Old School Essentials > D&D 5E

The rules may seem rudimentary and straightforward, the characters may feel "too basic," and you don't have all the flash and gee-whiz of D&D 5E, but it is the better game. Once I had the perspective of Shadowdark, everything became clear.

OSE keeps and maintains a higher level of overall character power than D&D 5E.

Caster power, notoriously high in any Wizards version of the game, is balanced in OSE by a lack of defenses and low hit points. They are glass cannons in OSE, where in 5E, you can build effective "melee casters" with better ACs and offensive abilities than martial characters. Many casters are preferred over martial classes, primarily due to their damage output and overall flexibility.

Even martial classes are more powerful, due to monster hit points being lower, and the overall power of monsters not being on a curve, but linear. Additionally, the damage output is more consistent and steady. A fighter may seem tedious, but with weapon specialization and a few of the book's optional rules, you will find your best to-hit in the game, plus the most consistent damage output will cut through enemies like butter, and even strike down dragons with ease.

People need fighters like they need solid ground to stand on.

Even the thief, with 1d4 hit points, is like having a radar set along with their ability to hear noise. Additionally, if a thief fails to disarm a trap, it does not automatically trigger, and I am free to rule that it only happens on a critical failure. Critical failures (96-100) may mean it goes off, but the thief can get out of the way, or I may call for a save; the game is open enough to allow rulings, not rules, to give the referee freedom in deciding what happens in the narrative.

It's amusing that now we need to buy all these "narrative-focused" games, like Daggerheart, when the original basic rules gave us the freedom to do all that anyway. Later versions of D&D got so bogged down in the game rules and creating these intricate frameworks of internal systems that we forgot what we had.

OSE gives us narrative freedom, just in what it does not say. It assumes you know how to play, which D&D 5E conveniently "unlearned" the hobby in general, and now we are left searching for the thing we already had.

You don't need a narrative game; you need an imagination and a game that stays out of the way. It is like paying $30 for a 500-page book that tells you how to walk down the street. You know how to do this, just do it.

Modern narrative games only address problems introduced in later editions of the game. Too many rules slow down the game and put a stranglehold on narrative freedom. The concept is so straightforward; I don't understand why people struggle to grasp it. I don't need a game to give me "imagination points" to run a narrative, "doom points" to activate monster abilities, or give me special dice that tell me what to do. I have an imagination!

OSE is also not horribly overwritten. There are sections in the D&D Dungeon Master Guide that will go through two pages of fluff text discussing how to handle a topic in the game, and end with, "Come up with a way to do it yourself." Why did I buy this book, then? There are powers in 5E subclasses that take paragraphs of text to describe how they work, and paragraphs more in other places telling you how not to abuse those powers. D&D, and all of the D&D clones, are so horribly overwritten and wordy that they mark a low point in game publishing.

At least in AD&D, we had Gygax, and the overwritten style was highly entertaining and conversational. These days, this all feels like AI-generated fluff, ghost-writer drivel, and paid-by-the-word contractor filler. OSE was the first game to slap us awake with its brevity and conciseness, and scream at the game industry to "stop it with your overwritten garbage!"

Shadowdark smartly followed that model, and I consider that a sister game to OSE. The two are highly compatible and can co-exist nicely. Shadowdark is a stronger "map-based exploration game," while OSE is the clear winner for "campaign games." Shadowdark does win on the "how to play the game" advice included in the book, where OSE requires some outside knowledge.

You win either way with OSE or Shadowdark, and both are the best games of their respective generations.

OSE wins on character, power, simplicity, ease of use, openness, and expandability. Sure, you don't have 5E's "tons of weaker attacks" designed to "keep you busy" during those long, drawn-out combats that are impossible to balance anyway. 5E relies on that MMO model of making you weaker as you level, and relying too much on "too many actions" and "constant streams of weaker attacks" to make it seem like you are doing more than you actually are.

The exponential curve of monster power makes balancing fights very hard; either they are pushovers or TPKs. In OSE, monster power is linear, the fights are easier to balance, and you do not need a false CR system since you gain system knowledge on balance as you play and can judge fights easier due to that straight-line power scaling.

Do I generally know the party's dwarf fighter hits better than 50% and does 5-7 points of damage per turn? I can have a pretty good idea of how many turns that dwarf will take to defeat a 15hp monster. Two lucky hits or three average ones. If the beast deals 1d8+2 damage and hits less than half the time, I can easily estimate its damage output. Getting this sort of knowledge, and it will differ with every party, is how you "balance" fights in OSE.

People want to flail helplessly without a CR balancing system, but it is a fallacy. The entire CR balancing system never really worked in the first place, and the assumptions it is based on (X fights per day) never hold up at the table, since fights often take way longer than the designers will ever estimate. Besides, 5E's resource replenishment system is far too forgiving, which is supposedly a key component that makes the CR system work; however, it is again impossible to predict and manage.

Keeping the numbers and math simple is the best system to use for judging encounter difficulty.

And it is something we used to have before level scaling was introduced by Wizards in D&D 3.0, and that "MMO model" remains to this day.

OSE has the better balance, math, challenge estimation, flexibility, and maintains higher levels of character power longer. The game is trivially simple to read and understand. Shadowdark is its strong sister game, with a more focused approach to tabletop play. Both are excellent.

5E, in comparison, seems to go out of its way to waste my time and slow down the "content drip" in an attempt to force me to buy more books. There is more in the two-volume OSE Advanced books than there is in an entire shelf of D&D 5E books.

No to D&D 4E, Yes to Old School Essentials

There is a segment of the D&D community pushing for a return to D&D 4E. My brother and I played this, a whole campaign to level 30, with multiple characters. And it's a hard pass from me. We collected the entire series, played every book, ate them up as they came out, and slowly watched a game that was great at levels 1-9 turn into a nightmare past level 10.

The multiple conditions per character, per monster, and tracking everything with tiny scraps of paper was atrocious and one of the worst examples of how not to do conditions in a game. Everything mattered! That extra minus two to one save for one turn was a core class ability for some, and we have these six PC versus 10 monsters fights that would turn into complex wargame scenarios worse than a by-the-book full-binder game of Advanced Squad Leader.

Sometimes one monster would have 4-6 "-2" conditions stacked on them in one turn, and those would end on different turns. If anyone sneezed, we would lose track of everything.

The bags of hit points led to combats where the PCs would stand around the boss, knock the monster down with turn-denial tactics, and have the damage dealers whittle another 20-30 hit points off a turn to a monster with over 450 hit points. The damage dealers missing their attacks elicited groans from everyone, players and DM included.

I ran a group at my work of D&D 4E players. Nobody liked this game. They put up with it. We needed computer programs to design and track characters. Does that sound familiar?

D&D 4E was great when it started, and I doubt the design team even play-tested this at all. The books were notorious for being obsolete when they were released, as the day-one errata for each were pages long. We were unable to keep up with the errata and had to rely on the online program to manage it all for us. Did they even test these before they went to print? Does that sound familiar?

The D&D 4E game is dead, and those wanting you to give this another try are likely just trying to keep you in the Wizards ecosystem for another few years while they rush out the "fixed" D&D 6E books in three years. A new team is in place, and the next edition is coming. This is how it always goes with D&D. You will drop 4E for 6E in two years, and never leave the mind-space of D&D.

Play Old School Essentials instead of 4E, and pick up the Carcass Crawler zines. You will have all the familiar races and classes. The game will be easy. You won't deal with shelves of broken and untested books. There isn't as much "flash bang" character power, but what does any of that matter when the damages and powers are so weak and the monster hit points so high, who cares if you get to use them every turn?

I would rather play the OSE magic user who gets fireball at level 5, and have one use of that a day that does 5d6 damage (18 hp) to everything in twenty feet. No attack roll is needed; it just happens. Save versus spells for half damage. No damage cap, 1d6 per level. OSE Ogres have 4+1 HD and 19 hp on average, which is enough damage to kill or seriously injure most of them within the blast radius. That one-use spell is more potent than most D&D 5E powers by far, just because damage scaling is not a thing on OSE.

D&D 5E? Let's go to the SRD. The fireball does a fixed 8d6 damage (28 hp) to ogres, who have 59 hp on average. Oh, so now my D&D wizard does half the damage as their first-edition counterpart? None of them dies in the blast. And damage only scales when you cast from a higher-level slot, and not even by that much.

5E takes away half your power and then expects you to be overjoyed when they give you half of that back. Then, scaling kicks in, and you get weaker anyway. This is the MMO shell game.

D&D 4E? I got the PDF. The fireball does 3d6 + INT mod (let's assume +4), for 15 hp of damage, in a 3 square burst. The ogre? 111 hit points. So my D&D 4 wizard is doing one-eighth the damage of my OSE wizard? The ogres laugh it off and apply a few layers of sunscreen. Fireball is a daily spell in this edition, too. The scorching burst spell I get as an at-will (cantrip) does 1d6+4 to creatures in a 1 square burst. I can use that every turn, and it will be a better damage output during a fight than fireball.

Was this even tested?

The D&D 4E wizard is a 1-hp minion mop.

Is D&D 3.5E any better? Fireball does 1d6 per level to a max of 10d6, so we are back to 5d6 damage, with an average of 18 hit points. The 3.5E ogres have 29 hit points. They will all likely survive the hit, since you would need to roll all sixes to kill one. So we are back to doing about half the damage again in D&D 3.5E. This hurts a little, but it does not take any of them out of the fight.

Wizards D&D started this whole videogame rebalancing of the game. Everyone got weaker.

AD&D and 2nd Edition AD&D are more like OSE, though 2nd Edition did cap the fireball damage to 10d6 (only scrolls were capped to 10d6 in AD&D 1st). 2nd Edition also upped the dragon hit dice from the first edition AD&D and B/X, with an ancient red dragon having 23 hit dice (104 hp), and in first edition AD&D, the same dragon had 88 hit points.

In OSE? That dragon has 59 hit points. That 5d6 fireball packs more punch in a game without scaled hit points. And that fireball does 1d6 a level without a damage cap. We were better off in terms of character power with TSR. All these powers you get as you level up in 5E are meaningless if the base math is wrong. Who cares that I get an action surge? The monster's hit points are doubled.

Shadowdark? This is a different game where a fireball inflicts a fixed 4d6 damage, and you can cast it repeatedly until you fail a spellcasting roll. The hit points are lower in that game and not scaled, so it feels like a higher-powered game in relative terms, especially with the repeated casting. OSE's fireball keeps going up in damage, whereas in Shadowdark it stays fixed.

Swords & Wizardry? On par with OSE, but a zero-edition game, with the same damage and ogre hit points. Functionally identical in balance to OSE, and you can't go wrong with this one either. There are fewer race options in S&W versus OSE + zines, but the OSE races are compatible with this game, so you could use them as-is in S&W without a problem. S&W includes the magic resistance mechanic first seen in AD&D, but ogres do not have that resistance.

S&W fighters are excellent. A lot of the classes have extra "heat" to them. Also note that not everyone gets the STR bonus to hit and damage; it's exclusive to fighters. Fighter sub-classes do not get the bonus either, such as paladins and rangers. This is how it was back in 1974, and I like these rules since they give people reasons to play fighters, and other subclasses get all sorts of different powers to balance that out.

The S&W fighter is very close to the DCC fighter in feeling.

S&W is like AD&D-lite based on the CC 5.1 SRD in the CC, under the AELF license. This is a future-proof game, where OSE is still OGL-based. The S&W team is bringing OSRIC 3 to an open license, as mentioned in their recent Kickstarter. I would love to see this same team tackle BECMI.

The hit point scaling started in AD&D 2nd Edition, by about 20% over AD&D for the iconic monsters.  OSE keeps them at B/X levels, or about half of AD&D 2nd. OSE maintains a lower B/X-style hit point base than AD&D, with every class being a die lower than AD&D. In contrast, AD&D scaled up character hit points by a die size per class (probably to say it was a different game; there were royalty issues back then).

The fights are faster and more deadly in B/X games, and the spells and melee attacks are far more potent in OSE than any modern version of D&D.

The damage scaling that Wizards of the Coast introduced to make it more like a videogame ruined D&D's play balance. In no version of the game have they gotten it correct, and they have been trying to fix this for the last 25 years. You can keep buying new books until you are broke, or play a game that gets it right.

This is the original Gygaxian math.

It still works today, and it preserves character power.

My Old School Essentials magic user puts every "Wizards wizard" to shame in terms of damage and power. Sure, at fifth level, that fireball is a one-use-per-day spell, but WOW is it powerful. That is a "nuking them from orbit" level of power, not to mention what it would do to creatures with fewer hit dice, such as orcs or goblins, and you don't even need to roll for them, the damage is so high, they are just instantly turned to ash and incinerated. Bugbears? 14hp and likely all dead.

That is the wizard I want to play. The one with absolute power.

"But I play D&D 5E because I have options and character power!"

No, you don't. Wake up from the delusion.

I enjoy the D&D 5E character builds, too, but I know my history and games. They lowered the power level to increase party synergy, dragged out fights to keep them exciting, and turned it into a "combat for fun" game. It is like Diablo or any other MMO.

Weak characters and repeated attacks make it seem like you are doing more than you actually are. You get weaker as you level. Once you are hooked, the company slowly stops caring; the higher level you get, the less they care.

This is the MMO formula. The start of your game, the first few levels in, is the peak of your power. You go downhill from there. At the end game, you are getting one-shot-killed by the bosses, just like you were by the boars at the start of the game.

BECMI, AD&D, and B/X were designed to give higher-level characters more power. OSE is created along that same model. In any of these games, combat is best avoided, but the characters hold far more personal power than any counterpart in any version of the game made by Wizards. This also sadly includes Tales of the Valiant and Level Up A5E.

Even the OSE fighter has more power since the hit points of monsters are under control, and those attacks will hit harder than in any other version of the game. Red dragons? 45 hit points, and my 1d8+2 longsword is doing far more proportional damage per hit than in any other edition of the game. Make that a +2 magic longsword, and I am doing 9 points of damage per hit, and my fighter alone will have that dragon down in five solid blows.

Dragons are not pushovers, though, and they can decimate your party and TPK you in a single turn. You all have lower hit points. The red dragon's base attacks are two 1d8 claws and a 4d8 bite, per turn. Or a breath weapon equal to its current hit points, and if that is the full 45 hit points of damage on a failed save, your 10th-level magic users and thieves with 24-30 hit points will be turned to ash. Even a high-damage bite could swallow them whole.

That can't happen in any other version of the game.

And this is in a game that tells you to avoid combat if you can. But if you can't, you will likely mop the floor with your foes. It's amusing how two tiny OSE books offer a game with significantly more character power than D&D 5E. Yet, the general consensus is that D&D 5E reigns supreme in terms of character power.

The math says otherwise.

Today's games give you repeated attacks, more power usage, for less damage. You get weaker as you level. They are MMOs with dice.

D&D 4E is even worse off than 5E by orders of magnitude less in terms of character power, and has to use minions and other tricks to make the illusion happen. At low levels, it feels great. Just like that MMO, get past the 10th level and start counting the games that grind by before you want to quit and find better things to do with your time.

Old School Essentials preserves character power better than any modern edition of D&D, especially 4th Edition.

But Wizards still sells one version that stays true to the original math, and it is still called Dungeons & Dragons. OSE offers more of the options I want in a game, including a broader range of character choices, a better publishing model, and a company I want to support. OSE is also far better laid out, clearer, faster to use at the table, and easier to learn and teach. OSE also supports modern class and race options, once you get into the Carcass Crawler zines.

The above BECMI book is still a scanned copy and is not as well put together with modern publishing techniques, facing pages, or bulleted layouts. It is wordy, jammed with text, and harder to read and reference. It is still a classic. If you absolutely need to have D&D on the cover, then that is your go-to book.

While the Rules Cyclopedia is a good preservation of the past, OSE remains a solid game for today and into the future.

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.

Thief Battle!

Let's look at a few popular OSR games today and compare thieves! Why? Well, I was reading the new Swords & Wizardry Boxed Set and saw that quadruple damage modifier at level 9+ and asked myself, how many other OSR games do that? And if you see a rule you like in one system but don't have it in yours, guess what? House rule it in; this is B/X. I am approaching this in a "what if I have to pick one game" way.

And since we are talking thieves, that d4 picture is appropriate since we will be rolling many of them today.

Old School Essentials

This is your pretty standard B/X thief class. I have seen a few YouTube videos mentioning people thought the OSE thief class felt weak, but from what I see, this is your pretty middle-of-the-road thief class compared to most of the popular B/X games.

Why is the lack of magic resistance important? If casters can't land spells, it is up to martial classes to make up the difference in damage output, and a well-placed backstab could be the deciding factor in a fight. Magic resistance in a game is a huge buff to martial character viability and keeps the game from being too caster-dominated.

• Hit dice: d4, +2 hp after 10th level
• Backstab: +4 to hit, double damage
• Read Languages: 4th level, 80%
• Scroll Use: 10th level, 90%
• Thief Skills: As normal
• Armor: Leather, no shields
• Weapons: Any
• STR bonus to hit and damage allowed
• Monsters have no magic resistance

Swords & Wizardry

S&W does the backstab damage scaling at higher levels, which is why I think people feel the standard OSE thief feels weak. We get a save bonus here as well. Note the hit points go up at +1 after the 10th level, and S&W tends to keep hit point inflation down in every area to preserve balance. Also, note only the fighter class gets hit and damage bonuses for STR, which I feel is a solid rule for that game.

This has to be my favorite B/X OSR "avoid combat" style d4 thief, just because the payoff from backstabs is so great at higher levels. I do not mind the loss of STR damage and hit bonuses since this fighter buff in the game and magic weapons still usually work.

I also like the tighter hit point balance in S&W a lot. They keep a lot of modifiers down, and they specifically buff fighters to be excellent. Whenever they added a modifier or class feature, they carefully considered it and returned to the original rules, and I feel S&W has the best design balance in this list.

Quad damage to a magic-resistant creature on a backstab? Yes, we are talking about a significant party-saving moment sort of attack when the casters run out of spells and things look dire. This is what you are paid for.

• Hit dice: d4, +1 hp after 10th level
• Backstab: +4 to hit, 1-4: double damage; 5-8: triple damage; 9+ quadruple damage
• +2 to save against devices, traps, wands, staves, and all magical devices.
• Read Languages: 3rd level, 80%
• Read Magical Writings: 9th level, 90%
• Thief Skills: As normal
• Armor: Leather, no shields
• Weapons: Any (magical weapons, daggers, and swords only)
• STR bonus to damage disallowed
• Monsters have magic resistance

Basic Fantasy

More of the standard thief here, but we do not have the read languages or scrolls powers. I am sure you could house rule those in; this is Basic Fantasy, after all. Note the lower hit points after the 9th level, like S&W.

This is my least favorite OSR thief, but then again, easily house-ruled, so not a huge problem.

• Hit dice: d4, +1 hp after 9th level
• Backstab: +4 to hit, double damage
• Thief Skills: As normal
• Armor: Leather, no metal armor, no shields
• Weapons: Any
• STR bonus to hit and damage allowed
• Monsters have no magic resistance

Iron Falcon

This is a new game, the spiritual successor to Basic Fantasy, written by the same author. This is very close to Swords & Wizardry in that STR bonuses are only for fighters, and it is nice to see another game adopt this rule. The game's damage multiplier goes up to an astonishing seven times at the 21st level! Wow. Otherwise, this is a race + class style game, much like Basic Fantasy, and a fantastic option to that set of rules.

I have not played enough of this game to rank it, and I would love to know how that super-high damage multiplier works in play. Otherwise, this compares with S&W just fine but lacks the magic resistance of that game.

• Hit dice: d4, +1 hp after 10th level
• Backstab: +4 to hit, 1-4: double damage; 5-8: triple damage; 9+ quadruple damage; 13+ quintuple damage; 17+ 6x damage; 21+ 7x damage.
• Read Languages: 3rd level, 80%
• Scroll Use: 10th level, 90%
• Thief Skills: As normal
• Armor: Leather, no shields
• Weapons: Any
• STR bonus to hit and damage disallowed
• Monsters have no magic resistance

Labyrinth Lord

The standard B/X thief is here again, and the only real difference from OSE is the high-level hit points. Again, sort of middle of the road for me.

• Hit dice: d4, +1 hp after 9th level
• Backstab: +4 to hit, double damage
• Read Languages: 4th level, 80%
• Scroll Use: 10th level, 90%
• Thief Skills: As normal
• Armor: Leather, no shields
• Weapons: Any
• STR bonus to hit and damage allowed
• Monsters have no magic resistance

ACKS

At the 13th level and higher, you get five times damage. We see the AD&D-like 2 hp per level modifier and a no 2H weapons rule. I see a pattern here if the game is more like AD&D, +2 hp a level at high levels, and if it is more like B/X, +1 hp a level at high levels. Also not, some games give 10 total hit dice (AD&D) versus nine maximum (D&D).

The five times damage seems high for d4 hit die thief games, and I feel this fits better with an AD&D 2e hit point scale, and a d6 thief hit die. This feels really high-risk to reward and feels "extreme," but it is my second favorite OSR thief.

• Hit dice: d4, +2 hp after 9th level
• Backstab: +4 to hit, 1-4: double damage; 5-8: triple damage; 9+ quadruple damage; 13+ quintuple damage.
• Read Languages: 4th level, 80%
• Scroll Use: 10th level, 90%
• Thief Skills: As normal
• Armor: Leather, no shields
• Weapons: Any, but no, 2H melee weapons.
• STR bonus to hit and damage allowed
• Monsters have magic resistance

OSRIC

We see the first AD&D-style d6 hit die here and the 5x backstab damage. A fighting-oriented thief compared to the other games. With that d6 hit-die, your thief is not avoiding combat all the time, and your group behavior changes to more of an off-tank role.

We see the d6 hit die here, so five times damage feels right for the increased AD&D hit points. Probably my third favorite on this comparison, and above the middle-of-the-road ones. But this is clearly a "combat style" thief compared to the others.

• Hit dice: d6, +2 hp after 10th level
• Backstab: +4 to hit, 1-4: double damage; 5-8: triple damage; 9+ quadruple damage; 13+ quintuple damage.
• Read Languages: on chart
• Scroll Use: 10th level, INT roll %
• Thief Skills: As normal
• Armor: Leather or studded leather, no shields
• Weapons: Club, dagger, dart, oil, sling, single-handed swords (except bastard swords)
• STR bonus to hit and damage allowed
• Monsters have magic resistance

Castles & Crusades (Rogue)

It feels bizarre to put C&C in here since C&C is more of a 5E-style game (developed more than a decade before 5E). We get the fighting-oriented thief of AD&D, the scaling damage multipliers, read languages and scroll use at level one, and then several modern "class abilities" that activate as you level. The high levels feel especially interesting as the "superpowers" start to activate, so this should be considered a modern game design - and the most B/X of 5E-style rules (if that makes any sense).

Note the small shield use and a lack of a five times modifier. There is a "back attack" damage bonus for situations where the target is aware of the thief but not expecting an attack (like flanking or rear attacks), so overall combat damage is higher. This is the best "fighting thief" on the list.

I love C&C, so this is my top choice for a modern-style game. The high levels are exciting compared to everything else on this list when those class powers come online. But again, it feels unfair to put this on the list since we have a lot of modern design mechanics that were copied by Pathfinder 1e and 2e and D&D 5.

This is tied for 1st place, but with a huge difference. If I want the sneaky, avoid combat d4 thief, then S&W. If I desire a swashbuckling modern d6 thief, C&C is my choice. If the campaign goes past the 10th level, C&C wins easily because new powers are constantly activated.

• Hit dice: d6, +2 hp after 10th level
• Backstab: +4 to hit, +4 to hit, 1-4: double damage; 5-8: triple damage; 9+ quadruple damage
• Read Languages: 1st level, SIEGE check
• Scroll Use: 1sh level, SIEGE check, -10
• Thief Skills: As normal
• Armor: Leather, leather coat, and padded. Small shields are allowed.
• Weapons: Blowpipe, broadsword, cat-o-nine-tails, cestus, club, dagger, dart, light hammer, hand ax, hand crossbow, javelin, knife, light crossbow, longsword, mace, main gauche, quarterstaff, rapier, sap, shortbow, short sword, sickle, sleeve tangler, spiked gauntlet, sling, whip
• Class Abilities: Back Attack, Sneak Attack, Detect Secret Doors, Dex Bonus, Sixth Sense, Hide/Move Silently, Quick Reaction, Evasive Maneuver
• STR bonus to hit and damage allowed
• Monsters have magic resistance

Dungeon Crawl Classics

This is another odd game on the list, but the thief here is sort of a thief-assassin mix, with the d6 fighting hit die. This is a solid thief in the AD&D style and is probably tied for my second favorite thief overall (but one of my favorite games).

• Hit dice: d6
• Backstab: +4 to hit, automatic critical table roll
• Thief Skills: As normal
• Bonus skills: forgery, poison use, disguise
• Read Languages: 1st level, skill roll
• Scroll Use: 1st level, skill roll
• Armor: Any but increasing check penalties apply.
• Weapons: blackjack, blowgun, crossbow, dagger, dart, garrote, longsword, short sword, sling, and staff
• STR bonus to hit and damage allowed
• Monsters have no magic resistance (but this varies wildly by module)

Wrapping Up...

Whew! What a lot of research, and I hope I got everything right. This is not to say one game is better than another, but many design choices go into these games, and they vary wildly at times. Comparisons like this are also meaningful when you house rule, which further affects balance.

What I love about Swords & Wizardry and Iron Falcon is they go against the "well it would be fairer if..." feeling for strength hit and damage modifiers. Yes, giving everyone the modifiers is "fair," but is it balanced, and are we taking something away from fighters? Are we raising overall damage too high?

Ultimately, what you like matters the most, and your preferences in a game. You may have a  different idea of what a thief is than the game presents, like a thief's ability to fight. You may love the d4 hit die sneaky avoid combat thief, or you may want to participate in the fighting as a second-rank fighter. You may want to play a game with tighter balance in the numbers to make that d4 dagger more worthwhile. You may wish to have a party where the fighter is fantastic at fighting, and you are free to sneak around and cause trouble and backstab.

You may love the unlocks and superpowers at high levels and have more to look forward to past the 10th level than just marginally better numbers. This is where I am now; I like C&C's progression and old-school compatibility. If I were playing straight B/X and wanted that d4 thief, I would do Swords & Wizardry. OSE has a lot of variety, but it comes at the cost of some classes not having enough, so they play and are balanced versus other classes well. S&W also has many AD&D rules I like, such as magic resistance and that sweet damage multiplier.

Finding the game that matches your preferences is what matters the most.

The Red Dragon

Let's take the toughest ancient red dragon in every edition and compare them. One thing to keep in mind is that in every edition of the game, the basic longsword weapon does the same damage in all of these games, 1d8 + STR mod.

Not all of the stats will be repeated here, just enough to get an overall power level of each creature in the rules. This is important when playing a module with a set of rules it wasn't designed for, normally you should "roll back" to the same monster in the original game if you have it.

AD&D

The AD&D red dragon felt really weak, and this is one of my problems with AD&D and B/X. Certain spells, if they hit, can wipe out an ancient red dragon in one hit. Magic and spell resistance here is standard, so dragons in AD&D are more vulnerable to spells and casters.

• AC -1
• 8 HD, hit points 88
• Three attacks (d8,d8,3d10)
• Breath weapon = current hp
• Magic use (2 spells of levels 1 to 4)

AD&D 2e

AD&D 2 has 12 dragon age categories instead of 8, and it looks like the influence of Dragonlance making dragons "boss monsters" has had an impact here. The hit points are only slightly higher, but the attack damage - especially breath weapon - has gone way up. Breath weapons can be used every three rounds.

I do like the AD&D 2 monsters a little better than the AD&D 1e classics, just because they feel play-tested and rebalanced for a better party challenge. Also, older dragons were given magic resistance, which could cause any spell to fail instantly. While casters hated this, my melee players loved being needed again.

• AC -11
• 23 HD, hit points 104
• Three attacks (d10,d10,3d10)
• Breath weapon = 24d10+12
• Magic use (caster level 9; wizard: 2 spells of levels 1 to 4, 1 level 5; priest: 2 level 1, 1 level 1)
• Magic resistance 65%

D&D 3.5

D&D 3 and 3.5 introduced multi-attacks for martial classes as characters leveled, which slowed down play and caused the game to "scale" higher-level encounters on a steeper curve. While the low-level game isn't too much different than B/X, the high-level game has this

Pathfinder 1e's version of this dragon is similar, with slightly fewer hit points, but far more special abilities, special attacks, defenses, and spells. Multiple attacks at that cumulative -5 modifier make their debut here, and you have to factor that into average per-turn damage. Of all the dragons in the D&D 3 through 5 eras, Pathfinder 1e's dragon is my favorite just because of the detail and design. At times those monster stats feel too complicated and overboard, but I appreciate the thought and effort that went into them.

Spell resistance replaces magic resistance and it is 1d20 + caster level, which works out to about the same level of magic resistance as AD&D 2e, but is modified for caster level (and punishes lower level casters harder).

• AC 41
• 40 HD (d12), hit points 660
• Attack modifier +49 / grapple +73 (avg. attacks 4d8, 4d6, or 2d8; +18 to all damage)
• Breath weapon = 24d10
• Magic use (caster level 19)
• DR 20 (magic), SR 32

D&D 4

With D&D 4 we never really felt the higher-level monsters were play-tested all that much. They kept changing and rebalancing monsters as the game went on, and the first version of the red dragon was this massive pile of hit points and relatively low damage attacks. Also, the lack of spell use just feels like an oversight and makes the monster feel like it was rushed through development and tossed in a book to mark the "red dragon" checkbox.

If two of these dragons fight each other, their average per-turn damage will be 82/turn (2 claws and tail slap), which will take 17 hits to win, or at a 50% hit-rate 34 turns. I am eliminating fire damage for auras and breath weapons here because of resistance.

No wonder Pathfinder 1e felt better designed, the monsters just have more care and love put into them. D&D 4 was a fun game from levels 1-10. At higher levels, things felt incomplete, sloppy, and not much design and attention was put into them to make them feel like the classic D&D monsters of old. The answer was "bigger numbers" and that was it, and the numerous turn-denial attacks and conditions made this a boring rinse-repeat loop of "take away monster turn" and "whittle down hit points."

We loved this game, which made it hurt all the more when we left and realized how broken and thoughtless some of the design elements were.

• AC 48
• Hit points 1390
• Fire resistance 40
• Attack modifier +37 (two claws, bite 2d12+12, bites do an extra 6d6 fire damage)
• Tail slap 4d10+12, reaction
• Breath weapon = 4d12+10, ongoing 15 fire damage
• No spells

D&D 5

I haven't played too much D&D 5, so I don't really have a good opinion on the red dragon here. It feels some care and balance went into the design, and the bounded accuracy feels like the numbers have been pulled way down. Hit points feel high like D&D 3.5, but I am feeling the damage scaling of the D&D 3.5 era is still around.

I do like this version of the ancient red dragon, but I feel the hit points are a bit high, like 3E due to damage scaling. Given the bounded accuracy of D&D 5 it feels like some care went into the design.

• AC 22
• 546 hit points
• Bite = +17, 2d6 + 10
• 2 Claws = +17, 2d6  +10
• Tail = +17, 2d8 + 10
• Breath weapon = 26d6 (91) damage
• Magic use is a variant rule.
• Legendary resistance, CR 17, 3/day

Castles & Crusades

C&C has a nice red dragon that feels like an AD&D 2e dragon, and one that has a higher damage output as well. The spell resistance is a 6 (on 1d20, 1-6 makes the spell fail), so while there is some magic resistance there isn't enough to make a majority fail.

While hit points are lower, you do not have the plethora of multi and special attacks you have in games after AD&D 2e. I like the original damage scale where a 1d8 longsword still means something.

The breath weapon is epic, and almost feels like too much damage, but it is something that should be feared. Of all the AD&D 1e, B/X, and 2e red dragons, this one is my favorite. I do feel the spells are a little on the lower side, but this could be house-ruled for dragons who may have studied magic and are more full casters.

• AC 32
• 34 HD, 156 hp
• Full fire immunity
• +34 to-hit
• 2 claws (1d8+12), wing (1d10+12), tail (1d10+12), and bite (4d10+12)
• Spell resistance 6
• Breath weapon = 34d10
• Twelve 1st level spells, three 2nd level spells

Genesys: The Toolkit Layer

I read the entire Genesys book last night and the above image I feel best summarizes my feelings about the game. I love the system, I love the macro-situation creating dice, and I like the idea of this being a generic system...

...but? The game, by itself, is missing what I like to call "the toolkit layer." This is all the setting-specific information that makes character builds matter - weapons, armor, equipment, gear, powers, magic items, foes, monsters, creatures, vehicles, mounts, and all that other fun setting-specific stuff that makes character builds matter.

How can I build a Wild West gunfighter and specialize in a certain...um, where is the six-gun, scattergun, lever-action, horse, throwing hatchet, knife, buffalo rifle, TNT stick...? You get my point, without all these cool "rules-ed out" items and things to build characters around, what is there to do?

As a game master, it puts me in a really bad situation without having setting-specific information because I have to wing it. And when I wing it, nothing really has a cool defined list of attributes and features that the players can look at and sort through as they build their characters. As a game master, it is easier for me to create adventures with a full toolkit, because I can better design opponents and encounters when I have a huge box of toys to play with, all fully-statted out and working with the rules so both me and my players understand how they work with the game's systems.

I could wing it and make up stats on the fly for all my Wild West items, but I feel it does the players a disservice because they need to know about all this cool stuff before I make it up, because they are the ones who have to create characters to take advantage of all this stuff before I throw them into a situation where I say "oh yeah, that guy has a buffalo rifle" and they sit they feeling, "I wish I would have known about that cool piece of gear because I might have wanted to create a character who could use one and take advantage of the item with my character build."

You get into a situation where the player's first characters built for the game feel generic and not built for the world they live in, and only after playing a couple times do you build enough background data that the next set of characters will be able to take advantage of all of the stuff you house-ruled in, and you still risk not knowing about that next cool thing or situation characters may encounter (Gatling guns, derringers, poker games, quick draws, Calvary officers, Marshals, etc).

Six Sample Settings Included

To be fair, the game does come with six really basic sample settings with sample equipment and foe lists. They are by no means complete and I feel just serve as a starting point for you to create your own. They feel more like "sample adventure" seeders than "these are the official gear and stuff lists" for the game to me, because the fantasy section feels like it lacks enough for a long-term game for me. This will be solved one the fantasy book comes out later this year, so we shall see. I could wing fantasy better by pulling in tropes and creatures from other games, but again, these things mater when players build characters, so my default feeling is I want a complete "toolkit layer" before I start palying becuase it gives players more to work with than just a sample list plus "make the rest up."

The other sections for steampunk, modern, sci-fi, space opera, and other settings feel like similar "taster sections" for the genres than full-fledged support, and this is understandable because of their length and brevity. But again, I can't play with them as-is, because for the game to work at its best, I feel players need a full list of stuff, foes, gear, powers, and options to play with and design characters around.

I feel you get the best with this game when you can find an official toolkit (like the fantasy one coming with Terrinoth), or a fan-created one for a particular setting (which there are on the Genesys forums, and more are being shared there as time goes on). I feel the more detailed and more fully fleshed out the toolkit, the more fun you and your players will have with the game.

Contrast With FATE

FATE is a strange game, as it does away with the toolkit layer almost entirely. Weapons are weapons, gear is gear, and if you want a character build that takes advantage of something specific, you just take it as a character aspect or devise a stunt for a skill and you are good. If your character is a "Wild West big game hunter with a coon-skin cap" well then of course your character is going to be good with that buffalo rifle, you get your bonus then and there, and the world is good. Yee-haw, make it up, write something down, and keep playing.

I enjoy a more structured, mechanical game like Genesys where you can build a character to take advantage of a certain weapon or play style through stats, skills, talents, and gear - but you need that gear fully fleshed out in order to be able to build a character like that in the first place. With FATE, yes, things are less structured and therefore you get less of that "character build addiction and obsession" feeling you do with Genesys.

If I were doing pick-up-and-play games, I would use FATE because I do not need a lot to simulate anything. Everything is made up on the fly. I do not need a toolkit, just the English language and an understanding of "this would cover that." The game works well without toolkits and settings, and it is designed more to play off our assumptions and understandings of things through natural language constructs and "X to Y means Z" relationships.

If I want a longer-term game where players could get more deeply involved, I would more likely use Genesys with a fully-fleshed out toolkit and setting for the game, because that is where the players play and the referee derives inspiration from to create the challenges of the world. This is not to say Genesys is weak in any way, as if I had a Star Trek style toolkit I would jump on that and play Star Trek with "Genesys plus toolkit" a lot faster than "FATE plus nothing." I feel the support, and the quality level of that support, makes a huge difference.

But having that support I feels really matters, if it is my work, a fan work, or an official work.

Structured Builds vs. Do What You Want

To me, FATE is like a box of crayons plus some paper.

Genesys is like a video game console with controllers. The toolbox is like the video game cartridge you stick in the machine. Without a cartridge and a game to play, you have that excitement of having a cool game console, but nothing to play with it yet. The console is open enough you could write your own game or find something on the Internet to play, so there is still that DIY freedom.

For character builders, Genesys has that Lego style appeal as well of building things and putting together character builds. But you need all those special pieces in the toolkit to be able to build anything really cool, and all those special parts like doors, hinges, windows, wheels, mini-figures, and plastic trees matter - more so than just the sample settings in the main book and their collection of straight blocks.

With FATE, I will just come up with and draw all those pieces myself when I draw my picture of my fire-station or whatever I want to "build."

Both are fun and have different strengths for what type of mood I am in and my current group of players, but they are different enough to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each. I would not give up FATE because I now have Genesys, and I would not shelve Genesys because I prefer playing with fully fleshed out toolkits. Both are cool and have their places at our table.

FATE Accelerated vs. FATE Core, part 1

In this corner we have FATE Accelerated, the stripped down, lean and mean light version of the FATE rules, which we will call FAE. In that corner, we have FATE Core, the little rules book that weighs in at over 300 pages which is way longer than I ever imagined a rules-light game could be, and a book we will call Core. I got both books and I wanted to do a first impressions sort of review as I read both and check them out, so I will be going over what I learn and how things work in this comparison.

Both PDFs are pay-what-you want and free and unrestricted for the initial download, an incredible distribution model and very progressive and thoughtful. I am feeling I will pay something here, this is just too kind and they deserve something for a great game and all this hard work. Honestly, I am not cheap, and we want companies this generous to stick around and put out great stuff in the future.

Dice!

I bought a special set of FATE Dice and I love these things. They are fun and very collectible, high-impact (I dropped one on a stone floor from 4 feet with no damage or marks after 2 three-foot bounces), and very pretty. I can see myself collecting these just to play around with, and they are a fun part of the game. More are coming in the mail, and I love the ones made by Evil Hat. Something makes me want to invent a game to play these with, or maybe use them for Monopoly or a WW2 wargame like Squad Leader. More dice? Let's do another picture of dice:

You only need four of them as a player or referee. Only four, so a 12-pack will be enough for three people. You roll them all together, plus means +1, minus means -1, and you total the result and add to an Approach (in FAE) or a Skill (in Core), what this game uses as an ability score. 4d3 is a unique mechanic, and it feels novel and unique.

Core Skills vs. FAE Approaches

FAE gets rid of a skill list for a more generic "action based" set of approaches to problems - it doesn't matter how skilled you are at an action, your approach to how you solve a problem is what matters. Core uses a list of 18 task-specific skills, where FAE sticks to 6 non-skill 'problem solving' approaches which any. I can see how those wanting a crunchy, more character-design driven game would be drawn to core, while those wanting a rules-light and more 'let's play a movie or TV show right now' would gravitate towards FAE. Core seems more like the long-term campaign choice, but I want to check out Accelerated to get my feet wet before diving in.

OGL and SRD FTW

And these are OGL games with a Creative Commons license, and an SRD as well. Wow, they are trying really hard to win me over. Really hard. I feel my defenses breaking already. A sensible, modern, open, and SRD-driven game with the normal OGL/SRD licensing guidelines and rules? Yes, D&D 5 went OGL, but they leave things out, so there is that forking thing going on over there. Here? It's all on the table, start creating your game. Or making a module. Or whatever. Just play by the OGL/SRD rules and you are good to go.

Okay, I am won over now, let's get back into the game.

But see what this does? Being open and flexible about your rules system wins fans. Legend is like this as well, along with a couple other games Mongoose makes. Evil Hat follows suite, and we have another game that will live forever and spawn countless forms, and there are no parts left out. This is the way to publish a game. Worrying about selling physical copies rule books is so year 2000. Make a great game, let people have it without restrictions, and then sell the rulebooks and other add-on items. Rules are cheap and should be free.

And yes, I will keep buying dice, and paying-what-I-want because generous people deserve to stay around and be rewarded for the cool stuff they make.

And I want other companies to follow this model, so I will support it.

Aspects are Where It's At

Aspects are really the core of this game, and while the game seems almost rules-light, don't let this fool you. There is a very deep and meaningful aspect game going on here underneath, and it supports the entire role-playing and task resolution system in the game. This really shouldn't be understated, where in most other RPGs, you get this dry "number vs. number" thing going on, what's your skill and what's the DR of the lock? Roll. Fine. Done, pass or fail.

An aspect is a simple statement of truth about any fact about a character, situation, or scene that can give you a bonus or penalty when invoked or compelled by a fate point. The statement can be anything, but ideally it can be something positive or negative that could apply in multiple ways.

In FATE, it's all about the aspects, baby. I want to stick to FAE for this, since that is how I want to learn the game, so here goes. Character aspects can come into play, like, "I am a master thief of the city of Cairo." Situational aspects can come into play, like, "the room is really noisy and it is hard to concentrate." Consequences (injuries or other temporary conditions) can come into play, such as, "I sprained my wrist" or "my confidence is shaken."

Before we get into the mechanical workings of aspects, the action system of the game turn plays into aspects as well and completely supports them. There is another layer here that is really critical to understand so you won't be playing this as a novice. Action during a turn can be taken to "create an advantage" or create a new, temporary situational aspect. I could plug cotton in my ears to cancel out the noisy room, or take extra time picking the lock. I could also try to use an "overcome" action against the noisy room aspect by trying to quiet everyone down, and if I roll good enough, get a one-time boost that I can use for a limited time (the room quiets down and circles around so they can watch me pick the lock with anticipation).

You can invoke positive aspects (or negative ones against fores) by spending a fate point. You can earn fate points by compelling negative aspects on yourself. The game's entire fate point system revolves around the invoking and compelling of aspects, and fate points are your "story points" which you use to gain benefits and make interesting stuff happen.

In this game, you are constantly creating aspects, invoking them, compelling them on others (and yourself), having the referee invoke them or compel them as NPCs, and keeping the "fate point economy" spending and earning points like poker chips being tossed around the table without abandon. This is not just for dry RPG combat, this is for social scenes, technical scenes, tasks, and any challenge or interaction in the game. You could have a whole social combat scene play out with situational aspects being created by the "create an advantage" action, such as a diplomat questioning the integrity of another diplomat, creating a "suspicion of personal gain" aspect on that person. That aspect could be compelled against that diplomat, or it could be invoked by a character saying "my integrity has not been challenged!" That "suspicion of personal gain" aspect could be dispelled by the "overcome" action with irrefutable proof of honesty and integrity, and if you roll good enough, earn a boost in which to turn the tables on your accuser with a boost, which you could use to inflict a "dishonest accusations and dealings" aspect back on your accuser.

This is not a cut-and-dried "by the numbers" RPG, this is a social experience simulator that can be used in a remarkable number of ways. You could use aspects to perform auto repair, negotiations, cloak and dagger sneaking around a enemy base, roleplaying, exploration of new lands, cutting down a tree, mining a mine, searching ruins, and any other normal and exceptional situation - should you choose to. The aspect and fate point system, combined with the create advantage and overcome actions, create an interactive and social experience out of anything you throw at it.

Aspects can be Special Equipment

Another interesting part of the game is that there are no equipment lists. You are a swordfighter, so you have a sword, often as a part of a character aspect. If you are a sniper, you could create an aspect "my specialized rifle is good at hitting targets at long range" and get a +2 when you invoke this piece of special gear with a fate point when that condition is true. At short ranges, it is like any other gun and can be used normally, but with a fate point and the right situation, that special equipment comes into play.

Again, in many "by the numbers" RPGs, you are forced to sort through long lists of equipment, match a weapon to a style of fighting, and weight positives and negatives of giant spreadsheets of modifiers, damage outputs, and numbers. Here, that isn't how this game is played, and specialized gear is more of a "TV or movie plot device used during a special scene" than something you would geek out about ranges, fps, muzzle energy, and all sorts of other arcane numbers that would bore the audience to tears.

Accelerated vs. Core

This is a tough one, since I want to see Core as AD&D versus FAE's simpler D&D. I don't really see that analogy holding up, since they are both the same game - but different. I want to learn and play Accelerated first and save Core for later. I may stick with Accelerated after I read Core, or incorporate the parts I like from Core. I don't know. I need to read and play some more before I make that decision, and no rush, because I am liking the interactive and social nature of this game.

It is not like Savage Worlds at all, nor Legend, d20, or any other game. Savage Worlds is taking our top spot as our group's "polyhedral game", while Legend is our "percentile realism" game, and our own Second Edition of SBRPG as our favorite "d6 game" (still in development, more soon). All of these are crunchy, by-the-numbers games, with SBRPG 2nd Edition sitting somewhere between storytelling and crunchy.

I can see FATE working its way into our playlist as our "fast and fun" story light game of choice. Why? It is anti-crunch and social. It is interactive and verbal. It is built around storytelling and a shared experience. It has a unique and fun mechanic. The dice are interesting and make us want to play.

A very strong system overall, and I am pleasantly surprised by this one. I had expected something rules-light and not as compelling, something you buy, collect, and never play. I got something which once dug into compels me to play, is full of interesting and social-play ideas, and is tailored to create a unique and fun experience.

A winner? Too early to tell, we need to run through our first session and see.