OSR I never should have picked up Old School Essentials…

[darjr]

I like that OSE is kinda safe haven for making things for OSR games. More easily used in your flavor of B/X or BECMI or ODD variant.

 

[darjr]

BTW the advanced fantasy tome is the deal if the day at Drivethru

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

 

[Yora]

I see OSE as being B/X with all the monsters and magic items in alphabetical order, the spell descriptions in one place, saving throws and XP being in the monster descriptions, and not having to make the conversion to a sane AC and attack bonus system for monsters myself.
It's straight up B/X without all the inconveniences.

Which is perfect as a starting point for campaign specific customization. With other retroclones, you first have to strip their unique weirdnesses back out before you can add your own stuff. With OSE, it's just adding on top.

 

[deganawida]

I like that OSE is kinda safe haven for making things for OSR games. More easily used in your flavor of B/X or BECMI or ODD variant.

That was actually one of the major selling points to me. It's much easier to add than to subtract. I had considered, for my DL campaign, doing 5e but removing subclasses to lower power levels, but balance was a bit off when I did that. Whereas with OSE, I can add the extra features (classes, some special abilities) without breaking the fundamental math and/or systems.

 

[Yora]

A secondary nice thing about OSE is that it has gotten some degree of name recognition even in circles that have not really heard about other retroclones.
It seems to me that OSE is an easier sell to players than even B/X, depending on where you go looking.

 

[deganawida]

A secondary nice thing about OSE is that it has gotten some degree of name recognition even in circles that have not really heard about other retroclones.
It seems to me that OSE is an easier sell to players than even B/X, depending on where you go looking.

I saw some video on YouTube yesterday with a lady who was sharing her experience with OSE. Though she got a lot wrong, enough that I had to quit watching (seriously, where does it say in OSE that you can cut off a person's hand or stab them in the eyes as an attack action?), she was effusive in her praise for OSE and seemed to really love it.

Found the link:
Anyway, her enthusiasm is infectious, even if she's wrong on multiple details.

 

[Yora]

Isn't that the classic D&D experience? Understanding only half of it, and finding it amazing?

 

[Hex08]

I looked at it and even did a few solitary D&D session with it. It is really a well made document. Much better than flipping back and forth through my old Basic and Expert books.

But ultimately I prefer the AD&D1e (Greyhawk) vibe of C&C.

When I run a D&D game anymore it's with C&C for the same reason. Plus, it's so easy to convert any of my old AD&D 1e or 2e adventures to it. I've never looked at OSE so I can't compare but I came really close to backing the last Kickstarter.

 

[jeffh]

3. Task resolution. Good heavens, this is quick. You’re an elf and want to listen at a door? Roll a d6, you have a 2 in 6 chance of success.

For a different perspective, and one view on where I suspect many part ways with the old school mentality:

What I always found with this, when those old-school versions were all there was as far as D&D was concerned, was that what you write here seemed true when you were looking at one class or one mechanic. But because there was no consistency to which dice you rolled or which numbers you needed or even whether you wanted to roll high or low, I could never keep these mechanics straight, even if individually they were very simple.

(I don't know if this is as true in OSE, but it's pretty true in the version of the game it emulates.)

I don't see what's harder about "roll a d20, add a number that should be written on your character sheet, does it meet the target number?" except in cases where that "should" isn't met. Which I get if you're playing with, like, very young kids, but otherwise that's a player problem. Plus it lets you vary the difficulty. Why would every secret door be equally difficult to find? I'm not necessarily convinced that d20-plus-modifiers was the ideal choice, but give me some kind of unified, scalable mechanic any day of the week.

 

[overgeeked]

Isn't that the classic D&D experience? Understanding only half of it, and finding it amazing?

It's because you're focused on playing your character and trying things in the world, poking around and seeing what you can do...instead of worrying about feats, subclasses, and doing the optimal thing.