I have always been intrigued by the idea of a single volume OD&D and have wanted to do that but have lacked the time and the editing skills to pull it off. Since we now have among us someone who has created a single volume OD&D (strictly for his own personal use) I thought it would be interesting to discuss how one would go about doing that for ones self. Unfortunately we can't share or link to our documents since that would violate the Proboards TOS. But discussing how to do it for oneself from ones own documents is safe territory. Now we have someone who can give us advice on how to go about it.
Now in my mind there are certain parameters to consider and I would like to know if I am missing something.
1. Try to leave the original text untouched to the greatest extent possible, while keeping the flow through the reorganized document smooth.
2. Use the earliest printing possible and at least nothing later than a fifth print, due to the fact that the 6th print and later started censoring the text. Ideally you would have access to as a minimum printings 1, 4, 5 and 6.
3. Rigorous proof reading for typos and preserving all the flavor and quirkiness of the original work.
4. The presence of legal pdfs that allow you to copy paste the text (unformatted) into a word document reduces the typing and you only have to add back in the censored text from the earlier printing.
5. As I see it there are a number of different projects that could be done based on personal taste.
A. Single volume OD&D with just the 3 LBBs.
B. Single volume OD&D with the 3 LBBs and the 4 Supplements edited in.
C. Single volume OD&D with the 3 LBBs and the 4 Supplements and The Strategic Review items edited in, including the FAQ by Gygax.
D. Single volume OD&D with the 3 LBBs and the 4 Supplements and The Strategic Review items edited in, including the FAQ by Gygax and The Dragon (early issues)
As you can see these get progressively more difficult.
E. Single volume OD&D with just the 3 LBBs and our personal good parts from the 4 Supplements, The Strategic Review and The Dragon edited in.
For most of us, well for me at least, I would like to have Option A and Option E(my fully personalized version). Wouldn't it also be great to be able to pick your own art for your own version? I love the Frazetta art as my favorite, but there are selected pieces of the original art that I really like of those plain line drawings.
How many of us have made the attempt to do one or more of the above? Are there other options I did not think of?