Letâs dive all the way into Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy: Refereeâs Tome || OSR RPG Review
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Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy is a âretrocloneâ of Basic/Expert D&D (B/X) and Advanced D&D 1e. It can come as two books, the Playerâs Tome and Refereeâs Tome. This video covers the Refereeâs Tome.
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00:00 Intro to OSE Advanced Fantasy Refereeâs Tome
01:38 The Printed Books
01:59 Running Adventures in OSE
06:52 Monsters in OSE
14:08 Encounters in OSE
16:21 Treasures in OSE
18:47 OGL and 3PL in OSE
19:25 My Thoughts on OSE
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I started a new ose game at a local store. I met some folks through online spaces and we met up. There were a couple middle schoolers playing pokemon, and they were interested in what we were doing and asked to join us. One lost interest pretty quickly, child attention spans being what they are, but the other got super into it. He didn't know any of the rules, and had never played the game before but I explained what we were doing, and what his main goals were as a player, and he jumped right in. The lack of complex rules meant that he could simply say what he wanted to do and be expected to do it, he didn't have to learn about proficiency or skills or any of that. It was a great time and he asked if we were playing and again so he could play some more. It was a really great moment.
This is the way.
â@NaNoRarh Eventually they got bored of kicking him to death and wandered off, childs attention spans being what they are.
I highly recommend actually playing an adventure using OSE (especially one written by Gavin Norman). Only when I started playing OSE did I realize how these things you consider "weird/outdated/clumsy" actually work together really well. For example, by combining 1. weak characters who can die easily 2. Nearly no XP for killing monsters, 3. The reaction roll to see if monsters even want to attack (where 35/36 times there is room for negotiation) and 4. wandering monster tables, you end up with tense and unpredictable situations that rely on role-play to diffuse when you can because you simply can't fight everything. It also gives the players room to choose who is worth fighting, who will they run from, and who is worth buying off. I don't like it when the DM or adventure already has the "correct" response planned out that the players "should" take. OSE doesn't say which encounters are supposed to be for role-play or that you should have exactly 1 of them in a 5 room dungeon. It lets the dice set up an uncertain situation that could go many different ways, and then let's the players decide which way to take it, and that's exactly what I want out of an RPG.
Word
this
Damn straight
Well said.
While this kind of look can be fun, is really artificial and unintuitive.
Admitting you want to follow all the rules as written, it ends up with a lot of dice roll, on which you have little control over.
At the 10 random encounter, fight or no fight, it just become a bloody chore to keep doing this.
This apply to the getting lost rules, morale rules and even to the bore bone, boring, combat.
30 years ago felt old already (no wonder a game like RoleMaster emerged) and just presenting the same rules, even if clarified, is not making them any better.
Little things get dropped in streamlining for the modern audience but even in 1979 use of the term Monster warranted clarification. From page 40 of the 1e Player's Handbook
"MONSTER, THE TERM
It is necessary to stress that the usage of the term âmonsterâ is generic for
any creature encountered during the course of adventuring. A monster can
be exactly what the name implies, or it can be a relatively harmless animal,
a friendly intelligent beast, a crazed human, a band of dwarves, a
thief - virtually anything or anyone potentially threatening or hostile.
When your referee indicates your character has encountered a monster, that
simply indicates a confrontation between your character and some type of
creature is about to take place. The results of such a meeting will depend on
many factors, including the nature of the monster and your characterâs actions.
All monsters are not bad . . ."
Nice! Thank you for sharing that!
To me monster means simplied stats and it's good to know that is what it is... Still NPC would have been better... Although it does fit the fantasy land theme.
I like Lancers use of the word Character and Object, your either an Object or a Character mechanically.
@@DaveThaumavore You are also supposed to roll reaction and surprise.
An encounter that suddenly meets a troop of paramiltary bums is not going to be automatically hostile. Only an extremely low roll means they are automatically hostile to the PCs. Just as only an extremely high roll means they warm up immediately. You can adjudicate what the encounter wants as well. A "neutral" reaction from a beholder is an intense hatred for every living thing including other beholders, a "good" reaction from a beholder might be that it doesn't blast you right this moment. The reaction roll is a way to gauge the gut reaction of things the PCs meet.
You can roll a reaction roll for a townie they try to haggle with. Even the worst result from a townie is probably not a suicidal berserk attack. They might point sternly to the door and tell them to get out before they push a button for the constabulary. It can be used any time you need to figure out the first impression someone gives them. It is not a replacement for talking, it is not a charm skill. PCs who make good proposals and get good at diplomacy will be rewarded for their effort. The reaction roll is not set in stone, relations can improve and deteriorate through play.
The PCs can of course take actions that make them have a pre-determined relation from encounters. The crew was walking past five melon-harvesting cultists carrying the cult treasure, and I decided that these guys were automatically hostile. If the PCs do something violent and obviously provocative they will get a reaction fitting their actions if they get caught. This plays into separating DM/encounter knowledge as well. If they had hid the cult treasure better, those five melon-harvesters might have just let them pass with a grumble.
The surprise and stealth mechanics means PCs who take precautions like using a scout/point man have a chance to learn about an encounter before they learn of them. Instead of a group of battle-ready orcs around a corner just waiting to jump a fool, they're more often going to meet orcs who are taking a piss, playing cards, bantering, singing a tune as they patrol etc. Surprise is a chance both for them and you that you just stumble into eachother. Remember that this gives the PCs an option to avoid and run. They can decide to not engage with a bunch of folks. Even winning surprise against a monster means you have a window to leg it around a corner.
Itâs the equivalent of the later mmo term âmobâ
I've been reading the original Basic and Expert editions alongside OSE and it's fascinating. The original books give you a better idea of what the game makers were thinking at the time, and OSE begins to feel like a B/X reference work to be used at the table, with all of the important game material beautifully distilled and organized.
I also just realized that the OSE book's red and blue bookmark ribbons are a little homage to the red Basic and blue Expert covers. Talk about attention to detail.
You got it
Yeah, OSE ir really a REFERENCE, that kind of presumes that it's readers are already familiar with B/X D&D (or at least Old-School D&D in some manner). And it's a spectacular reference...but it really is kind of lacking as a "full game", IMO.
I played D&D in the 80's and 90's. I can tell you that this style of play, like OSE, produced some of my favorite memories.
As I said in the last video, it is fascinating to watch this review by someone that didn't grow up in that era that OSE is rewriting. And I would say that you had hit the nail on the head with a small throw away comment when you said the author treated it like a tool box, and couldn't wait to get out of the way.
That sums it up. The old game was a skeleton that gave a superstructure, and it was up to individual groups to put the flesh on the skeleton. Want an old paleo game of cavemen? Here you go. Want a game on space faring sailing ships? You can do that, too.
If you are looking for hard rules to every thing, this isn't the style you are looking for. Again, thanks for your reviews!
Yeah, they hate D&D. Thier frame of reference is video game design. So anything that is not meticulously detailed and controlled for, and done for them is poor game design from thier perspective
@@colbyboucher6391 Absolutely agree
Old school D&D is focused on adventures getting treasure and roleplaying
Treasure is in dungeons, which are in the wilderness. Dungeons and wildernesses have clear procedures.
Wilderness must be navigated with a map or a characters knowledge of the area. When trekking rations are consumed and strangers who may be friend or foe may be encountered. It's possible that players may find other areas of interest as well.
Players take actions in dungeon turns, during which monsters patrol the dungeon and torches burn down. Again, monsters may be ravenous cowardly, or even friendly.
The simplicity is a feature, not a bug. There are so many books that add alternative magic systems, PC motivations with mechanics that support them, additional races and classes, domain management, expanded exploration, and so much more.
Rarely do these additional systems conflict with eachother. Some are dense, some are light. This means that you can tailor your game to the style that suits your table, and not be bogged down by things you don't care about
@@climbingthatmountain6968 Agreed. It's like they want the omnipotent designer to create their immersion, rather than creating their own immersion with their own imaginations. You "built" the world as you played it.
Love your reviews but I'm a bit lost on this one. Old School Essentials essentially is Moldvay Basic, i.e., not so much a clone as a reprinting/reorganization of that ruleset. If someone finds issue with the contents they would be carryovers from the original books. Basically, I don't believe the intention of the creator was to amend anything but rather create a beautiful, well-made, and better organized version of the original that people don't have to source on eBay for $250.00
One other variant I've seen is localizations. People publish translated versions of Moldvay.
That's what the early D&D games were about. Not character class abilities so much but the magic items the party finds along the way, and how their notable capabilities largely stem from those. Not necessarily about defeating big bad monsters to get their XP, but encouraging inventive ways to get around them and take their loot, which was worth much more XP at less risk of becoming fertilizer. Less focus on character story, and more on situational problem solving. Those facets are all universally present in all TRPGs, but the differences within that range, as a whole, are notable.
Xp for monsters is almost an at-least-you-survived pity reward.
Even if you give xp for defeating traps or Sleeping monsters or exploring a hex, those shouldn't be the main rewards.
Ya, but as kids, we killed most everything for both their treasure and their XP!!!!
From what Iâve seen the intent behind XP for treasure is that you solve problems creatively and not through combat. There are also things other than gold that could represent that treasure. If you save the heir to a kingdom and get paid and level up due to that is it really about looting? I think the intent is rather that you sneak in and save that person being just as valid as the knight that slays everything on their way.
Also, monster encounter doesnât mean that you fight said monster. You would never survive playing like that. It rather means sneak by, bribe, trick, solve riddles for, run from and as last resort fight.
Pretty much. Old school games tended to be a bit more dangerous, with monsters that might not always be considered "fair" and challenges that could result in parties being wiped out. It wasn't about getting a 100% kill count as you sweep the dungeon; there were plenty of times when running away was the right choice. Having XP largely based on treasure and problem solving was a way of accounting for that.
Not a player from that era but from what I hear constantly was âLife was cheap, combat was very dangerousâ and having more players (with hirelings) meant splitting up gold (exp) punished you for trying to bring a whole army to take out a small cave of goblins.
The argument gold=exp stops murder hobos is a bad argument since players end up looting and searching everything on everyone they kill anyways. It just makes them more cut throat mercenaries/criminals vs heroic.
@@hawkthetraveler6344 couldn't disagree more. Played for 30 some years at this point and gygax and the rules absolutely don't vibe with this. The game ultimately was a story and world generator where memorable moments were usually made outside the dungeons. The village of Homlet for example.
@@hawkthetraveler6344 Your comment is so wrong itâs actually funny.
@Dave Thaumavore RPG Reviews Accending Armor Class (the number in brackets in the monster stat block) is a bit simpler than you think. It is (just like a modern d20 game) the number you are trying to equal or exceed on a d20 roll plus modifiers. So if the Cyclops' AAC is 14, and your fighter rolls a 12 +3 modifier =15, you have hit. You don't need to worry about THAC0 if you use AAC.
Started with 5e, discovered TSR era D&D, and never looked back at 5e. Everything you can do in modern D&D you can already do in old-school D&D. From bastions to leading armies in mass warfare, with simpler rules.
I think Gygax would roll his eyes at what his game has become. A player's "backstory" should be whatever took place during the last adventure.
Sure.
Hm. I disagree with this. OSE provides the basic rule set for our game, but we're not straight up dungeoncrawlers and we enjoy the roleplaying side of things as much as anything else. So yeah, we do backstory. The difference between us and the 5e-ers I guess is that our backstories are brief and often worked out during play, also that we're 100% open to our characters dying - which they have, and brutally.
@@dingdongdangah TBH, Gary expected everyone to play it their own way, and then he got rigid about it during his AD&D days, then he reverted back to enlightened hands-off. So maybe Gary would have given a damn how you played D&D for a little while in the 80s, but otherwise not.
@@dingdongdangah yeah, the brief backstory part seems fine. It just makes me wonder if players today see their characters as disposable. Rush the wizard/paladin/ranger to level 18 and retire them just to cook up the next conversation piece character. Video game builds probably have some blame for this. It's just when I look at 5e adventurers with all the skills,flaws,bonds etc I just don't get it.
@@h2eh1s- Disposable? I think it's anything but. That's one of the issues I, personally, have with 5e gaming culture. The lack of peril because GMs don't dare kill players.
After the fair-minded review of the OSE players' book, I was a bit put off by your comment at the beginning of this video, but then you gave a good, and fair review of the DMs book. So good on you. I've been playing old school D&D for decades (off and on, more on than off lately), so none of those weird little rules seem odd to me. I've played enough, and been part of the OSR scene long enough, to understand how and why they work. Granted, there are things in the original rules that probably should be modified or dropped. The emphasis on the megadungeon (all those dungeon encounter charts don't really make sense if you're not exploring a vast underground labyrinth) is one example. Also, the OSR has a strong fascination with BX over the BECMI rules, which actually did provide game systems for developing strongholds and dominions, commanding armies, and so on. Back in the day, my friends and I made really good use of those rules in our games, and it was a lot of fun having characters "graduate" from dungeon delving to become minor lords of the land, struggling to become the major lords of the land. It's part of the old school experience that too many of the retro-clones ignore.
I should ask Gavin if heâs ever going to clone the strongholds stuff from BECMI.
Great points.
Dark Dungeons is a wonderful BECMI Retroclone.đ
Also, for the random encounters, I believe itâs a 1 on a 1d6, every 10 minutes of âin gameâ or round time. You also should tack for torches, and every hour in game, they should test for 1 round.
This makes dungeons FEEL so much more dangerous than later editions.
Yes, gold is xp. But it gives incentive for the players to explore. Also, you âdefeatIâ monsters even if you avoid them.
That shows a totally different mindset. Dungeons need to be survived, not cleared.
And at lower levels, they will 100% die if they are dumb about dungeoneering. When you hit 0 hp⊠youâre dead. No saving throws.
Itâs a really different and great way to play. Feels more of an adventure you survive, instead of a plot hook you just participate in.
I don't have a horse in this race, but isn't it unreasonable to complain about them lumping humans, demihumans, animals under monsters? So has every monster manual for D&D. You can criticise this game for that, but not in a vacuum.
If you fight a mounted knight, I need to look up the stats for the horse she sits on as well. Or you have a horse yourselves, and want to trample a gnoll with it. If a goblin shoots your pack mule with a crossbow, I need to know if it succeeds and kills it so you can't escape with the stuff on it.
Encountering pissed-off hobbits with javelins who think they were here first is a reasonable encounter. You can try to ally with them or chase them off. Very few encounters are automatically hostile.
It may be something that is not clearly explained well, but random encounters are really just a tool to provide a timer in the dungeon. They are encounters that will attrit resources and offer little reward (XP is so much based on treasure and random encounters don't usually have any). Referee's should probably customize their encounter tables to their own dungeons. The tables in the book are kind of a super set of potential random encounters by level.
The monster reaction rules are considered optional but I disagree with that and I consider those rules required. If you use the monster reaction rules, then only on a 2 on a 2d6 roll does a random encounter become an automatic fight. Every other result allows some chance for players to interact with monsters without combat. The combination of random encounter rolls plus monster reactions is what creates variety and interest in encounters. You might get a Friendly result from a monster encounter --- which may lead the referee to figure out why these monsters are friendly. The results of that interpretation of reaction can create unexpected outcomes that surprise the referee and players.
Absolutely.
Monster encounters aren't just a static slugfest. The monsters themselves are just one element of the encounter
I use this formula to visualize the encounter: (Monster + Morale) x (Setting+Action)
It's not just "orcs attack". It's "you see orcs in the fungal cavern ahead. They appear to be harvesting from a glowing patch of fungus, and upon noticing you they take a defensive stance. The largest of them raises their hand, open palm toward you, and shouts something in the Orcish tongue that sounds like a warning"
In terms of tables this is just rolling an orc band and their morale indicating wariness. You know the upcoming environment (fungal cavern) and know the monsters. You just ask yourself "why would orcs be here?"
To harvest mushrooms of course. Perhaps for food, perhaps for medicine. It's possible the party could avoid, parlay with, or even help the orcs
This is a very different default style of encounter building from 5e. In 5e most encounters are fights by default. The location is designed to be a cool battle arena. Fighting is the focus of the game and provides the ability to demonstrate the characteristics of your build.
Fighting happens in B/X, but the FOCUS is on exploration and environmental and social interaction
@@donniehoffman4738 well said
Thanks for this. Wish more designers, even for other games, would learn from some of the lessons here (especially around layout and toolboxes).
Yes black puddings are a type of British food. A well cooked black pudding should have a CR of at least 5
There is little challenge rating in these older games. The closest is to see how many HD a monster has and then promptly roll it anyways.
One of the players in my 3.5 D&D game has decided to run a one-shot of OSE and invited me to play. Now, my players are all kids in their early 20s, while I'm in my late 40s. Most of them got their start with D&D 5E, while my first game was the Moldvay B/X (in 1987!). So for me it's been an absolute nostalgia trip combined with marveling at how OSE expands the game. The character I rolled up is a Drow. That's her class! 13 year old me is doing backflips at how awesome it is that Drow is a playable class! Meanwhile, the other players are completely baffled by the game. They were shocked that I rolled up two back-up characters with the expectation that my Drow will probably die. I can't wait til we actually play. They're all expecting me, the old grognard who has actually played B/X, to take the lead and show them how it's done, but I'm planning on sitting back and letting them work it out themselves.
I found your review interesting. OSE makes perfect sense to me, since I got my start with B/X. I mostly found it odd that you were so concerned with the game being "boring," as I find the constant challenge and strong emphasis on playing smart in order to survive absolutely riveting...meanwhile, I find Powered by the Apocalypse style games utterly wretched and unplayable (the mechanization of so many social interactions completely destroys any potential for role-playing, and the "success with failure" mechanics drive me up a wall) and games like 5E so soft and coddling of the players that they are deathly dull.
I'm not sure I agree with that statement.
While the rules of 5e suggest coddling, early levels are still pretty deadly. Your 10hp wizard can still get rocked pretty easy.
Furthermore, the DM is partially responsible for deadlines. That being said, the rules of 5e put a lot of onus on the DM. After a certain level, one has to get creative and really grind out some mathematics and rules changes for 5e to still be threatening.
@@dwi2921 A 10 hp wizard gets rocked a lot less easily than a 2 hp Magic-User who dies at 0 hp, gets no "Death Saves," and has to deal with a plethora of Save or Die effects.
I'm currently playing an Illusionist in an OSE game. After 9 sessions, I'm at 1986 XP, just about 4/5ths of the way to 2nd level. All the other players are on their 2nd, 3rd or 4th character -- I'm the only one to survive all 9 sessions. If I manage to get to 2nd level, that is a hell of a lot more of an accomplishment in BX than it is in 5E, where surviving to 2nd really only requires not being a complete idiot.
@@wolfofthewest8019
Again, I don't know about that. Ultimately, a system is as deadly as a DM wants it to be. You don't have to allow death saves nor milestone leveling. This stuff isn't as big a deal as people make it out to be.
Granted, when I DM/GM I put an almost unacceptable amount of reality in my fantasy. For example, in my games a red dragon's fire breath is instant death, no saves. Why? Because that's the way it would be in real life. Same rules apply to weapons, I'll give disadvantage to short characters (such as halflings, or dwarves or shorter human female characters) if they are wielding short weapons. Why? Because these characters don't have the reach taller characters would. In melee combat reach matters. I allow only one death save, and I take in to consideration crippling injury, mental trauma and general illness.
Characters don't have to die, being to messed up to continue works just as well.
To many DMs rely just on rules as written. Forever caught in the letter of the rules, not in spirt of them. Never thinking outside the box.
Granted this is just my opinion.
â@@dwi2921 Well, that's essentially a nonsensical argument. If the question is whether or not 5E coddles players, then implicit in the question is two things: That we are comparing it to earlier editions of the game and that we are removing the peculiarities of individual DMs from the equation. Obviously a DM running 5E can *change the rules* and make the game much deadlier, but the whole point is that the *rules as written* coddle players compared to earlier editions.
@@wolfofthewest8019
Yes, 1 to 1? Yes absolutely 5E coddles as written. But in the end it's ultimately irrelevant in grand scheme of things, at least if you have a reasonable/logical DM. But that is the kicker thought isn't it? Not all DMs are super creative.
So yes I'll concede that on paper it's different.
Personally I love how 'basic' OSE is. I am probably in the minority when it comes to this but I personally like systems that are generic enough that I can infuse any kind of setting or theme that I want but also not too generic that any flavor you add isn't felt in the gameplay. OSE hits that sweet spot right on the bullseye for me. I think you touched on that sentiment when you were talking about the magic items. At the end of the day, the beauty of OSE is that it accomplishes something that very few RPGs have in my opinion - It gives you a solid ruleset AND toolkit for running your own world. There are some OSR games that feel more like a toolkit than a game and most RPGs in general infuse too much of their own world into the mechanics for my tastes. OSE is the perfect option for someone who wants a solid baseline of rules and tools for making their campaign without having to cut away extraneous rules. That is why there are so many great things coming out that are OSE compatible. Some out there argue that everything I just said is covered by standard B/X but I think the reorganization and the optional rules given by the Advanced Fantasy expansion make it superior to the older books. If you want to look at another game that takes the things I've said and turns them up to 11, check out Worlds Without Number. It takes B/X and adds a lot of modernized mechanics as well as an enormous amount of toolkits all at the amazing price of FREE.
FYI, your explanation of monster's movement values is off. The larger, first number is how far the character can move in one exploration turn (10 minutes). The second, smaller number is how far the character can move in one combat round (10 seconds). So, monsters and characters move much faster in encounters than in exploration. I think you got this backwards.
Cool. I added that to an errata in the pinned comment. Thanks.
Yes, magic users have 1 spell at lv1, but if they take charm person they can make a new "friend" to fight for them, and it lasts up to a WEEK.
They also have a dagger, a staff, maybe a sling, maybe a crossbow. Though I'm not sure I can say if the crossbow was original or when it was added. Pretty sure they can wield a net or a trident too, originally
@@climbingthatmountain6968 Originally (white box D&D), magic users could ONLY use a dagger. This was also true for the D&D Basic/Expert/etc.. series up until the Masters set where DM's had the option to allow magic users to also use a blowgun, net, whip ,or staff. AD&D 1st edition allowed magic users to use a dagger, dart, or staff, but you could only be proficient in 1 of them at 1st level... so chose wisely.
Having only 1 spell is part of the challenge and needs to be part of any strategy and tactics the PC's come up with. If your spell isn't a combat spell for example, then you want to TRY to get into situations where you can use it - not just jumping into combat without thinking. Players need to have plans in place that when the PC magic user and/or other casters have used their 1 spell that pushing ahead any further is _accepting_ dangerous consequences that come from reduced options. So, even if they think they're close to good treasure the WISER course is as likely to be to fall back, rest and recover spells (and hit points) and then make a second push, or make altogether new plans that won't require ANY spells.
This kind of thing is really the difference between "old school" and "new school". Newer games expect the solutions to virtually always be something written on your character sheet, and at any given level your PC doesn't _start_ _out_ behind the 8-ball. Older style gameplay leans more to players coming up with their own strategies and tactics because they DON'T have all the answers just handed to them on a character sheet. Simply BECAUSE theirs are the _player_ characters doesn't mean they're _owed_ ready-made approaches and answers. It's up to _players_ to make the most of what they have, ESPECIALLY when they don't have clear dominance over challenges and opposition. Simply choosing to play a magic-user means understanding that the characters ability to contribute at lower levels IS limited, and only as they gain levels do they become stronger and more versatile contributors to overall party success.
@@JMcMillen A few OSR games did away with class limitations on weapons. Some even let wizards wear armour, like Lamentations of the Flame Princess where wizards only need to be not over-encumbered. Which sort of disqualifies the heaviest armour anyways.
Instead, only fighters are good at weapons and get better. A wizard fights like a level 0 man-at-arms which is not incompetently but also not heroically good. They still have wizard HD to back them up in a fight, which is not ideal.
@@duanevp Even a level 1 spell is truly powerful. There is often no roll for effect or to cast, you just force an effect on reality.
Sleep can let you deal with an entire encounter instantly. Charm as you mention makes an instant, magically charmed ally out of a humanoid monster. Clever use of Knock can let you waltz into a place.
There's some spells with so much specialization and situational use that players avoid them. I have seen players refuse to use Familiar because they think it's just a risk for little reward. But the vast majority are useful. Dancing Lights can do things a torch can't, you can't shove a torch underwater or levitate it ahead of you.
OSE is probably the best organized RPG book I own. As for the B/X system itself, there are a lot of strange rules that feel unintuitive and sloggish today, but I think it's a very clean and accessible system of you flat out ignore all the "weird" stuff and just play it like a simpler and grittier 5e. Of course, this brings about balance issues, but the game isn't balanced to begin with. Modern RPG balance is largely based on what video games have taught people a fair challenge is. When video games weren't much of a thing, encounters in TTRPGs were about how strong these creatures would be and how they would presumably behave were they actually in that situation.
The original formula Gary articulated was that a character should have a 30% chance of dying in an encounter, and should feel as if they have a 70% chance of dying. People raised playing video games would never stand for a 30% chance of dying per encounter. Which is what was so disingenuous about his critique of layering monsters in dungeons based on their HD. Every encounter in 5e is designed to be less challenging than dungeons where the weakest monsters live near the surface. As far as Dungeon ecology is concerned the layering effect of matching HD of monsters to Dungeon levels is Dungeon ecology. Creatures lair in safe places just like animals and humans. The lower the level in the Dungeon the safer it is and thus more desirable
Lost World is referencing a book by I believe Arthur Conan Doyle. It's about a plateau in South America that due to its steep cliffs still has an isolated community of dinosaurs. Read that book and you now have your setting reference.
A lot of OSR "settings" work that way. The writers of OD&D just assume you have read Barsoom or Elric or Conan and know these references.
I have had a lot of new players join my games only to realize that Iâm doing it Old school. At first there is a lot of reluctance. By the time Iâm done with the first day of gaming they realize what theyâve been missing with the new way the game has been played. And almost addictively ask to be in the next game. Boring? I have never seen anyone say that. But after playing my game I have seen them say that the new edition is very boring
I like that your review actually included some criticism. Most OSR reviewers just go on and on about how much better everything OSR is around the board.
Hehe I really felt the same way when I look upon this book without prior expereince, thankfully there are the adventure design videos by Bandits keep that really puts into practice how to use this book and procedures, (technically he uses Moldvay basic, but it is esentially the same), really recomend his videos to make more sense of this book :).
From when I played 1e AD&D back in the 90âs everything that was not a member of the party was defined as a monster, whether it was a hostile monster, non hostile monster or friendly monster was determined by its starting opinion of the player characters and their actions.
Monsters. Everywhere.
@@DaveThaumavore In a points of light setting, the world is wilderness or at least the region the PCs explore. Civilization is either distant with a single border keep or port town representing the frontier, it never took off and the closest is petty kingdoms, or you walk over the ruins of the last great civilization (which is why you find so many ruins to explore in the first place).
Either way, a few hexes on the map are going to be civilization, defined as the presence of security, law and authority. One stronghold maintaining control of one hex, with weak influence stretching into the neighbouring hexes. Pretty much exactly like the stronghold the PCs themselves can build later on. The hex with the stronghold has one city around the stronghold itself, a few towns and several villages with tracts of farmland.
Everything outside these points of light is wilderness. There can be small villages surviving here and there but a lot is going to be bugbears, dragons, orcs and other buggery. This where random wilderness encounters make sure that only stealthy bands or paramilitary caravans can travel relatively safe.
Black Pudding (the food) is a type of blood sausage. The main difference between Black Pudding and continental European blood sausages is the use of oats and barley in the recipe.
It's not 100% British though. There is a proud history of Black Pudding in Ireland too.
An observation about "GM as adversary". The GM is setting up a challenging (but fair) scenario for the players to play through, and essentially beat, which is how they "win" D&D. Then the GM, who is ultimately rooting for the players to win, runs the scenario as impartially (and fairly) as possible, adjudicating rules like an umpire at a ball game. The players are trying to beat the GM's scenario.
The GM plays both the scenario's adversaries, but also neutral characters and allies. The GM does not actively try to kill the PCs, because he's not trying to win. A GM who behaves adversarially using unfair knowledge of the players' plans to help the monsters, or makes blanket rulings that arbitrarily cancel out player actions is cheating.
The GM designs the scenario by thinking of ways the monsters would try to win based on their description in the bestiary (goblins are cunning, ochre jellies mindlessly try to engulf PCs, Ogres are tough but stupid and hungry, etc). He runs the monsters as adversaries, challenging the PCs based on the way he designed the scenario. All the while he's rooting for the players to beat the scenario. Observant players can see how the monsters are acting in the environment, and come up with plans to defeat them, usually minimizing the odds for random die rolling, because that is hazardous to the PCs health in the long run. For example, they lure the ochre jelly into a pit and light it on fire, bribe the ogre with food doused with knockout poison, or dazzle the nocturnal goblins with light.
Sure, but that is how a DM is supposed to be.
Plenty of horror stories out there that proove the warning about "adversarial" is necessary.
Modern gaming never hooked me like old school gaming because its more fun putting yourself up against the plausible risk of dying and living by your wits. Nothing on your character sheet will save you from death-by-stupid, so it gives every session gravity knowing that you're only ever one or two bad decisions from death. That framework makes survival the accomplishment, not advancing to the next level or building a keep. Those are the icing on the cake, but the cake itself is surviving. In OSR, its "get in, get rich, but get out before you get dead."
I prefer gold as EXP because it's a hard and specific metric, but it also allows circumventing enemies or or even negotiating with them if you it let's you get what you're after. One of my least favorite gaming memories is if from a 5E campaign. Through a very clever combination of magic items, character abilities, and risky dice rolls, we infiltrated a stockade fortress and turned an undead beholder loose on its allies by assassinating the necromancer who was controlling it. You could say this is a DM issue, but the effect was a big reset. The feeling was we got nothing for being clever because didn't get the EXP from the fight. After that changed how I was playing and influencing the game because I gave up trying to play like OSR game and restricted myself to being clever in terms of fight mechanics and tricking enemies into bad positions inside fights. I think a compounding issue was how much time and energy our DM has to put into making the big set piece fights. It turns into a big waste for him if we detour a big fight. I don't think that's an issue with him. I think that's an issue with modern systems and balanced fight expectations in a system that hands out wildly different power levels to players very early.
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Errata: Regarding monster movement, the first number is how far it can move in one exploration turn (10 minutes), and the second smaller number is how far it can move in one combat round (10 seconds).
The early character levels are so dangerous that you simply wonât have murder hobos. Theyâll die.
I've found that proper murderhobos adapt an opportunistic professionalism. They know they are adventuring bums the universe will not miss. They will happily kill and rob some monster, but only when they think they'd have the upper hand. They will use any means they can think of to gain that upper hand.
In these rules, it is dumb to attack an orphanage and burn it down. Players just feel awkward afterwards, was this really worth two PCs? You can sit and rethink your actions as you roll two replacement bums.
Man, Iâd love to see you do a history of war games/dnd/pbm, ect. Itâs so wild to me how dudes in Prussia in the 19th century coalesce into what we have now. Maybe thatâs a bit myopic, but Iâm not super well versed in the history. This review just evoked that thought, hope itâs not too tangential or whatever.
On a side not, the cover art is absolutely gorgeous.
A video wouldn't do it justice. If you're interested in that topic, read Playing at the World by Jon Peterson.
Saving throw types are a bit more rough generic types than you might realize. Treat the listing in order of priority. If something applies to death and spell, use the death save.
Death/Poison = This any effect that would instantly kill a player. After save you are dead.
Petri/Polymorph = This is any effect that would take the person out of the game after the save. They are effectively imprisoned or put into such a bad situation they need outside help. In some cases this is worse than death. This should take preference over the others below.
Wand = This is ANY magic item really. Any power from a magical item should use this.
Breath Weapon = This is any natural attack from a creature. Dragon's breath weapon is used because it's otherwise overridden by the others for most effect (like turning to stone or die on sight.) Note I apply this for any creature effect like a pixie's curse and what not as well. "Breath Weapon" isn't the best name for this. It's more like "Magical Creature's Signature Magical Attack" that's a little too long though. đ
Spell = If it's a spell and doesn't fit in any other category it goes here.
Interesting. I like this interpretation.
@@DaveThaumavore
To add to Prax's point I've seen some old Adventures use the saves even more creatively.
A save against Breath to avoid a cave in that would damage the adventurers.
A save against death for jumping across a large Ravine (interestingly you didn't die if failed, but where injured and delayed for 3 days)
A save against Paralysis for a trap that caught you in a net.
The save system can be used really well if given a chance.
Breath weapon is sometimes used against area attacks or area dangers. A goblin hitting you with a flamethrower or a pineapple hand grenade. Same with a gust of weird acid mist.
Poison is used against all drugs and poison effects, sometimes against disease as well. If you rummage around a plague-corpse you roll something to see if you contract the plague. I'm personally not fond of nerve toxin poisons everywhere but I use a lot of other effects. Five cops storming a dungeon and tossing tear gas would be a save vs poison to avoid the worst effects.
Good stuff, Dave. Thanks for all the work you do.
I'll be honest I never liked DND mostly for how video gamey and limiting it felt to me for a Table Top Game... But the more I look into OS DND the more I start to like it... As I am making a Universal TT wargame/RPG and I indepently came to the same game design decisions as the OS DND did... Like having Playable characters and NPC have seperate stat blocks, or having currency be also EXP, Or how to run games, or how the game progresses from just adventures to managing a noble house. Overall I actually like DND now thanks to this 2 parter you did!
I think I'll keep my BECMI books in the best state possible. And by the way in the basic books of BECMI they left clear that our characters would do some looting in dungeons, and that was what the game, at least in the beginning, was all about.
Oh and they have generators on the Necrotic Gnome site. Like treasure.
things you have to keep in mind about OSR content too, is that things were balanced as assuming you had a "party" or small group of co-opertive players , that 'adventured" together. The lack of multi-class , lack of feat stacking, lack of thousands of skills, special abilities, and powers meant your "group" usually had too cooperate to advance and survive.
In modern ttrpgs, say like 5E , its just a lot of braindead, fast pace " i can't lose" mechanics, and there's nothing really preventing, everyone playing having this larger than life character , that could stand on their own , without others playing too.
A lot of the old DnD from "basic" to 2nd ADnD , was more about theater of the mind, and story telling. All the "combat" rules, items, mechanics were there, when it was applicable. Yes there a lot of dungeon delving , and a fair amount of looting done. That is simply "classic" rpg style.
But, you could spend a week in a small town, at local tavern, chatting with NPCs, and trying to find clues about murders in the area, or missing people. Combat, and looting wasn't always prevalent. Its just the "rules" had heavy focus on those things, because you needed them to resolve advancement, success, and failures in those kinds of situations.
Now random encounters, as versions progressed, this became more defined over time, but you were mistaken a bit on random encounters being a "must". Like everything , those things were there if they applied, when the DM thought they should be applied. Ok so it takes a week on foot to travel from one town to the next, would characters have a relatively un-eventful trip, or would they run into something out there that might offer a challenge, or danger.
It was a tool for DMs to use, to break up monotany ... and a widely overlooked aspect: The golden rule, "expect the unexpected, or else."
Players had to come up with strategies on the fly, could not really "plan" on things ahead of time.
Not all combat, was presented , so the characters won, or murdered/defeated ... say a party ran into random nasties, after a huge battle that had em very wounded, low on resources... the players had to decide, do we fight, flee, negotiate, or what. Do we risk, losing out lives and treasures, stepping into this un-known, and unplanned fight?
Thats where Old school, ran superior to modern day derivatives. Players had to think.
As it stand, the counter parts of today, isn't tactical or strategy , beyond looking up special abilities and powers, and magic, to overcome everything tossed at them. They don't think , beyond the skill rolls, or manipulating immediate situations they can snatch a rule or roll out of the book to do.
( However, supplements and 3rd party related articles did address the "ecology" disruptions, this kind of super-random creature rolling caused. Gygax and his crew, loved the weird random , monsters are everywhere, aspects. That's why its that way in the older versions. Any DM worth his weight in salt though, knew if it didn't fit , it didn't fit and tossed the idea or concept, when it didn't make sense. )
To sum up a way to fully describe OSR verses modern DnD -
Old school, was a game of co-operation , with imagination, and strategy ... victories won, were earned.
Modern 5E , is a MMO videogame on paper.
And something, 5e players would find mundane and boring is say defeating a Dragon in combat.
I mean, lets face it , how awe inspiring is a dragon, that breathes fire , when your character is a half-oger/half-vampire/half-fiend/half-unicorn raised by celestials, and in combat, can walk on air, flip out a wall of blades in all directions, disintegrate peon enemies with a fart, is immune to every fundamental element they could stack , with eighty nine special combat options and maneuvers, and ... might fall in battle, but only a .01% chance death actually occurs?
In old school... there were no guarantees, and it was hard core. You could lose the character, and all it possesses. Not just items, but fame, wealth, holdings, lands/estates.
The dragon was majestic, powerful, intelligent, crafty, cunning, and had abilities that could end you... or at least certainly make you wish it had ended you.
In DnD5e , you simply face equally ridiculously stacked creatures, or wade through lots of fodder on a map board until the DM just gets exhausted trying to stretch out the inevitable "win".
5e is the "everyone gets the participation trophy" game.
Old schools is, you only get the winners trophy , if you succeed and survive game.
To compare OSR as "boring" to modern day ttrpgs , is a vastly biased statement.
Yes the rules were "dry" , restrictive, and limited. But it wasn't All about rules.
Maybe it lacks the flash and fluff of what is considered more modern rpg versions.
But to say they were any less fun? Not hardly ... because had it not been mega fun, you wouldn't have the slew of modern day RPGs you have now.
This pair of videos is just great man. Thorough, engaging, totally fair.
I appreciate and thank you for what you are doing here (and in the other vid)! It's a great way to quickly get a sense of what this game is and understand how it works. That said, having played D&D in the early 1980s when I was a teenager, I think some of your critiques could be critiqued, not to make you look dumb or try to discredit you, because what you are doing is awesome, and critiques like yours force us to think of better ways to design games. But to do just that -- interpret the rules in a way that allows the DM to make the game better, more fun for everyone at the table. I am only going to go through the first few things so you get the idea.
2:25 Randomness...It actually does give a way to tamp it down. That is, use it "judiciously" which means make a judgment. The judgment would be done by understanding when to apply any rules regarding randomness (what would trigger a role), and then look at the situation at your table, taking into account what the players would likely think is fun or not fun. If, in the judgment of the DM, the result of the random roll could run too much rick of being "not fun" for the players, then either don't make the roll or change its result ("fudge" in colloquial D&D lingo).
3:39 Character Leveling and Treasure (is a DM depriving treasure adversarial?)... I don't think it has to be adversarial. You just pointed out the slow leveling, and leveling is related to how much treasure you can bring out of a dungeon, which is then related to amount of treasure PCs might find (i.e., treasure type rules) and carry (i.e., encumbrance rules). One of the DM's main jobs is to facilitate fun, and most people find that the game actually becomes less fun as PCs get to high levels. The fun is the problem solving, and you have more problems to solve at lower levels. If lack of spells is the problem, then the DM can find ways to get them scrolls that can be cast one-time only.
3:43 Not naming Monsters and Magic Items...Yes you are spot on! This not knowing what it is creates a sense of wonder, awe, fear. (Remember that Lovecraft said that "the greatest fear is fear of the unknown.") Along these lines, I think the players should not even know what spells exist in the world. Spells should not be in the Players' Handbook and should not be choosable by the players, but rather discovered by the PCs as they explore the world. They shouldn't even be standardized i my opinion. Imagine if there was no such thing as "Lightning Bolt" or "Fireball" that everyone tried to get; how different would that game be? It would be a lot less rules lawyer-y and power monger-y, and a lot more mystical and mysterious, maybe even scarier. Magic wouldn't be just a tool; it would be something to explore. And magic is perhaps the basis of the fantasy genre...
4:00 Intelligent monsters acting intelligently is adversarial?... No it is not. In old school games the encounters are unbalanced. The PCs are puny and trying to survive by solving problems and not being stupid. 5e players might find it shocking that they can't just rush in and get surrounded by monsters with no escape route and somehow survive. Unlike 5e PCs, BX and AD&D PCs are not superheroes and the old death rules do not afford them nine lives. If there is a a goal to the game (other than have fun), perhaps it is to solve problems with the resources you have in ways that leads to survival. So in other words, sometimes you have to avoid fights by sneaking around, bribing monsters, or simply just not taking on things that don't seem worthwhile because they are too dangerous. Above all, old school requires players who are not playing in a dumb, reckless or careless way. It is not adversarial for the DM to set up an encounter that is impossible to win through combat in the hopes of seeing the players come up with an ingenious solution. I loved to be outsmarted by the players! It makes me a better player and its fun to see them go through the process of making a good decision.
And so on...I think that what you've done is great, but I think it scratches the surface and now people watching have to look at it more carefully. I have attempted to do that for the first few things your bring up. Thank you and have a good day! :D
Play the game. The drama happens. Quick example - Tamblor bedded the hired hand he met in a tavern while the group was investigating rumors. The next day, I gave him a bonus to the roll to hire her to the party, and he made it. So off the party goes to investigate a troll with the new paramour/hired hand, Plax. They lay a trap for the troll, and despite doing everything right, the troll just barely makes it's morale check. Tamblor stands his ground, hoping the group will win initiative the next round. They don't. The troll swings at Tamblor with his claws and misses both times! One more attack with it's bite. A hit. Full D10 damage. Plax, the new hired hand looks on in terror as her lover has his head bitten off. She fails morale, and runs. The group manages to slay the troll. Ashamed of her actions, she returns, and takes up her former lover's sword. She is now the PC, and a cave full of treasure awaits.
Yeah, I"m not a fan of this (relatively) new opinion that RPGs need to have explicit rules for how to roleplay. The rules are there for the stuff that is needed to SUPPORT the roleplaying. The roleplaying itself is (and always has been) not something that needs rules to govern it, IMO.
XP per GP was how XP worked in B/X, so you have to include that. All that character background, motivations etc wasn't there in B/X, but then because of the high lethality, it was relatively pointless. You couldn't ever guarantee that your character would live through the next encounter. That lethality was part of the fun, as with much more stripped down and fast laying combat rtules. If you want to get into motivations, long-term goals and character psychology, you pretty much have to retire your character at some point when they are powerful enough to become a baron or otherwise powerful local npc.
In terms of implied world, that will always be the D&D Known World, later expanded into Mystara with the Red Steel and Savage Coast expansions, the Hollow World, and the Alphatian Empire half of Dawn of the Emperors boxed Gazeteer, which all added geography and setting information for huge areas outside the Known World proper, and the X series of modules which were all specific to Known World locations, unlike the B series modules, half of which were entirely generic and didn't really fit into the Known World's geographies.
Good info. Thanks!
This idea of characters personal stuff being less relevant because they are expected to die and be replaced reminds me of CoC, is it something games at that time just liked to do?
@@anyoneatall3488 I think it just reflected the gaming public at the time, and the kind of fantasy fiction we grew up reading. There was a much higher emphasis on action and adventure than on psychology and relationships. The soap-operafication of roleplaying in recent years reflects a completely different public raised post Gen-X to put inordinate emphasis on psychology and relationships, and wanting to play out their own psychodramas and power fantasies rather than act like the heroes in epic and fantasy fiction which incidentally had high lethality, especially Lovecraft and the rest of the Cthulhu Mythos writers. It's a genre clash, ultimately, the revenge of the proper modern (19th and 20th century) literature snobs against Tolkien and genre fiction in the form of importing the values of the approved canon of modern novels into D&D and other RPG systems. In my opinion.
Preview
Feats of Exploration - - is a really good book for giving different ways to award XP for more than loot and Money.
The best way to address the product line issues is to ask two questions. First question: do you want the basic rules or do you want all of the options? Second question: do you want the rules broken into small booklets or do you want combined tomes?
I personally find the booklets easier to use at the table
When I ran 5e I dreaded referencing the book during the session if it wasn't something I already had bookmarked. When I started running OSR games and was able to just snag a little pamphlet, easily find what I need, and get back to the game in under 2 minutes I was blown away.
GM books don't have to just be for prep, spells don't have to be hard to find, tables don't have to be difficult to utilize
Finally got around to your video and between this, Ben (Questing Beast) and others have been very insightful. I started with B/X in 1980 and have loved gaming since, this is my jam. You get a subscriber and I will get the books.
Great break down of these books, Dave. These books are a marvel for sure. My rpg prime was spent playing 3.0 D&D so Iâm much more drawn to Dungeon Crawl Classics which is based on the D20 system.
I've noticed that the OSE books are a great toolkit, but don't have a lot of instructions on how to use that tool kit. I would highly recommend getting an adventure written for OSE to see how to put these tools together as well as checking a live play like 3d6 down the line.
I agree with much of what you have said. OSE is weird. What I like about it the rules is they are so basic and easily hacked. I have found they form a great skeleton for me to add ICRPG and some 4e/5e ideas onto as the flesh. In the end I have the low power creep, fast playing system I wanted.
Many of the Old School monsters (black pudding, beholder, bullette etc.) Come from a bag of cheap Japanese plastic figures Arneson, or one of that crowd, found in a toy shop.
Thatâs an amazing detail.
@@DaveThaumavore thanks. I think I gleaned it from Plot Points podcast. The host was writing a book about TSR, leading up to the sale to WotC, and a lot of his research was interviews, which became podcast episodes
I actually had a bag of those cheap plastic figures and for years I thought it was so strange that I had this toy that looked just like a rust monster. Then I learned the origin of the rust monster and was blown away.
I am confused, why would you want a D&D game to grant more than 3 levels after just 3 sessions? "Glacial" seems like a harsh comment. Gaining a level per sessions seems like it would derail most campaigns. Especially if a single adventure takes 3 sessions to complete.
The basic principle of 5E was articulated by one thier executives that a character should level up every session ideally, but depending on the pace of the campaign DM's use 1-3 sessions ideally, 3-5 if they want to emphasize role play. It seems too quick, but is based on how often thier players actually play and how long they keep a character
@@climbingthatmountain6968 We've used location as reference instead of time. A group of PCs should reach level 2 if they clean out almost all of a reasonably large dungeon. It is up to them which pace of progress they want to make and which risks they take. They can spend a session just exploring and filling the map, and take in a haul the next time.
It's really interesting hearing your thoughts on this game i grew up with (started playing in the late 80's) and one I rediscovered now through the OSR. A great review as always but I would say that one of the main strengths of the game is how easy it is to homebrew. For instance i use my own simplified xp system where I grant xp for discovery and other achievements besides killing monsters and gaining loot.
Random encounters can make the game really exciting and can kick a GM (or DM) from a rut by forcing them to improvise. First of all, create your own encounter tables. The encounter procedure with surprise checks, reaction checks, morale checks and of course a lot of room for letting the narrative logic take is course. This feeds the DM's imagination with ideas about what's going on in the world outside of what they've already decided beforehand. Combat, when it ends up happening is really fast the simplicity allows for imaginative tactics and stunts (you don't need a special ability to pull almost any kind of stunt).
You as a DM work your players can decide what kind of game you wish to play though this system does lend itself mostly to sword and sorcery type exploration and survival games in sandbox environments.
I thoroughly agree with making oneâs own encounter tables. That makes all the difference with thematic and even narrative coherence.
@@DaveThaumavore Absolutely! And you still get the excitement of randomness especially when there's that one monster going around that's above the characters' paygrade.
I'm genuinely interested in that simplified experience system of yours, how does it work? Since I'm preparing a hexcrawl campaign I'd be intrested in rewarding my players not just for killing and looting but exploring the wilderness.
@@sekcer9873 Cool! You need 10 xp to 2nd level, 15 thereafter and i might up it to 20 in higher levels. Whatever works for your game.
You generally get 1-3 xp for different achievements. 1 means regular challenge, 2 is considerable challenge and 3 is epic. 1 xp for participating in a session. 1-3 for the biggest fight in a session (you could give 2 its combat heavy but none of the fights is really deadly or epic). 1-3 for treasure per session.
1-3 for discovering a new location, such as an adventure sight, town or other significant location. Usually only 1 point but more if the journey has been a big project. In a exploration heavy game you might award this multiple times in one session.
Similarly you can reward other cool moments, achievements, clever plans etc. The default reward is 1 and goes up in relation to the challenge for the character level (deadly epic fight at level 1 is 3 xp) though it might be a little bit more common to achieve epic things at higher levels.
I was inspired by prof DM originally but can't recall how his system works. If you find this helpful just make it your own. I like to grant the whole group the same xp and the level threshold is the same regardless of class (BX/OSE elves don't get a caster level at level 2 which balances things enough for me).
@@paavohirn3728 This is nice. It reminds me a lot of Forbbiden Lands and Maze Rats level progression.
I'll search for the Prof DM's video.
Thanks.
it was not so much a competition but making it challenging enough to be dangerous, it was a balancing act for the DM. But there was also the expectation of players realizing when things were out of their league and stay or run away.
Random tables are like in the AD&D DMG, they are tools to help the DM make dungeons faster. More often than not DMs look at the options and pick what fits. Including in the tables for magic items. The tables are useful as they present monsters by level, it's an easy way of finding monsters which might "fit" a level.
These videos make me want to purchase both books. First, to give some 5e players a different experience. Second, to get what you described: well-written editions of the B/X rules, integrated with some of 1e. I am not crazy about spell casting in this original rule set. I was one who appreciated the later changes, and cantrips.
I'm against making a separate "NPC" section of stat blocks vs. Monsters. OSE doesn't say "all Ogres are monsters, and all gnomes are friends." Splitting them into NPCs and monsters would imply one are for killing and the others are NOT to be fought. I love that in OSE an elf might be an unsavory dude that you need to dispatch, but that group of gnolls just wants to be left alone. Who is to say that an elephant or an owlbear or an elf or a manticore is any more a "monster" than anything else? Sure, you could use a different word, but I would not split them up.
You can totally walk up to some ogres and hire them, if you make a great offer. Now you have five ogres on your payroll. Same with anyone else you hire, I need stats for how your allies fight.
Some gnome or human adventurers can get first to a dungeon, and now you need to decide if you strike a deal, chase them off or sneak past them. Old WFRP was full of human enemies.
If you fight a knight on a horse I need to know what that horse does in a fight if you challenge her. Same if you get a pack horse yourself, and a goblin shoots it with a crossbow to force you to leave treasure.
Unless Essentials does something different, THAC0 subtracts the Descending AC, not the Ascending. THAC0 is just the formula version of the attack matrices.
EDIT: Though it looks like Essentials just translates THAC0 into an attack modifier within its own brackets for Ascending AC, no subtracting necessary.
The 1e DM's Guide is one of my favorite works of fantasy. I personally love all the tables and charts, though we never came close to using all of them. I just found it all very absorbing, especially the section on artifacts, with all that juicy lore. Then the appendices even show a way of playing solo and procedurally generating dungeons. I used to love leafing through that book as much as I loved playing the game.
I think the intended lore was "Well, you have read Elric haven't you?" and the other references in appendix N.
I love OSE. We've been playing for about 6 months and it has been very fun and such a breath of fresh air. I've been playing a magic user and yes, it is tough with one spell, but the wizard is more of an "expert" at that level.
Nice! Yeah that makes sense.
We play with beginning number of spells but +Int modifier of spells
Love OSE. I personally found 5e weird with its heal all hit points back after a rest, super powered characters, limited magic items per character, etc.
Eh, Old School D&D used magic items to give players super powers. So they just traded one for the other.
The hit points situation is one where the WoTC game designers reformed D&D to be more reasoned from the perspective of it's original authorship. Video games popularized the health bar. Hit points in D&D did not represent health originally, if ever. They represented fighting ability. So the argument that players are healing during short rests is a non sequitur. What's actually happening during combat is that as hit points are reduced a characters ability to fight is being exhausted until finally in the end they get physically hurt. It was a misunderstanding that led players to believe that the higher thier characters level the more times they can get stabbed, etc.
It certainly is written into the early books with terms like 6 points of slashing damage, but that wasn't the original idea
@@climbingthatmountain6968 Not comparable . You don't have control over what, if any magic items you get. As to your hit point explanation, I'm well aware of that but it's a distinction without a difference.
â@@climbingthatmountain6968i still can't see why high level characters can't just take more damage
Like, recently i have been reading jujutsu kaisen and there characters can go through insane physical punishment without dying, and there really is no need for an explanation
I always give MUs access to scrolls. In this way, they aren't stuck with one spell per day & it's entirely possible for a first level MU to cast a third level spell for example.
"Boring game", dude, have you killed and pillaged? It's super fun!
Great review. I highly recommend the OSR actual play campaigns by 3D6 Down the Line. Currently on the Arden Vul campaign and itâs very interesting and entertaining.
Great review. Thank you
"As much as I'm able to stomach." đ Thank you, Dave. Never change.
When I first checked out the players guide, I was immediately brought back to playing AD&D as a kid, and all the weird enemies of fun lurking in the rules. I really didn't understand the appeal, beyond nostalgia. I'm in an OSE game now, and I still don't love it. The character sheet is a mess of little boxes that I'm not certain I'll need, and every class begins play with very few levers to pull - and never really getting anything interesting. I'm so glad there are people who are inspired by this stuff, but it feels very much to me in practice a well executed game which intentionally ignores the lessons of the past.
Iâm curious to know how it compares with OSRIC, which, unless Iâm mistaken is meant to be AD&D 1e rules tidied up, reorganised, made more accessible than the original 3 books were.
Very different. OSRIC is pretty much straight-up AD&D, before Unearthed Arcana. It's also not very well-explained or organized and not particularly attractive. I've found no use for OSRIC at all since I still have all my original stuff whereas, OSE Advanced offers a streamlined B/Xified version of AD&D.
Great exploration and explanation! I started with B/X and AD&D as a kid. When I ran a game then, I wasnât able to follow all the procedures as written. I just used the rules as building blocks to create and share imaginary worlds, like Minecraft is used today.
So many RPGâs, video games and stories have been based on these rules, looking back they can seem cliche and rigid.
Back then though, the rules felt to me like a secret language that provided the words but didnât tell us what to say.
Thank you, great review as always. You should have WAY more subs!
Thanks for saying so.
These videos were both very well made, and it's very encouraging to see someone approach the OSR with an open mind like this. Personally I'd say, there's no such thing as an outsider to the OSR, but they're definitely difficult waters to navigate, and if that's how you view yourself with regards to the OSR then I must doubly congratulate you for your openness and honesty approaching this niche.
Personally I've entered the OSR from another end, starting out with Lamentations of the Flame Princes of all things and ending up at Swords and Wizardry and Dark Dungeons X, which is a clone of the D&D Rules Cyclopedia, and while I'm familiar with the machinations of most of these games, I haven't actually bitten the bullet to buy OSE yet, mostly because the books are a bit more expensive than most other OSR products (most of which are free, even though I buy most of the stuff regardless because I need to have my hard copies), and because they're kind of hard to get in Europe (LotFP on the other hand is a breeze, because James Edward Raggi IV himself livess in the EU -- still pricey, though!).
What I like about the OSR though is how modular it is. I have at least five core sets at this point, and am already looking at things I like from one, that are missing from the other, and how I'm going to put all that stuff together. Take Swords & Wizardry for example: it's got the most fascinating take on the Ranger class I've ever seen. There's no mention of them preferring bows or dual wielding whatsoever, and instead of Druid spells they actually get both Cleric AND Magic User spells. Meanwhile S&W's Paladin doesn't get any spells at all!. So if I want to import these classes into my Rules Cyclopedia/Dark Dungeons retroclone, I can, and I will, but I'll probably pick a different version of the Paladin from somewhere else.
Same with encounter tables, treasure tables, etc. etc. etc. It's all eminently compatible, and if you don't like one version, you can grab another and bolt it on, and they mesh almost seemlessly and effortlessly. That's the beauty of this whole design philosophy.
As someone who also didn't play in the BX era your review mirrors my reaction, good and bad. No doubt the product line is a mess, but no doubt the layout of phenomenal! Great review and even summary for those looking to learn, as always
Nice, great review!
"The game is not a competition"
And then tomb of horrors happened.
Lol. The superbowl of D&D.
I have a tough time getting into OSR products. I have a couple OSR books. The settings can be great but they are tied to rulesets that are pretty terrible compared to what rpgs have done since AD&D. Those books do look great though and the OSR community is made up of some interesting dudes.
Honestly after seeing your review and recalling what little of experiences with OSE i have (and yes the gm swapped to ascending AC) i decided that OSE's not for me although credit where credit's due.
For me Basic Fantasy would be my recommendation for OSR. Not only is it free to download everything but its much less tedious due to using Ascending AC by default. I hope you can cover Basic fantasy in a future video.
seconded here although i'm more an iron falcon person myself
The art is so awesome
I think motivation is less important to have in a stat block because its sort of a different category from gameplay mechanics. Whatever their goal is they are likely to make money along the way, or important objects worth money. Money as experience is just easier to track than both, and provides an easy hook for an addictive gameplay loop, that can then be adjusted however the DM feels like.
My friends seem to think so, but I actually think D&D from Edition 3 and onward is when I stopped caring and found it dull.
Three cheers for the pterosaurs in the Lost World (Hollow World, for example) settings! LOL
thank you for your review.
Thank you for this review.
I particularly enjoyed the Black Pudding bit đ€
Thanks!
I think your reviews of these two works were very good. You covered the essential points that make old school rules different and unique and you pointed out some of the peculiarities. I just can't get enough of these old school clones and this one is just as the title reads, essential!
Thanks, Mark. Yeah these are amazing works in the pantheon of TTRPGs.
Awesome!
16:45 The last thing I want when Iâm playing tabletop games is a âweb appâ to refer to. The web is exactly what Iâm trying to avoid. If I wanted more technology, Iâd just play a video game. Otherwise, good review.
12:38 that's the key to OSE and old-school D&D.
I started in 1982 with Basic and then onto AD&D. I was 12 then and modules like Castle Amber, White Plume Mountain, Ghost Tower of Inverness, Village of Hommlet hold good memories. I'd jump back into playing but it would have to be 1st Ed AD&D again as I never did finish Temple of Elemental Evil.
Ah, a completionist!
The original BX books provide better context for the rules as written. OSE should be considered more of a reference book. It's a toolbox and any filled with tables etc that can be used as is, or simply used as a guide.
I think the perspective on level advancement being "glacial" or not may be one of preference. Advising GMs to tamp down on XP if new characters have already hit level 3 within 3-4 sessions seems pretty fair for a longer-term campaign. If you're wanting a quick romp through the levels, then sure.
New to your content, but I see this came out 10 months ago. After your critique of the book, did you try running the game with some friends, and if so, how did you like it?
I like OSE alot but for flavor I have to give it to Dungeon Crawl classics.
DCC is great.
I love these reviews, I've run a little of the system already and to the point at 3:30, I also remember finding that jarring. It starts to make more sense when you play and realize that, if XP is gained through collecting treasure, and characters need thousands of XP to get to 2nd level, it stands to reason that a 2nd level adventurer will have huge amounts of unspent loot. The system really requires a lot of outlets for characters to spend their gold, and I think that's where your mysterious taxation and spell research costs come into play. Having said that, I think it still feels arbitrarily adverserial -- the ref might understand the system, but the players are still often having their loot hemorrhaged for no immediate value if you just use these rules as written.
I think one big feature of this game that mostly goes unspoken is that GMs are meant and expected to change and tweak the rules whenever they need to. Certainly thatâs the mindset of most OSR adherents these days.
â@@DaveThaumavore For certain. I ended up tweaking so much that I'm basically running a new system altogether, I wonder how many other referees end up doing the same. I've heard a lot of campaigns back in the day were run this way.
@@DaveThaumavore You use the resources to fund the expeditions out into the wilderness. You hire porters, a small platoon of guards. animals and wagons and more people to look after them, maybe build a small fort as base camp.
This is what they expect you have done when they make wilderness encounters so gnarly.
@@DaveThaumavore At the very end, you can start to carve out a tract of wilderness. You clear out or pacify monsters inside the hex, invest your wealth into a stronghold and hire a small army. It doesn't mean the game is over, you still have a huge tract of wilderness and nonsense out there and probably other strongholds and factions. But now you are, for all purpouses, a faction on the map yourselves. You might roll new PCs and play the next generation, or people working for your old PCs. Your old PCs are not inactive, they can still show up when something big and nasty threatens the stronghold.
One interesting thing is that the encounter tables are organized by where they are typically found, but you mentioned a rule that I think your forgetting about when looking here. That is that the number appearing in the encounter in modified by the level of the dungeon you found them on. So let's say you roll a level one monster for the 6th level of a dungeon, you would multiply the number appearing by 6.
Another fun thing to do is roll twice on the encounter table and you essentially become a 3rd party in a previous encounter.
usually a DM would use the encounter tables to preplan the possible encounters for a wilderness travel.
Great video, thanks
I think OSE inherits a lot of jank from the games it emulates. I prefer the math in Ben Milton's Knave, so elegant, with better rules for saves, magic, inventory, etc. But Knave is a bare-bones skeleton of an RPG, so I'll use OSE to complement the Knave ruleset. Together they work perfectly!
Nice pairing!
There's really not as many encounters as you think when you apply the typical rules as written. You typically roll once for wandering monsters per day in the wilderness. That means you're going to average about 1 encounter every 6 days or so. In the dungeon you roll 3 times an hour. That means an average on once in a 2 hour period. That's not insanely high. Obviously it's random so you could end up with several in a short period of time. However you are just as likely to go a long time without having one.
You should definitely create Wandering Monster Tables specific to the setting. Specific to the dungeon or wilderness area the party is in. I look at the default tables in the Referee's Tome as examples and something to use if the party goes somewhere completely unexpected and you need a table on the fly.
I don't see the link anywhere to OSE supplements on Drive Thru RPG
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THAC0 is a bit annoying, that wasn't a thing before 2e. Character classes had their own ToHit tables, they differed. Monsters shared the same table but it wasn't the players' table.
The reason everything falls into the "monsters" bucket is because there used to be broad categories in people's minds: Player Characters (PCs), Non-Player Characters (NPCs), everything else (Monsters). It's that simple. That's why the AD&D Monster Manual includes animals and humanoids. Most "monsters" were not considered individuals they were units from broad categories: Kobold 1, Kobold 2, Kobold 3, Kobold Chief; Bugbears 1-9, Chief Bugbear; Wolves 1-14. Each with their own HP but not much individuality. Even dragons were ... dragons. Not people. The first AD&D module, G1, illustrates this, monsters are listed as (paraphrasing here) "8 hill giants, HP a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h." and that's it. Enough for a brawl.