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Thoughts and Review
Swords of Jordoba, the name of the campaign and YouTube playlist it's hosted on as well as a line of products produced by the referee, "Uncle" Matt Finch, and made available online in various media and media outlets, is a traditional campaign run using the Swords & Wizardry retro-clone of OD&D (although it is referred to internally as OD&D) played and aired through 2018.
There exists a Twitch channel - Uncle Matt's D&D - but it appears not to be in use. Likewise, there are other playlists on Uncle Matt's YouTube. The scope of this review is exclusively the 0E Swords of Jordoba campaign provided in the info table above.
What I Like
The first thing that stands out tremendously regarding this actual play is its use of physical miniatures, despite being played on live stream. The referee has an extensive collection of old-style minis in addition to a set of physical terrain - such that a small camera can follow the party around, showing the dungeon as they see it - in miniature. This lends itself to some very interesting challenges that the referee handles spectacularly.
Note, some of the YouTube playlists include instructions on obtaining, 3D-printing, and painting terrain as used on the actual-play. If you, the watcher, like what you see on Uncle Matt's table, I would encourage you to check them out! Among these unique challenges is combat proximity - there are no "squares" so the position of combatants is all relative: a player indicates that they wish to charge or otherwise engage an enemy, the referee informs them of challenges that may prevent it, or informs them of its success, and positions the miniature accordingly.
Additionally, players interacting with the environment - climbing on top of things to get better views, ducking behind or into alcoves to avoid detection: all of it is theater of mind, where the mind is assisted by the perspective of the models on camera: a virtual tabletop on a physical table. Watching the game pace - exploration, combat, parlay - in miniature while simultaneously observing the unique and interesting ways that the ref tackles things like lighting conditions while keeping the viewer informed as to what's going on at the table is a truly special experience: and, more importantly, one that novice or prospective game masters can benefit highly from: gleaning from Uncle Matt's experience.
In a similar vein, a novice or prospective OSR player can benefit from the experience of the majority of the player pool. Despite being exposed to physical layouts visually, the players draw maps on paper: then, in future episodes, refer back to their maps so as to guide their descent into the campaign's "megadungeon" - that is, a lower section of the city of Jordoba which has been sealed off and is home to monsters and treasure. Additionally, the players interact with the world leveraging an element of player skill coupled with the mechanical rules: that is, there isn't simply an, "I check for traps" so much as an, "I run my hand along the frame looking for a tripwire" - or, upon the discovery of a trap, efforts are made to disarm it using narration: not simply a percentile roll. A percentile roll is applied on occasion - but a note, the Thief class did not exist in OD&D, being introduced later in the Greyhawk supplement. This element of player versus dungeon is key to understanding the enjoyment of an old-school dungeon crawl. Player skills (knowing where to look, what to expect, and recognizing patterns) are more important than character skills (that is, numbers on paper).
What I Don't Like
Like most live-streamed events (recorded and retained thereafter), technical difficulties can get in the way of the presentation. This is a recurring theme early on and manifests itself in a couple ways: one being the freezing of cameras, one being the dropping of player connections, one being the playlist, itself, is out of order (though - as evidenced by experiences with prior reviews, that last one might simply be that I don't know how to operate the YouTube app on my phone). To its credit, the audio of the stream is level, even, and consistently not a problem. If you are listening to the stream as you might a podcast while working on something else, you wouldn't know they were having technical difficulties excepting when the players mention them as having been commented on by stream viewers.
The banter level of your average D&D table is fairly strong - one of the advice points I give aspiring referees is "Don't include intentionally humorous elements" (or, at least, don't include them very often), as the table will naturally be a ring of jokers doing everything in their power to turn their motley band into Monty Python's King Arthur. The Jordoba table is no exception - the players joking and enjoying themselves on air - and for the most part, it doesn't detract from the experience: however, it is in such abundance that on occasion, the viewer is impelled to skip forward on the track to see if actual progress has been made: on one occasion, a full 50 minutes pass in real time before the game actually begins. While weeding through episodes isn't a common pastime, it will on occasion arise for a listener whose purpose in listening is to learn the rules.
Lastly, I don't recall hearing, while listening through the episodes, the party utilize wilderness adventure procedures. It's possible that I missed it - I have not watched and taken notes on every video on the channel - and it's also possible that it simply didn't come up, as the campaign is primarily an urban-crawl and the player characters do not advance high enough to afford a stronghold or warband to perform a wilderness excursion: but knowing that S&W has wilderness procedures, I would like to see Uncle Matt run them: as, based on his expertise in dungeon crawling, it seems impossible to imagine his mastery of the wilderness crawl would not likewise be educational for new players and referees. To the channel's credit (and this probably belongs in the "things I like" section, but whatever), I do recall at least one video in which the mass-battles system from S&W is used - including a clash between woolly mammoths: so the breadth of the AP is not limited to just dungeons.
Things to Note
The game is repeatedly in the stream referred to as "OD&D" when - and usually, when Uncle Matt says "OD&D" he immediately clarifies this - they are technically using Swords & Wizardry, as indicated in the heading. This isn't a bad thing - but be aware, if you are reading the LBBs and they start talking about something that doesn't appear to be present in your booklet, that's why. S&W is a good representation of OD&D, but it is much more expansive.
More seriously, there are some minor house rules designed to improve character durability. Specifically, the referee back-ports some of the rules from newer editions that he considers to be superior to the way OD&D (and conversely S&W) handles them. The one that comes to mind is "Death and Dying" - wherein he allows the characters to drop below 0 hit points and make a "death save" to avoid dying: where, in RAW, a character dies at 0 (or -1, per S&W). There is nothing intrinsically wrong with keeping players alive in combat, as save-vs-poison or save-vs-death occurs in the campaign and player characters do die and get replaced (on one occasion, several characters belonging to the same character in the same session), but it's something to note, as it may not translate over into a game you join.
As one versed in newer editions might expect, they use the alternative combat system in the traditional way it's interpreted, contrary to the example of play from The Strategic Review that I ranted about last week. Lends some credence, I think.
In Conclusion
The referee of this actual-play literally wrote the book (and the guide on what to expect!) on OSR gaming. How on Earth are you rating this Chainmail with Shield?
Dungeon crawling procedure is strong with this channel. Watching the referee ref and watching the players play is an exquisite resource for new players and aspiring OSR referees. That is without question. If I were to express any one disappointment with this channel, it would be that it hasn't updated in a year or so, as of this writing - and I would like to see more of it. Truly, the only thing keeping me from fanboy-ing Uncle Matt into the stratosphere are the interruptions to exposition resultant from technical issues and lengthy banter segments.
To conclude, this channel is truly refreshing - I have enjoyed the sub-set of its playlists that I have consumed - and I recommend it to anyone looking to watch and learn OSR. Who knows - maybe the shield is a magic one. Will have to fight a combat and see.
Thank you for reading - and delve on!
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