Since I’ve decided to at least consider running an OSR game then the next question becomes…which OSR game? There are a lot of games that fall under this category and many of them are extremely similar since they’re largely based off the same chassis.
Ultimately I narrowed it down to three games – Worlds Without Number, Dungeons and Dragons BECMI (Basic/Expert/Companion/Master/Immortal) and Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy. Ultimately I didn’t want to have to look at too many games that are basically just iterations on the same thing so I went with three games I already had and they all bring something different to the table.
Dungeons Dragons (BECMI)
Okay, more BECM but it doesn’t roll off the tongue easily. I don’t have any intent of using the Immortal rules and they’re not part of the Rules Cyclopedia anyway. I have the box sets (well the books, not so much the boxes anymore) so I thought I’d start there.
I don’t think I’ve seriously looked at the old rules since the late 80s and while we played a lot of Basic and Expert we’d largely moved to AD&D by the time Companion and Master came out. In many ways after so many years it was almost like reading a new game. Not entirely, between memory and things that the game has retained in some form over the years, but similar.
The first thing that struck me is that there’s a fair amount of depth to the game. Things we probably missed as teens who just wanted to kill monsters and take their stuff. I vaguely remember the wilderness exploration rules and the domain level rules but a lot of the things were new – multiple attacks for fighters, weapon mastery, one of the best mass combat system D&D has ever had, and once you get into the first Gazetteer (Grand Duchy of Karameikos) the introduction of general skills.
With a goal of playing something OSR with modern players BECMI has a lot to offer. Definitely a strong contender for the system I use.
Worlds With Number
I love what Kevin Crawford does with the “Without Number” games. Tons of old school ideas mixed with some modern things as well. I’ve run Stars Without Number before and it was a pretty great sandbox-y Traveler like Science Fiction game.
Ultimately though while I like elements of the game a ton I don’t really care for the idea of Focuses for this particular campaign. They lean just a little bit too closely to Feats for me. That combined with the reliance on skills means the game can easily slide away from the OSR idea that the answer is not on your sheet. It doesn’t have to go that way but it easily can.
However – where the Without Number games truly, truly shine is in their tools for worldbuilding.
Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy
OSE Classic Fantasy is mainly a reorganization of old Basic/Expert D&D, which is a god send to be honest. Yes the Rules Cyclopedia does much the same and includes Companion and Master D&D as well but there is something fairly appealing about focusing on levels 1-14 and I like the aesthetic of OSE more than the RC.
However Advanced Fantasy does a lot of things my (potential) players and I are looking for by cleaning up/clarifying some rules things, adding in some classes from Advanced D&D and separating out race and class. It still retains the feel I’m looking for, the core mechanics of old B/X D&D but has some few alterations that give it a slight edge over BECMI.
Also it is quite easy to modify which is handy.
So ultimately OSE: Advanced Fantasy is the game system I’m going with but I’m going to be using elements from all three of these because one thing about the OSR movement is that a ton of stuff is cross-compatible with very little work.
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