as the starting point. Bad ability scores do not always mean a bad character. Sometimes the weak fighter, the fragile magic-user, or the average nobody becomes the one everyone remembers.

This is about 3d6 character creation, survival, risk, and why old school D&D did not need every character to start as a hero.

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Dragons were never meant to be balanced encounters. They were ancient, intelligent, terrifying creatures that could wipe out careless adventurers in minutes. Somewhere along the way, dragons became treated like another monster to fight for treasure and XP. In this episode, I talk about how AD&D 1st Edition handled dragons, why fear and caution mattered, and why avoiding a dragon was often the smartest move a party could make.

We’ll look at morale, reaction rolls, negotiation, overwhelming power, and the old-school mindset that made dragons feel legendary instead of disposable boss fights. If your players charge every dragon head-on, this episode might change how you see these monsters forever.

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Today’s video and podcast is “Does Low Intelligence Make Evil Stupid?

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Low Intelligence does not make evil stupid. It changes how that evil shows up at the table. In this AD&D episode, I talk about why low Intelligence monsters and characters can still be dangerous, organized, loyal, cruel, and effective. Not every evil creature is a mastermind. Some are enforcers, raiders, followers, guards, and brutes who understand power, fear, orders, and punishment well enough to be a real threat.

Gnolls in AD&D are more than just hyena men with axes. They sit in this strange place in the game where people underestimate them right up until the moment the party realizes they are being hunted. In this episode, I break down what makes gnolls work so well in old school play, where they came from, how Gary Gygax shaped them in AD&D 1st Edition, and why they feel different from orcs, goblins, and other common humanoids.

We dig into their origins tied back to Lord Dunsany’s “gnoles,” their savage pack behavior, and how to actually run them at the table so they feel dangerous. Not because of inflated stats, but because of pressure, numbers, morale, movement, and fear. A good gnoll encounter should feel messy. Loud. Fast. Like the players walked into something already watching them from the dark.

I also get into gnoll leaders, pack roles, Yeenoghu’s influence, and practical AD&D encounter design. Scouts circling the campfire. Retreating gnolls leading players deeper into danger. Warbands waiting just outside torchlight. This is the kind of stuff that turns a basic humanoid fight into something your group remembers for years.

If your gnolls still feel like hallway filler, this episode might change that.

Magic resistance in AD&D fundamentally changes how magic-users approach combat and how the table experiences tension. It is not a saving throw but a flat chance that a spell simply fails, which comes before any other effects or rolls. Lower-level casters face worse odds, as resistance scales against the standard of an 11th-level caster, making a 50% resistance actually 80% against a 5th-level magic-user and only 30% against a 15th-level one. At the table, this creates pressure and uncertainty. Players watch their spells fizzle and begin thinking in terms of probability, adjusting tactics: some double down and waste resources, others shift to scrolls, utilities, illusions, or non-magical options

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Lawful Evil isn’t stupid. I’ve run a lot of villains who were smart, but I’ve also let “lawful evil” drift into cartoon territory. Iron-fisted tyrant. Obsessed cult leader. Someone the party can just stab and walk away from. But the truth is, a real lawful evil force plays the long game. It doesn’t waste resources. It bends the rules without breaking them. It thrives because people let it.

At the table, that means the players don’t get the satisfaction of a single obvious strike. The duke who starves the border villages isn’t dumb. He sends food when the king’s inspectors come. He promotes loyalists. He uses laws to trap rivals. He might even offer the party work. He probably should.

People keep trying to turn the AD&D druid into a forest cleric with a different paint job. That misses the point completely.

The druid in AD&D is strange. Isolated. Ritualistic. They are tied to old powers, ancient places, cycles, weather, stone circles, balance, and things that existed before kingdoms. A cleric serves a god through faith and structure. A druid serves nature itself, and nature in AD&D is not soft. Nature kills people every day. Storms drown villages. Wolves eat travelers. Winter wipes out the weak. The druid understands that balance matters more than comfort.

That changes how you should roleplay one.

A cleric walks into town and people usually know what they are looking at. A druid walks into town and people should feel uncertain. Maybe respected. Maybe nervous. Maybe suspicious. Druids are connected to places outside civilization. Sacred groves. Burial mounds. Swamps nobody crosses after dark. Old standing stones older than any kingdom nearby.

Mechanically, AD&D supports this separation hard.

Druids have different spell access. Different armor restrictions. Different weapons. They gain powers tied directly to nature. They shapechange. They identify plants and animals. They move through wilderness differently than other classes. Even their advancement system feels tribal and ancient. You do not just level up forever. You challenge other druids and take their place.

That is not “nature cleric.”

That is its own culture.

This matters at the table because if you treat druids like reskinned clerics, you flatten the class. Suddenly every druid becomes a healer with leaves on their cloak. AD&D gives you something far more interesting than that.

A druid can be calm and wise, sure. They can also be cold. Detached. Practical in brutal ways. They might let one village suffer because stopping a plague from spreading matters more. They might refuse to clear a forest for farmland because civilization expanding too far upsets the balance. They may even oppose good kingdoms if those kingdoms are destroying wild places.

That does not make them evil.

It makes them druids.

And honestly, that is what makes AD&D classes memorable. The classes are not balanced around equal combat rotations or matching utility. They are built around identity. The druid feels different because Gary and the early designers wanted classes to represent worldviews, not just mechanics.

You can see this in play immediately. A cleric enters a crypt carrying holy symbols and calling on divine power.

A druid enters the same crypt and feels like something old from the hills just walked underground for a reason. Completely different energy.

The spell list reinforces it too. Druids do not just get healing and protection. They command weather. Control plants. Summon nature. Speak with animals. Warp wood. Predict conditions. Their magic feels primal instead of organized. A high-level druid starts feeling closer to an ancient myth figure than a temple priest.

That is the sweet spot for the class.

If you want to make druids memorable in your AD&D game, stop thinking “nature cleric.” Start thinking ancient keeper of balance. Someone tied to forces older than kings and churches. Someone who respects life, but also understands death is part of the cycle too.

That mindset changes everything.

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This is a look at what Fighters really did in classic AD&D, why they mattered, and why many modern players miss the point. If you enjoy old school gaming, Gygax era design, and practical talk about how these games actually played, this one is for you.

No the fighter was not boring.. sure it looks like it would be boring, but it’s really not. The fighter is the one who holds the line, barks orders during combat and organizes the hirelings. Its more then swinging sword, its tactics and group survival.

Check out this video as I explore the why’s and how’s of the fighter. After the video, come back and comment on what you think!

Follow me here for more episodes on AD&D, classic roleplaying games, TSR era design, monsters, classes, and forgotten rules.

With these tables I’ve come up with, you can use them on the fly to make things a little more interesting at the table.

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Here is the DM Journal Audio edition for Paid Subscribers. If you want access to these, please considering supporting me here on Substack or Patreon.com/TheEvilDM

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So AD&D was never built around the idea that every fight should be balanced, fair and “level appropriate”. This is one of the biggest, I guess shocks for modern players when they come to the table to play AD&D 1e. You could enter a dungeon, turn a corner, run into a monster that is more powerful then you and get your ass handed to you as you finally realize running was a better choice rather then rushing in like a superhero. The correct answer is in most cases is learn how to run and come back later with a better plan.

That is not bad design. That is the design.

In Gygax’s D&D, the world doesn’t bend to your level, the dungeon does not check your character sheet and says, “oh I better make sure this monster is on the same level as this guy..”. Wandering monsters do not care if the party is wounded, almost dead or running low on spells. The ogre in the next chamber does not step aside because the group needs one more easy encounter before bedtime.

That danger changes how you play.

You start asking better questions. Can we avoid it? Can we bribe it? Can we trap it? Can we turn it against something else? Can we get out before it sees us?

That is where AD&D shines. The fight is only one option, and sometimes its not the best option.

Reaction rolls matter because not every encounter has to become combat. Morale matters because not every enemy fights to the death. Wandering monsters matter because time has weight. Every torch burned, every door forced, every argument in the hallway creates risk.

That is why AD&D feels tense. The game does not promise safety. It promises consequence.

This is also why “unfair” encounters can create better stories. A balanced fight usually ends one way. You fight, spend resources, and win. A dangerous encounter forces choices. The party retreats. The thief scouts ahead. The cleric saves the last spell. The fighter blocks the passage while everyone else escapes. Those moments stick because the players know the danger was real.

AD&D teaches you to respect the dungeon. It teaches you that survival is a victory. Getting out alive with treasure, information, or even one recovered body can mean more than clearing every room.

That style is not for every table. Some players want balance. Some players want every encounter tuned to their party. That is fine. But AD&D plays by a different rule. The world is dangerous first. Fairness comes second, if it shows up at all.

And that is the point.

You are not supposed to win every fight.

You are supposed to learn which fights are worth having.

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I will say it plain. AD&D is the gold standard of Dungeons and Dragons and will always be...

Not because it is perfect. It is not. Not because every rule is clean. Many are not. Not because it is easy to learn. It is not that either. It is the gold standard because it expected more from you.

AD&D did not hand you the answers to the test, it handed you a torch, a sword, a sack for coins, and a warning. The dungeon did not care about your feelings or how long of a backstory your character has. The wilderness had no level appropriate safe zones. Monsters were not balanced for your comfort. If you won a battle you earned it, or you learned to say, “oh shit! run!”.

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Modern games often protect the player. AD&D respected the player enough to risk failure. There is a difference. Without the possibility of death lurking around every corner, victory means NOTHING. When resources matter, choices matter. When the dungeon can beat you, beating the dungeon feels an accomplishment. AD&D also treated the Dungeon Master like a creator of worlds a weaver of stories, not a referee trapped in a box, saying, “you can’t do that, the book doesn’t cover it”.

Open the Dungeon Masters Guide and you find tables, systems, rulings, advice, strange corners, treasure logic, city details, timekeeping, random encounters, hirelings, morale, disease, gods, planes, tricks, and danger. It is a workshop, not a pamphlet. It throws it all in your lap and says, “Make in your own!”

That book trusted you to think or assumed you had imagination enough to think.

AD&D trusted players too. It assumed you would map, negotiate and learn to run away when needed. It rewarded caution, nerve, and clever play.

That style creates stories people remember for years at the table.. hell I still quote a phrase we said in a game 20 years ago with my friend.

Nobody forgets carrying a cursed idol three sessions because greed beat common sense. Those stories are born from pressure.

AD&D also had weight. Classes felt different. A magic user at level 1 was fragile and scared. At high level, terrifying. Fighters held the line. Clerics were anchors. Thieves lived on nerve and timing. Advancement felt earned because it took time and risk.

Even the flaws became part of its identity.

Yes, some rules were annoying to deal with at time, so we removed them. Yes, some charts were odd. Yes, some rulings made you squint. But the game had teeth, personality, and conviction. It knew what it wanted to be.

It means the benchmark.

When people talk about danger, exploration, real campaign worlds, meaningful treasure, tense dungeon crawls, hard choices, and player skill, they keep circling back to AD&D. There is a reason for that.

It still casts a long shadow because it was built on something solid.

AD&D asked more of you.

And because it asked more, it gave more back.

How mean are White Dragons? That’s what this episode is about. We’re looking at the dragon itself, what makes it nasty, and how you can use one in your campaign without treating it like a big white lizard with wings.

White Dragons are not stupid animals. They are hunters. They track prey, wait for the right moment, and strike when the target is weak. They don’t need to charge into a fight just to prove they are dangerous. A White Dragon can watch a party from the snow, follow them for miles, and let the cold do half the work before it ever attacks.

That’s what makes them scary at the table. They live in places that already want to kill you. Frozen mountains. Ice caves. Snow buried valleys. Places where armor gets cold, torches struggle, food runs low, and every step costs effort. The dragon belongs there. The party does not.

So when you use a White Dragon, make the land part of the encounter. Let the snow hide tracks. Let the wind cover sound. Let the cold slow movement and punish bad choices. By the time the party sees the dragon, they should already feel like they walked into its hunting ground.

That’s when the White Dragon works best. It is not just a monster waiting in a room. It is the thing that has been watching from the ice the whole time.

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I keep thinking about locked doors. Too many of them. Players start kicking them open after the first hour. They stop treating it like a risk. I want them to hesitate again.

Thinking. Could I make the door itself cursed?

Not a mimic. Just a door. It remembers who forces it. Weeks later something comes for them. Marked. Silent at first. A shadow at the edge of the torchlight.

I like the idea of a door that whispers a name. Only one player hears it. They probably won’t tell the others. That’s the hook. Little paranoia. They start wondering if they should leave the next door alone.

Thinking… a Fighter pushes the door. Fails the Strength check. Door says “No.” Just that. Quiet. Then opens anyway. Party moves on. That night the fighter keeps watch. He hears the same voice behind him. But nothing is there.

The darker part is the choice it offers me. I can wait. I can let the tension rot in the player’s mind. Or I can cash it in immediately for a fight. Both work. But slower is crueler. I want slower.

What if the party figures it out.? They start getting scared of touching doors.

But what if the curse spreads through objects?

Rope. Crowbars. They start running out of safe options. They have to decide. Open the next door or camp in the hall forever.

I need to decide how to signal the first consequence. Maybe a missing gear piece. Or a monster they swore they killed. Or a door that’s already closed behind them. I want them to know the dungeon saw them.

Not sure if it works long term. Might turn into paranoia that stops the session. Maybe the dungeon needs a mechanic for release. Like an offering. Burn some treasure. Bleed a little. Close a door properly. I like that. A ritual to ask forgiveness from doors.

I’ll try it next game..

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As you may or may not be aware, I am the author of an OSR clone called Mazes & Perils, which was a clone of Holmes D&D, which won a Gold Ernie award. I followed up with Mazes & Perils Deluxe edition in 2016.

Over time, I released some new classes and ideas on my Patreon and through Drivethrurpg.

Today, I released a zine I hope to produce monthly, which will give GMs some ideas for their campaigns. It’s a small zine that was created by me with no AI. No AI art at all as well. I used icons from Games-Icons.net only. The simple front cover was designed in Photoshop and then in Canva. I have no real funds to hire an artist, and when I used AI, people complained. I could easily add AI art to help, but it’s probably just going to annoy people. So until I can afford to pay artists, it’s just going to be a simple zine to fit the simple old-school RPG I created.

My Patreon is filled with ideas and giveaways from anything to AD&D, M&P, to Palladium fantasy.

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I always loved the gelatinous cube. It’s straight to the point. Its a trap monster that eats the greedy and keeps your dungeons sparkling clean too!

Let’s think about this for a moment…

What does “floating” look like in the dark? Players with torches see glints, maybe shapes. If they carry lanterns, the light is steadier. I imagine a faint shimmer, like something just out of reach. Too clear, and they wise up. Too vague, and they ignore it. I would describe surfaces first. A shifting reflection. A gleam that moves when they move.

Second, timing. A cube only works if the party enters its space. It is slow. It needs the players to come to it. So the cave has to funnel them. A side passage, narrow and wet. Maybe something is chasing them deeper. Or something valuable lies behind the cube. Let them see the prize first.

I would not make it random loot. Give it a story hook. A knight’s armor. A wand that hums with stored light. Something worth stupid risk. If a player pokes it with a pole, the cube reacts. You are not hiding the danger forever. But you want the decision to feel earned.

So how clear is this cube?

That is always one thought that crosses my mind. In a dungeon situation, with torches, I would think it would be clear enough that the party wouldn’t realize it’s there and the front line would walk into it?

But normally cubes have things in them floating around, which would tip off the front line. WHAT I could do is put a suit of armor in the cube, against the wall. Which would make a party stop and investigate. Getting close up towards this armor, and start inspecting it. Which is when they get close enough I can hit them with the save. After that, the surprise is over, but it will be fun to try to nab one or two greedy players.

Ideas:

• Keep the cube between the players and what they want.

• Use narrow spaces to prevent easy avoidance.

• Give the treasure a name or small story.

• Roll for surprise on approach, not initial sight.

• Let players talk themselves into danger.

• Offer a dark out if they want to survive at a cost.

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