Too Many Classes

I get the feeling class choice is a fallacy.

There are a very limited number of roles in a dungeon party. Mind you, in 5E, where it is all "story gaming," and there isn't even a structure to dungeon exploration, with no time, resources, turns, or wandering monster checks needed, you are all just playing "soft pretend" and running pre-set combat encounters to give you the illusion of dungeoning.

You can play 5E like an OSR game, but you need to houserule the most important rules for dungeon exploration, and if you do not know them, you are back in story-gaming land, dealing with the Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat again as your Dungeon Masters, and you are being led by the nose through some adventure writer's story by the nose and shoved on that railroad.

If you did not know the terrible days of "modules on rails" of the AD&D 2E era, here we are again.

You have no dungeon turn structure in 5E, nor do you have any hexcrawl procedures. The game wasn't built for that. People port those ideas in from older editions, but they aren't there. The dungeon exploration turn structure is the reason we have class roles; that gameplay loop defines the game.

That dungeon turn procedure defines the resource game.

And the resource game defines the class roles.

In a game less about pretentious module-writer stories and more about sandbox dungeon exploration, the dungeon turn defines the experience. We forgot about this so completely that it took 5E players writing an entire new game (Shadowdark) to remind us of the beauty of this simple structure. While I love Shadowdark, BX does that all and more, without the need for out-of-game timers or table procedures.

Track time on the timesheet.

If a real-world discussion takes 30 minutes, tick off three turns on the timesheet.

Time tracking in BX is far easier than Shadowdark, and it is far more flexible. No phone or sand timers needed here. And you have the option to speed up time and mark off a dozen turns in the blink of an eye, if needed. If something takes two hours, we can just say it does, check off turns, make the rolls for wandering monsters, and pick up at that point. You can do this in Shadowdark, too, but it is built into BX as "the way." There is no real-time requirement here, yet time is just as important.

But the gameplay loop defines the class roles and structure. It sets the ground rules for the resource game.

This is not hard stuff; MMO designers know about this. Pen-and-paper game designers are happy to ignore it, since they can drone on and write new classes to infinity, and always give you something new to buy. The truth is, the more options and classes I have, the less viable dungeon crawling becomes, and the more towards a rules-light story game my game moves in the direction of.

Cleric, fighter, magic user, and thief.

The Fab Four of dungeon crawling.

John, George, Paul, and Ringo.

I do not need more than this. The bards, druids, illusionists, rangers, and other classes are fluff and distractions. They are not part of the core design. They bring fun stuff to the table for other types of play, and some are way too focused on one area and not others, such as bards monopolizing roleplay and interaction to the detriment of all other players. The modern designs of these classes often overdo it to an extent that they ruin the game for others or have such a narrowly defined niche that they are useless in a dungeon.

I like the other classes, and even the BX race-as-class options - they all bring something fun to the game.

But if I had to play without them, I could in a heartbeat. I don't need all these distractions. My games are better as a result. They are more focused, and the motivations are clear. The constant distractions of modern gaming and the too many choices that serve as shiny baubles meant to stimulate you are gone.

Yes, I am that "simple fighter" who "fights," but because I don't have rules for 1001 potential actions, I am not limited to that list of choices. I can do a million things as that fighter. Infinite things. I have more freedom of action with my BX fighter than I do with my 5E fighter. The rules are handcuffs in 5E. With every new book, they take options away from me. In BX, my fighter is an independent, free person of action and potential. Just because the rules don't explicitly lay out actions doesn't mean they can't be done.

BX is the complete opposite of Pathfinder 2. Pathfinder 2 has rules for pulling items out of pouches and packs. If they could, they would write rules for actions for coughing and sneezing. It is not a bad game, but this highlights the design focus and point of Pathfinder 2. That is a game where every conceivable action is laid out in the rules.

In BX, every conceivable action is laid out in my head.

There is a freedom in BX that no amount of page-count or rules can replicate.

Nor do I need infinite classes and infinite choices within them to give me "true player choice" and agency at the table. That one fighter could be "the archer" or "the gladiator." Or even "brawler" or "warmaster." Why do we need some game designer with a thesaurus making character classes, again?

What does that add to the game?

Or do all these thesaurus classes remove options from the fighter and relegate them to a boring and do-nothing class? If a fighter is my only choice, then that fighter is going to be so much more than these "every synonym and the kitchen sink" games designed by amateur influencer-gamer designers at these companies.

Do not invalidate the great classes in the game by designing "more fun ones" that "steal roles."

Is it that hard to see? Or do I need another 500 silly 5E character classes in my online designer to make the point sink in?

A New BX Game Coming?

Based on the rumors, we will get another game to replace the loss of Old School Essentials Classic Fantasy. I get why people like this game. At times, Advanced Fantasy can feel like "too much" with too many divergent options for races and classes, and the game becomes muddled with "too much stuff."

Did we really need the Svirfneblin, Drow, Half-Orc, and the Duergar in Advanced? I get it —Advanced sold far better due to "more stuff" — but at some point, I want a more focused core set, with the rest supported in option books. Classic Fantasy lets you do that. If they do add rules and options to OSE Advanced 2026, I hope they fold in all the options found in the Carcass Crawler Zines, which would make it a very compelling game. It is sort of a "go big or go home" theory, and I would like to see a lot of those options in the base game if it is not going to be streamlined.

Even an excellent BX game like Dragonslayer adds the Cyclopsman, a variant race not part of the core experience. A lot of games come close to the idea experience, but many diverge in places and don't provide that simple set of options. DS is still a good version of the game, just a little different.

Classic Fantasy also kept it simple, with the classic options. Only Labyrinth Lord (Classic Edition) remains as the purist BX game, with a few White Box options around, but those are all d20/d6 games. Another great option is Basic Fantasy, a game many swear by as the true heir to BX gaming's legacy.

It will still be possible to play a "Classic Game" with the 2026 OSE rules, since they include an appendix that lays it out. However, it still means cutting most of the book and sorting through it to say "yes and no" to different parts, which is a terrible experience for new users and those who just want a simple base game.

Shadowdark should have taught us to keep our core book game experience focused and straightforward. And a lot of these Shadowdark expansion books, I just want to forget now, since they clutter up the game with too many options.

Do we need another edition of BX? With all the variants of classic games out there, why do we need another game? Is this something the community tells itself we need? There are so many versions of White Box, 1E, BXA, and 0E out there. Do we have everything covered with Labyrinth Lord Classic and Basic Fantasy still in PoD? Or do we need another game because we feel we don't have a standard-bearer now? The community will step up and give us another option, and then invariably re-create what we had in OSE Advanced.

I get the feeling mixing "race plus class" with "race-based classes" in OSE was a mistake. If I want a 2026 version of OSE Advanced Fantasy, get rid of race-based classes and standardize the game on "race plus class," and streamline the game around that. Let a pure "Classic BX Game" do the race-based classes, and pare your game down to the best "race plus class" options that only work one way.

Similarly, if someone does do a new version of BX, please keep it to race-based classes only. Don't confuse things or try to make a game that copies OSE Advanced. Also, any expansion material for this new theoretical BX game should stick with only race-based classes.

I am all for letting OSE be more of the BXA, race-plus-class game, and for any new version of BX to stick to race-as-class.

A great option to OSE Advanced is Swords & Wizardry Revised. This is 98% compatible with any OSE material and offers an AD&D Lite experience with greater clarity and focus, while keeping ability score modifiers under tight control. It is a strict race-plus-class game, but it gives me the perfect blend of 0E and 1E material, plus a wealth of expansion content in add-on books.

S&W can completely replace OSE Advanced race-plus-class and port in its best options, plus it gives me more in terms of supporting the classic bestiary monsters, demons & devils, illusionists & druids, and even two types of bards in the Options book (bard and troubador). We also get necromancers and warlocks in the S&W Options book as purely evil character classes. All of these are far better than their OSE counterparts, many with dedicated spell lists.

And we get a monster expansion book for S&W, with even more monsters and plenty of 1E favorites making a return. With the core book, Options, and the monster expansion, you get a game that clearly rivals OSE Advanced, provides far more options, and does so with a straightforward, easily understood set of rules that feels superior to the limited BX.

0E predates BX, and comes before 1E, when everything got overly complicated. 0E also supports the best options and provides forward-looking 1E options. BX feels pared down and simplified compared to a full-featured 0E game like S&W, and by the time you expand BX into a BXA game, S&W will still have more and unify the classes and system far better, while still keeping the core rules in one book and far more straightforward.

Also, S&W handles fighters far better than OSE Advanced, and it does not need all the fighter mods from the Carcass Crawler books to make them viable character classes and interesting.

A cut-down BX is like Shadowdark, a simple, core, focused dungeon game.

A full 0E game like S&W is more like AD&D to me, a full-featured roleplaying game that does a better job than an expanded BXA-style game with a mix of race-plus-class and race-as-class options, and it provides me with superior options when selecting races and customizing my world.

Where 0E crosses over is into 1E territory, and it becomes the easier version of a full AD&D, Adventures Dark and Deep, or OSRIC. For those games, though, they typically use the one-size larger hit dice for classes (d10 for fighters, d8 for clerics, d6 for thieves, etc.) and things like segments and weapon speeds. As a result, combats are more protracted and play is slower than a BX, BXA, WB, or 0E game. Play 1E if you like this level of detail. Play other games if you don't want to bother with all the minutiae. S&W keeps the BX hit points and speed of play, while still feeling like AD&D.

I am looking forward to this new "pure BX" game and the revised 2026 OSE Advanced.

The B/X Core

If I could go back in time and rebuild my library the right way, it would be around B/X-based books and games. I would never have touched 5E books. The B/X-based games do anything and everything, and they are mostly compatible with each other.

Old School Essentials is the glue that holds it all together— the universal base game that covers all the classics —and in the zines, all the expanded races and classes can be found. If all else fails me, I can play this and still have fun with any of the books in my collection.

The question isn't, "What game will replace 5E?" The answer is a few games, but using compatible numbers and systems. All these games can create a highly compelling framework, with plenty of options and a far easier set of rules that play like the classic game.

White Star covers the other end of the gaming genres —science fiction —and it is trivial to pull in White Box-based games into my collection. This is an iconic science fiction game, and it works with every other B/X-based and White Box game I own. This is sort of that freewheeling "Guardians style" science fiction that Starfinder did so well.

From here, the ...Without Number games are an easy addition to my collection, and give me excellent generators for any world that I can imagine. These are also games in their own right, covering fantasy, post-apocalyptic, science fiction, and cyberpunk genres. Stars Without Number can be more serious science fiction, so now I have a 'hard science' tabletop game to play if I want to. This game can also replace Traveller and give me a similar experience, without the Imperium.

The fantastic 'Cities Without Number' game is an excellent cyberpunk game. Still, it also covers modern-day gear and adventures, so it could be easily modded into a super-spy, vice squad, or modern military tabletop game if I wanted. I now have two fantasy games to play and two science fiction games in my collection, and I do not have to worry about conversion or parts of my library becoming unusable.

Ashes Without Number is the newest game and covers post-apocalyptic gaming. This can do anything from a zombie survival game to Gamma World, so everything is covered here.

Do I need monsters? I can pull them from any of these games. All of it works together well.

All of these are compatible with each other. So they all work together and build together. Why am I wasting money on games that don't work together again? Why do I need to wait for 5E games when they're only designed to play one genre?

Also, I can switch between any of the Without Number games, White Star, and OSE if I want to play something slightly different without having to re-learn a new system.

Toss Dark Places & Demogorgons (OSE Edition) in there for 80s kids on bikes running around and trying to solve mysteries. Want World War II? There is a White Box game for that. Want Gangsters? B/X Gangbusters has you covered.

Do I want downtime, skills, feats, and all sorts of other character customizations? The excellent On Downtime and Demesnes add-on book for any B/X game will give you plenty of options to add to any of these games. This book is a game-changer, and it adds so many 5E-like optional customizations to B/X characters that your games will become completely different.

Do I want to go big and play a full king-and-conqueror game with all the toys? I have ACKS, and this is a giant game that maintains B/X compatibility. If I want fast-and-loose fantasy, I can pick up OSE or Worlds Without Number. If I want a huge, massive, serious game of empire building, ACKS will fit me well. I would like to include Tieflings and Dragonborn in my ACKS game. Just port them in from the OSE Zines and give them an ACKS class. It works. I can drop in a spaceman from White Star or Stars Without Number into my campaign, and it works. They can shoot their blaster at ACKS monsters, and all the numbers work together seamlessly. Attack bonus, d20, versus AC, and roll damage.

We are done here! Stop messing around with over-complicated combat rules and get to the story, please! This is the massive problem with 5E: it treats combat as the story, and everything is built around violence and death being the answer for everything. It stems from the original Magic: The Gathering philosophy that the "card battle" is the game. In D&D, the "tabletop combat" is the game, and all serve that one blood-soaked master (that takes forever to play one fight).

Only Shadowdark solved the 5E combat taking forever problem, and it did that by being more like these games. Shadowdark is like DCC, a transition game off of 5E, leading me back to the original games, where I will find the most fun.

Want something more First Edition? Adventures Dark and Deep has you covered, along with OSRIC. This is still all compatible with my B/X games. Zero edition is covered with Swords & Wizardry. All of it works together. So far, this is five fantasy games, two science fiction games, a 1980s game, a post-apoc game, a gangster game, a WW2 game, and a cyberpunk game.

I don't need eight shelves of 5E books anymore when I have one with games that do it all, and they all work together efficiently.

Gangbusters: B/X Edition

https://wizardtowergamesshop.com/products/gangbusters-core-game

Seeing the B/X version of Gangbusters get a new edition is nice. I loved the original, and the B/X version is worth it. They are having a special on a combo softcover deal until the end of May, and a limited amount of the hardcovers for the signed main rulebook.

Head on over if interested, this is a fun game, with a fun setting and a 1920s and 30s gangsters genre.

They Don't Care Anymore

I am slowly getting the feeling that the 5E and OSR communities are fracturing.

Not in compatibility, but the old guard of websites and portals controlling access to games is completely gone - nobody cares what the dominant gaming press, YouTube, or hub sites think anymore. The whisper networks are exposed. Site bans for creators are flying, and those who had control are losing it - and their minds. Even some YouTube creators slowly lose their grip on reality as the scaffolding of 'what once was'' buckles, folds, and comes down in a crash.

The zeitgeist is dead.

Let's go pre-2022. You made an adventure or supplement for the top OSR system (Old School Essentials) or D&D 5E a few years ago. There was no question you did.

Then the OGL was killed.

The ground was no longer stable anymore. 5E blew up, and many left for Pathfinder 2. Many of the 5E community split off, and we have Shadowdark and Tales of the Valiant. And we are seeing that in the OSR, with the 4th generation OSR games just doing their own damn thing and throwing the middle finger to anyone who thinks otherwise.

Shadowdark is a good example. A group of amazing creators found they had more fun with OSR games than they did 5E, so they set out to build a 5E-like system that simulated old-school sensibilities. Shadowdark is the gateway drug for the OSR, and I welcome this game into our community with open arms - since this helps a vast group of players only used to 5E discover the joy of a hardcore 'Dark Souls' style dungeon experience that D&D refuses to supply.

Dragonslayer goes hard on the old-school, with a refined mix of B/X and 1st Edition. There is even artistic nudity - just like AD&D, don't complain - in this book, and the creator speaks openly about what he likes and criticizes the direction of many newer games. He takes flak, and nobody cares. The game slaps me back awake like it was the 1980s again, and roleplaying was something only the cool college kids did, and I wanted in on it.

Since this also is the game for all the fantastic mega-dungeons: Barrowmaze, Highfell, and the others - with a new one coming this year, this one game and those dungeons can provide 20+ years of play without needing to buy anything else. This is expensive, but a 300-page book packed wall-to-wall with consistent OSR art and sensibilities is like a rallying call to me.

It is worth the money. This isn't "just another B/X."

It is B/X+.

The classes in DS are fun, especially compared to OSE or Labyrinth Lord. Fighters are worlds better in DS, since they get a cleave ability when they kill any target at level 1, getting an extra attack, plus another every 2 character levels. So, if you kill an orc at level 1, you can immediately attack another. At level 3, this improves to two attacks after a kill, and at level 5, that is three attacks - and this applies to both melee and missile weapon attacks. This has no HD limitations.

Clerics get a divine channeling power that lets them swap a 1st level spell to cure light wounds, and mages get that but for detecting or reading magic. These are "fun changes," I bet a little inspired by 5E, but it gives casters better-prepared spell choices and keeps them flexible. Some of the pain points of B/X have been house-ruled away and made official rules.

Thief percentages are not horrible; they get a d6 hit die, and a failure margin built into the pickpocket skill could be extended to other skills for fun. They can also appraise treasure. The rules also say, "roleplay precedes thief skill die rolling," - which means in many cases, with solid roleplay, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO ROLL. If you care to creep behind a low wall, out of sight, the referee can rule - it just succeeds, good plan. No game has a "roleplay trigger" for thieves, which makes playing them incredibly fun and interactive as you try to think up strategies to avoid rolling.

Using a rope and spikes, no roll is needed for climbing. If you studied the key, no roll is needed for lockpicking. If you recently disarmed the same exact type of trap, no roll is needed to remove this trap. If you have a good hiding spot, no roll is needed to hide in shadows. If you drop your pack, have a quiet approach, and just creep up with a dagger, no roll is needed to move silently. If you watch your target and know which pocket a wallet is in, and have someone distract them, no roll is needed to pickpockets.

Ninja roleplaying is back with the DS thief class, which is excellent.

I feel like my eyes are open.

OSE. 5E, and Labyrinth Lord don't do this, and their classes feel very "one note" without tools that can provide fun opportunities at the table and player options. If someone asked me to play a fighter, cleric, mage, or thief, I would choose DS over OSE, LL, or Shadowdark.

I get the same feeling 5E gives me - I have the tools to deal with situations. However, here, roleplay and creativity matter a lot more.

Dragonslayer is the next B/X standard bearer. They took the unfun parts of B/X away, or parts where you sit and feel "I am stuck doing nothing," and gave characters options and tools. And these changes have been tested over the years at the mega-dungeons mentioned above, so they are proven winners.

And I get the feeling DS is closer to a Shadowdark than B/X, at least in the design philosophy of "making the game fun" coming before "making the gameplay just like the old one."

And it isn't a digest-sized book, which I see as a positive. Small books never stay open, the information-to-page ratio is horrible, they go on hundreds of pages, and their type, for my older eyes, is a pain to read. Give me a full-sized book with excellent art and page layout any day.

Another amazing Kickstarter late last year, and shipping this year, is the B/X-inspired ACKS 2. This did better than his previous Kickstarters by 3-5 times, and he rewrote the game to eliminate the OGL. All the monsters and spells have been reimagined to fit the world he wants to see, not a world where B/X is forced in there.

Another game that wrote the OGL and SRD out of existence? Basic Fantasy 4th Edition.

A game that went Creative Commons? Swords & Wizardry.

You can't compete with Wizards of the Coast! They are like [throw some considerable number here]! Well, Kobold Press thinks they can, and for that matter, Paizo is doing an excellent job. We are getting a complete replacement for all core books, compatible with 10 years of 5E books - and that is a wonderful thing because people's libraries and investments are being protected.

Add Level Up Advanced 5E to the list of games throwing the middle finger at common wisdom, though they were three years ahead of the curve. This is a complete rewrite of the SRD, with no licensed language, and is free from any OGL license mess. This game is still strong and is another favorite of mine that mixes old-school design with 5E.

But we are seeing a crumbling narrative and a death of the gatekeeper sites and zeitgeist. Wizards killing the OGL killed these cliques' control and the feeling you needed to "play along" to "play at all." If they are unfun, the old ways of doing things get tossed in the bin. Nobody feels beholden to exact copies or Xeroxing games anymore. If a part of a game sucked in the old days, why do we have to replicate it?

And the games coming out in this period, especially the 4th generation OSR games, are fantastic.

Dragonslayer

Why do I need another B/X game?

Wow, $80 (on sale) for a B&W hardcover? This is pricy, but nearly 300 pages of consistent, old-school art? A one-book game? A large book with an easy-to-read type with line spacing that is easier on older eyes? Expensive but well worth the money.

A replacement for Labyrinth Lord and OSE that mixes B/X and 1st Edition? He wrote this so his mega-dungeons would not rely on "other people's rules." He also wanted to clean up many areas he saw as problems when people played his adventures.

Builds off the 5.1 Creative Commons license?

Consistent art by old-school artists? Nice.

Ability requirements for certain classes? For example, a barbarian requires STR and CON to be 13. This makes special character classes rare if you have the scores to play them. So when they show up, they are extraordinary; not everyone can play one.

Level limits for non-human races, but some very nice bonuses? No race-as-class.

It focuses on the level 1-10 progression path but allows for open-ended progression.

Simplified encumbrance.

No bards? Thank you. I am tired of the modern bard class as a whole. I would be okay with seeing it in an expansion, but the character class is becoming the default choice for many, and it needs to be better defined in what it does in many games that require a complete reset.

If you want bards, necromancers, sorcerers, scouts, and build-your-own classes, consider picking up the excellent B/X Options Class Builder for these special variant classes and use the main-book character classes for everything else. The bard here will work well and is different enough from today's "pop class" bards that you must make some hard choices to want to play one. I would throw a DEX & CHR minimum of 13 on this class instead of the 9 WIS and DEX in the class builder.

Lower overall attack bonus modifiers but leverages flanking (+1), high-ground (+1), point-blank missile (+1), and versus prone (+4) modifiers? Depending on the situation, the Maze Controller can also give positive or negative modifiers. Fighting kobolds with daggers, and you have a spear? I may offer you a bonus - depending on the situation.

Does the system use a modified THAC0 (same for all, 20)? Yes! They set the "to-hit DC" to 20, and you have to add an attack bonus and descending AC to your roll.

Example: A level 4 fighter with a base attack bonus of +2 and a STR 14 bonus of +1 attacks an AC 8 zombie. You roll 1d20 + 2 + 1 + 8 and try to beat a 20. Or, you could do the (this is not hard) math, say 20 - 11 = 9, and roll a 9 or higher. 7 for flanking.

This is an excellent Labyrinth Lord and/or OSE replacement and a solid, CC-based B/X set of rules. My feelings on this went from "Why another B/X system?" to "Oh, old school artists and a cleaned up, reimagined B/X and 1st Edition!" core book.

2024 is the year of the Divorce D&D games. No one is sure if they can even make 3rd party D&D material anymore, so people are writing their own "divorce games" to walk away. The OGL is dead. Keeping these games compatible keeps an olive branch out, but the movement to control your destiny is strong this year.

We are also seeing a fracturing of viewpoints in this space, with certain groups proclaiming one game is more this and another tabletop game is more that. D&D used to be where we could come together to discuss different opinions and find a compromise. Wall Street ended that.

I prefer to invite everyone to my table to come together and discuss differences and find places where we can work together. Discussion is always better than exclusion. Compromise and understanding are better than violence and hate. Safety tools are things that start a conversation, not end it.

Oh, and you need to vote to have an opinion. Everyone used to say this in the 1980s, and I understand why now. And if you feel super strongly, caucus and primary, get involved with your party and use that energy there. You will change the world to your liking much easier and faster this way.

Whatever you believe, your party will be happy to have the support.

One veteran Vermont political person once said to me, "Let the other side talk and engage in ideas. If we silence them and kick them out of our spaces, it will drive more people to their side. Once you do that, it is like you voting for them instead of what you believe in."

I miss those days and those classic liberal free thinkers. They did that to have moral and intellectual superiority in any disagreement, which is how they won many debates. "I'm letting you talk and participate, but I believe my ideas are better. Here's why."

For CC-based B/X, you have this and the excellent Swords & Wizardry release last year. For 5E, we have Open 5E, with Tales of the Valiant and Level Up Advanced 5E.

A solid game with esteemed artists, excellent presentation, and worth participating in.

B/X Expert Book Now PoD!

https://www.dmsguild.com/product/110792/DD-Expert-Set-Rulebook-B-X-ed-Basic

Something of a holy grail of POD releases went up on DM Guild today - the POD copy of B/X Expert.

B/X Basic is not there yet, but I have hope.

I am grabbing this and waiting patiently for the other one to drop. These bring back memories for me, and these are history.

Okay, thank you, Wizards. This is a nice surprise.

Bounded Accuracy is Fragile

I picked up the monstrous Tales of Arcana 5E Race Guide, and this is a unique and fun book that gives you hundreds of 5E races to play with. Some are silly, and I would not use them as-is, but this book is unparalleled as a font of imagination and creativity. Many of them are handy and inspire me to use them as characters or NPCs. I like this book as a "default race guide" for a D&D 4E-style of a world where anything goes.

All of them are skinnable and hackable, so if you wanted a race of winged beast-men you could base them on a satyr, drop one of those abilities and give them wings (which start at gliding, can level up with feats). So the choices here are infinite, given a bit of creativity and imagination. Robotic demons? A race of intelligent mice? Cloud people? A jelly slime? Pick something close and start swapping abilities. This book is excellent for sci-fi too.

When I started to use them in 5E, I noticed they were slightly overpowered. Just barely enough to make them stand out from the default race selections. Then I noticed how just a few ability score points here or there, and a couple critical special abilities easily break 5E.

If I used this as my book for a campaign, it would be an all-or-nothing book for that game. Everyone picks from here, or no one does. Use these versions of elf, human, and dwarf, please, since they are more balanced than the default 5E versions. The default picks are more powerful than the choices with most 5E games. I see why you must make things fair when comparing them to other choices in this book.

I had to take a step back. B/X did not break this easily. Even in AD&D, the game handled that fine when I had a character who rolled three 18-ability scores. Thanks to bounded accuracy, 5E is tuned so tightly that it breaks when you give a character a few extra ability score points. Most modern tabletop games are like that, including Pathfinder 2.

Give one character a +2 STR and cold immunity because he is a yeti, and the game goes to hell. Other players get jealous. The rules break. Sick damage is being done. The Yeti WWE body slams a white dragon. It is fun for a few sessions, but the piling-on becomes apparent as you level. 5E was just not designed to handle this.

With many expansion books, you accept the broken nature and hope everything balances out. With enough broken content, everything is balanced, right? It is funny since things that would not break other games do in 5E. Giving up on balance is a game balance strategy in 5E.

And then, for fun, I used these races as-is to create Castles & Crusades characters. Most abilities can be written down and used as-is, and ability score bonuses fit right in. I had a few ground rules:

• If a race gives proficiency in a 5E skill, it gives a flat +2 bonus to those activities in C&C. Acrobatics skill would be a flat +2 to acrobatics checks.
• Bonus actions are not supported; those abilities must be used as an attack action.
• If a race gave a cantrip ability, that could be used once per day per level.
• Tool proficiencies grant a +2 at actions used with that tool.
• Instead of granting advantage, give a +3 to that roll. A disadvantage is a -3.
• Wings need the optional Advantage system (CK Guide) to be used to upgrade them instead of feats or just auto-upgrade them every 3-4 levels.
• Spell damage from 5E should be halved as a general rule. If scaling is mentioned, add a die damage per 2 levels, starting at 3rd, like magic missile. Any 5E spell converts this way.
• For "feats," use the Advantage system out of the CK. Humans start with two.

A few minor tweaks here and there, and all of these races can be used with C&C or any B/X version of the game. And the ability score modifiers do not break the game. They have a giant race that raises STR by four, and in C&C, even if I did a 4d6 and dropped the lowest, that would be a 16-18 STR on average or 20-22 (+4 or +5) at worst.

That +5 modifier is not a big deal in C&C, where a level 10 fighter gets a +10 base to hit. It is a good modifier, but it is not breaking the math. In Old School Essentials, that modifier is even better, but it likely won't break the math there, either.

The game handles it. All B/X and 3.5 games before D&D 4 handle this easily, and the character may be a little powerful, but they don't break the game at level one or twenty. Castles & Crusades eats these races up; sure, you have a host of resistances, a cantrip per day ability, and can glide with wings, but you only have 8 hit points at level one and an AC of 11-15.

Like 5E, if I were using this book for C&C, all races would come from this book, or none would.

Castles & Crusades is not hard to hack into a rules-stable, retro 2.5E version of 5E. It feels like B/X, yet it has a 5E flavor. The gameplay is high-speed without too many rules, and legacy cruft slows down a combat round. The action economy is simple, one action (attacks allow a half-move). C&C is built as a hacker's game, and you can do a lot with it, even emulate 5E pretty nicely.

The Backpack Game

A massive part of B/X punishes you for not correctly taking shopping seriously. I kid, but it is true. Whenever I get out of my Cypher System narrative haze and settle down to play B/X, most of my time is spent managing inventories.

What is not in that backpack could kill you.

You don't have a rope and spikes? A tinderbox? Bandages? Enough torches? Chalk? Waterskins? A mirror? A walking stick? Oil? A bedroll? Food? A sharpening stone? Soap? A washcloth? A knife?

I can think of a dozen ways not having one of those items could doom an adventurer.

Some games make you "play by the pound" and carefully craft your loads. I can get into it when I am into those and have the tools to streamline the process. Without a computer, it is painful. With GURPS Character Assistant, I can get my load down to 0.25 pounds, have a droppable backpack that will get me into the next-lowest encumbrance category, and I am all set.

This is one of the reasons why I like playing old-school dungeons in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy; the software makes inventory management more effortless. Not painless, but it is much easier than doing it by hand. The characters are 100 times more complex, but if you are going to go whole-hog, I prefer to do a complete simulation. Middle-grounds, where the stats are simple, but the gear management is old-school, feel a little off to me.

Some games, such as Castles & Crusades, standardize the "backpack" per class and give you loaded pre-set grab-and-go packs. ACKS even has equipment packages; a few OSR B/X style supplements do gear packages. C&C also does a simplified encumbrance system where you aren't tracking pounds, and ACKS does something like this. You can still die from a bad shopping trip, but it is a little more painless (to shop, not to die).

Some games only list encumbrance for treasure (like OSE) and assume the first 10 pounds carried is "adventuring stuff." It is a fair compromise and simplification. You can still die from a bad shopping trip.

Many sold-school games wander into this "gear trap" trope, where the novel solution to problems relies on MacGyvering backpack items to problems. There are times when I am not in the mood, so I will play a narrative game and ignore the gear game for the most part. In Cypher System, need a mirror to peek around a corner? Spend an XP, do a player intrusion, and make it a more significant part of the story.

Solo Play is Different

You need to ask yourself, why do I play? And this answer for solo players will differ from when you play with others. When I play the OSR solo, I manage equipment I never use. This takes time and feels like a waste since gear use and problem-solving rarely arise in my solo play. I will spend an hour crafting a perfect loadout for a character, and only 5% of the time is it necessary.

In a group, yes, there has to be something outside of "math and the rules" that players can have creative input on. Creative gear use is one of the ways players "break the game" or "solve problems outside of the box" and is a critical part of the play experience.

This is where Cypher System really shines for me, is solo play. The limits on carrying and using "cyphers" and the random nature of finding them and gaming their use changed the solo-play gear game for me dramatically. This system is a game where you could get away with buying "an adventure's backpack" or "a clockwork toolbox" as an expensive item and have it filled with all sorts of exciting goodies. I wouldn't even require a player to list them and handle it one of two ways:

As an asset to a roll, the item should be in the pack (iron spikes, rope, chalk, a flask of oil).

As something a player could use to trigger a player intrusion, such as, "I pull out a spare gear from my toolbox and see if it fits the machine."

It is fair since the player gives up an expensive item (or whatever level you want it to be, depending on contents) and gets the "backpack" as a "bag of tricks." I would limit this by type to prevent it from becoming too powerful, and an inexpensive bag would only have ubiquitous and cheap items inside, while an expensive one would have better stuff.

I would also limit this by "type of item" to prevent abuse, such as adventuring gear, clockwork toolbox, automotive toolbox, priest's bag, soldier's backpack, EVA tools, cowboy rucksack, vampire hunter's bag, etc. Be careful of the generic "backpack of stuff," and force players to be specific. The more specific and narrow the description, the more situations it will be helpful in related to the use, and the better benefits the bag will give. A "modern soldier's medical backpack" will have far better medicine and uses for treating wounds than a generic "modern soldier backpack."

It is like requiring a few "descriptors" to be chosen for one of these "universal backpacks" in the game, which helps balance and prevent abuse.

The Survival Game

Other times, I like building a complete loadout for a character. That survivalist game is going on, and it is fun to shop and anticipate gear needs while balancing the weight carried. This is where complete equipment lists can kill a game for me. I am happy if the game's gear list is simple and boils down to only the best and most useful stuff. If I have to sort through a Sears Catalog for every character and buy extra lute strings, I will end up cursing the completist and list-based "more is better" game design.

And yes, I know that is GURPS too, but I still like the game.

The backpack game reminds me of old-school survival games such as Aftermath! I have seven 0.45 bullets in my right pocket, a swiss army tool, two batteries, a spool of fishing line, and three disposable glow sticks. The storage containers and where you wore them mattered, and fetching things stored in different locations took differing amounts of actions. This is much like GURPS; you can get this detailed there too. It is also a big part of the play in Pathfinder 2 - putting something in a backpack when needed will cost you.

Shopping Can Be Fun

The backpack and shopping game feels like a part of old-school gaming. I like it when not everything needed is available, the moment you assume every small town has a "fantasy Walmart" stock of goods, then shopping loses its fun.

Looking for candles in a small village? There may be some at a shop (if it is open), or you may have to trade with locals. Looking for rope? It may not be easy to find, and you may have to barter with a farm or other tradesperson who may have a stock of some. Good luck getting a suspicious small-town blacksmith to craft a few replacement lockpicks.

If shopping and finding gear is a bit of luck and a game, I like it much more.

Picking from lists and shopping at superstore-sized catalogs where everything is always available bores me and pushes me back into my narrative games. Part of the default "modern-world 5E/PF2" assumptions with "Amazon.com gear lists" of many campaigns turn me off.

Massive games with too much choice are not games since there is little thought into the design and how things work together. They feel list lists with rules holding them together.

B/X Mods: 3.5 Feats in B/X

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17716/SRD-35-pdf

If your B/X game needs a few more character options, there are many easy ways to fix that for a modded game. One of the easiest ways to mod B/X is to add the SRD 3.5 feat system to all characters. This makes characters more powerful, but if you like that style of heroic game, this may be great for you and your group.

Above is a nicely formatted PDF that is cheap, or you could always look the information up online.

Set a rate of feat advancements, such as one feat every even level or one every level divided by three, depending on how many feats you want characters to have at maximum level and what level your game will run to. For games like White Star, where the maximum level is 10, or ACKS, where it is 14, I may grant one feat every two levels. For games where the maximum level is 24+ (and you plan on playing that long), then one every 3rd level is good.

Not every feat will translate perfectly, and you can ignore "attacks of opportunity" - or rule a feat that gives you an AOO that gives you a "free attack" in certain situations. Improved Initiative is +4 on a d20, +2 on a d10, or +1 on a d6 initiative system. If a feat gives you a bonus to a skill check, make it a bonus to an ability roll in that situation. Fortitude, reflex, and will save bonuses apply when they should - reflex against dragon's breath, for example.

Some would need a little help, like a feat that lets you turn undead more "times per day" in a game where there are no limits to turning undead could just give a +2 bonus to turning them.

You could even rule giving up a feat pick would grant a character a +2 to an ability score if stat inflation doesn't bother your group too much. Or a +1.

If something makes no sense, don't use it.

If something breaks balance, tweak it or ban it for future picks.

If something makes the game annoying, toss it out or fix it.

Remember, what SRD 3.5 says is only a suggestion. You are free to modify or interpret it however you want, and the feat may change depending on the flavor of B/X you are playing.

If a player wants to make a new feat up, use the feat list as a guide and let them come up with something! You can work with the player if it needs to be balanced, but this is a fun way to make characters unique and let players flex their game designer skills. Maybe the player's dwarf wants "vibration sense" as a feat pick, and if it sounds fun - go for it!

I know there are "old school" feat products out there, but my preference is to take something that sort of works and translate it all in. This opens up the homebrew and custom player-created feats because having a perfectly balanced list gives you the impression you should "stick to the list!" This isn't how we did it in the old days, we had something that sort of worked with what we had, and we did the conversions ourselves and made up entirely new things to go along with the conversion.

B/X is your game. If you want to add some 3.5 flavors to your game (and avoid playing 3.5 entirely), just mod your B/X of choice when the campaign starts and see how it goes. You can always play the game unmodded next time.

But your homebrew could be cool and unique to your group, and then you will understand a little more about how we played the game in the old days.

5E Math

A part of me feels ability score mods are too powerful in 5E, and they are thrown around for little reason other than to get characters to a certain baseline of damage. A good example is finesse weapons, which allow a wielder to replace their damage modifier with DEX instead of STR.

Proficiency? Add your mod to a skill roll.

Mods are passed out like candy.

I have never seen a game so focused on modifiers as 5E. As a result, the hit point and damage scale of this game are double B/X. Comparing monsters between editions hit dice/points are about doubled, but due to the game's bounded accuracy rules, ACs are way too low at higher levels compared to B/X. You need to figure the max proficiency bonus in 5E is +6, and in Swords & Wizardry, it is +13 for a fighter at the 20th level. So doing the math...

5E HD / 6 = AC adjustment for B/X (positive)

So if a monster has 20 HD in 5E and you want to use it in B/X, give it an AC bonus of (20/6) = +3, halve the hit dice for B/X and give it 10 hit dice. For attack bonus, recalculate that as a fighter of the same level in B/X, and either halve the attack damage or recalculate it by a melee weapon or similar attacks from monsters that level.

The math works in reverse too, so if you have a B/X monster you want to use in 5E...

B/X HD / 3 = AC adjustment for 5E (negative)

So your 12 HD monster in B/X should lower its AC by 4 points to be more in the bounded accuracy strike zone and double its HD to 24. Double all attack damage, or use similar attack damage from monsters closer to the original. Base to-hit bonus off a similarly leveled fighter, plus ability score mods.

DMs Can't Crit

You give the first-level character normal D&D starting hit points, and you double monster attack damage, and no wonder monster critical hits at low level are insta-killing PCs at too high a rate. You look at the 5E goblin attack damage, which is 1d6+2, for an average of 6 points damage (12 on a crit). If you got rid of the DEX finesse weapon mod and left it at 1d6-1, which is more in line with B/X, that is an average of 3 points of damage (6 on a crit). So Wizards says "DM's can't crit" as the solution in One D&D.

So they make another rule to patch the issue.

They completely broke the damage and hit-point scale of 4E by tripling the values, and they only half fixed the issue with 5E when they went down to a double scale. The original B/X math is fine, and it works, even without the "bounded accuracy" fix, which wasn't needed because the +30 and +40 to-hits were a broken part of 3 and 3.5E, which broke the game in many other ways they are still trying to fix. 

I love the game, but the math is atrocious compared to the original editions.

The B/X Math is Good

They mess with the damage and hit point scales - and the to-hit modifiers - to break compatibility with B/X, and frankly, B/X had the math right in the first place. Gygax and Arneson knew those dice, they knew to keep hit points low, and they knew that out-of-control damage and ability score modifiers would completely break the game. And the more you mess with it, the more rules you need to throw on there to fix the mess you made.

If you have a leaky pipe, do you hire the plumber who replaces the pipe with a new pipe the correct way; or the one who ends up using 20 pipes and six rolls of electrical tape?

3.0 and 3.5 introduced non-linear hit-point and damage scaling to higher levels, and that was a terrible thing. At the 5th level, you started opening up multi-attacks (and you still see this in 5E with action surges), and then you saw monsters at that level start to creep up in hit points. Back in B/X, this was a linear scale, 8 HD was about an 8th-level creature (depending on special attacks and defenses), and that worked fine. When introducing a non-linear scale to monster hit points, you need to invent new artificial rules like challenge rating - and patch and patch again to try to tell people how to balance encounters.

The original B/X math is the finest in all of fantasy gaming.

Monsters

An ancient red dragon in B/X can have 60-90 hit points and still be an end-game boss monster. A sword that does 1d8 is still a threat to that dragon. You give the dragon 300-600 hit points, and that sword is a joke. And then, you need to start throwing multiple attacks and damage modifiers on the weapon. Special conditions. Scaling damage with class abilities. And what was once a simple x + y = z formula turns into 3x + (10+y) + d(3b + 4c) - e = z formula.

In 4E, the ancient red dragon had 1,390 hit points, and the sword was a toothpick. Most powers in 4E were also toothpicks, including the dragon's own attacks. Combats took hours. And Wizards tested and approved these numbers. Yes, that team is not there, but it just goes to show you the groupthink the organization falls into, and they still make these mistakes (Tasha's unarmed fighters vs. monks, Spelljammer, etc.).

You go back far enough, and those issues do not exist in B/X.

They made some fundamental mistakes, and they have always kept up the non-linear scaling of monsters and damage as you go up levels. Even in B/X, your epic fighter gets one attack, like a +3 STR mod and a +2 sword, for a 1d8+5. No, that does not change as you go up levels, but your to-hit gets better, so you are landing more hits - one attack per turn. With editions past 3E, you see abilities increasing damage and also multi-attacks per round.

And those mods stack with every blow landed. Some estimates of 5E character DPS have 20th-level characters averaging 100 hit points damage per round (or more for some builds). Our epic B/X fighter is still averaging 10 points at level 20, but versus a 88 hit point ancient red dragon, that is pretty darn good.

I know, but that is boring to never increase in DPS! The damage scaling has been the secret sauce of D&D since 3.0 and is the main addition Wizards made to the rules. Before 3.0, we were focused on stories; after 3.0, we were focused on character power. And it comes at the cost of complexity - both in rules and balancing encounters.

B/X

This differs between the White Box style games (Swords & Wizardry) and modern B/X (Old School Essentials, Labyrinth Lord). I like the idea only fighters get damage bonuses from STR in the old editions, as it makes fighters unique. I have a feeling there are too many house rules in modern B/X that were introduced back in the D&D era (BECMI and others) that made the game easier, like giving every class the STR modifier to damage.

'But still, even allowing those house rules, the B/X math is far better than the scaling, non-linear, plus mod-heavy system we have in the modern game.

Less math, reduced modifiers, and lower numbers = a simpler game with fewer rules and, honestly, a better one.

Coming Back to Old School Essentials

Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy (OSEA) is interesting because it goes beyond the source B/X material in some significant ways. We have classes from AD&D and AD&D 2e, such as the acrobat, illusionist, and bard. We have drow, and a few new Unearthed Arcana (UA) races as player character options - either class or race plus class options.

The game is a Labyrinth Lord-like mix of B/X and AD&D 1e and 2e. It is a great book, instantly playable and inviting, having the best organization and fantastic art. The only fault is the game's best strength; the descriptions are concise. This is perfect for reference and fast play, but sometimes I want to read a long paragraph about a monster and get inspired by the description and flavor text. If they made an expanded optional monster manual with longer descriptions, more art, and monster options, I would be all over that. Same thing for treasures and spells.

The maximum level is 14, which means magic-user spells cap out at level 6, and cleric spells at level 5. Given most campaigns rarely go that high, it is not really a problem. Of all the OSR games, this one feels the most modern to me, and it goes beyond traditional OSR-style games to do its own thing - which is fantastic. I love seeing OSR games expand and create unique experiences with the old-school base but completely new things to play with.

Labyrinth Lord goes up to the 20th level, so you get the full 9th level magic-user and 7th level cleric spell lists and progression. You also don't have all the expanded class and race options, so the world is a little more traditional, and that AD&D (minus UA) plus B/X is more of an early 1980s experience before the AD&D expansion books appeared.

Labyrinth Lord feels the most traditional of the group, sort of stuck in that early 1980s when we all started with D&D and used AD&D books as expansion content. The simple ways of D&D are preserved, though, and the AD&D complexity and escalation of damages and hit dice are ignored. Labyrinth Lord is also packed with flavor text. If you want to read the traditional ecologies and exciting information about monsters and magic items, you can get lost in this book and find a lot of inspiration.

There is no maximum level in Swords & Wizardry, and they tell you how to expand the spell charts after the 21st level of experience. I did a double-take here; yes, it is possible to have a 50th-level fighter in S&W. The game plays more like AD&D-lite than B/X, as some of the AD&D changes (magic resistance) have been preserved, but many of the minutiae of AD&D have been removed. The game uses a single saving throw (modified for different circumstances) and gives less direction on handling things - preferring the referee and players to make up most of the rules and how things in their game.

S&W is a more straightforward game than either LL or OSE just because the game goes out of its way to leave as much as possible up to the group's imagination. You do not need that much reference because the rules for all this stuff simply do not exist, and it is up to you.

S&W has a lot of excellent flavor text, has the best collection of monsters (with the expansion books), and plays a lot like classic AD&D, minus the confusion and complexity. Of all three, this is still the OSR game I keep returning to, just because of the AD&D-like feel and all the incredible supporting material - monsters, adventures, and worlds. All three games are insanely compatible, so adventures and game materials convert over; just keep character creation to one book, and you are good to go.

It leaves OSE in a strange place, at least for me. I suppose I am more a fan of the AD&D-like games than the B/X ones if given a choice. I like the darker and more dangerous setting, with demons and devils actively trying to destroy the world. In basic D&D, because the game was more focused on a younger audience, you did not have that focus on the more fantastic battle between the heavens and Hell. In AD&D, this "endgame" is built into the game. I know a demons & devils book is coming for OSEA, and I can't wait.

But once I narrow my games down to that AD&D endgame, I have the following left:

• Swords & Wizardry
• Castles & Crusades
• Adventures Dark & Deep
• For Gold & Glory
• Labyrinth Lord

The first four have magic resistance as a game mechanic, and Labyrinth Lord does not. Now, why is that important? If Orcus, demon lord of the undead, shows up, I do not want him being owned by high-level casters. I want those powerful magic spells to have a chance of failing outright before a saving throw is even made.

Orcus

Once you look at the LL version of Orcus (125 hit points, save as fighter 22) and a lightning bolt spell that does 20d6 at a caster level of 20th level, so an average of 70 points of damage. Orcus will likely make his saving throw (6+ vs. spells), so 35 damage 75% of the time. All demons take half-damage by electrical attacks too, so this will either be an 18 (75%) or 35 damage (25%) hit.

In S&W Orcus has the same 125 hit points, but saves on a 3+. S&W demons are immune to electrical-based attacks, but let's say that the 20d6 spell is like any other damage spell that mages could have and use this as base damage for magical attacks. But Orcus has 75% magic resistance, so 3/4 of the time, the spell does not even hit. Orcus has a 90% chance to take half damage, so we are down to 35. Orcus in S&W is not immune to fire (I know, I would house-rule this to half damage since AD&D had it this way), so this is typically an 18-point hit landing 25% of the time - not good.

Oddly enough, the C&C version of Orcus (120 hit points, all saves primary at +22, 13+ MR) and most all demons do not share the blanket half-damages of their AD&D counterparts, and this is an immediate house rule for me. His magic resistance is 60%, so that 20d6 lightning bolt, plus the half damage, plus the saving throw, is knocked down an 18-point hit, landing 40% of the time.

Adventures Dark and Deep mirrors AD&D in many ways for Orcus; the blanket immunities are here, the magic resistance, the good saves - and this version comes out the toughest without house ruling in the missing parts. This is probably the best implementation rules-wise among all these, with the most care and thought put into the design. With house ruling, S&W is my second favorite, with C&C following close behind. LL comes in fourth, but the system needs magic resistance to equal the playing field.

The Boss Monsters

For endgame battles, I need an AD&D-like system with all the advanced parts. There are some great rules in AD&D meant to balance high-level fights and keep the boss monsters from being pushovers. When you start introducing blanket half damages and immunities and rules like magic resistance, you avoid the silly hit point scaling of D&D 3, and higher - high-level monsters can have reasonable hit points but take less damage from almost everything. You can also keep some damages as-is, such as magic or iron weapons and holy water - and those attacks shine.

Granted, not a lot of campaigns reach the epic levels. Most all games will just be the under-level 14, which OSE supports, so those high-level stat and balance tweaks are unnecessary. Our games back in the day lasted over 10-20 years, longer than the life of many game editions these days, so I am used to high-level fights and love to see thought put into them.

AD&D 2e had the best high-level balance by far since the newer edition tried to clean up a lot of the issues players of AD&D 1e had with higher-level play.

All are Great, Endgames Differ

For any other type of game, OSE, and OSEA, work fine. Old School Essentials is preferable when you factor in ease of use. Any of these games really work great for play at the low and mid-levels.

For boss battles in OSR games and high-level play, I like the advanced rules and concepts much better.

For the classic zero-to-hero game, OSE works incredibly well and has the options and flexibility I like in a generic OSR game.

Encumbrance Battle!

People generally hate encumbrance systems. Very few of us love creating per-pound loadouts and carefully tracking weight carried. Encumbrance is a staple of OSR play since there is typically a difference between the lightly loaded weights of a party going into a dungeon, and the weights when the party is trying to haul hundreds of pounds or loot out of the dungeon when wounded, exhausted of spells and resources, with monsters sometimes in pursuit and wandering monsters lurking about.

Let's say a party needs to walk 600' to get to the final room of a dungeon. At 90' per turn that is about 7 turns of movement, but when entering that is going to take much longer due to exploration and combat. Walking out of the dungeon through "cleared rooms" let's say the party is loaded down and can only move 30' per turn. That is 20 turns of movement. At a 1 in 6 chance per turn of wandering monsters that is a difference of (on average) one wandering monster encounter walking out unencumbered and three walking out encumbered.

Can your party handle those three extra encounters when walking out? How many resources do you save to get out of there? Will you get lucky and not have one encounter? Can you avoid contact (or parlay) with the encounters you do have? Do you throw down food to distract wild animals? Can you get a good reaction roll with intelligent creatures and possibly pay them to let you be?

This is one of the fundamental differences between modern roleplaying games and old-school ones, and this can drive some players crazy who have their expectations set by newer games. In an old-school game, beating the boss in the last room is not typically the end of the story. Modern games have this "movie mentality" where the boss fight happens and not much happens after that, and tripping random encounters after that fight can feel "mean and unfair" to some players.

And let's not get into why you can't really "rest" in a dungeon. We will get to that later. Short rests just took the "travel back to town" part out of the 15-minute adventuring day trope.

In an old-school game, when your party decides "people, we are leaving!" then an entirely new survival game begins. Hauling that loot out and surviving becomes a mission in itself. You can do the newer stories in old-school games and assume "everyone gets out okay," but the "endgame" of hauling loot out and surviving is also a classic experience that adds to the drama and tension of a dungeon run. People tend to skip this part of the mission since typically as the night goes on people need to go home, but saving a little session time for escaping with the loot is well worth the time and effort to try to make room for.

That said, here is a summary of encumbrance rules in various OSR games and my thoughts on them.

Old School Essentials

Please do not make me track gear weight! Only count my weapons and armor! Everything else is the coins of treasure I am carrying!

OSE exists in a post-encumbrance world, and they do not even give you the option to do detailed weight tracking. No equipment weights are given, and strength does not modify carrying capacity (which feels wrong). OSE is a great system that simplifies a lot to just the essential concepts, but at times I wish I had more options to play the way I want to and do detailed weight tracking.

OSE's encumbrance system feels a bit oversimplified, sort of like a video game, but I get it - a lot of people hate tracking weight. The only improvement I would make is adding a strength mod for carrying capacity, since some players may expect this and wonder why their 18 STR dwarf can carry as much as the STR 8 wizard.

• Weights in coins.
• Weapon and armor weights only.
• No gear weight.
• Basic encumbrance: Based on armor and if carrying treasure.
• Detailed encumbrance: Based on total coins carried of weapons, armor, and treasure (no gear).
• Strength does not modify carrying capacity.

Swords & Wizardry

Please do not make me track gear weight! Only count my weapons and armor! Everything else is the coins of treasure I am carrying! And yes, strength modifies carrying capacity!

Swords & Wizardry is a lot like OSE, but there is a 10-pound assumed gear weight for the "everything else" an adventurer wants to carry. They also track weight in pounds. I do miss having gear weights still, even if they are not used they are nice to have. In these ultra-simplified systems, they omit gear weight since they want to avoid confusion.

• Weight in pounds.
• Weapon and armor weights only.
• No gear weight.
• Basic gear weight assumed to be 10 pounds.
• Encumbrance is calculated on total pounds carried.
• Strength modifies carrying capacity.

Basic Fantasy

I am fine tracking weight!

Basic Fantasy does old-school weight tracking, which is cool. Every item you can buy has a weight. You put together a basic load. The big difference here is carrying capacity is tied to race, dwarfs, humans, and elves have a higher carrying capacity than halflings.

I can see how players unused to encumbrance tracking would be a little intimidated by a system like this, though you could easily house-rule it to the Swords & Wizardry "armor and weapons only" standard, and assume a weight for random gear, and let the rest be for treasure.

• Weight in pounds.
• All items have weights.
• Strength and race set weight category (light or heavy load).
• Strength modifies carrying capacity.

Iron Falcon

I am fine tracking weight! But please let's do it in coins!

Iron Falcon is just like Basic Fantasy, except the race modifiers to carrying capacity are gone and the game just uses one chart, modified by strength.

• Weights in coins.
• All items have weights.
• Encumbrance calculated on total coins is carried.
• Strength modifies carrying capacity.

Labyrinth Lord

I am fine tracking weight! But please keep everyone the same!

Another simple weight tracking system, but this time not modified by strength. A great equipment list in this book makes it a great resource.

• Weight in pounds.
• All items have weights.
• Encumbrance is calculated on total pounds carried.
• Strength does not modify carrying capacity.

Adventurer Conqueror King System

Please make weight tracking simple! And I mean simple!

ACKS does an abstract encumbrance system where nothing has listed weight but everything is converted into "stones" of weight. Random items are tracked six per stone.

• Abstract encumbrance system.
• No items have weights.
• Item weights in "stones" (10 lbs.).
• 1 stone per point of AC
• 1 stone per 6 items carried
• 1 stone per heavy item (8-14 lbs.)
• 1 stone per 1000 coins
• Encumbrance based on stones carried.
• Strength only modifies maximum capacity.

OSRIC

Please make encumbrance as old-school as possible!

ORSIC is another hardcore system for encumbrance and gear weights. The game uses a single chart, but "carried" weight can have an amount subtracted from it depending on strength.

• Weight in pounds.
• All items have weights.
• Encumbrance is calculated on total pounds carried.
• Strength modifies weight carried.
• Strength bonus subtracted from weight carried to determine encumbrance.

Castles & Crusades

I want an abstract encumbrance system with no guesswork!

C&C reminds me a lot of the old Aftermath encumbrance system, where items all have individual encumbrance values, and those are added up to get a carried total.  What you can carry is equal to strength, plus bonuses for having primary scores in either STR or CON. It is a simple, elegant system and one I am a fan of.

• Abstract encumbrance system
• All items have weights.
• Item weights in "encumbrance value"
• EV based on size and weight or item.
• 10 lbs. or 160 coins = 1 EV
• Strength modifies weight carried.
• Base ER limit = STR score
• STR and/or CON add + 3 to max ER
• ER based on categories (1x, 3x, more than 3x)
• Overburdened characters lose DEX bonus to AC.

Dungeon Crawl Classics

Encumbrance? I should be worried about surviving!

Toss the encumbrance system out the window, we are in DCC. Heavy items, such as armor, slow movement and give penalties to actions. There is a carrying capacity of "half body weight" and that is good enough.

• Casual encumbrance system.
• No items have weight.
• Armor slows movement.
• Maximum pounds carried is equal to half body weight.
• Strength does not modify carrying capacity (but will factor into referee decisions).

What a Load!

Wow! A lot of work, and I hope all of that is right. Every game does encumbrance differently, no surprise. The expectations they put on players are different enough to matter, and I can see how some games are a reaction against the old per-pound system of the older games. The thing is, you go back far enough to games that take inspiration from pre-AD&D sources (S&W), and they were not that concerned about encumbrance either.

There was this time when "advanced" meant "more record-keeping" and even we felt it was a bit too much when we played AD&D. I thought S&W would differ dramatically from OSE, but really the two games are nearly identical with the only real difference being tracking weight in coins instead of pounds (OSE), and strength modifying carrying capacity (S&W)

Of all the games on this list, I like C&C and S&W the best. C&C does the best abstract encumbrance system and it is based on ability scores. S&W is the OSE modern standard, but it adds a STR mod to maximum load, which I can see house ruling into OSE easily. If I had to pick one game, despite OSE's options and organization, it would be S&W just because the game plays and feels tighter, and it retains the AD&D rules options that I feel are critical for playing a game that feels like the original.