Why Old School Essentials?

There are a few that say, "Why do we need Old School Essentials when we have physical copies of both the original BX books?" Up until recently, you could only get one of the original PoD books in physical form, and now you can have both, which is nice.

Some exclusively play with these, choosing to ignore OSE and say, "I am playing D&D." It is a valid choice, and one that stays true to the game and era. You can't get more D&D any more than this game.

They are nostalgia pieces to me, memories, and nice to have perhaps to display, but these aren't what I play with or support these days. These are the original games, yes, but we have better ones these days. I still love my BX books, and these defined my childhood, but times have changed.

The "X" jump in BX is often ignored, but it is an important shift in focus. The Expert game goes beyond a single dungeon and introduces overland travel, retainers, hirelings, large expedition formations, and domain building. Past level three, you are leaving your mark on the world and choosing how that will be done, along with taking on kingdom-level threats.

If there is one valid criticism of OSE's format, it is that the shift in focus between the low levels (1-3) and the higher levels (4-14) is not defined or laid out as well as the deliberate shift between the red and blue books. You will get OSE players who want to "dungeon crawl all the way up," and that is not how the original game is played.

Once you have the original books and understand this tonal shift, you can play OSE much more like the original game, and divide the adventurer levels (1-3) from the conquorer levels (4-6), and the king levels (7+). And yes, I know what I did there, and ACKS is also an amazing game that puts these tone shifts into much clearer focus.

And you can get B2 in PoD form too, which gives you more of the "how to referee" advice on running dungeons and adventures, right in the module. For the complete experience, grab this, too. If you go for those two books, B1 and X1 are also iconic starting modules to try out, and those came with the original games. Where B2 is more focused on "how to run a dungeon," and the most important of the three, B1 is all about "dungeon building," and X1 is all about "wilderness adventures," and both should not be missed.

When we got these books, we did not have Mystara; we just started our worlds with these adventures and made up the rest of the world ourselves. These were the original "points of light" that we created as part of an entire campaign world of our creation. We did not need a preset world; we made one ourselves.

Old School Essentials is what I play and support because it is far easier to use and supports a community of players and creators who can share new content and participate in the marketplace. While the original BX games started it all, OSE offers the ease of use and organizational layout that define the modern era of BX.

These are also moving to an open license next year, finally free of the OGL. While the current books are still 100% compatible, it is nice to see the game finally stand on its own and away from the terrible OGL mess that has been a plague on the industry for years now. The original BX books and adventures are not even OGL, so there is no chance to create for them outside of starting with OSE or a similar open-license game.

Supporting OSE means we will always have a game that today's community can create, whether it's adventures, additional material, or even entirely new settings and games. And if you would like to play different types of campaigns and worlds, the Without Number games are also BX-based games, and cover every genre imaginable, and are also OSE compatible, so you can borrow magic, monsters, and adventures from them.

And the OSE content creator community is absolutely huge! If only we could have had so much cool stuff back in the day, from sci-fi games to modern games and everything in between. Megadungeons, adventures, campaign worlds, and loads of cool stuff, all for this game.

OSE Advanced Fantasy offers more options, and the Carcass Crawler zines bring this up to a modern standard of content, where you can have Tieflings and Dragonborn as classic, BX characters. The appeal of coming from 5E and playing BX with all your familiar favorites is a strong proposition, making the game far more accessible and easy to jump into.

I love those original books.

But today's games that stand on the shoulders of giants are also worthy and magnificent games with an entire world of creators behind them.