OSR Starter Kit

The Old School Renaissance/Roleplaying (or Open Source Roleplaying) can be understood as:
  1. Using rule-sets from the 1970 versions of D&D as a common basis to play roleplaying games, because material compatible with it has been made since the advent of the game to now.
  2. A set of principles which encompass a play-style and assumptions about how you play the game. These highlight simple systems, easy-to-learn rules, dangerous quick fights.
Both of these points are in common use today; I shall name them the OSR System and the OSR Principles respectively.

How to get started

Superficially, most "hacked OSR Systems" are broadly the same. If you play, "convert" between them as you wish, disregard the balance. Note this for Monsters and DM Advice.

Coming from 5e?

  • Five Torches Deep - OSR Principles with a 5e rule-set, compatible with both 5e and the OSR System (at most, half the 5e Monster HP and attacks)
  • ba5ic - A complete 5e rule-set hacked to OSR Principles. Fully compatible with 5e stuff.

Free/PayWhatYouWant complete rule-sets


Paid for Rulesets

  • The Black Hack 2e - OSR System, and Principles. Very easy to explain and play. Monsters, DM Advice and Setting Creation galore.Get the The Black Hack 1e rules here
  • Knave - OSR System, and Principles. Classless, pick-up and play. Just add classes if you want that. No Monsters nor DM Advice. Excellent, clean, a place to start if you wish to hack.
  • Maze Rats  - Not the OSR System, but OSR Principles through & through. Excellent sets of Dungeon, Wilderness Setting Random Tables for any game. Highly recommend just for the dice tables. Monster Creation & DM Advice included.

To start, download Tomb of the Serpent Kings, an OSR System & Principles "teaching adventure." Read it, DM it, and play it.

Why?

The OSR Principles & System should be seen as, not nostalgia, but a preference for the types of games those rule-sets facilitated. These can best be seen in the Principia Apocrypha - a booklet of principles by OSR luminaries for both DM and Player.

Broadly:
  1. Simple! but hard to master. Simple systems, easy to understand rules. Quick play with exceptional modularity.
  2. There is a preference for the DM making rulings at the table over prioritizing rules from the book.
  3. The DM fairly portrays a harsh and dangerous world, the dice falling where they may. PCs best be careful and smart, they can die in a single hit.
  4. Player Characters are quick and easy to create and make extra rules for. Thus random base stats with chosen backgrounds/classes are the norm. PCs start as a layman out for adventure, not somebody especially exceptional.
  5. There is no story planned by the DM, only a situation presented. Stories are found and so created through playing the game.
  6. The Player describes actions to solve problems, and speaks as the PC. Thus the real-life Players skills in reading situations or solving problems are paramount, not the skills & stats the Player Character possesses. Magic Items become important, because they are tools to solve problems presented by the DM.
My understanding of these principles is as so: The only way you will experience failure is to fail. To feel fear is to be scared. To feel as if you've earned something, by working hard to earn it. There is no replacement for that, and those memories become valuable stories. Additionally, the common use of the OSR System allows for a far ranging, easy to make, and basically compatible set of monsters, settings, magic items and adventures from the advent of the game, to today.

History

My understanding of the Old-School Renaissance history in bullet points
  • Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson worked together to make the set of three Little Brown Books called Dungeons & Dragons: 1) Men & Magic, 2) Monsters & Treasure 3) The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures. These are called 0D&D, 0th edition, 0e or the Little Brown Books.
  • They started a company called TSR. Creative differences turned into a legal dispute over who created the game originally (The D&D rules, probably Gygax. The concept of the roleplaying game, probably Arneson)
  • The settlement was that Arneson would keep the rights to the name Dungeons and Dragons, and Gygax could use the title Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.
  • Gygax wrote AD&D 1e, the Monster Manual, Players Handbook and Dungeon Masters Guide. Extremely confusing and esoteric. Wildly popular.
  • TSR hired a man named John E. Holmes to write "Basic Rules"for Dungeons and Dragons. This is called Holmes Basic.
  • They then hired a man named Tom Moldvay to rewrite the "Basic Rules", and a man named David Cook to write an expansion called the "Expert Rules" to Dungeons & Dragons. Together these two are called Basic/Expert, B/X or Moldvay/Cook Basic.
  • They then hired a man named Frank Mentzer to edit both the "Basic" & "Expert" rules, and add three more books; the Companion, Master and Immortal sets. Collectively, these rules are called the BECMI (Basic, Expert, Companion, Master and Immortal). Just the B/X edit by Mentzer is called the Mentzer rules or the Red Box.
  • The BECMI was collated, rewritten and published into a large tome called the Basic Rules Cyclopedia.
  • During this time AD&D 2e was published, a restating of the 1e rules. Wildly popular.
  • In the early 1990's TSR went bankrupt, and sold the D&D rights to Wizards of the Coast.
  • Wizards of the Coast published the 3rd edition, a clean rewriting of the rules. It was well received, quite popular, but some people still played the older editions.
  • They then published 4th edition. This was not well received due to its great departure of many now traditional D&D expectations. It caused an exodus to other roleplaying games. People still enjoyed it.
  • The OSR was born when a large amount of people turned back to the games of their childhood, and began rewriting and restating the play-style and thinking behind those games. Namely B/X, and 0D&D.
  • 5th Edition is published by Wizards of the Coast, with a sleek rule-set with engaging heroic character creation. Becomes quite popular!
  • The OSR continues, because the play-style varies quite a bit from 5th edition.
Currently:
  • Most OSR gamers like playing either 0D&D or B/X, hacks thereof, and modifying them to suite their needs.
  • Many different published versions exist, each with their own minor differences.
  • The sets of general OSR Principles have extended themselves into the creation of rule-sets that take those Principles to heart with completely different games.
My OSR Links Landfill - a set of links I find useful

Here is a list of principles for how I like to run my games.

Also, check out Dungeons & Possums How to Get Started Playing Old-School D&D for Free to which I owe the creation of this post to, and in which you will find so many more resources.

Keep rolling!


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