Old School Essentials: Advanced PDFs

Here is something to be thankful for today! The Old School Essentials Advanced Players and Referee's tome PDFs were available for download (for preorders) this week, and I got mine last night. I want to do a deeper dive on these, but they are impressive pieces of work.

You do not need the OSE Classic rules to play - Advanced and Classic are two separate products that use the same underlying rules framework. You can have the classic books and just play with those, or you can have these books and play with these. It seems all of the Classic material is reprinted in Advanced, so this is a sort of superset game to that one.

vs. Labyrinth Lord?

OSE Advanced  (OSE-A) is on-par with Labyrinth Lord's hybrid D&D/AD&D blend of rules, monsters, and treasures now and that is a good thing. There is a clear difference however, Labyrinth Lord is now the game that is closer to the D&D/AD&D original game mix than OSE-A. OSE-A has wonderful implementations of B/X of classes Labyrinth Lord does not include: acrobat, barbarian, bard, knight, and B/X style race as class implementations for drow, duergar, and svirfneblin (though Labyrinth Lord still is the only game with the monk class). The classes are wonderfully B/X feeling and really match the design aesthetics of the original game nicely - well done.

Monks were always a bit of a strange add in the original AD&D, and they are clearly a more Eastern influence on the game. Keeping them out seems right, since once you add monk people will want ninjas and samurai, and all of a sudden you are way outside of the original experience. Best to do those right in an expansion book.

OSE-A is a sort of fork in the D&D/AD&D hybrid throwback games now, and this game is almost an "alternate reality" type game in a universe where AD&D never came out and the ideas were instead added to the basic D&D set and the entire game expanded upon and revised into a "one true ring" type whole. Labyrinth Lord is the "bolted together" throwback and more true to the source material because it does not expand upon the basic material (much). OSE-A feel almost like an entirely new game from that alternate universe where the brand was never split and the game remained as one experience - and then expanded upon from there.

"Versus" is a bit of a false comparison also, since in B/X it isn't really one game against another. Both games are great, and really what you play is personal preference.

No Demons and Devils

Demons and devils are not present (outside of a demonic knight monster) in OSE-A. This was one thing I wanted, but I can live without now that my thinking on this is evolving. Demons and devils are controversial, so leave them for an entirely optional expansion book and keep the core game clean and appealing to most everybody. Also, if one would have jammed demons and devil into the game as "just more monsters" I don't think they would have been done justice as the diabolical foes they deserve to be.

Looking back at how infernal monsters were shoved into the original Monster Manual and I get this feeling they demons and devils not done much justice in AD&D. They were "just another monster" and many of the other creatures in the book were truly more terrifying than them. That, and since most of them were psionic with loads of special attacks and defenses they seemed to break the game, were too complex to run as a DM, and felt like they were fearful because they broke the game in ways outside of how it was designed.

And a lot of the AD&D demons and devils seemed very "comic book" to me. I would like ones more pulled from the original sources, fully statted out as individuals, and with a large supporting cast of henchmen, lesser demon lords serving them, infernal monsters, background information, and even art and illustrations like something out of Dante's Inferno. I would even say give me a setting that covers the layers of Hell and all of a sudden you haven't just emulated AD&D but improved on it greatly and done these creatures justice by making them fearsome and terrifying foes.

So I am in the market for a B/X book like this, or I will just write one myself.

Speaking of psionics there are none in OSE-A or Labyrinth Lord outside of special powers for certain magic items (and some spells).

Presentation

The art in these books is stunning - and it floors me again and again with the quality and pieces chosen. Some are repeated from OSE-C but since these are the same games really I do not mind. The book is full-color throughout and a real work of art in both presentation and organization.

I have not gotten the physical books yet, so I will check in later when those arrive. Already I am eagerly looking forward to them given the PDFs.

Will I Use It?

So the question is, does this game completely replace Labyrinth Lord for me? The unified B/X classes and races are very compelling, and this game has something like 80-90% of LL's content outside of a few things here and there. The organization is incredible. The art is stunning. The ease-of-use is the best in the B/X world. This one hurts but I may say yes, this replaces Labyrinth Lord for me. Labyrinth Lord is still my support material for Mutant Future and it will still be used for fantasy-mutant hybrid creatures in that game, and I still love the game and it is a solid choice for anyone into B/X.

But Old School Essentials Advanced? This game for me is a complete replacement for AD&D. I could restart my old Greyhawk and 4E campaigns and be completely happy with it. If I lost my original AD&D or D&D 4E books I would not feel a sense of loss other than the sentimental value, because I have this instead.

I see OSE-A as a viable D&D 5E alternative - and it is clearly on that level of quality and presentation. It is not the same game, nor is it for the same type of player, but for those who love B/X, this feels like a giant that stands alongside the other greats in the B/X world. This is a game with a warm smile, familiar home, and inviting demeanor to those interested in B/X and these simpler times and rules. In my feeling, the quality level here meets or exceeds what Wizards and Paizo puts out.

Highest recommendation when the print versions finally go on sale.

Finally

To me, it feels like going to the home of a legendary dungeon master in some mountain forest retreat; and seeing his game room, with a giant ornate deeply scratched 600-year old table that actual knights sat at, plush easy chairs around the table, buckets of dice lying around, and a lavish assortment of games and history all over the walls. Add a warm, inviting fireplace, all the refreshments you could hope for, and the smells of something baking in the upstairs oven for afterwards and you get the feeling that Old School Essentials Advanced gives me.

It feels like home.