NOSTALGIA POWERED DEATH!

John Baltisberger gives a review of Old-School Essentials, but is it what we need to scratch the D&D nostalgia itch?

“With the rising of the Blood Moon, the accursed abode of the Blood King returns to this world.”

For those of you who are into RPGs, and especially keen on the indie scene, the term “OSR” is probably pretty well ingrained in your zeitgeistic minds. For everyone else, terms like OSE, OSR, B/X, and THAC0 probably sound like a horrible fever dream that is coming to attack you. And, well, you aren’t entirely wrong. Old-School Essentials, or OSE, is part of the “Old-School Revival (OSR)” movement in game design. An attempt to capture the incredible feeling we children of the first iterations of Dungeons & Dragons felt as we cracked open those first few books.

Characterized by heavy “crunch” and deadly encounters, OSR places an emphasis on being the kind of game that you can sit around in a basement drinking Mountain Dew until 4 a.m. with your buddies.

Physical Product: 9

Produced by Necrotic Gnome and published by Exalted Funeral, OSE is beautiful. Sleek black hardcovers in matte, with bold typography and completely baller ‘80s style fantasy art that pays homage to maestros like Jeff Dee, these rulebooks look fantastic on a shelf or in hand. The inside of the rulebooks tends to be dense with text, but the flow and layout create a fairly welcoming view. From a simple product point of view, these are very well-made products, and I suspect I can keep them until some kids find it while rooting around my stuff when I am elderly, and fall in love, much the way I first discovered TTRPGs.

Art: 8

Yes. I already mentioned Jeff Dee, one of the original artists who crafted the iconic look of D&D (hi, Jeff!), but honestly, if you were to flip between one of the OSE books and one of the AD&D books, I doubt you would be able to tell which was which just from the art. These books go out of their way to capture that old-school feel. In today’s world, we’re sometimes used to digital art crafted to take our breath away, but there is something just so satisfying about these simple ink and paper illustrations that takes you back to those bygone days.

Writing/Editing: 7

So if we’re talking about the rulebooks themselves, they are DRY. We’re talking THREE rulebooks, each around 250 pages that is just rules. The reason for this is simple: old-school D&D, and by extension OSE, wants to be able to cover any possible situation. If something happens in this fantasy world, they want to know the how and why. But that said, it isn’t super engaging to just sit and read. But the adventures and setting books? Holy crap, they are fun.

World/Fiction: 5

Normally, I break out the world and fiction writing into several categories. I just can’t do that here. Not because it isn’t well written but because there is practically zero world building. Today, it is rare to get a sandbox without any prebuilt sandcastles, but believe it or not, that’s how it used to come out of the box. You will not be able to run this game without grabbing an adventure supplement or doing some writing of your own.

• Mechanics: Fuck THAC0. But also, they do have conversion rules to go with a more modern hit determination.

Overall: 7.25

Final Thoughts: One of my favorite things about OSE is it’s compatible with my older games. Specifically, the classic fantasy rules are compatible with D&D and (B)/X. The advanced rules are compatible with AD&D and B/(X). That may not mean anything to you, but it means the world to me. On top of that, there is a ton of supplemental material, adventures, settings, new rules, just an incredible bevy of things that can take the simplicity of OSE and make it whatever the hell you could possibly want. I highly recommend both Settlers of the Dead God and The Stygian Library as both a fun setting and an incredible read!

Get your own copy: https://www.exaltedfuneral.com/pages/old-school-essentials

John Baltisberger loves TTRPGs and Kaiju. He is an author of speculative and genre fiction that often focuses on Jewish Elements. Through his writing, he has explored themes of mysticism, faith, sin, and personal responsibility. He lives in Austin, TX with his wife and his daughter.

PLEASE NOTE: The views and opinions of the staff of Memento Mori Ink do not necessarily represent those of Memento Mori Ink or Crystal Lake Publishing. Thank you for understanding.