The Nice and Easy Doldrums

What I love about the OSR community is that most people are playing. The community tends to be quiet since there is no "Wizards outrage" or "theorycrafting." Part of the fun of 5E is the constant stream of information, but with BX, we have the problem of having "the perfect game" and not needing endless expansions and rules tweaks for broken builds. We aren't comparing different games (we could), and most everything is compatible with whatever set of rules we prefer.

Right now? I am waiting for the OSE revision books and the Infernal Tome PDF.

Otherwise, I am happy with the near-infinite worlds these tiny books contain.

Remixing the Old School Essentials Fighter

I did this on my Gonzo blog, but we have gotten new options and a few changes coming, so it is time to revisit this article. This was cross-posted on the SBRPG blog as well.

One of the reasons I originally felt so indifferent toward Old School Essentials was the fighter class, which doesn't really have much "to" it compared to other OSR games. On the surface, the class is just a d8 hit die, all weapons and armor, and the best to-hit table. Despite its simplicity, you can push the class to high performance within the rules and with a few optional rules.

Weapon Proficiency

First, use the optional weapon proficiency rule (OSE-AF-PT, 23) and specialize in a single weapon for +1 to hit and damage. If your STR is high, this will stack significantly and make a huge difference.

Racial Abilities

The second thing you can do is use the character races with the modifiers, giving your fighter some extra abilities. Humans will get these, too, if you lift the race class and level restrictions (OSE-AF-PT, 78 & 86), and these abilities are beneficial for fighters. Even other races' abilities are helpful for fighters, with some having AC bonuses and making excellent defensive warriors.

Early Domains

You will also advance faster than many other classes, so save that money, use hirelings, and establish that domain early. You can do this at any level. Even a small wooden building is a domain structure and can be built in 3 days for 1,500 gp. This can attract a small camp of settlers and followers; through story events, these could be loyal warrior retainers.

Use these rules. If the hex you start in is your claim, which is unsettled and unclaimed land, build that stronghold and get those followers early. You may find that the fighter and his loyal band of warriors can even outshine the mage and other classes quickly.

Magic Items

Magic items are upgrades! There are many more than the usual "magic weapons and armor" here, and many items are must-haves for an epic hero. If you can find a particular pair of gauntlets, or a girdle of giant strength (far better in OSE than it is in 5E by miles), prepare to amaze even 5E players with how epic and cool your character becomes. Magic items are more critical for OSE character upgrades than in 5E.

This is what I love about the old-school games: the rules may not give you a lot of '5E freebie powers,' but you can more than make up for that with smart play, roleplaying, and steering your character's story right. This level of engagement is what makes these games so rewarding.

Carcass Crawler One

Well, let's keep looking for some more official inspirations and options published in the official 'zine publications, in this case, Carcass Crawler Issue One.

CC1 - Gargantuans

In this issue, we get the gargantuan player race (CC1, p21), and when used as a stand-alone character option, it can level to 10th level as a fighter. This race can also wield two-handed weapons with one hand, using the OSE "attacking with two weapons" rule (OSEAFP, p236), for a -2 on the primary weapon and a -4 on the secondary, and two attacks a turn total.

Combine that with the high strength to-hit modifiers of the gargantuan, the high damage of two-handed weapons, weapon proficiencies (OSEAFP, p23), and you will have a beast of a half-giant character who is a literal wrecking machine in combat, even at level one. This is one of the most potent melee builds in the game, and you do not need to mod the game to have it with official rules sources.

CC1 - Goblins

There are other races here that make for some excellent fighter options, such as the goblin getting a +2 AC versus large creatures (CC1, p22), making them an excellent choice as a defensive "nut" versus dragons and other large beasties, especially in plate mail with a shield. The goblin can get to 8th level as a fighter, which is good given the scope of most campaigns.

The infravision and detection options of goblins are also convenient, along with a high CON-based resistance save modifier. With a CON of 15-17, they get a +4 to all saving throws versus poison, spells, and magic wands, rods, and staves (CC1, p22)! That is a crazy good saving throw modifier, one of the best in the game. Do not sleep on a goblin fighter; they can be lethal and highly survivable.

CC1 - Black Powder Weapons

We have rules for black-power weapons in this issue, too, perfect for high-seas swashbuckling and pirate-themed games, as well as early colonial horror gaming settings, like Lamentations of the Flame Princess. OSE has you covered if you want to use this system with Renaissance and Colonial-Era gaming.

CC1 - Combat Talents

We have something for any type of fighter, too, even our brute or any other fighter in the game! We get Combat Talents (CC1, p. 28), which give our fighters new abilities at levels 1, 5, and 10! We can select cleave, which provides us with a Swords & Wizardry-style ability to strike a second opponent when one is defeated. There are leadership, defensive, two-weapon, and other options here that beef up our fighters and make them feel like other old-school games in the OSR genre.

Carcass Crawler Five

Of note here is the special materials article, which includes both adamantine and mithral as armor and weapon upgrades, for lower weight and extra AC and damage. Also, there is no rule saying adamantine magic weapons and armor cannot exist, but such an item would be amazingly rare and powerful.

Also note that the bone, bronze, and stone options in this article are perfect for OSE Dark Sun games.

Scout Magazine One

Don't sleep on the great third-party zines for OSE! There is an optional rule in this edition allowing fighters to replace their attack bonus with their level, giving them the best to-hits in the game. This is a potentially game-breaking change, as it means +14 at 14th level, versus the old value of +9, so that is a five-point swing for just fighters.

Even at level one, this is the only class that gets a +1 attack bonus. This makes a fighter a strong choice, even for new characters. By level two, you are starting to outpace the group in delivering hits in battle.

But considering this will allow pure fighters to outshine paladins, rangers, and the other "+9 at level 14" classes, changes my mind on this houserule, and elevates pure fighters into lethal dealers of death who can consistently land blows on anyone foolish enough to get close. This also sets them apart from those classes in terms of being able to hit, while those other fighter classes begin to get all sorts of special abilities.

Also, considering that most campaigns will never reach level 14, and level 10 is a better, more reasonable campaign end for many, that would only be a +3 difference, which feels about right. If the game ever gets to level 14, let them have it. The highest AC in OSE is the gold dragon at AC 21, so that is still a 7+ to-hit, or a 30% miss rate for the +14 maxxed out fighter. Figure another +5 for STR and magic item bonuses, and we are at 2+, which is still not game-breaking.

Those are sure-thing hits, but compare that to the power of other 14th-level characters, and I would say sure-thing hits at max-level are a great class feature for them, considering they get very little else.

An alternative way to do this is just bump the existing attack bonus table up by +2 and cap it at +11 at 14. That is a good mid-ground compromise, but another part of me feels "add the fighter level" is cleaner and more of a dramatic change the class needs. Fighters give up so much for so little benefit.

This is becoming one of my favorite OSE fighter houserules, and it eliminates the need to pull in the S&W fighter rules for OSE. And the Scout Magazine books are excellent; they feel very close to official content, and they are very well-made and interesting.

OSE Fighters are Good

Fighters seem weak at first glance, but there are a lot of options here. The basic fighter is one of the reasons I look at games like Swords & Wizardry and OSRIC, just to give that class a few more abilities and interesting play mechanics. We are getting 1 HD multi-attacks as an optional rule in the new version of the game, so things will change.

But until the new edition drops, there is plenty we can do to make the fighter class attractive and back to being the damage dealers and frontline soldiers that we expect them to be. All of these options and houserules add a lot to the fighter and place it among the best class choices in OSE.

This is the old school; if something seems broken, we don't head out to crowdfunding sites to buy new games. We find fixes for the games we got, use them, patch, houserule, and tailor the game to our liking. We check community sites and third-party zines for fixes. We share information and let others know about the rules and zines we use.

And then, we play.

S&W vs. OSE: Character Options

Swords & Wizardry and Old School Essentials are two excellent games. They are nearly the same game, but S&W is a zero-edition game, offering a more authentic experience of the original 1974 game and a proto-AD&D game with some of the same features, albeit with far less complexity. Old School Essentials is reminiscent of the early 1980s D&D game, stripped down, simplified, and incredibly simple to run.

S&W has the core race options, but it does not encompass all of OSE's variety and character options. OSE is very 5E-like, especially in the Advanced version and Carcass Crawler zines, and you can have race-as-class Dragonborn and Tieflings running about. These are B/X-style designs, but the variety of character types is there. With S&W, you get the basic human, elf, and dwarf options, and a limited expansion in the options book, but the game does not go crazy in presenting every fantasy race under the sun.

If you want the variety of races that 5E has, and that modern-style world where you have a lot of options, go with Old School Essentials: Advanced Fantasy, and pick up the Carcass Crawler zines. This will provide you with the baseline options you are accustomed to, the standard mix that originated in D&D 4E, specifically in the Nerrath campaign setting.

I would use OSE to run a Nerrath game these days, and that says a lot about this game. This would be my first choice since it preserves a high level of character power compared to D&D 4E, where a magic user's fireball spell can vaporize almost every creature in the blast radius below 4 hit dice. This does not happen in any version of the game that Wizards made.

You do not have the "shooty cantrips" in this game that 4E had, but to counter that, I would be much more generous on supplying magic wands, rods, and staves to the party, in crafting, finding, and being able to trade or buy for them. If you want "shooty casters," then give them the tools to do that. Don't go crazy, and remember that finding other magic items the party can't use makes them tradable items, so a caster could trade an expended wand for a full one, with an extra item to pay for the charged-up wand. All it takes is you as a referee to toss an additional item or two in there for the trade, and even rare gems and valuable items work for this sort of bartering.

As an alternative, create things in the adventure that can recharge wands, staves, and rods when they are touched to them, such as ley lines, magic crystals, or divine fountains. Draining a magical power source like this will temporarily discharge it, and it will replenish over time. 5E will go out of its way to tell you these things are not possible, and that you must recharge magic items in a specific way by the rules. In old-school gaming, how you want things to work is how they work.

Many problems in 5E were created for the game so the designers could solve them. We had this all figured out back in the day. Don't be stingy on treasure, and give characters reasons to use gold. It is a simple fix, and casters do not need free, infinite-shot laser pistols in their fingers, as it makes magic too ordinary and commonplace. Also, since hit points are not scaled, magic missiles hit way harder in OSE than in 5E, and the spell gets lethal at higher levels.

Swords & Wizardry offers a set of options closer to the original game, including humans, dwarves, elves, half-elves, and halflings. The book of options only offers two more: gnomes and stygian. You do not get Drow, Tiefling, Dragonborn, or any of the other modern race choices. You could port them in from OSE, if you want, using the standalone race options, but we are comparing games here.

The only other central point is that S&W classes are more in-depth in terms of gaining new abilities as they level, whereas OSE classes tend to be flatter and more straightforward. This is the AD&D versus D&D split again, where the basic D&D type classes always were cleaner designs, and AD&D went into a deeper design for each.

If you are interested in having a variety of race and class options, OSE will be the best game for you. OSE is the best choice for those wanting a more modern set of options in a classic game wrapper.

If you want fewer race and class options, and each choice to have more to it, then S&W will be the game that makes you the happiest. S&W is the perfect "AD&D-lite" style of play, cutting closest to the source material while giving you deeper class options and abilities.

Personally? I would use Swords & Wizardry for Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms games. Either this or the equally excellent Adventures Dark & Deep game, but S&W will be the easier choice since it is closer to a rules-light game. If I am pulling out ADAD, I am committing to a year-long campaign or more. S&W will be better for faster play, lighter characters, and newer players.

Bother are great games that look at classic gaming through different lenses, yet provide nearly identical gameplay experiences.

Making the Most of the OSE Advanced Fighter, part 2

So, the OSE fighter class is still not doing it for you, even after the optimizations in article one of this series? Well, let's keep looking for some more official inspirations and options published in the official 'zine publications, in this case, Carcass Crawler Issue One.

In this issue, we get the gargantuan player race (CC1, p21), and when used as a stand-alone character option, can level to 10th level as a fighter. This race can also wield two-handed weapons with one hand, using the OSE "attacking with two weapons" rule (OSEAFP, p236), for a -2 on the primary weapon and a -4 on the secondary, and two attacks a turn total.

Combine that with the high strength to-hit modifiers of the gargantuan, the high damage of two-handed weapons, weapon proficiencies (OSEAFP, p23), and you will have a beast of a half-giant character who is a literal wrecking machine in combat, even at level one. This is one of the most potent melee builds in the game, and you do not need to mod the game to have it with official rules sources.

There are other races here that make for some excellent fighter options, such as the goblin getting a +2 AC versus large creatures (CC1, p22), making them an excellent choice as a defensive "nut" versus dragons and other large beasties, especially in plate mail with a shield. The goblin can get to 8th level as a fighter, which is good given the scope of most campaigns.

The infravision and detection options of goblins are also convenient, along with a high CON-based resistance save modifier. With a CON of 15-17, they get a +4 to all saving throws versus poison, spells, and magic wands, rods, and staves (CC1, p22)! That is a crazy good saving throw modifier, one of the best in the game. Do not sleep on a goblin fighter; they can be lethal and highly survivable.

We have rules for black-power weapons in this issue, too, perfect for high-seas swashbuckler and pirate-themed games, along with early colonial horror gaming settings, like Lamentations of the Flame Princess. OSE has you covered if you want to use this system with Renaissance and Colonial-Era gaming.

We have something for any type of fighter, too, even our brute or any other fighter in the game! We get Combat Talents (CC1, p28), which give our fighters new abilities at level 1, 5, and 10! We can select cleave, which provides us with a Swords & Wizardry-style ability to strike a second opponent when one is defeated. There are leadership, defensive, two-weapon, and other options here that beef up our fighter and make them feel like other old-school games in the OSR genre.

We have some great thief options here, too, but I may make a series devoted to thieves and making the most of those. We're focusing on fighters in this series.

The fighter in OSE was one of the weakest points in the game, with the base class feeling so basic and lacking options and abilities. I was so wrong about this! Even in the core rulebook, there are optimization options that can make you stand out as the party's front-line warrior. With this 'zine, the options get even better, and what was once a simple class has new races to add to the mix, along with selectable talents to give our fighters that extra flair they need to stand out in a crowd ...or a party of adventurers.

Highly recommended, and this makes an optimized build from the core rulebooks even better, and it gives players some of that customizability we have in other games like 5E, back to the player. It lets them specialize and tweak their builds to their playstyle.

Old School Essentials: Still Solid

Old School Essentials is still solid. Two small books and infinite possibilities. What I love about this game is that it encompasses everything found in shelves of 5E books, plus more, in two small tomes (for Advanced, Basic is one book). This is a "bug out" game, one you could take with you on a trip, camping, or toss in your backpack for fun wherever you go. Shadowdark is similar, but this has far more in terms of levels, classes, races, spells, treasures, monsters, and campaign scope.

Games do not have to be bigger to be fun.

So many games are horribly overwritten these days, with page after page of meaningless filler, likely AI-generated text filling the pages, saying nothing. Most of the 2024 D&D DMG is like this: two to four pages rambling on, and in the end, they tell you to "make something up yourself."

Do you have any clear ideas on what I'm supposed to do to run your game, or are you just stalling and filling up the word count?

OSE is the opposite. Every page spread is designed with super-tight spacing, leaving ample whitespace and good space between lines, making it readable. Bullet points and charts are used to convey information, and the design and layout remain clean and legible at a glance, ensuring that the information you need is readily available.

I can see how some see this game as the "smallest with the most" and ignore every new game that comes on the market for this beautiful pair of books. For a game that uses your imagination, it stays out of the way, inspires with art, and gives you what you need to play. Everything else you make up yourself.

Less is more.

Old School Essentials is Amazing

Old School Essentials is still the gold standard of B/X and classic gaming. In the past, I dismissed this for not having enough "flash" in the characters, or some games implemented a little more to the fighter class than this—but coming back, this game does more than enough. The fighter is comparable compared to other character classes; the fighter holds their own and is a valuable class to have in a party.

A fallacy of game design is always thinking you need to give "toys" to players to keep them interested. Fighters in OSE can be very overpowered, not only in being the best at fighting and advancing quickly, but they can establish a stronghold at any level and put an army together. Most classes must wait until the 8th or 9th level to do this. If you score a big haul of gold in OSE at the 4th level and claim land, build that castle and roll around with your knights and archers, and the sky is the limit if you have the gold. Your posse can start brutally punishing random encounters in hexes, and you will wonder why you spent so much time with inwardly focused "5-me."

OSE revels in the joy of retainers, hirelings, and small armies. This is a joy only a few players know or appreciate. This is an "epic story-level play" more than the solo superheroes of modern games, where you are playing a Game of Thrones-style experience with apprentices, hirelings, small units of loyal men, and specialists tagging along. 5E actively discourages you from hiring help because the game will break if you get 20 archers together and kill dragons in one turn.

Barbarians get even more insane, and you start wondering if you are playing a tabletop wargame at the 8th level and above the 10th, you are building longboats and sacking kingdoms.

Even bards get their college, troupe, manor, or band at the 11th level. What game gives you a free rock band?

If they vow to cleanse the lands of evil, paladins can get help from their holy order and possibly get their stronghold and followers for free. The rules say "permission," but they don't mention cost. Since paladins must tithe, their order may chip in and help (or pay for it entirely if they have been very generous over their career). Also, note clerics get half-price strongholds. That is an outstanding deal.

Even DCC doesn't do this gonzo, clash of armies, end-game that well. Refrain from letting the low power level fool you at the start. OSE can be a powerhouse end-game where you are laying claim to hexes and changing the map. You are not getting laser-pistol cantrips on your fingers like 5E, but you get so much more in the endgame that it does not compare.

A referee can award XP and treasure at an accelerated rate (OSE Referee's Tome, page 5), so if a group wants, the endgame can come quickly. You could milestone XP and advance a level a session (OSE Player's Tome, page 88) by just house ruling this advancement rate (OSE Player's Tome, page 8).

Old School Essentials is a game that thrives on versatility. Whether you're a Classic or Advanced style fan, this game has many options to keep you engaged. Despite having less content than Advanced, the Classic book is a treasure trove of fun that I hold dear. This versatility ensures the game can adapt to different play styles, making it a top choice for gamers.

Advanced takes the game in a new direction, with classes and races that were not in the original game but feel right at home alongside the others. This is more of the familiar B/X and AD&D mix of how we played. It is very similar to Labyrinth Lord but also different in allowing for many more races and classes.

Unlike Shadowdark and Dungeon Crawl Classics, OSE does not have the "roll to cast" plus corruption systems in using magic, nor does it have the rolling to cast in divine magic where a cleric's god can be angered (though a referee could rule this). Shadowdark leans closer to classic board-game dungeon-crawlers such as Dungeon! or Hero Quest in some ways and also 'board games' in some parts of the experience. This is an excellent thing since 'games were meant to be played together,' and enhancing the small-group experience is why Shadowdark is as popular as it is - it understands its audience and the settings the game is played in.

I love Shadowdark. This is a transformative game in the 5E space, reminding people why they play with others. D&D has pushed identity too hard and forgotten about group dynamics and play. Wizards adopted the Critical Role "play acting" style and leaned far too hard into that space. Shadowdark is unafraid to jettison power gaming, identity builds, blaster videogame cantrips, play-acting, cartoony ancestries, and things that distract from the core experience.

When all distractions are removed from the game, the group dynamics remain. When a ticking clock element, like the torches, is introduced, that group dynamic is stressed, and people are forced to work together. The fewer distractions, the better the game gets. Spells, player actions, movement, combat, ability checks, and everything in the game are designed to be distraction-free with clear choices. What you say your character does, where they look in a room, and what they poke with the 10-foot pole is essential. You can't "passive your way through" a dungeon with a radar build.

Shadowdark one-shot-killed the 30-minute player turn like a backstab rolling a natural 20, and D&D is sitting there wondering what happened.

OSE is more traditional and, compared to Shadowdark, can be a higher-powered game. When you play Shadowdark, you are being trained to play OSE correctly. The mindset is there. After you experience Shadowdark, you understand where OSE is coming from. A player who has only experienced 5E will pick up OSE and wonder what the big deal is? Where are the high-powered feats? Why can't I blast my way through a dungeon with cantrips? People say 5E is "fixed 4E," but a lot of 4E is still in this game, especially the MMO mentality.

I have seen 5E players experience Shadowdark, and then they clicked and understood OSE completely. Whereas Shadowdark offers a narrow and focused experience, OSE traditionally offers the entire old-school experience without the group timer and other dynamic gameplay elements. I love the group dynamics, discovery through play, and focused rules of Shadowdark, but OSE also runs a lean and classic campaign experience. Shadowdark tends to be more survival and character-focused, whereas OSE does the grand campaign with strongholds and followers quite well.

Both games are very complimentary to each other, and the cross-over between them is very easy.

5E: The Math is Out of Control

Why should I even care if the 2024 version of D&D is backward compatible with 10 years of power-gaming content? The math is still broken, the numbers are still too high, the hit points and stats are out of control, and I see people walking away from all of 5E just because the numbers are too silly and the balance is broken, especially at high levels.

The only other 5E clone that took rebalancing seriously was Level Up Advanced 5E, and I still like this version of the game. The math is tight and not way out of control, offering a glimmer of hope for those dissatisfied with the current state of D&D.

The only game on this blog where the math could be considered wild is Dungeon Crawl Classics. Then again, it is wild by player choice, with things like spell-burn and mighty deeds. There are apparent costs for pushing a roll, burning luck, blowing stat points on spell-burn, and other mechanics that can make the game "slippery." Otherwise, the math in DCC is still tight and under control.

D&D, as it stands, has math that is out of control by entitlement. The game's stats must be lowered, inspiration is handed out too quickly, and advantage is too easy to obtain. DCC, Shadowdark, and OSE all have "3d6 down the line" stats, and that is a refreshing change in today's "guaranteed 18" ability score generation methods. Entitlement and "too much power" force players out of the game.

Games like Dark Souls are popular. Players love a challenge, and winning against all odds is a thrilling, white-knuckle ride. In GURPS terms, high and low stats are your character's "advantages and disadvantages"; they define a character's strengths and weaknesses. A character with only strengths is boring, which is where all D&D 4, 5, and 5.5E characters start.

We have left the "good design" realm and entered entitlement, which started back in AD&D with the '4d6 and drop the lowest die' method. Yes, this has been around forever, but it has been broken for a long time. This was one of the biggest mistakes of AD&D, and the original B/X rules had it right.

3d6 down the line.

These are your "advantages and disadvantages."

I swear, when D&D 6 comes out, the standard stat block will be 18, 18, 16, 16, 16, 14. Starting hit points will be doubled, and you will get three feats at the first level. It is funny; whenever I hear people try Shadowdark, they all enjoy the lower power level, and no one complains that there is "not enough character power."

Every Wizards version of D&D has turned the power creep and player entitlement to 11. The hit points and damage scaling are way out of control. The differences between a d4 and a d6 mean nothing when your character does 25-50 points of damage per turn. It is hard to call anything past 3rd Edition D&D.

Seriously, a four-hit-point goblin in B/X versus a d4 dagger is felled on only one result of that die (25%). With a d6, that is three out of six results (50%). Today? They have seven hit points. Sure, everyone adds a stat bonus to a roll in 5E, but the original B/X system is much more elegant and gamified. A stat bonus to damage in B/X means a heck of a lot more than 5E.

Any old-school game worth its salt is watching damage modifiers and keeping those in check. Hit point bloat and inflation destroy a game and shoot the math into the hundreds (5E) or thousands (4E) of hit points. That is terrible game design and destroys the meaning of needing to use unique polyhedral dice.

The average of a d4 is 2.5, a d6 is 3.5, and a d8 is 4.5. That is a 2-point spread.

When my character does 50 points of damage per turn, why are we using d4s and d8s? That 2-point difference, even multiplied some, means nothing. At that point, simplify the game and use d6s like white box games.

5E's doubled hit-point scale sucks.

4E's tripled scale destroyed the game.

B/X and BECMI still have it right.

Imagination and clever tactics will always be more powerful than any "automatic fantasy superpower" a game designer can write in a book. Shadowdark is so difficult players come out better skilled to play 5E, and they quickly find the game boring because it is too easy. I even find it hard to return after playing games on this blog.

Shadowdark's "hard-line" approach to ability score generation is refreshing. OSE and DCC also do straight 3d6. Thank you! Never change. Ability score "stat-inflation" began in AD&D with the "4d6 and drop the lowest" method, it sucked then, and it sucked since. There is a massive difference between a 10-average starting score and a 12. When 4E came out, the starting scores bottomed out at 10, and they never forced you to have negative modifiers.

If there is one thing in common about the games on this blog, it is that they are all straight 3d6 games.

Common Threads

One of the common themes for games on this blog is that they have an old-school feel but don't "emulate too hard." Some OSR games I picked up have been near Xerox copies of a particular version, and while you can play them old school, what new thing do they bring to the table?

I love games like Old School Essentials, Labyrinth Lord, and Swords & Wizardry. They are excellent recreations of a version played at a particular time. Old School Essentials Advanced goes beyond that and expands the game to include new races and classes. It is a game in the spirit of this blog, old school in design, but it brings a lot of new things to the table. It does hold onto a lot of the old ways, and I find both Shadowdark and Dungeon Crawl Classics to go farther in terms of "gameplay design" and more substantial in a "theory of play" than OSE's "emulation plus."

OSE would fit well here with that "emulation plus" design. Where DCC and Shadowdark differ is that "fun" is an active consideration in the game, and they are not afraid to jettison a few unfun parts to enhance the experience. Both games add tables to reinforce the concept, and DCC goes the farthest in embracing randomness. Shadowdark has random-level award advancement. DCC has fixed advancement, but many aspects of gaining magic and casting are entirely randomized with some player control.

OSE is more on the Labrinth Lord and Swords & Wizardry side of randomness, which is less crucial than emulating the classic experience. OSE also doesn't jettison as many rules as DCC or Shadowdark in favor of fun and "feeling emulation." DCC and Shadowdark will abandon rules, rewrite the concepts of magic and light, and rebuild the unfun areas of the game to better embrace the old-school culture and playstyle than the emulation games.

I love my emulation games, Labyrinth Lord, OSE, and Swords & Wizardry, which are all permanently on my most-played shelves. This blog focuses more on the games that take the old-school concept further. The designs are built with classical mechanics but have a stronger sense of design than just emulation. They are built for fun, unafraid to eliminate the tedious parts, and will rewrite entire systems to enforce the theme. If a game rebuilds a whole pillar of the game to enhance feeling and gameplay over tradition, that is a crucial concept for being "like" the other games we cover here.

Darkness in Shadowdark covers everything from ancestries and in-game torch mechanics to time-tracking during live play. The game also rewrites the advancement game and randomizes level awards (which a few other OSR games have done before, and even the original Gamma World). So much of 5E has been rewritten, and every rebuilt part focuses on fun and the old-school feeling.

Shadowdark is more classic D&D than modern 5E ever will be. This is why 5E players are flocking to the game. This is the modern "D&D Basic" that Wizards refuses to ship or create.

DCC rewrites the entire magic system, which is a huge task. It abandons the "gear game" and does not come with exhaustive equipment or magic item lists. It reimagines the concepts of monsters, making each one unique. Every class is rewritten to embrace fun and Appendix N inspirations, even over old-school emulation. The game goes back to "negative 1" - the original inspirations of D&D - and rebuilds the base game along those inspirations. DCC also worships at the altar of the crazy dice, bringing in so many new shapes to jar you out of your standard polyhedral mindset.

OSE adds new races, and it rebuilds the encumbrance system. The organization is fantastic. The classes feel more traditional than either of these games, which holds it back some. The game was conceptualized as more of an old-school reference work, source code for building old-school games, which is incredible. The entire game is a "complete rewrite and clarification" of the original games.

In a way, OSE is a fantastic rebuild of the original game. In others, it feels more beholden to emulation of original systems than it does like the games I focus on here. If a set of game rules rebuilds the classic elements of fantasy gaming to enhance a particular style of play or fun, that is a "gonzo crawl" style game to me. Emulation gets you in the door. Rebuilding the game for fun and a style of play cements the game in the gonzo genre.

Making the Most of the OSE Advanced Fighter

One of the reasons I felt so cool about OSE was the fighter, a class that does not really have much "to" it compared to other OSR games. On the surface, the class is just a d8 hit die, all weapons and armor, and the best to hit table.

Despite its simplicity, you can push the class to high performance within the rules and with a few optional rules.

First, use the optional weapon proficiency rule (p23) and specialize in a single weapon for +1 to hit and damage. If your STR is high, this will stack significantly and make a huge difference.

The second thing you can do is use the character races with the modifiers, giving your fighter some extra abilities. Humans will get these, too, if you lift the race class and level restrictions (p78), and these abilities are beneficial for fighters. Even other races' abilities are helpful for fighters, with some having AC bonuses and making excellent defensive warriors.

You will also advance faster than many other classes, so save that money, use hirelings, and establish that domain early. You can do this at any level. Even a small wooden building is a domain structure and can be built in three days and 1,500gp. This can attract a small camp of settlers and followers; through story events, these could be loyal warrior retainers.

Use these rules. If the hex you start in is your claim, which is unsettled and unclaimed land, build that stronghold and get those followers early. You may find that the fighter and his loyal band of warriors can even outshine the mage and other classes quickly.

Magic items are upgrades! There are many more than the usual "magic weapons and armor" here, and many items are must-haves for an epic hero. If you can find a particular pair of gauntlets, or a girdle of giant strength (far better in OSE than it is in 5E by miles), prepare to amaze even 5E players with how epic and cool your character becomes. Magic items are more critical for OSE character upgrades than in 5E.

This is what I love about the old-school games; the rules may not give you a lot of '5E freebie powers,' but you can more than makeup for that with smart play, roleplaying, and steering your character's story right. This level of engagement is what makes these games so rewarding.