r/OSE

Hey, would love to know what the community thinks is the best (most versatile) OS game system?
There are so many to chose from: OSE, Shadowdark, knave, Cairn, Black hack, white hack, Nimble, Dolmenwood etc etc.
I’ve avoided 5E for years and much prefer simpler games. Tried AFF but was a bit to drop. Loved Mork Borg to read and look at, but found the combat a very dull. DCC was to table driven.
So yes, I’m looking for the Goldilocks zone of an RPG. Shadowdark looks pretty good but so does Nimble (appreciate it might be heretical to infer it’s an OS game lol).
I’m sure there’s some obvious ones I’ve left out.
I want a go to system for fantasy ‘setting neutral’ campaigns please. Oh and the winning lotto numbers while you’re at it.
Jo

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I'm so happy to finally be able to share my latest OSE adventure, He Who Claimed the Sun!

I hope you'll check it out, and have as much fun with it as I had designing and running it :)

Available in PDF and/or POD on drivethrurpg, itch, rpg-trader and lulu!

>When the One God's faith washed over the world, the Old Gods of the forest fought back. They fought back with fire, with blood and with ice, and with every season.
And they lost.

>Last night, the cathedral built on the site of their defeat burned, unearthing forgotten stairs...

>A journey begins, from that unholy crypt through a hellish fairy realm, to the deadly, blasphemous truth.

In this module, you will find:

• A busy abbey and its denizens: drop it into your campaign, as a regular stop or base of operations.
• A mythic peregrination, inside­­ & beyond the faithtrap dungeon that awaits underneath: 29-ish rooms puzzling rooms and areas to explore, and survive.
• Five paladins who will help (or hinder) the PCs during the adventure, and an oracular procedure to bring them to life.
• Oh, and too many gods...

Includes a fully-linked interactive PDF, a Referee's Toolkit (printable and fillable tracking sheet, player handouts, and maps) as well as player-friendly VTT maps.

Hey everyone!

I've been playing a lot of OSE recently. I love it. I am playing in a campaign right now and have run a few one-shots for various groups of players to spread the love of B/X era gaming. For new players (and people who have been playing a long time), usually the longest part of the process is character creation. As it goes, I think that OSE (B/X) is pretty straight forward. Where we get stuck is often which modifiers go where. With that in mind, I created and excel that automates the numbers.

With this sheet, all you have to do is fill out anything highlighted in pale yellow. The formulas will do the rest. Anything highlighted in black will appear once the requisite data is inputted into the box. Stat modifiers, saving throws, attack rolls, and THAC0 all calculate automatically based off class chosen and the corresponding level. If you have a character portrait, I moved that to the bottom of the 2nd sheet. I didn't make enough room at the top to put it there. Personally, I usually like to put it off to the side, anyway, and I like having the "Designed for Use with Old-School Essentials" there more.

Of note, there are some grammatical changes. I am from the U.S., and so spell "Armor" the rebellious way.

All information in this sheet was pulled directly from the OSE SRD hosted by Necrotic Gnome. If it was not available in that SRD, it did not get added to the sheet.

To use it, download a copy from Google Drive. There is a hidden tab labelled "Tables" should you want to add anything. Once you download it, it's yours to play with. Add classes, stats, and whatever works for your campaign.

Finally, if you have any feedback, things that could be better, things you might want to see, just let me know!

MiserCatulle Basic Character Sheet V1

A big thanks to u/necrotic-gnome for providing an awesome way for people like me to experience the B/X era of gaming.

3d6 DTL dives head-first into Brad Kerr's OSE Quick Delve Against the Horselord in our first recorded in-person session! Arson! Unnecessary taxidermy! Patricidal mandolin pluckers! Very sudden trees!

Click here to access everything 3d6 Down the Line, including both video and audio podcast versions of this episode, our Patreon, Discord server, socials, past campaigns, character sheets, and lots more!

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Hi,
my question as stated in the title is, how do you deal with locked doors if your party either doesn't have a thief or they failed to open the door? Can you force a locked door? Is t just a dead end for you?

I would love to hear your answers!

Recently moving from AD&D to OSE and I've always use 0 to -10 = death. I've never use 0=Death. It seems pretty harsh and hard mode. I'm sure this is because I've always had the 10hp safety net, but how harsh is the 0=death rule? Do characters die a LOT more? I understand characters don't need to charge into a fight blindly, but still, how harsh is it on characters? Do you notice characters dying more often that the 0 to -10 rule?

Is there a standard for converting 5E materials into OSE. The lore of Crooked Moon is something I am really into. Would love to use some of it in 5E but don't know how.

Update: Thanks for all the feedback. I guess I was mostly looking for a method to convert some of the more unique monsters and subclasses for use in OSE - not really a complete conversion.

Reading through the rules, I'm having difficulty determining whether or not if Rock and Stone are the same object (mechanically) and I wanted some opinions. For the sake of brevity, Transmute Rock to Mud: TRtM, TMtR. And Flesh to Stone: FtS, StF. This question is for certain hypothetical scenarios:

1. Can TRtM be used on a creature turned to Stone to kill them?
2. Can TRtM be used on a Wall of Stone to destroy?
3. Can TRtM be used on castle walls to destroy?

Originally, I figured no. The rules seem to be clear that Stone and Rock, in the mechanics, are different. Examples.

• Earth Elemental: Huge, humanoid figures of earth or stone.
• Pass-Wall: A 5’ diameter hole is temporarily opened in solid rock or stone...
• Move Earth: Earth (but not stone) within range...
• StF spell makes no mention of Rock
• ESP & Clairvoyance spells are blocked by lead or rock, but no mention of stone.
• TRtM/TMtR make no mention of stone in their spell descriptions

Generally I feel they aren't the same thing. However I recently noticed one discrepancy that i think undoes all of that.

• Wall of Stone Spell states: A wall of solid rock appears.

I'm leaning toward this being a matter of loose writing and is not a deliberate unification. Maybe Wall of Stone can be disrupted by TRtM, because it's described as Rock.

But in B/X Wall of Stone states: This spell creates a 2' thick wall of stone.

So I'd rule in straight B/X that only StF could interrupt a Wall of Stone. With OSE being an attempt to faithfully recreate B/X, I'm leaning to what B/X says.

Any thoughts?

I'm using the Necrotic Gnome character sheets, filling them out for monsters, and I'm stuck on a 1/2-HD monster. The sheet doesn't seem to recognize the fraction, and writing a 0.5 just sets it to 0.

I’ve been running games for people over the last few years. Recently some out of state friends have asked me to run a game for them via discord. I sent them the copies of the books and character sheets but am not entirely sure how to run the actual encounter map. I have a crappy little laptop so I’m not even sure I could but would love any assistance or guidance in the matter. Thank you to any who respond.

Hello!

In the spirit of Free RPG Day, I'm releasing the first issue of WEIRD TABLES 4 WEIRD TABLES as a free download.

This trifold OSR pamphlet focuses on the B/X Thief. Instead of another list of treasures or encounters, it gives referees six d6 procedure tables to roll whenever a thief succeeds at class skills like Hear Noise, Move Silently, Open Locks, or Find Traps.

The goal is simple: create memorable details that build emergent play without adding prep or slowing down the game. We've been using these tables at our own table to help teach new players what makes the Thief fun to play.

If you enjoy it, future issues will help support our nonprofit organization by funding larger gaming tables and chairs so we can welcome more players.

Thanks, and happy Free RPG Day!

I distinctly remember a series of blog posts where the author deconstructed most of the early Pathfinder's Adventure Paths for a more sandbox experience, OSR style. However, I cannot remember its name nor I can find it again. Am I crazy, or this thing actually existed? Has anyone else tried the same thing this blogger did?