For anyone not familiar with OSE, it's basically a reorganization of the Moldvey and Cook Basic/Expert D&D rules.
A brief rundown from the site:
Old-School Essentials is an adventure role-playing game of exploration, danger, monsters, and magic. The game is intentionally rules-light, putting the focus of play on imagination, improvisation, and fun. The rules are optimised for ease of use at the table, with meticulous attention to wording and layout clarity. What's more, Old-School Essentials is 100% compatible with the classic Basic/Expert game from 1981, meaning that decades of adventure are at your fingertips!
A Complete Game All in One Box
Old-School Essentials is a modular game where the core rules of the game are extended by additional "rules modules" which add content for different genres of fantastic adventure. The Old-School Essentials Black Box is a compilation of the core rules plus four rules modules, forming a complete game for Classic Fantasy adventures:
Core Rules: Rules for character creation and advancement, adventuring in dungeons, the wilderness, and at sea, magic and combat.
Genre Rules: Seven classic classes (cleric, dwarf, elf, fighter, halfling, magic-user, thief), complete lists of weapons and adventuring gear, extensive lists of vehicles, mounts, and vessels, mercenaries and specialists for hire, rules for stronghold construction.
Cleric and Magic-User Spells: The complete set of 34 cleric spells (from 1st to 5th level) and 72 magic-user spells (from 1st to 6th level), for use by players of cleric, elf, and magic-user characters.
Monsters: A selection of over 200 classic monsters to challenge adventurers of all levels.
Treasures: A hoard of over 150 wondrous magic items.
The material in this boxed set forms a complete clone of the classic Basic/Expert game, including all rules, classes, spells, monsters, and magic items.
After a successful kickstarter, the OSE products are available for purchase from the Necrotic Gnome website. You can pick from an all-in-one Tome or a box set with multiple books:
An in-depth review of the game:
“He found himself wondering at times, especially in the autumn, about the wild lands, and strange visions of mountains that he had never seen came into his dreams.” - Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
I checked out the Necrotic Gnome site. After running the family through The Haunted Keep using Moldvay Basic last Thanksgiving, I could see picking up a copy of the all-in-one book and a DM screen for future holiday rolling of the bones...
“Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” - Carl Sagan
OSE is good stuff. Like I mentioned to you prior, I feel like it's the one edition of D&D that I've always wanted. A core system of Basic D&D with all of the simplicity (and clarification) and lack of rules bloat, while still allowing the various options contained within AD&D. With the pandemic running amok, my order won't arrive any time soon, but I placed an order with a US distributor for the OSE box set, screen, and supplement books for adding the advanced classes and spells.
In the works is a second bestiary which takes a fair number of critters from AD&D and restructures them for the OSE (B/X) system. Looking forward to getting that one too.
“He found himself wondering at times, especially in the autumn, about the wild lands, and strange visions of mountains that he had never seen came into his dreams.” - Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
For anyone interested in an NPC Generator, there is one available on the OSE website: OSE NPC Generator
An example from the site:
“He found himself wondering at times, especially in the autumn, about the wild lands, and strange visions of mountains that he had never seen came into his dreams.” - Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Advanced Fantasy: Monsters book is coming this summer!
In a nutshell: more monsters for your Old-School Essentials games! This book continues the Advanced Fantasy line of OSE books, joining the already published Advanced Fantasy: Genre Rules and Advanced Fantasy: Druid and Illusionist Spells. Like those other books, Advanced Fantasy: Monsters adds material inspired by the 1st edition Advanced game to Old-School Essentials. Naturally, the new monsters are all presented in the standard OSE format.
And even more cool stuff planned for later releases:
A Note About Devils and Demons
The eagle-eyed may notice a distinct lack of devils and demons in the list above. A quote directly from the book itself:
"Despite their presence in the original Advanced monster books, devils and demons are not included here. They will be featured in a future supplement devoted entirely to the fiendish denizens of other planes."
“He found himself wondering at times, especially in the autumn, about the wild lands, and strange visions of mountains that he had never seen came into his dreams.” - Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
Niklas Wistedt, over on the OSE Facebook group, decided he wanted illustrations for the weapons listed in the rules, so he put out a free piece showing them all off.
“He found himself wondering at times, especially in the autumn, about the wild lands, and strange visions of mountains that he had never seen came into his dreams.” - Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
Arise, arise, Riders of Théoden! Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter! spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered, a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises! Ride now, ride now!
rredmond wrote: ↑May 15th, 2020, 8:58 am
I've seen that weapons piece and really like it.
Yeah, would have been great if the idea had come up prior to the books being printed, would have made an excellent inclusion.
“He found himself wondering at times, especially in the autumn, about the wild lands, and strange visions of mountains that he had never seen came into his dreams.” - Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
Ancalagon wrote: ↑April 20th, 2020, 9:23 pm
I checked out the Necrotic Gnome site. After running the family through The Haunted Keep using Moldvay Basic last Thanksgiving, I could see picking up a copy of the all-in-one book and a DM screen for future holiday rolling of the bones...
Well... I pulled the trigger and placed an order. All of the family members I ran through the Haunted Keep have expressed multiple times a desire to play again the next time we get together. Two of them have birthdays in August so they'll each be getting a copy of the Player's Rules Tome for the next session.....
“Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” - Carl Sagan
Ah yeah. OSE is good stuff, next best thing in print for B/X.
“He found himself wondering at times, especially in the autumn, about the wild lands, and strange visions of mountains that he had never seen came into his dreams.” - Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
