Found another old school D&D bloggers - BSOLO - Wizards-Tower & Delta's Blogspot

*** BSOLO and XSOLO modules sound perfect. 1 PC, solo play,... sure it's old basic D&D rules, I can make that work. https://wizards-tower.com/2016/08/ghost-of-lion-castle-a-dd-solo-adventure/

• Blizzard Pass by Zeb Cook and Maze of the Riddling Minotaur by Jeff Grub come to mind, as does the Advanced D&D adventure Midnight on Dagger Alley by Merle Rasmussen. Many of these featured either invisible ink or “magic viewer” gimmicks, however.

  While both invisible ink and a (red plasticene) magic viewer both sound like interesting and novel ways to keep players from “cheating” in a solo adventure and enhance the sense of discovery, they don’t seem to have helped in preserving the physical longevity of the individual books.

  I also suspect the difficulty and transferring those modules to PDF will make seeing them reissued for digital sale unlikely. Too bad, considering Zeb Cook and Jeff Grub are both RPG legends.

 He has some interesting takes. Many of these written when 3.5e came out, and he didn't like the changes. But he loved 3.0e. 

Anyway, interesting reads regardless... and it seems like a lot of the OD&D and OSR ppl thought the same sort of thing. Or read his blog and ... yeah. 

These links about what made old AD&D so good, via Dan. He says things like "narrative of a good novel and a good dnd module is the opposite. He likes the players having choice (and thigns being very hidden) and maybe never getting from G1 to G2 to G3, etc. Not sure I agree there, but I do agree that older DnD was better when it was about the mythology and bringing stories to life. He got upset with 3.5e being more about power balance between players, when it was much less a worry before (he says). 

https://www.superdan.net/gaming/grtdnd/grtdnd1.html

https://www.superdan.net/gaming/grtdnd/grtdnd2.html

https://www.superdan.net/gaming/grtdnd/grtdnd3.html

His interesting mathematics analysis of D20 being auto hits: https://deltasdnd.blogspot.com/2025/02/why-did-natural-20s-become-automatic.html

He has many links to many of his sites here: https://www.blogger.com/profile/00705402326320853684

Module he commented on, haven't really heard of before, levels 10-14, interesting: 

• Name of     X10 Red Arrow, Black Shield (Basic)
• https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/17122/x10-red-arrow-black-shield-basic?filters=44828_0_0_0_0
• quote: Basically, the situation is this: The "Master", archvillain of the X4-X5 module series, is back -- and he's leading an almost endless horde of nomads and monsters out of the desert to conquer as much of the Known World as he can. The PCs (likely having faced him before) are drafted as Ambassador Plenipotentiaries to travel to the various countries and try to hammer out an alliance that can fend off the Master's armies. Generally in each capital the PCs will be face some quest, challenge, honorable combat, or roleplaying negotiation to sway the nation's leaders -- frequently with desert emissaries present, fighting for the opposite outcome.
• X4 is one of those classic ones ppl like, with the crazy siege machine on front. Desert. David Cook. 
• X5 also, David Cook.