D&D General Grateful for Old-School Essentials

[Pirate O’ Caribbean]

While the majority of my game hours have (and are) spent with other RPGs, in recent times I've also been perusing Old-School Essentials from Necrotic Gnome.

What a lovely version of the TSR B/X rules set.

 

[Reynard]

I'm glad you found a game that suits you. I myself am currently enamored with Dragonbane for old school style fantasy adventure, after a stint of loving Shadowdark.

 

[Pirate O’ Caribbean]

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[The Soloist]

OSE and OSE Avanced box sets have a place of choice on my bookshelves. I soloed a five-character campaign with them in 2022. They went from level 3 to 6-7 and saved their immediate region from several threats. It was great fun to rediscover BX. I will return to them later on to discover what the Tome II of their adventures will be about.

I skipped over Shadowdark. Dragonbane has been my gritty and simple RPG since it came out.

 

[Pirate O’ Caribbean]

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[Aldarc]

While the majority of my game hours have (and are) spent with other RPGs, in recent times I've also been perusing Old-School Essentials from Necrotic Gnome.

What a lovely version of the TSR B/X rules set. The potential, the flexibility, the freedom.

Excellent.

Have you looked into Dolmenwood yet? It grounds OSE into a more medieval fairytale sort of vibe.

 

[Pirate O’ Caribbean]

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[The Soloist]

In the same mindset of keeping things simple, I've swapped out from using a range of minis to simple wooden pawns (and meeples for the PCs/major NPCs).

View attachment 371425

I sometimes use 10mm dice on an abstract battle board and two mini 10mm polyhedral sets. Very compact.

 

[Aldarc]

I have. The new volumes look like a great production but bigger than I personally prefer. I like the style of the bits and bats in the old Wormskin zine format (alas no longer available).

Winter's Daughter looks very good for Dolmenwood (of course it can be run as a simple standalone). I lean more towards scenarios with either only hinted at (or simply no) background campaign arcs – letting anything like that grow organically from the characters' actions and random DM inspiration.

In essence I think I've had enough of "too much lore".

One day I'd love to run a party through Starstone (Northern Sages).

I don't think that Dolmenwood precludes such an approach. I probably wouldn't touch half of what lore Dolmenwood has to offer, as I think that having to juggle things like in-world calendars is a bit too much for my tastes. It is great though for people who like or want such things, but it's not my thing.

 

[Xenolith234]

In the same mindset of keeping things simple, I've swapped out from using a range of minis to simple wooden pawns (and meeples for the PCs/major NPCs).

View attachment 371425

Where did you get the dice in the upper right?