As part of my ‘return’ to Dungeons & Dragons (see my Old School Dungeons and Dragons post), I’ve been looking at retro-clones of D&D. The two key ones that have got my attention are OSE (Old School Essentials) and OSRIC (Old School Reference and Index Compilation). Both of these are faithful reproductions of different editions of D&D. The other retro-clone that caught my interest was DCC (Dungeon Crawl Classics) by Goodman Games – something Old School but also different.

Old School Essentials Classic Fantasy

Old School Essentials, or OSE, is a retro-clone of D&D that is a very faithful reproduction of Tom Moldvay’s D&D Basic (B/X) rules from 1981. The “Classic Fantasy” edition faithfully combines all the B/X (i.e. Basic & Expert) rules in a single format. It also incorporates all know errata and lays the combined B & X rules out in a meaningful way. It’s a nicely presented rulebook available in PDF and various formats of hardcopy (see below). I really like how these are presented. Someone with these rules can happily sit down with someone with D&D Basic and Expert sets from 1981 and play with no rules discrepancies or issues.

What I especially like with these is there is then an optional “Advanced Fantasy”. This is available separate from “Classic Fantasy” so if you want to play pure D&D B/X you can; or if like me you are interested in just adding a hint of flavour from AD&D and similar this offers a nice option. The extra material is inspired by AD&D 1st Edition; and has been carefully adapted and tested to make it compatible to D&D Basic.

OSE Advanced Fantasy

Essentially for me the best aspects are the ‘advanced’ part adds the option of:

• 15 extra classes/races (acrobat, assassin, barbarian, bard, drow, druid, duergar, gnome, half-elf, half-orc, illusionist, knight, paladin, ranger, svirfneblin)
• 100+ extra spells (so almost doubles the number of spells from original B/X)
• 120 extra monsters (to add to the 200+ in B/X)
• 150 extra magic items (again effectively doubling the number from original B/X)

Given how abilities are traditionally rolled in D&D Basic; in sequence with no rerolls it makes the extra classes very special. Undoubtedly many of them will require quite unique ability combinations; so will be truly rare, and special when they appear. It also includes optional rules for choosing race and class separately although likely most OSR gamers won’t be interested in that, but newer generations may be. I like the concept of playing Moldvay era D&D B/X but having a little of the variety of AD&D 1e added in… And it means if converting traditional AD&D modules to OSE or D&D Basic the OSE Advanced Fantasy rules provide a baseline to help with AD&D NPCs and Monsters.

OSE Rulebook Formats

Old School Essentials Classic and Advanced are each available in PDF; in a combined ‘Tome’ (Classic has it all in 1 book, Advanced has 2 books – Player’s & Referee’s); or in boxed sets of 4-5 books broken in to major sections of the rules. The boxed sets will be available via a Kickstarter Campaign in a couple of months. There’s also a free ‘basic rules’ version of the rules (on this page). And extras such as a DM Screen, Classic Fantasy Player’s Rules Tome (with just the PC related rules in it) and Advanced Fantasy Reference Booklet. You can see more at the Necrotic Gnome OSE Website.

OSE also provides more material and support via:

• Old-School Essentials System Reference Document online – the SRD includes all the Classic Rules reference info and some neat generators for Treasure, Encounters, Spells, Magic Items, and NPCs.
• Carcass Crawler (official OSE zine) – Issue 1 is out and Issue 2 due soon. Also the original Dolmenwood (see below) zine: Wormskin explores the weird fairy tale setting of Dolmenwood.
• Dolmenwood Campaign Setting, a complete guide to the magical forest realm of Dolmenwood — OSE’s weird fairy tale campaign setting. In latter stages of development, you can support via Patreon, or get a taste from the Wormskin zines (above).
• There are also several official adventure modules, lots of useful accessories, starter pack bundle, third-party products (via DriveThruRPG) and similar.
• Plus obviously compatibility with all existing D&D Basic and Expert Adventure Modules (and some Companion ones too, via the optional advance past Level 14 rules that were in the B/X rules but rarely used by players).

OSE Conclusion

Ultimately on first impressions I really like OSE and the fact that it’s been faithful to D&D B/X in it’s ‘Classic’ form; the only extras being a couple of optional additions such as using ascending Armour Class. Yet while apparently adding some flavour from AD&D in a sympathetic way via the ‘Advanced’ version which adds variety while keeping the original B/X feel. While I have the Classic edition I am still waiting to get hold of the Advanced version (due to shipping delays) to delve further into ‘Advanced’. For a more detailed introduction see Leyline Press Blog: A Comparative Exploration of OSR RPG Systems – Old School Essentials and The Other Side: B/X Boxing Match: OSE vs. BX RPG. Also see James Maliszewski’s Grognardia: OSRIC is Mine (albeit from 2009).

Old School Reference and Index Compilation

Old School Reference and Index Compilation, or OSRIC, is another retro-clone that I like the look of at first glance. In this case it’s a clone of AD&D 1st Edition, first published in 2006. It is arguably the original retro-clone that started the whole concept. It’s pitched as an open license document to allow people to write & publish material for AD&D 1e under that license without reference to AD&D itself specifically. “However, considering the effort put into organising it, with a table of contents, index and appendices, and that it comes out to 128 pages with a full art cover page makes it look much more like a real rulebook”. See 2007 Review at RPG.net for quote context – but note OSIRC has expanded it’s content since that review. The current version 2.2 published in 2013 is exactly that – a complete ruleset (400+ pages, 6 chapters, and appendices).

Essentially OSRIC provides all the key core parts of AD&D in terms of Characters, Spells, and basic rules. But from what I see it does not comprehensively provide every piece from the original AD&D rules; however version 2.2 does add information on Monsters, treasure, and dungeons & wilderness. So it is a fully complete playable set of rules recreating the feel of AD&D 1st Edition. The thing here I think with OSRIC is, if you are extremely pedantic or interested in micro-detail, you are either (a) a past or existing AD&D 1e Player, and/or (b) possess the AD&D 1e PHB and/or DMG. Regardless they look a great retro-clone for recreating the feel of AD&D 1e games.

OSRIC Material

In addition to the rule books (a free DPF download or purchase a print on demand hard or soft cover copy), OSRIC has a lot of material available:

• OSRIC Rulebooks available as Free PDF, and Print On Demand A5 Softcover (Lulu) and an A4 Hardcover (Black Blade Publishing) – although the latter seems unavailable now.
• As OSRIC has been around for some time there is a reasonable amount of original support material for it (including from numerous Third-Party publishers), including Adventure Modules, you can find these here.
• The Robe Of Useful items is OSRIC’s online SRD (System Reference Document) – and it covers AD&D and OD&D as well as OSRIC.
• As its 100% compatible with AD&D 1st Edition everything from AD&D (Adventure Modules, Supplements, Extra Classes/Rules/Monsters) is fully usable with OSRIC.

For more information on OSRIC check out The Gaming Gang: OSRIC RPG Version 2.2 | Review and Page-Through and Back To The Dungeon: OSRIC 2.0 Review and Classic RPG Realms: Let’s Talk OSRIC. Also well worth a read is Matt Finch’s Blog Post: Why I might not want you to play the game I published (Matt was co-creator on OSRIC, and also did his own project the OD&D retro-clone Swords & Wizardry mentioned below).

Dungeon Crawl Classics

Moving along Dungeon Crawl Classics, or DCC, is a slightly different fish. It is published by Goodman Games (who I quite like due to their Original Adventures Reincarnated, and Judges Guild Deluxe publications); and takes Old-School feel, the D20 system, and a whole fresh approach to combine the two. Some my argue it’s a 3.0 clone (rather than an old school retro-clone) but it seems to blend the both well, and has some really unique takes on level advancement, skills and more. Read more at Leyline Press Blog: A comparative exploration of OSR RPG Systems – Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC) which gives a really good introduction. Unlike OSE and OSRIC, DCC is not cloning a specific variant of D&D or similar.

DCC is supported by lots of material (largely thanks to Goodman Games backing) and seems to have a large fan following.

A Couple More Worth A Mention

Swords & Wizardry, or S&W, is an retro-clone of OD&D (Original Dungeons & Dragons). It takes those classic little brown books of 1974-1976 that started the whole D&D genre; and reorganises and modernises it. It does not try to keep 100% faithful to the original like OSE does with D&D B/X; but this is partly because OD&D was not a complete system, and required Chainmail to play. Instead S&W has endeavoured to be a completely self-contained system that captures the feel of OD&D. Read more at Leyline Press Blog: A comparative exploration of OSR RPG systems – Swords & Wizardry.

Basic Fantasy RPG, or BFRPG, is another of the ‘original’ retro-clones originating in 2006. Although nominally based around the Basic/Expert rules (D&D B/X) it is more of a hybrid and borrows elements from other editions and versions of D&D. Like S&W above it doesn’t try to be 100% faithful to the original rules. To read more detail once again visit Leyline Press Blog: A comparative exploration of OSR RPG Systems – Basic Fantasy. BF, like pretty much all the rulesets listed in this post includes a free PDF version of the rules – so you can easily download any of these and assess them yourself.

Retro-Clones of D&D Conclusion

For me it’s OSE & OSRIC that I am moving forward with at this time. I’m traditionally an AD&D Player/DM who had played occasionally under D&D Basic/Expert (Moldvay B/X). OSE is my first preference as my OSR sees me keen to play the B/X style of game, albeit it with an option for a little bit of extra detail ex-AD&D 1st Edition (e.g. extra character options) which OSE Advanced provides. OSRIC is my close second, providing a genuine OSR retro-clone of AD&D 1e should I end up playing (or preferring to play) AD&D.