r/OSE

When last I wrote about removing the to-hit roll from the game, it was hugely controversial here on Reddit. But, removing the to-hit roll lets us play much faster, makes battles more exciting, creates drama, and lets us fight more battles.

I GM online through livestream where my players are the people in the chat. They create characters and then send them commands about how to fight. That means I run a lot of fights. I put a total of 48 characters through four "bloodcage" fights every night. I can play a single turn in an average of 19 seconds - eat that 5e.

But for those of you who LOVE missing in combat - it is still possible to miss, but only because of the active defenses of the players. Players can block attacks with shields and dodge out of the way completely. And let me tell you, players love it SOOO MUCH MORE when a monster misses them because of something active on their player part, rather than just because the monster failed a to-hit roll.

To me, it is a better game all around. What do you think?

For the past few weeks I've been running a livestream game, called Zorn's Dungeon, where anyone who watches can join the game. Everyone generates a level 0 character by typing !spawn in the chat. The characters are eligible to be drafted into a 12-character party to fight in the bloodcage. Players can even issue commands to their characters while they fight, like directing their movement to certain squares, going all-out-attack, all-out-defense and more.

Right now the bloodcage is being run basically like a 0-level funnel. If you get through the cage you get to be level 1. Although, a lot of players have their characters enter the bloodcage again to compete for greater glory, and we keep track of all the stats like most damage dealt, largest hit, most damage taken, longest kill-streak etc., which are often impossible to keep up with at the tabletop. It has been so much fun!

Hey everyone! I know I've been distanced a lot from this group, my life has been a little bit of a mess, but it's my pleasure to announce that I’ve just released The Unleashing of St. Nimuanne, a 69-page sandbox adventure for Old-School Essentials (Levels 1–6).

Centuries ago, a mortal Myrenean queen used forbidden rites at a sacred menhir field to transcend death, splitting her essence into three fragments upon her final death: Body, Mind, and Spirit. When grave robbers broke open her funerary urn, the region plunged into crisis, unleashing a beast in the northern forest, a telepathic mind-amoeba turning locals into mongrels, and a restless spirit haunting a ruined palace.

Inside this 69-page booklet, you will get:

• Sandbox Region: A complete regional sandbox starting from the trade hub of Craleigh, complete with stability mechanics and rumors.
• Multiple Dungeons: Several unique dungeon locations packed with dangers and treasures, including the Bandit Tower, Lavendhill Monastery, and the Ruined Palace.
• Towns & NPCs: 2 starting towns featuring named NPCs ready to drive your campaign forward.
• Interactive End-Game: A hidden pagan temple and a reactive puzzle based on the exact order you recover the Queen's stones.
• Maps & More: DM and player maps included.

If you're looking for a good sandbox to drop into your campaign or kick off a new one, you can check it out here:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/580488/the-unleashing-of-st-nimuanne?manufacturers_id=29865

Download link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mOLJJxv80wwgqr1FNNur0T9UrOme--kJ/view?usp=drive_link

Hi everyone,

I’ve spent quite a bit of time working with the official Old-School Essentials character sheet by Necrotic Gnome, gradually refining and expanding it to better suit the needs of my OSE group.

After several revisions, I thought I’d share the current version with you. Maybe some of you will find it useful for your own games as well!

Here’s a quick overview of some of the changes and the reasoning behind them:

Abilities: I wanted to have space for temporary modifiers while still keeping the original ability score visible. This makes it easier to keep track of effects without losing sight of the character’s base score.

Combat & AC: For Armor Class (AC), I added a way to distinguish between carrying a shield and actually using it—after all, owning a shield doesn’t mean you always have it ready. There’s also a reminder of the halfling’s AC bonus against large opponents.

Armor – House Rules: I wanted heavy armor to have a little more mechanical impact, so this section includes some of our house rules. Armor can affect Dexterity checks, falling damage, the ability to surprise monsters, and Strength checks for swimming. These are house rules and not standard OSE rules.

Class Skills: Especially for new players, I wanted class skills and abilities to be immediately visible. Simple checkboxes and a compact list make it easy to see at a glance what your character can do. PS: Fighters automatically gain the CLEAVE fighting skill at Level 1 in our games.

Weapons: The weapons section tracks where a weapon is carried and how much damage it deals. I’ve also added a few small reminders for two-handed swords, daggers, slow weapons, and polearms.

Exploration: There is now a dedicated field for torches, so one of the most important exploration resources can be tracked directly on the first page.

Encumbrance: On the second page, I reorganized the encumbrance system to make it easier to use at the table. The small boxes next to packed and equipped items represent individual slots. So if your plate armor takes up three slots, you can simply write “Plate Armor” once and check off three boxes instead of spreading it across multiple lines.

We also count equipped items toward movement rate. Wearing heavy armor and carrying a weapon may already put you into a lower movement category. The arrows are intended to make this immediately visible.

I also wanted to give strong characters a small advantage, so characters with STR 16+ gain one additional slot for equipped items.

Reference Tables: Finally, I added a few useful tables and reminders to the second page: Thief skills, Turning the Undead, how the various modifiers are derived, and—for groups that want to use it—Save vs. Death at 0 HP.

That’s basically the idea: to keep as much useful information as possible directly on the character sheet without making it feel cluttered.

I’d love to hear what you think. Any feedback, suggestions, or ideas for further improvements are very welcome!

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To briefly explain the penalties listed under Armor:

1. DEXTERITY CHECK PENALTY: Leather – 1, Chainmail – 2, Plate Armor – 3

2. FALLING DAMAGE: None/Leather 1d4, Chainmail 1d6, Plate Armor 1d8

3. NO SURPRISE: When wearing heavy armor (Chainmail, Plate Armor), the character or party cannot surprise opponents during an encounter.

4. SWIMMING: Here I based the rules on Dolmenwood. If you enter or fall into water, you can only move at half your normal movement rate. If you are wearing leather armor, you must succeed at a normal Strength check each round or sink and begin to drown. If you are wearing chainmail, the Strength check is made with a -2 penalty; if you are wearing plate armor, the penalty is -4.

Drowning: For each point of Constitution, you can hold your breath for one round (10 seconds) and can be rescued by your fellow players. Once a number of rounds equal to your Constitution score has passed and you have not been rescued, you have drowned and are dead. Throughout this time, you’ll be flailing about in a panic and won’t be able to perform any other actions.

I've been working on a custom Mage class for my OSE campaign and wanted to share it here for feedback.

https://wurtz-brew.itch.io/ose-custom-mage

The main goal was to create a Mage based around learned, non-Vancian magic, while also making them capable of contributing directly to combat with a sword.

The intended trade-off is the core of the class: do I spend the next several rounds casting a powerful spell, or do I draw my sword and fight? A first-level spell is relatively easy to fit into combat, while a high-level spell can require several rounds of uninterrupted casting. The Mage therefore isn't simply a weaker Fighter who happens to have spells—they have to constantly decide whether their magical knowledge is worth giving up their ability to act in the immediate fight.

Outside of combat, the class is heavily focused on acquiring and researching magic rather than receiving spells automatically through level advancement.

I'm particularly interested in feedback on the balance of the casting system and the semi-martial aspect of the class, and whether it still feels appropriately OSE/BX despite the changes.

Credits: The underlying class-building and alternate-magic frameworks are based on BX Options: Class Builder and BX Options: Alternate Magicks by The Welsh Piper.

The Village of the Cursed Eye is a system-agnostic TTRPG supplement set in a medieval fantasy village built around the temple of an old god. Inside this supplement, you will find backgrounds, interesting locations and characters, and suspicious rumors about a curse affecting everyone in the area.

I created this book specifically with solo players in mind, so it is filled with random tables and carefully organized sections to smoothly help your solo TTRPG adventures.

Inside this supplement, you will find tables for:

• Random events and encounters
• Rumors and local lore
• Unique NPCs
• Points of interest

Everything you need for a exciting adventure!!

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You arrive at the Village of the Cursed Eye, a strange name for sure, but they say this village was created around a temple that belonged to an old god. This god is represented by the symbol of an eye, which can be found in many places throughout the village. Some say this village is bewitched, leading everyone who stays here to join the Cult of the Eye, an evil cult that curses those who join by making them lose their minds.

Despite the rumors, this village appears to be lively and secure with strong wooden walls. Behind its giant wooden doors, you can find everything you might need during your travels: an inn to rest and eat good food, shops and a blacksmith to help you resupply, and houses where you can find any type of resident, including farmers, fishermen, hunters, and many more. And, of course, there is the first building of this village and the inspiration for its name: the Temple of the Eye.

It is a very good place to stay for some time, featuring gentle and kind residents, good food, and well-protected walls. Will you stay, or are you afraid of the rumors?

You can get it here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/579134

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If you don’t know me, my name is Elln. I create fantasy TTRPG content like random tables and adventures, specializing in resources for solo players!!

Here's my carrd: link

And now I have a patreon!! If you like my work please take a look, there I’ll post everything I’m working on!

Here's my patreon: link

Hi everyone!

I’d like to share a project I worked on with my friend Marco G. Fossati, who is the author of the setting.
The Stormlight Borderlands is a small, system-neutral hexcrawl made for old-school fantasy roleplaying. I worked on the layout and designed the two dungeons included in the book.
Our idea was simple: create a region that a GM can open and start using with very little preparation.

Instead of writing a lot of lore, we tried to fill the setting with places to explore, factions with different goals, interesting NPCs, legendary relics, and adventure hooks that can create stories naturally at the table.

Inside you’ll find:
19 interconnected hexes
2 complete dungeons
4 competing factions
memorable NPCs
legendary relics
travel procedures and random encounters

Everything is system-neutral, so you can use it with your favourite OSR game or adapt it to almost any fantasy RPG.
This is the first hexcrawl we worked on, and we’d really love to know what the OSR community thinks. If you decide to take a look, any feedback or criticism is more than welcome.

You can find it here:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/it/product/579425/the-stormlight-borderlands-osr-hexcrawl

Thanks for reading!

I'm Carlos Castilho, a traditional artist (100% human) focused on fantasy.

I've been creating art for RPG and Fantasy themes for 7 years, and I've had the pleasure of working with a lot of great people during that time. I have illustrations in several excellent materials.

If you are interested, my contact is: castilhodesouza.filho@gmail.com

My links to sell Stock Art, Portfolio and more!

https://linktr.ee/crawlstilho