What is OSR and OSE?

OSR?

OSR stands for Old School {Revival | Renaissance}.

To quote wikipedia:

The Old School Renaissance, Old School Revival, or OSR, is a play style movement in tabletop role-playing games which draws inspiration from the earliest days of tabletop RPGs in the 1970s, especially Dungeons & Dragons. It consists of a loose network or community of gamers and game designers who share an interest in a certain style of play and set of game design principles.

And

The general ethos of OSR-style play emphasizes spontaneous rulings from the referee, or gamemaster, over set rules found in a book. The idea is for the players to engage with the fantasy as much as possible, and have the referee arbitrate the outcomes of their specific actions in real time. The idea of game balance is also de-emphasized in favour of a system which tests players' skill and ingenuity in often strange or unfair situations. The players should expect to lose if they merely pit their numbers against the monsters, and should instead attempt to outwit or outmanoeuvre challenges placed in their way.

In short expect:

  • Very few rules to learn
  • A lot of rules made up as we go
  • An emphasis on random and open gameplay

Oh, yeah, also your character will die in the first 10 minutes.

OSE?

The system we'll be playing is called OSE (Old-School Essentials).

It's a modern print of the D&D ruleset from 1981 called B/X (more here and here). OSE doesn't introduce new rules or change anything when compared to the old 1981 game, it simply re-packages the old game in an easy to use and read book.

Where to start?

OSE comes in three flavours:

  • Basic
  • Classic
  • Advanced

All three flavours are compatible and are the same game. To keep it simple, from a player perspective what changes are the options available when creating a new character.

Basic is a free edition of the rules (can be downloaded from HERE). It's a small 60 pages book that covers all the rules and allows players to choose from 4 classes when creating a character.

Classic is not free, and expands the classes to 7 possible.

Advanced is also not free, and expands the classes to a whopping 22.

Here a quick breakdown of the classes by edition:

Class Basic Classic Advanced
Cleric X X X
Dwarf X X
Elf X X
Fighter X X X
Halfling X X
Magic-User X X X
Thief X X X
Acrobat X
Assassin X
Barbarian X
Bard X
Drow X
Druid X
Duergar X
Gnome X
Half-Elf X
Half-Orc X
Illusionist X
Knight X
Paladin X
Ranger X
Swirfneblin X

If you still don't know what edition to pick:

  • Think what sounds cool to you
  • Go for Basic if you want something free and easy to digest, particularly if this is your first game
  • Go Classic if you want a good balance
  • Go Advanced if you want a bit of a challenge

Also keep in mind:

  • All three versions are compatible with each other
  • Your first character(s) will die

Which means you can start with Basic and go up with a more meaty version if you get bored with the options you have.

What do I need?

You don't need much to start:

That's it.

You may also want to print a character sheet (this is optional, but recommended).

Other tools and links

HERE is a list of random tools and links you may want to check.

Finally, you might want to check the House Rules in use.

Table Of Contents
What is OSR and OSE?
OSR?
OSE?
Where to start?
What do I need?
Other tools and links