An honest look at the Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy: Playerâs Tome || OSR RPG Review
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- Äas pĆidĂĄn 2. 07. 2024
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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 Playerâs Tome.
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00:00 What is Old School Essentials?
03:29 Unboxing Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy
04:28 Intro to OSE Advanced Fantasy Playerâs Tome
05:26 Player Characters in OSE
07:50 Character Classes in OSE Advanced Fantasy
10:12 Character Races in OSE Advanced Fantasy
11:41 Advancement in OSE
13:05 Equipment in OSE
16:12 Hired Help in OSE
17:58 Strongholds
19:01 Magic in OSE
21:45 Game Mechanics of OSE
26:41 Adventuring in OSE
29:35 Encounters in OSE
31:37 Combat in OSE
36:18 Conclusion
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As far as I remember, the clerics and druids have less spells because they automatically have access to all of them unlike magic users who know a limited number based on their grimoire. Great review btw, cool to see some fresh eyes on this sort of stuff.
I always figured the reason clerics and druifs get weaker spells is they're better in melee. Gavin Norman certainly seems to think so as in the draft Dolmenwood setting book he has a "friar" class that is basically a divine magic wizard with low HP, bad AC, and (in relative terms) a lot of spells.
Also Clerics and Druids could decide to cast spells in âreverseâ (cure light wounds becomes cause light wounds, light becomes darkness, etc.) Magic users had to prepare reversed spells separately from normal spells, using up a separate spell slot. This gives Divine casters more versatility with their prepared spells.
Turning undead is super important, as well. Druids are for taming beasts and talking to trees and junk. The party balance is important. You don't have everyone potentially being able to fill any role like current DnD
The break down by fresh eyes highlighted the procedural nature of a lot of the GM side mechanics. 1 in 6, 1 in 6, 1 in 6... A lot of some what algorithmically generated story generated by die rolls.
In Dungeon Adventuring, the "1 in 6" chance to find things is a base chance, which varies based on class. There are many ways to offset this. First, players interact with the world not through passive skill rolls (like in 5e), but by describing how they explore things. If they have a 1 in 6 chance of detecting a secret door, they can specifically tell the DM "I'm going to mess with these torch sconces to see if I can tug one, and trigger the fireplace to spin around". If that works, no need for a roll, the DM just says, "Good thinking, yes, this fireplace spins around just like the one you found earlier near the dungeon entrance." This rewards player skill rather than using die rolls to automatically explore the dungeon like a PC in a videogame.
Second, the game is about loot, so better equipment and especially magic items, can improve the odds. Magic treasure is a game-changer, and a major way to power up your character, often more than leveling up. Detection spells also help. So a PC with a wand of detecting secret doors and traps, or a wizard with a similar spell, can make a strategic choice to expend item charges or spell slots to find secrets when it counts. Wizards can supplement their spells with purchased or home made scrolls (another use for treasure), to add to their total spells and avoid using valuable spell slots for detection spells.
Yeah, in my 1ed Ad&d campaign I'm currently DMing, I will expect the players to tell me where there characters are searching, and that will have a major impact on their chance of discovering that secret door/trap.
I think this approach improves immersion and rewards player smarts and attention to detail, rather than the players just saying 'we search the room' and then I roll a perception check to see if they've discovered anything, the players have to visualize the room and consider 'where would the crazed cultists/goblin horde/etc. have hidden a trap', or what features in this area could be worth checking (torch sconces, behind the tapestry, etc.), attentive and imaginitive players will reap the rewards of their good ideas.
Same deal with talking to NPCs, I expect the players to act out what their characters are saying, 'We come in a quest to recover the staff of the golden goddess, will you allow us passage?', and will modify the reaction roll based on that as well as their characters charisma, much more engaging than 'I'll make a roll against my haggling skill with the ferryman' imo.
And that's why I prefer old school d&d, it's more about the players skill and ideas rather than what's written on the character sheet.
This is a pretty clear explanation. Most of the "weird" rules are there for a reason, designed to create a specific gameplay loop. Groups interested in OSE would probably do well to play it rules-as-written a bit before changing things out (but they definitely should do that eventually!)
I'd add one should start with Classic Fantasy, and then add the optional rules offered in Advanced.
As someone who grew up with the original D&D (started with the basic in Jr. High and quickly moved to AD&D 1e) and then spent a couple decades out of the hobby it's interesting to see what's happened. The "role playing" part of RPG has really taken hold. You have to remember back when Gygax and Arneson came up with D&D they were coming from a background in miniature wargaming. Things like setting up Napoleonic battles with miniatures and reenacting them. So while D&D was revolutionary in how it allowed players to take on the roles of adventurers with the DM setting up the challenges, it still owed a lot to wargaming where you do have tables for everything. If you could do something, there should probably be a table for it. Also, if you haven't, I would recommend the book Game Wizards by Jon Peterson. It's a fantastically researched history of those early days up to the fall of TSR.
And yes, player mapping of dungeons was a big deal and very fun. Players always had graph paper.
How can one play without graph paper
This is true for Gygax, not really Arneson. If anything, modern roleplay really is something that is Arenson's brainchild.
I would say the biggest attraction to AD&D as opposed to 5th ed is that AD&D assumes a humanocentric world, where the heroes are in a gritty world, where death is near to hand and always a possibility--and also, you were expected to think beyond your character sheet, so there wasn't a lot of focus placed on secondary skills. If you could think of doing it, you worked that out with the DM, so there was a lot of DM discretion used in AD&D. You were kind of expected just to try stuff.
@@andrewlustfield6079 This is how I grew up playing D&D, the rules are not rules, they are a guide or a foundation, if tis not covered, make it up with your DM.
@@B4MBI72 Exactly--if it made sense, or was even plausible, just assign a probability to it.
I remember one of the old D&D's had a recommended player count of 4-16. Nerds back then might have been less common but more concentrated, which necessitated the design choice to include that many people. I might be remembering wrong, but this explains why OSE has a dedicated Caller roll. They're needed to efficiently organize the players so the game doesn't slow to a crawl. This is a really interesting bit of TTRPG history codified into the system!
It is very interesting to see different view points, because all of the things you list as 'weird' and 'oddities' to me are completely and utterly normal. Coming from 1981, when I started playing, a half-orc paladin/rogue is weird to me! :)
I enjoyed this review, thanks for giving it!
I agree 100%.
And everyone and their mother lately has been making tieflings. It's almost all you ever see. And not as villains either.
I love OSE and feel like it's my favorite system to run D&D games with. Thank you for the reviews.
Best thing about OSE is that its commercial success has spawned a wealth of adventure modules. Many of these modules include ascending armor class and attack bonus in the creature stat blocks. That allows these "OSE" modules to be used easily with other (in my opinion better) OSR versions of D&D. Thats a win for everyone who appreciates OSR gaming.
Which retro clone is a better version in your view? Genuinely interested.
@@Korroth yeah, as far as I'm concerned, OSE/Advanced is the gold-standard for old-school games.
@@revylokesh1783 There may be be better retro clones out there, but as far as I am concerned, until those others can make layout and usability of both the core books AND adventures like Necrotic Gnome does, it's OSE for me.
@@Korroth
OSE is great for a more streamlined version of OSR, ACKS adds more complexity and meat on the bones especially on the DMs side, DCC has a very, very different yet wonderful magic system.
These 3 are the best I can recommend.
Great video, you did an amazing job going through the books. Let me clarify some things that you found weird to give you context.
1.) The part you talked about strongholds and having retainers. That was designed as end game optional content when you've maxed out in level, or come very close. It was added into the Expert book of the pair and was intended as a way your character could retire or if the players wanted more than adventuring. It's not for everyone, and the BECMI Immortals box was devoted to you ascending to god-hood when you die, yet more end game content. (This was not added to OSE.)
2.) The wands part seems confusing at first, but you're on the outside, looking in. They follow a different saving throw because ANYONE can use the wand, although there are chances of the wand failing and even blowing up in the hand of the user.
3.) Clerics have less spells, but they can wear armor and cast unhindered, as well as fight with something better than a D4 weapon.
Good points! Thank you! Very interesting point about the wands.
Also, this is a really thorough review. Really good. Your perspective is also interesting, the rules seem pretty normal to me, but I was first introduced to D&D in 1980, and never saw 2e or anything beyond it due to adulting.
Not sure why people always make THACO so complicated. Even OSE could have done a better job of using it but they remained faithful to the "attack matrix" found in the old rules so there is that.
You don't need a chart to find out what you need to hit.
If my THACO was 15, I would subtract the monsters AC from my THACO to determine what I needed to hit it.
If the NPC had an AC of 4, then I would need a 11 to hit it it.
If the NPC had a -2 AC then I would need a 17 to hit it.
Its easy math :)
15 - 2 is 13, so clearly the math isnât that easyâŠ
@@likeapro2051 Clearly you don't understand math :) Subtracting a negative number is the same as adding a positive number
It's even displayed on the page in the video as, "Attack Rules Using THAC0 (Optional)".
Subtracting target's AC from the character's THAC0 value yields the target number needed to hit.
Sometimes I think people unfamiliar with old school D&D just use THAC0 as an excuse not to bother trying. The same can be said for those not wanting to try other systems too. Chalk it up to stubbornness.
It's not too complicated but it's unnecessary so I'm happy OSE provides the ascending AC option. In any case, good clarification!
@@likeapro2051 that would be 15-(-2) which is 17. B/X AC goes into the negative.
100% agree, too many books. Thatâs why I have the classic tome for straight b/x and the advanced player and referee tomes for the AD&D splash version. You are 100% correct for the complete game you only need two books.
Yes! I wish I had known that before buying both the basic and advanced. đ
No such things as too many books
To a point. I'm playing at the local library and am the only one with books. The smaller books allow me to break them up and spread them around the table instead of everyone waiting for one player to get done with one.
I got the classic rule tome about a year or two ago now and its served me well, Honestly it's what I would recommend all the classic rules in one book
this video actually convinced me to get a physical copy which i have been considering for a while. not to play really, none of my friends have the patience for complexity of this type really, more for the fun of reading and inspiration.
Thatâs awesome. I hope you do find inspiration!
You mean simplicity cause the game isn't very complex. Imo
Complexity? For me, OSE is simpler than both pathfinder and 5e.
yeah i dont run those for them either, what i usually run for them is mausritter for fantasy adventuring and modified versions of pure rp games like kids on bikes/brooms (we call it kids of x for my New Mutants campaign)@@holyfenrir6336
There is an understament with OSR games. The rules are light and lacking in some areas, by design. Your character doesn't have much abilities other than some static bonuses, by design. Sometimes reading them seems like the classes are lacking. They're not. Your character doesn't get better and cooler by just aquiring xp and going through a feature table. They have to engage with the fiction to get powerful: acquire spells (you don't get spells when you level up, just slots) and acquire magical items (which cannot be bought or gained through leveling). Explore, find items and spells, become powerful by doing stuff with your DM's world. Your character sheet does not have the answer to all your problems.
Yeah I am beginning to see it as an issue of trust. Overwritten RPGs donât trust GM & players to have an imagination. Games in the OSR often do.
D&D spread all over the world during the 70's because You made a quick PC, you usually got introduced to a town, & then sent right into a dungeon in search of gold & magic. It was personal. It wasn't a world-changing series of stories that start off great but soon dwindle into no people playing. Sure we saved the town children from the Troll Mother, but it was a quest we either got on the way to the old ruins or once there. There were story seeds, & ideas that hinted at a bigger picture, but it wasn't a long drawn out back n forth. Everyone got to shine in each game. It was dangerous, but you celebrated level 5. 5e created a new style of player, & Critical Role helped. While I'm sure its fun for those into it, or its all they know, I have to say that if you can find an Oldschool DM that themes his dungeons well you will have such a great time.
Aaaagreed đ and I don't care what anyone says, 5e is not D&D đ It's a super hero video game played on table top đĄ
Regarding the physical books:
They are lovely, as many modern RPG physical print products are; hardback, good quality paper, one or more ribbon bookmarks. This is great for casual reading or display purposes. It is suboptimal for use at the table, however.
Many RPG books are published in this 6x9/A6/Digest-sized format primarily because the interface of the pdfs of books in that size work much better than 8.5x11/A4/Letter-sized products.
I am a DM/GM/Referee/et al, and when running games in person at the table, I use physical books. In my not inconsiderable experience, using a digest-sized hardback book for repeated or constant reference while running a game is inconvenient at best, regardless of the book's quality. There is no way to have the book lie flat on the table without causing damage to the binding, particularly with thick books, such as these Player's and Referee's Tomes, and so one is constantly needing to open it, flip through, refer to the rule or chart, and then lie it back down. Over time, this will stain the edges of the fine paper, and/or crack and damage the binding adhesive on the spine, which happened to my expensive faux leather bound Rules Tome.
The smaller, individual books may last longer or endure being broken in without damage, but I wouldn't know. The slipcase products with the individual books are in high demand and limited supply, and I was not able to get them, having arrived late to the OSE party, and being only a moderate backer of kickstarter campaigns.
The original "1st Edition" AD&D books were not too thick, and were full size, and so they would lie flat without damage once broken in.
My unsolicited recommendation, therefore, for those who wish to preserve the beauty and value of their hardback, digest-sized RPG books, is to put them on the shelf or the coffee table, reading them occasionally, and use pdfs to run/prep your games.
Also, considering the outstanding practicality of OSE's layout and formatting, absolutely print out your Class info, Race info, and other player reference materials and hand them out to players, possibly even crafting a playbook for them, since in my experience, players in general rarely deign to do such prep for themselves.
I highly recommend OSE for Titterpiggers who want to taste the sheer masochistic joy of old-school style play, where campaigns require months or years, resource management and problem solving are your most valuable skills, and your character's death may come at any moment, regardless of level or how long you've been playing them.
Thank you for posting this review, you do good work, sir.
But once you've played a few times, you hardly need to reference the books at the table, especially if you have the DM's screen. I greatly prefer the smaller books, both at the table and when designing my own adventures as they're far easier to port around. I'd call the digest-sizing a huge improvement. I wish I could have all my rpgs this size.
@@sunsin1592 good call! I forgot to mention the portability. Thatâs a big plus. Thanks!
Me a game designer: Taking notes and thanks!
I like that, itâs so rich in its fantasy and identity. Imbalances brings fun⊠but no matter what, youâd fulfill a role that is most needed, and itâs still about the narrative and group.
Today itâs way more accessible (which is good), DnD is easier to get into and comprehend. But youâre also a marvel character from the get go. The older ones, the world is seriously dangerous. You want to avoid fights. Itâs gritty, dark and fragile. Youâre lucky, if you become powerful. Itâs complicated and intricate.
I am running an OSE game online and the players are having fun. Most of the players are new to the system and don't seem to have an issue with the system.
I switched to OSE and I'll never go back to 5th, PF2nd etc. OSE is fun and those games are a crunchy grind.
Yeah without a doubt. Some people like all that grind though. Iâm in the camp of Simplicity myself.
Nice video! I think a couple of points thought were weird. I don't think the different number of spells for Clerics and Magic Users is "favoring" arcane. Magic-Users need to have their spells in their Spellbook, Clerics can prepare any of their spells each day! Also Clerics and Druid both have other abilities including wearing armor and using better weapons, and turn undead for cleric and a few for druids.
Good points. Iâm just looking at it from the perspective of player choice/variety.
@@DaveThaumavore Still, the Cleric has more spells available per day than the Magic-User. The MU _can_ have more spells to choose from _if_ he has learned all of those spells and have them noted in his spellbook. MU spells are more powerful, though, if I remember correctly.
@@allluckyseven That's my point yeah. Magic-Users _whole thing_ is that they use magic. It's a big part of being a cleric, but not the whole picture.
And clerics used to not get their 1st spell until level 2.
Also mage spells are very powerful compared to divine magic which nearly has next to no offensive magic. The mage was utilitarian but also the parties blaster.
I think it's because the game was more abstractions than simulations. I can remember DMs saying, "It's magic." and "Who knows? Maybe you should quest for the answer?" Mostly, we just didn't pay attention or have a desire to see behind the curtains. Hey, it was the 80's and we were in high school.
10:48 I actually enjoy the old cliches of the game, partly because most of the fantasy that I have read/ played over the past couple of decades hasn't followed them, so it's kind of a nice "homecoming" of sorts, returning to classic fantasy.
I played BECMI D&D when I first started gaming and then moved on because I found other systems that handled things like magic in a way that I preferred (I hate Vancian magic...) but there is something very enjoyable about coming back to it years later. It's kind of like comfort food for RPGs.
I think that one thing that some people don't get is that these games are just that-- games. Whereas many modern RPGs try to be more "realistic" (at least within the confines of their fiction), old school games were not always concerned about realism and balance, and some of the "weird rules" were purely to create challenges for players to overcome.
Sure it's logical that your recently deceased character might leave their wealth to your new level 1, but imagine playing Monopoly and having your Race Car token bequeath Park Place to your Top Hat for the next game... Starting over is meant to mean starting over.
Agreed about the cliches. I hear this a lot from the 5E crowd (no hate here, just my experience) and I try to point out these cliches are also tropes, and fantasy is a genre built on tropes. Dragons, swords, magic. Cliches, or tropes that construct our shared understanding of the world and game we are playing?
Modern games being more realistic is a bit of an odd take. I mean your character very rarely if ever dies past level 3 or 4 in modern DND in old school games death is always looming even in later stages of the game which is far more realistic
@@coldfire774 that's why I said "realistic" (in quotes) and specified within the confines of their fiction. Modern D&D is what some like to call superhero fantasy, with everything that goes along with that.
I cut my TTRPG teeth on the original Basic D&D using the sets I literally inherited. The one thing I always hated was the descending AC. It never made sense, so it's cool that this recreation offers the option to go with a much easier-to-process ascending AC instead.
Honestly, if you are considering playing old school D&D, just grab a copy of the original rules sets. You can get great quality pdf's of the originals at Drive Thru RPG. I collected a fair number of these OSR rulesets, but I always bring the originals to the table.
A hardback copy of the Rules Cyclopedia (BEMC) can be had for around $30 from Drive Thru RPG. Pretty good deal.
My table plays OSE-basic, but I have my B/X combined 3-ring binder with me. There is no contradictions and both books work together.
@@hanng1242how do we get the hardcover books from drive through? Do we take a file to a print store? Is it the same for the old DnD modules with the glossy thicker covers?
@@shawn7336 You can buy it as a print on demand copy. Not everything on Drive Thru RPG has the option, but the Rules Cyclopedia does.
@@shawn7336Pretty sure you just order it on the webpage. Like, thereâs an option to choose the hardcover book. Thatâs how I got mine.
Something I thought of for using Thac0 is that you can use dice to represent enemies and whatever number is facing up tells the players what to subtract from their Thac0 target number.
This will be a useful reference TBH. I love the OCR for how beautifully weird they can get, but can take or leave a lot of mechanics-but knowing the Why behind them to get a new appreciation
Thank you for clearing up my confusion about which books to get - itâs indeed the âAchilles healâ of the product line that it comes in so many variations đ for anyone like me, unsure what to get: the 2 books recommended in the video include both the âadvancedâ AND the âclassicâ rules, so if you want all the options, these are the ones to get. đ€
The cover artwork on those Advanced Fantasy books is wonderful.
Mullen ftw
Huge fan of these two books. Probably my favourite version of the dragon game Ive ever played/ran.
I don't recall Drow, Duergar or Svirfneblin ever being a playable race in either the Basic, Expert or Advanced editions. Those races were limited to monster types. Now there may have been some DM's that created a Drow or other class after reading some of the various novels or played some of the console games that came out in the late 1980's, but they were not standard. The Advanced rules also expanded upon the Alignments. The biggest thing about multi-class characters were that some classes were only limited to certain races, with humans only be able to play one at a time (I had a half-orc cleric-assassin). For example you have a human cleric that wants to become a magic-user and is currently level 8. That player would start gaining experience as a level 1 magic-user, but could not use any of the skills until they passed level 8, at which time they could use the skills of both without penalty to armor and weapons, but would never gain any more XP as a cleric. It was a time consuming process. These books seem to really be confusing, to anyone wishing to play using the older, original rules. But it was much more enjoyable than playing today with the the current edition rules.
I know I'm replying very late, but just in case you were still interested in how/where these races became playable. For AD&D 1e, the controversial Unearthed Arcana book added them. Drow in particular could be very OP thanks to high starting stats (they were rolled a bit differently) and weapon proficiencies. Ofc, everything was ultimately optional. Have a good one!
Very thorough indeed, Dave. Great review as always, Dave!
I will be picking up both OSE Advanced Fantasy books as soon as possible as it is just the right kind of OD&D and AD&D Frankenstein for me to build off on.
It has been quite the springboard for a lot of people in the past few years.
When I got OSE and read through it, I was completely lost coming from 5e or BRP. However, upon discovering Scarlet Heroes and read through that as well as Stars and Worlds Without Number, it greatly helped me to better understand how OSE works and what was expected.
Just to point something out Tom Moldvay didn't write the basic rules he edited them based on original D&D which was written by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. There are in fact three edits by Eric J holmes, Tom Moldvay and Frank Mentzer. The Moldvay is just widely considered the best version and in my opinion the best D&D edition.
Noted. Iâll add that in the errata. Thanks.
I believe that BECMI is widely considered the best version of Basic D&D. Hence the success of the Rules Cyclopaedia
@@johnharrison2086 B/X is definitely the edition that is most popular today.
It was interesting to hear this stuff described by someone for whom it isn't the default.
I've wanted to get into this with my son, this video helped a lot, esp with the whole players/refs tome thing!
I really love these videos, they give me a lot of insight about ttrpgs I've yet to touch and give me a sense of Glee when you talk about games that I find a lot of fun. I really appreciate you making these videos they're always so put together and well-organized. Skills that I look up to and adminer as a fellow CZcamsr who loves to share their own opinion
As said in comments, as someone who was introduced to D&D with these rules, it's harder to see the oddities in the ways you do. Your perspective is very appreciated and you have my thanks.
Personally, I love the taxation of wealth mechanics for embedding characters in a realistic world of road repairs, policing and kingdoms raising money to fight wars.
For me I like clerics to pay tithes, fighters to be indebted to their Liege (for armour and training etcâŠ), and I definitely need my thieves to start-off heavily in debt or indentured to some brutal loan-shark who taught them their skills (like Sykes and Fagin's gang). Magic-User's components and new spell research takes care of much of their earnings. It all keeps them going down into nasty, dark holes in search of (gulp) adventure (?)!
Ok now I finally understand DND... Like why isn't 5E this clear in what DND is? Also I think the main flaw in Old School DND is how it explained rules and where it put crunch... OSE explains it perfectly... I really need to check out them as a Game Dev as it's that good at Expalining DND. So I can cross refernce it with DND 1e( I know OSE is based on an older edtion but still) and see for my self what whent wrong and how I can improve my own game... Thanks for this reveiw and insights!
Was hoping for this! Great vid!
Thanks!
thank you for making this video. for realz. i was so confused as to where to start with OSE
I don't know if it's because I played a lot of, not B/X, but BECMI as a teen and young adult, but these rules seem pretty normal to me. They seem to have been extracted directly from those books. Or from what I remember they contained.
EDIT: The THAC0 part is kind of weird. I mean, THAC0 is weird in itself, but the way it's written is weird. You see, if you know the AC for the monster -- which in the example is 4 --, then you need to check if you rolled equal or above the number listed. The number needed to roll for that character was 13 or above, he rolled 15, so he succeeded. You don't look and see that you could hit a 2, then you could also hit a 4!
And if the player doesn't know the monster's AC, then the GM will tell him if it was a hit or not.
Imo players shouldn't know the AC of the target creature. It's one of my biggest complaints about new school D&D. Those tables and charts are the magic of the game and should remain hidden from the player and not be in the forefront.
Roll the die add your bonuses and the DM will let you know if it is a hit or miss. Having different combat charts for different classes helped to keep the needed roll a mystery instead of a given.
Nice review. I started with B/X, and a lot of these things that you say are weird/strange seem commonplace to me, and I'm loving hearing how a newer player might see things.
I'm going to present another view of saving throw to you. OSR games have 5 Saves, the DC is always based on your character. In 5e, you have six Saves, and all DC's are unique to the monster (possibly with multiple DC's per monster). Which one is simpler?
So glad you reviewed this. You always provide useful insights and allow me to see products from a novel perspective. I find your approach useful and delightfully entertaining. How many things can I say that about? Other than your channel, not too much, really.
Thanks for what you provide to the hobby.
Thanks, Fred! Thatâs nice to hear.
Thank u for the great clarity of the books :)
Old school! OSE brings back memories of my first exposure to RPGs with BECMI in the 1980s. Good times and I miss old group!
Iâm sure its already been pointed out but you had your description of ability checks backwards. You are rolling under the ability score as your TN and a 1 always succeeds and a 20 always fails.
Necrotic gnome is currently making the first setting book for old school essentials so there will actually be a setting. It's called dolmenwood and seens to be based off british folklore and fairytales. There's been one adventure made in the setting so far which I don't have but apparently is very good. After all the books for it have released I definitely buy it and make a campaign there.
Clarity on what to buy was so helpful!
Glad I could help on that front.
It's not that complicated or confusing. There are two box sets that breaks down each book. That way you can distribute them around the table, instead of everyone fighting over one book.
Pretty much all D&D products and editions had specific setting associated with it. BX was set in Mystara, AD&D 1e was set in Oerth/World of Greyhawk, AD&D 2e was nominally set in Faerun/Forgotten Realms, 3.0/3.5 in Eberron. 4e had the Points of Light setting, which if I read it correctly, wasn't a full campaign world. 5e is back in Faerun/Forgotten Realms.
Eberron didn't even exist during D&D 3.0.
It come out AFTER D&D 3.0 was already killed and even 3.5 was already published for more than a year (3.0 from 2000 to 2003, 3.5 from 2003, Eberron from 2004).
In addition, Eberron was not a TSR/WoTC original setting but a user-submitted winning entry to the public "Wizards of the Coast Fantasy Setting Search contest" in 2002.
Basically, it was homebrew content WoTC acquired via that public contest, not the reference setting for the 3rd edition ;)
Really happy I watched this, I was thinking about picking up the box at some point but after seeing all the weird race stuff I think I'll just stick to converting OSE dungeons to Troika and Mörk Borg.
Oh this is awesome thanks!
Good review super in depth
Great review! As someone else said most of the quirky rules are there for good reason. Check out Ben Miltonâs commentary on old schoo D&D rules. He has a few videos specifically on this subject a does Matt Colville.
Ben and Matt are fantastic!
Main thing that I noticed from this was that despite playing with the old Cyclopedia for a long time, there was a LOT that I had taken for granted that just was not how things were according to the rules. I don't think I've ever played with characters dying at zero hit points, for example. It was always negative CON. And the THACO matrix goes against the premise of never letting the players know the monsters AC that was enforced fairly strictly. Saving throws also sounded kind of strange and confusing compared to how I used to use them in play.
Thanks for taking a deep dive for these gems.
Absolutely.
My only real criticism of OSE is that Gavin Norman doesn't make it clear enough that the Classic and Advanced portions of his game are extremely different. The Classic stuff is a literal exact representation of the Basic and Expert sets ("B/X"), as you said. But the Advanced stuff is all new, never before seen, written by Norman. The concept is playing B/X D&D using conceptual material from AD&D 1E. But no Paladin ever existed in B/X, so when he brings over the concept of the Paladin class from 1E into B/X, Gavin himself is writing the rules for that class.
This is further complicated when you get the Advanced Player and Referee tomes, because the material is intermingled in a way unclear to the user (I'm not sure even Dave noticed this). So most of the classes aren't original (only seven are), the separate Race/Class rules aren't original, many of the monsters and magic items aren't original, etc. You can also buy OSE with the rules separated into smaller books, in which case the Basic content is clearly separated and the Advanced books are the new content Gavin wrote for B/X "inspired by AD&D 1E."
I suspect part of this lack of clarity is the insistence on never mentioning old D&D products by name, to avoid any litigation. But it means he can't clearly label the source of individual rules elements.
Not in B/X, but BECMI gave Fighters the ability to upgrade into either Paladins, Knights, or Druid-Knights.
@@HenshinFanatic Yeah, but I donât think Norman references BECMI when writing new content for OSE, so thatâs more of a point of interest than directly relevant to OSE.
Great video, thanks!
I had forgotten about the stronghold system! Some campaigns got taken over by life as a petty lord developing a local keep and attached economic and political systems. Also THACo was a 2nd edition AD&D implementation IIRC; I donât remember using it in the Basic or Expert sets or AD&D.
Awesome!
old DnD really reminds me of Metal Gear.
you have to find a way to outsmart your enemies, solve problems, and explore. if you take your enemies head on you usually die.
I really like your videos! Cy Borg was my first! Ty.
Rock on! Thanks!
A lot of design/balancing hinges around the gold piece. My most edition agnostic complaint about the D and the D is the lack of effort expended on economics. I think there's a whole lot of world-building potential left untapped in such things as where does the gold spent on magical research, scrolls, and the like.... go? What is it spent on? Who collects it? Is it taxed? Never mind the impact of a single adventuring party on a kingdom's economy. How did the dragon get all of this stuff and gold? Tribute? Raiding? Failed attempts on its life? Some or all of the above?
Now, a lot of that blank space is for the GM. But, some more mechanical weight on economics in a game that leans so heavily on the gold piece? That would be very nice.
There are a lot of blind spots in a high fantasy world. My biggest hangup is 15+ wildly different bipedal races living in relative harmony in cities. Very naive and improbable in the extreme.
Thanks for the clarification. I'm old school and I'm getting back into gaming.
Really enjoyed the through review!
I bought the Classic Fantasy book first and found it exceptional. I will be getting the Advanced Fantasy boxed set next. I like the option of either going with the basic classes or 1e style classes.
I hadn't played RPGs since around 2000. I came back this last year and, of course, drew immediately from D&D's well. Rather *5e's* well. I was very turned off by 5e as it reminded me of World of Warcraft. Always having been a DM/GM, the idea of a bunch of 1-2nd level super-mensch running around (and trying to control them for a campaign) was not appealing. "herding super-powered cats." So I went and looked at other RPGs.
I found TONS OF OTHER GREAT GAMES! The PBtA stuff has all been really amazing, but you know what? It's not my old security blanket, aka, D&D. I looked at the old (D&D) books and found them to be much more convoluted than I remember. Then I found OSE and was bloody hooked. It was all the old stuff, just better organized. I haven't been able to put the books down!
You are 100% top to bottom exactly the target audience that Gavin Norman meant to serve with his creation. Iâm happy to hear you found OSE.
I would love to see your review of OSRIC next, especially the hardback and paperback versions. I run OSRIC AD&D and think you did a nice job on the OSE systems.
OSRICâs great. Captcorajus has done a great job of covering it here on YT.
@@DaveThaumavore Awesome but I would still vastly enjoy your insightful and intelligent review on it as well.Your fantastic
Questing Beast did ose essentials but I am really interested in advanced! I baught ose essentials, pdf only unfortunately, but I own the add hb. Ose layout puts the tsr and wotc to shame, though tsr is what gives this hindsight reimagining. I know how to take the add HB and put it in 3or for journal pages. Ty!!
Are the OSE books compatible with the DCC's? I'm thinking about the future monster manual for DCC called Dungeon Denizens. Can one use that with the OSE rules?
OSE is just D&D B/X edition, which came just before AD&D 1e. DCC is a different game that has its own set of rules. Dungeon Denizens will come in either DCC rules or D&D 5e rules.
Ah, as luck would have it those are the exact books I have on my bookshelf! (I'll admit though, I had to check with my friend who was following it much more closely to make sure I got the right ones)
Yeah it can be pretty confusing.
OSE keeps THACO & descending AC, but ALSO offers attack bonus & ascending AC, which is weird, but at least you can use a decent mechanic. With regard to XP for treasure, i recommend you only give XP for important purchases, like a fine horse, house, ship, stronghold or whatever, to encourage spending all that loot. Not for magic items, tho--they are their own reward.
The quality of these reviews is AMAZING tysm Dave for guiding us through the rpg landscape
Its funny seeing modern dnd people react to this stuff. Building castles and becoming royalty/warlords, limited classes and max levels for demihumans, AC going backwards, Hired henchmen, All stuff that to me is essential D&D aspects that really make the world feel gritty and realistic. I love it
What counts as "a month" though? I think the old "per job (quest)" is easier to track.
I'm currently preparing to start an OSE Advanced Fantasy campaign.
Character and race will be separated, except for svirfneblin which I am converting into a Golem race-class.
Humans will gain the ability to switch between martial classes, given appropriate studies, as a racial trait.
I'm handwaving low value purchases, by making the party pay their death taxes into a company fund, the party has a roleplay justification for infinite small change.
(Not gonna track money for individual beers etc, only major purchases using gold pieces must be tracked.)
I am used to playing a very unusual custom TTRPG with my friend as dungeon master.
The whole setting is original and the game is played based on consensus, where players can do anything if it makes sense at the time.
The DM strips all ability and combat checks right down, into a d6 roll with modifiers depending on the character and circumstance.
The check require a minimum roll, between 2 and 9, depending on the difficulty.
Example:
A huge stone door, 50' tall and 20' wide is stuck shut. The Strength check requirement for this task could be 7.
This means a character with +1 str modifier needs to roll a 6 to move the door.
This d6 check system is the entire dice rolling system for his game and it works amazingly despite being so simple, so I'm borrowing it for ability checks.
My friend's game puts creativity way before game mechanics, so we aren't used to playing a game with solid written rules.
I'm hoping my changes will overall make this classic system easy for the players to learn :)
Any advice from people with experience appreciated.
TSR D&D is about Gaming. WotC D&D is about Storytelling. That's the main difference, but here's what Gary Gygax had to say about it:
"The new D&D is too rule intensive. It's relegated the Dungeon Master to being an entertainer rather than master of the game."
"Roleplaying isn't storytelling. If the Dungeon Master is directing it, it's not a game"
"The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is they don't need any rules"
"It's the spirit of the game, not the letter of the rules which is important"
Good summary! There seem to be no reason to switch to OSE if one already plays AD&D 1E or ACKS though as it doesn't really bring anything special to the table.
Thatâs true. Itâs just restating rules.
What about OSE vs AD&D2?
Finally someone acknowledges how confusing OSE is. Twice already I was going to buy it but got tired if trying to figure out what exactly do I need :-D
You could always look at the free starter rules or the SRD, or drop a little cash for the classic tome PDF. Itâs correct to say the entire game is contained in the advanced player and advanced referee tome.
Its funny. And no disrespect at all. Hear me out. But when I read OSE I kept thinking how âeasyâ and straightforward it is. But many of my friends looked at it-after we jumped from a 5E to OSE-and said âwhat the hell is this?â It seems to me that OSE is âeasyâ or straightforward only because compared to the 1E and 2E (which was my first game) it is straightforward. But that isnât saying much. Those early editions are nightmares. And given how close ose is to them, the system IS confusing AF. Just seems less so after having to figure out the stuff from the 80âs. Something like 5E on the other hand has me on the struggle bus.
Not sure why I am commenting but I think I feel your pain. Maybe just nostalgia isnât what it used to be :)
@@glenfairen2996 interesting. Whatâs your version of choice? Is there something even simpler for D&D?
@@glenfairen2996 he stalking about the book order
I started playing D&D with the B/X rules back in 1982 so I was excited when the OSE books were published. To me these rules are the easiest to understand of all the different rule editions that have been released and the most fun to play. It never occurred to me that they could be confusing to others, especially if they are use to playing later editions or other RPG's.
I've been reading a lot of rulebooks lately, and I've found that while glossy pages are pretty...it can make it way more difficult to read in certain lighting. Or maybe I just have old eyes.
Itâs the glare. Makes it harder to shoot video of it, too!
Building your stronghold was for downtime, not gametime. World time did not stop when you weren't playing. Many a gamer has spent a weekday evening designing their stronghold, and a good GM would add it to his/her world map so if one of their other groups were playing in the area, they'd run into the stronghold, or its construction.
There are many aspects of AD&D which were not meant for adventuring sessions but for players to interact with the world during downtime.
Itâs still a bit anemic in this book. Apparently OSRIC has a better treatment of strongholds.
I started on the basic rules and moved to AD&D when it became available. I stopped not long after mainly because the people I played with either got too focused on individual character stories, wanted godlike characters with very over powered magical equipment, or became very invested in the deep math of the game to the point of distraction. I love OSEs simplified approach and focus on dangerous adventures in largely dungeon like environments. Itâs exactly what I have been wanting every time I considered returning to the game. Most of the rules that the presenter pointed to as âweirdâ are things that make perfect sense to me as a player and fan of the first couple of versions of the game. Great video, I am really looking forward to viewing the second part.
Itâs weird how seemingly organized OSE is on the inside, but their line and titles is confusing. I originally just randomly bought a box set figuring it would have everything.
Good point. Maximum order on the inside, chaotic nightmare on the outside.
@@DaveThaumavore
When it comes to the pc levels and group sizes, I believe this may be referring to Gygaxâ lost rules for multiple players? Where multiple players can come and go in the same world. It would explain the PvP stuff. But I do agree with you- they should have scrapped all the weird numbers that didnt make sense, and saving throws all together (go play 5e if you want saves). What a waste of space. Iâm a big fan of OSE, but it seems they were trying to âpreserve,â bx and AD&D by recording it almost word for word. But they should have cut the fat. The game is meant to be changed, rules broken, house rules made. I donât want to get into an immersion breaking argument about some of these clearly obsolete numbers and rules..
Thanks for the video. I had been wandering about this book, but now I know, its too complex for me. I.C.R.P.G. works better
.
*_Old School Essentials: Classic Fantasy_* is equivalent to the D&D (1st Edition) Basic / Expert sets. The Basic set covered levels 1st through 3rd and the Expert set covered levels 4th through 15th. Demi-Human characters (Dwarves, Elves and Halflings) had their race as their class and functioned as Fighters (except Elves, who were treated as multi-classed Fighter/Magic Users). The Demi-Human races also had a level cap to balance out their special abilities like Infravision and racial skills. The 3 Alignments (derived from the Eternal Champion series by Michael Moorcock) were Lawful, Neutral and Chaotic.
*_Old School Essentials: Advanced Fantasy_* is equivalent to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1st Edition). It added sub-classes and multi-classing and allowed the Demi-Human races to take classes and sub-classes.
*_Old School Essentials: Basic_* is the free Quick Start Rules version that introduces the basic concepts of the OSE rules.
B/X and AD&D were different rules sets by the same company (think of it as being like the Apple IIe versus the Apple Macintosh). They even had different money exchange rates (gold : silver : copper). They didn't unify under one rule set again until D&D 3x edition [2000].
OSE-Classic and OSE-Advanced are complimentary, with Advanced adding on to Classic.
Advanced fantasy is NOT equivalent to ad&d. It's still b/x with added classes. Far different from the ad&d classes. Sure some of the names are the same, but different mechanically.
Strongholds is where D&D switches from lord of the rings to game of thrones.
Good review. Too many OSR review videos ignore all the weird stuff and bonkers subsystems. I grew up on B/X and have fond memories of it, and there are many awesome things about it, but it was far from perfect.
I use the OSE sourcebooks as a framework. These are very valid concerns raised, for example, the frequency of encountering wandering monsters in the wilderness as being too high in frequency. However, 1-in-6 chance is easily modifiable to a 1-in-10 or even 1-in-12 chance by simply substituting the appropriate alternative die. I'd imagine the authors were quite aware of the tension between trying to create a product that faithfully reproduced the rules of B/X vs. making their own alterations that they would have thought proper. This way it simply is left up to the individual player or DM to decide. All in all, however, I find the criticisms in the vid reasonable and worthy of noting.
Thanks. Yeah it's dead simple to just start tweaking rules left and right. In fact, that might be encouraged somewhere in one of the books. I can't recall now. Certainly rules tweaking is part of the OSR culture.
@@DaveThaumavore Videos like this do a tremendous service to the community by keeping discussion of OSE gaming fresh and spawning further interest in this era/type of D&D gaming. Thank you for your analysis!
Thanks!
My first ever Super Thanks. Thank you, Jeremy! âš
Great overview, odd and also helpful
I still have all of my AD&D hardcover books and some of my D&D softcover books.
Thatâs nice. Thereâs something so comforting about those old tomes.
@@DaveThaumavore There really is. I also got a set of PDFs from a friend at WOTC back when MTGO was getting released. Programmers, y'know.
But there's something about the old paper, like it absorbed years of joy and gametime.
I can't wait for my copy to get here
I love the physical product. Itâs just perfect.
Those strange saving throws-wands and staves, etc-are straight out of AD&D (1e). 1e was my first system: I never played Basic, or what that gaming group circa 1983 used to call "Just" D&D (as opposed to "A" D&D...). I started on 1e, then within a few years started moving on to other ttrpg game systems that were gaining popularity at the time. Right at first we all just excepted the odd saving throw convention as a necessary mystery. At some point however, I for one started questioning the how and why of that system, and by the time I started playing Champions (Hero Games) and Rolemaster (ICE) I frankly thought the "save versus wands" rubric was kind of silly. Regarding OSE: I had heard that OSE was a faithful recreation of 1e, just cleaned up, organized better, and generally the rules are easier to access all the way around. And that appears to be true: this is a faithful resurrection of AD&D 1e, including that clunky funky arbitrary and almost nonsensical saving throw system. By the time I stopped playing 1e back then as a DM I had already started using my own crude form of Stat saves (save v strength, or CON, or DEX, etc) because I was completely done with "save v rods and staves". Were I to use OSE, I would ignore that section and do something else with the Save Mechanic.
would really like a review for iron falcon and it's free pdfs
man that cover art is ace-pants!
There's also a lot of other rules and information outside of these two books; mostly there are a lot of alternative character classes and races.
The weirdness is one of the things that made it cool. Different.
Thank you for the overview. This is a really fun system. For the best example of actual play check out the channel
3d6 down the line. Really good stuff