This is from the article by Lee Gold in Fight On! 6 (page 111, “World Creating as a Hobby”). 3d6 for each of the 7 virtues & sins.

This fourth edition scenario is very much in the hexcrawl/megadungeon tradition. It consists of a number of sites spread around a valley that can be visited in any order the players desire, and the locations have varying levels of difficulty.

Long ago, a dark power traveled through the space between worlds, intent on finding world upon which to wreak havoc. After seeding countless wars on many worlds, it found a new world to ruin. There it crash-landed, embedding itself deep in the ground and carving a valley-sized furrow in its wake. Patient beyond mortal comprehension, it began to sow the seeds of evil and reach out to those of a perverse and corruptible bent. 

The Chaos Scar is a long, wide valley carved long ago by the fall of a massive meteor. As the giant rock passed overhead, milk curdled, livestock fell over dead, and ill fortune befell all. The meteor crashed into the earth with deafening force, and red radiance lit the sky for a week. Then it vanished. 

… 

The Chaos Scar itself is death to most who wander in. It is filled with evil and riddled with caves both natural and tunneled by generations of monstrous denizens. The deeper one travels into the valley, the deadlier the foes lurking in its caves and hollows. Strange features have been raised, or have simply appeared, within the Scar—circles of standing stones, bizarre towers, grotesque cottages, and other more otherworldly features. Capping off the valley is the fortress of Hallowgaunt, home to the mysterious Brotherhood of the Scar, crowned by a perpetual storm of black clouds and crackling lightning.

Okay, ignore that last bit about the perpetual storm of black clouds and crackling lightning. The rest of that description is pretty evocative, and though it is aboveground, it fits the classic megadungeon structurally. It still has a bit more linearity than most people interested in sandbox play would probably want, but that is relatively easy to adjust.

There is no overarching campaign goal other than to reach the end of the valley and destroy the meteor. … Finally, feel free to allow the PCs to chart their own course. One of the goals of this campaign is to reduce the workload of DMs running it. Once the valley has been populated by a few caves, PCs should be allowed free reign to choose which dungeon they approach next.

Most of the content is behind the D&D Insider paywall. I was briefly a member a few months ago so that I could see what was on offer. Most of the locations within the valley are not that special though, and are of the form “monster X has been drawn by the power of the evil relic to the valley and has taken over abandoned structure Y”; it’s easy enough to make such areas up yourself, or drop modules in. The published ones also tend to be rather small, and the encounters are not usable directly for editions other than 4E.

I like campaigns where magic items are special. So, assuming that magic items are not a dime a dozen, why not take the effects of enchanted items to their logical conclusion, and see what result that has on the setting? I was inspired by this passage in the Vornheim City Kit, about the medusa Eshrigel:

Once, demons ruled every universe, unchecked. Then came 12 sisters – medusae – they looked upon the demon kings and changed them to stone, and drove the rest away. The grey bones of this earth were hewn from the petrified bodies of these demon kings. Or at least that’s what the 12 sisters will tell you.

…

If Eshrigel is slain, all the statues will come to life. Their details are left to the GM. If the myths are true, about 1/12 of the stone on the planet (and 1/12th of the planet itself) should revert to flesh upon her death.

My first take was to riff directly on this idea. The wilds are peopled with fantastic statues of beasts, giants, and warriors. The statues are ancient, but still have incredible detail. Sages dispute the origin of these statues. Some claim that they were the work of skilled ancient stonesmiths. Others claim that they were the results of ancient wizardry, but still merely decorative work. Some demon hunters claim that the current plague of horrors did not always roam the wilds, and that in past ages when demons directly entered the world they would be turned to stone, forcing them to work from the shadows and control people by possession; this was ended when a reckless warlock figured out how demons could enter the world without being turned to stone and traded the knowledge away.

The truth is that an ancient magic-user ended a great chapter of the demon wars with a powerful wand of petrification. If the wand is ever broken, all creatures that were petrified by it will return to life. (Or perhaps it was a collection of 7 wands, wielded by a secret society of magic-users?) What silly adventurer will break the wand to free a petrified companion, and inadvertently unleash an ancient cosmic war?

I am sure that there are many other magic items that are usually treated with little fanfare, but which could have very interesting setting ramifications. Assuming that these items are essentially artifacts, and not something that can be manufactured, we don’t have the problem of magic-as-technology. I’m certainly not advocating any sort of naturalism. More like investigating what unintended consequences might come from some of those magic items. For example, Plato’s Ring of Gyges is, in D&D terms, just a ring of invisibility. And the sorcerer Thoth-Amon in Robert Howard’s stories derives his magic seemingly entirely from The Serpent Ring of Set, as when he looses the ring he has no power to resist becoming enslaved.

As I don’t pretend to impartiality, I’ll go ahead and say that my favorites are probably Fight On! and Knockspell, in terms of content that I find immediately useful.

(This list has grown to the point that it probably deserves better organization or subcategorization.)

Active:

Fight On!

Associated with the OD&D Discussion board (“odd74”, focusing on the game from the 3 original “little brown books”). Creation is coordinated here.

Footprints

This pub is free, and comes from volunteer work done my members of the Dragonsfoot board. There is a useful download all link.

Knockspell

This zine is associated with Swords & Wizardry, and edited by Matt Finch.

Loviatar

A unique zine, print-only, and the work of a single author, Christian. Also includes content for some games that are not usually considered old school, such as White Wolf’s Vampire. Waiting for my first three issues to arrive in the mail, so I don’t have more to say yet.

NOD

Another single author pub. NOD focuses on the author’s setting, but has lots of content that is generally useful. There are free samples. Decorated with lots of old public domain art that is very tastefully chosen.

Oubliette

I haven’t had a chance to read my copies of this yet, but it looks promising. I love the visual style. Also has an associated blog. Interestingly, the author’s story seems similar to my own: “After a 15 year break from gaming two of my old friends met up with me last summer and we decided to start playing again”. For me, it was closer to 11 years.

Encounter

Byline: “A fanzine dedicated to the Classic D&D Game!”. Issues are free, and look professionally produced.

Green Devil Face

Associated with Lamentations of the Flame Princess. In the words of James Raggi: “a print traditional gaming zine under the Green Devil Face name. It will have a more narrow focus than Fight On! or Knockspell, in that it will be specifically about individual dungeon rooms that feature obvious traps/hazards/puzzles that require players to experiment and reason through them instead of making a traps roll to detect/disarm them”.

Scribe of Orcus

Associated with Goblinoid Games. Ashamed to say that I haven’t actually had time to check this out yet, despite the face that Labyrinth Lord is one of my favorite retro-clones. You can buy issues on RPGNow. I’m not sure if this is still active, as the most recent issue seems to be Vol. 1 Issue 5, from 2009.

OD&DITIES

Byline: “The Original Dungeons & Dragons Fanzine”. Appears to be semi-defunct (I say semi- because on the blog, the author says he is working on a new zine, to be called Unknown Sagas, and which will focus on Swords & Wizardry). You can download issues 1 – 12 from Dragonsfoot, but newer issues seem to no longer be free.

Alarums & Excursions

A&E is probably the oldest continuously published RPG periodical. It was started in 1975, and has been maintained by Lee Gold. I just learned about this in Fight On! 6, which also features a very interesting article by and interview with Lee Gold.

Inactive:

The Dragon/Dragon Magazine

The house magazine of TSR. Probably needs no introduction. Some reprints and PDFs are available from Paizo. There is also an online index, the Dragondex.

Dungeon Adventures

The other house magazine of TSR, focusing on scenarios rather than rules and commentary. Like Dragon, some reprints and PDFs are available from Paizo.

Pegasus Magazine / Dungeoneer / Judges Guild Journal

Original Judges Guild pub from the 70s. Pegasus is available from RPGNow. There is also a bundle of all 12 issues. I haven’t read very much of this yet, so not much more to say. Associated nouns: City State of the Invincible Overlord, Wilderlands of High Fantasy, Bob Bledsaw, Bill Owen, Tegel Manor. Clearly important in the context of the game’s history. Also see this thread on odd74 about the JG magazines.

Strategic Review

The TSR mag before dragon. Only had 7 issues, and also focused on wargaming. Unfortunately not legally available anywhere right now, as far as I can see.

Completeness is not a quality that I aspire to in this post, as I want this to be an edited collection of resources I find useful. That being said, if you notice that I am egregiously ignoring something, please let me know so that I can investigate it. I don’t want to end up with a laundry list, however. Also, I know that this collection is biased towards the present. But then, isn’t everything? It is, after all, where we always live.

So, I was thinking of doing a series on the “changing face” of various common aspects of the game, comparing how different versions do the same thing. For example, initiative. But it turns out someone else has just already done such a post, and they did it really well. This is a good thing! Less work for me to do. Monsters & Manuals also discusses.

The original motivation was to familiarize myself with how earlier versions of the game did things, as when I played before, I mostly used a heavily house-ruled version of 2nd Edition. There are still probably many other fruitful topics for such a series; if I can accomplish the whole project by merely redirecting myself to content elsewhere on the Internet, all the better.

• Grodog’s necromancer NPC class (PDF)
• Footprints #14 contains an article of a necromancer class (PDF)
• Grognardia: The Necromancers of Dwimmermount (Part I)
• Grognardia: The Necromancers of Dwimmermount (Part II)
• Grognardia: The Necromancers of Dwimmermount (Part III)
• Grognardia: N is for Necrofacture
• Skull Crushing for Great Justice: Good Old Necromancers
• Full (legal) text of The Empire of the Necromancers, by Clark Ashton Smith at The Eldritch Dark
• d20 SRD Necromancer Variants
• d20 SRD Animate Dead spell
• Early look (Heromeblog) at Darker Paths 1: The Necromancer by BRW Games
• The City of Iron blog: Labyrinth Lord Necromancer Class (PDF) (and see the posts tagged necromancer)
• Animate Dead (Yes, it’s a Magic: The Gathering card.)
• Drudge Skeletons
• Necromancer with Skeletons by Richard Mark Huffman (Elfwood)
• Necromantic Rambles blog: banner art
• Road of Knives move 1: necromancer by Zak Smith

Talysman writes about classes as answers to the question “how do you solve problems?” (the discussion at Grognardling is also worth reading, and is what originally pointed me to Talysman’s post).

I would reiterate this as:

• Fighters solve problems by combat and fighting back.
• Wizards solve problems with magic. 
• Thieves solve problems with stealth and trickery.
• Clerics solve problems by supporting others and channeling the power of a higher being.
• Monks (replacing halflings) solve problems by evasion and redirection (with a side order of self-mastery, perhaps, allowing abilities like being able to fall farther without taking damage). Self-control, and understanding the limits and capabilities of the self, and seeing the weaknesses of others, are the key to the monk’s powers. 
• Dungeoneers (replacing dwarves, perhaps as a morlock race-as-class) solve problems by understanding how things work, taking them apart, or building tools. Interestingly, writing about this potential class in this way has totally changed how I am approaching it. Maybe the dungeoneer is just as much an artificer class as anything else. For example, maybe they never get better at fighting like the fighter does (with an attack bonus based on level), but instead build specific weapons which have bonuses. And, the noticing construction elements of a dungeon like the dwarf class (such as sloping corridors) is very much in line with a dungeoneer. I’m not sure how well this would fit with the mood of the campaign I am working on, which is less steampunk and more sword & sorcery, but I’m willing to run with it for a while and see where it leads me. Blogging is just as much about publicly brainstorming as anything else.
• Elves solve problems more holistically, by being an expression of nature, or the dark powers beyond mundane nature (depending on the tone of the setting). Thus, being inherently magical, they can cast some spells, though without the exactitude of the wizard. They can fight, though not with the training of the fighter. The elf, in this guise, serves as something of a jack-of-all-trades.