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Old-School Essentials: Basic Rules $0.00
Average Rating:4.7 / 5
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Old-School Essentials: Basic Rules
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Old-School Essentials: Basic Rules
Publisher: Necrotic Gnome
by Peter B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/09/2023 02:16:47

Great intro for anyone wishing to get into Advanced Dungeons and Dragsons, or any RPG for that matter.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Old-School Essentials: Basic Rules
Publisher: Necrotic Gnome
by Jonathan R. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 02/26/2023 08:58:54

The gold standard for old school fantasy RPGs! It was this with the addition of "Deathbringer" that make my favourite fantasy RPG experience. I am pretty excited about discovering "Lamentations of the Flame Princess" though. So this game might have a competitor!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Old-School Essentials: Basic Rules
Publisher: Necrotic Gnome
by Dorr D. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 10/12/2022 19:25:02

OSE is my number one RPG. It is so familiar. It feels natural.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Old-School Essentials: Basic Rules
Publisher: Necrotic Gnome
by Leon K. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/20/2022 15:45:49

I came to know about RPG in mid of 2010s; I don't have much idea about old school stuffs, so I was a bit curious how the things were before. With a quick glance of this free doc of OSE basic rules, I've got some taste of OSR(well, I haven't tried the game yet so I can't say I really understood the feeling though) and I would like to buy the full materials of this game.

Just one thing is that it'd be better if it included few low level monsters too(even if there's online SRD) so that people can try a short one-shot adventure.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Old-School Essentials: Basic Rules
Publisher: Necrotic Gnome
by Robert B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 06/02/2022 23:39:40

Pretty good product overall. I personally find the rave reviews about "organization" to be exagerated but it's certainly attractive. Personally I'd suggest skipping this and going with Basic Fantasy RPG unless you're really dead-set on OSE. The art is copious if mediocre and the entire presentation is nice.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
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Old-School Essentials: Basic Rules
Publisher: Necrotic Gnome
by Jesper P. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 02/21/2021 08:45:28

Simple, useful and a great layout. This book was so good i got it printed and turned into a hand stitched book.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Old-School Essentials: Basic Rules
Publisher: Necrotic Gnome
by Gus L. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 11/19/2020 16:39:59

A clean modernized retroclone of the 1981 Molday Basic/Expert set. It doesn't make changes, but it has a nice muber of explanations and notes that make it a great introductory rule set for people that expect a different play style. For a free starter, it's complete, well illustrated and utterly sufficent to start running adventures.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Old-School Essentials: Basic Rules
Publisher: Necrotic Gnome
by Cosmo C. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 09/27/2020 18:19:58

Old School Essentials is the best way to play original B/X D&D. The TSR Basic and Expert rules are hard to come by and not organized well at all. This solves that perfectly. It's cleanly laid out and done right. So if you want to play a very streamlined and simple version of Dungeons & Dragons this is it. It does not, however, try and fix the design issues with the original version so you'll see a lot of relics of 1970s/1980s unrefined game design in some places (e.g. the thief saving throw vs wands is 13 for levels 5-8, then changes to 11 for levels 9-12, the real questions here are "why did it stay the same for 4 levels then jump 2 spots" and "why have a save vs. wands in the first place" and "why are all wands the same so far as saves are concerned"?). Simply put, you get an excellent presentation of some very old and simple D&D rules (which are still tons of fun to play).



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Old-School Essentials: Basic Rules
Publisher: Necrotic Gnome
by Timothy B. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 05/07/2019 13:44:46

Original review appears here: http://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2019/05/review-bx-essentials.html

Old-School Essentials is a redesign of the classic "Basic/Expert" rules using OGC sources. The books are all digest-sized, 6" x 9" format. All of the books feature fantastic full-color covers from artist Andrew Walter and color accented interiors; limited to mostly pale green. A moment about these covers. They remind me of a surreal 70s version of Lord of the Rings meets Elric; easily some of my most favorite covers of in all of the Old-School movement. All the books are extremely modular. This was a design goal by Norman and it pays off. Everything is easy to find. Sections usually take up a page or multiple full pages. If you were so inclined you could cut up your books (!) or print out the PDFs and reorganize them as you see fit. Really at this point, the only thing that could make these books easier to use is having all the content in a spiral-bound volume so it can lay flat at your table.

Old School Essentials expands on these rules and reorganizes them some more. There is a Basic Rules that takes place of the Core book and then a Genre book that covers classes and other "D&D" like topics. I imagine that different genre books will have other rules and classes.

Old-School Essentials: Basic Rules This free 56-page book covers all the basics of the OSE line. Picking it up you can see the stylistic changes from B/XE to OSE. Also this book covers just about everything you need to play right now. It includes the four human classes, some rules, some spells, some monsters, and treasure. Enough to give you a taste of what OSE will be like. It has the same modular design as B/XE so finding things is simple, leaving more time for play. There is no interior art in this free version, but that hardly detracts from it.

I am really looking forward to seeing OSE out. But until then I am going to enjoy playing with B/XE!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Old-School Essentials: Basic Rules
Publisher: Necrotic Gnome
by Benjamin B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 04/12/2019 18:26:07

Great layout; a beautiful piece of work! Clear and to the point rules. I can't wait to get the hardcover!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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