[Review] Old School Essentials

Classic Fantasy

Link to the text.

Reddit Thread

This is a big one! OSE is the lingua franca and poster-child of the OSR. Trying to understand it is what brought me to r/osr and eventually the greater blogging community.

I spent the last year and a half running Ptolus with it, I’ve written homebrew for it, created the skeleton of a loot simulator, written about it’s wilderness exploration system, and posted the (to my knowledge) most comprehensive assessment of it’s combat system.

A thorough review of OSE was long overdue!

Context

As with my Knave review, I’ll be looking at how OSE’s mechanics (and implied setting) drives player behavior. I’ll be largely sticking to module play, and will strictly be analyzing OSE Classic Fantasy.

I’m also going to be analyzing the book as a stand-alone product. I think this will frequently be frustrating for readers that are used to treating OSR texts as pieces in a home-brewed franken-system that no one quite knows the rules to. Or, frustrating for readers who understand OSE because they read BX and 500+ hours of OSR blog content.

I think this is a fair context given that this is how I personally discovered (and was confused by) OSE in the first place. I was reading one of the thousand “I’m tired of 5e, what should I play instead” threads on r/rpg and saw it recommended. I bought it, tried to run it, failed miserably, and began research. This shouldn’t be what happens.

Page By Page

I won’t go over every magic item and spell (there’s just too many), but I’ll point out the cornerstones. I think reviewing page-by-page is useful because it’s how someone is likely to read the book the first time.

This will let me point out where there are forward references (when the book mentions a term that is defined later, but doesn’t tell you that is hasn’t been defined yet or where to look).

Introduction

This is good. In 4 digest-sized pages, we get:

• A shout-out to the Principia Apocrypha and Quick Primer

• What sort of characters we should create (people who are drawn to confront danger in search of wealth, ancient secrets, and wonder)

• Where the focus the game will be (wilderness and dungeons)

• The genre (fantasy with treasure hoards, terrible monsters, magic, and sentient non-humans).

• The basic game terminology (Ref, Player, PC, Party, NPC, etc)

• Dice notation and how to roll each kind (including X-in-6 and d100)

That’s fantastic word economy. The book also states:

For those with a passion for rules archaeology, a document detailing the clarifications that were made can be downloaded from necroticgnome.com.

I was not able to find this document, but would be very interested in reading it!

edit: u/kas404 pointed me in the right direction. The document can be found here.

Player Characters

Ability Scores

The basic physical and mental strengths and weaknesses of the character. There are 6 ability scores: Strength (abbreviated STR), Intelligence (INT), Wisdom (WIS), Dexterity (DEX), Constitution (CON), and Charisma (CHA). A character is ranked in each ability score by a number between 3–18. (3 being the worst score possible and 18 the best.)

This is our first example of a forward reference. Ability scores are defined on page 16. This whole overview is a mixed bag of forward references. We’re given signposts for class, alignment, and rest/healing, but not ability scores, race, level, xp, prime requisites, or hit points. As a reader, when I see a signpost like “See Character Classes, p22.”, then now I know that the author uses them. That means when I don’t see a signpost for a term I’m not familiar with, there’s a good chance that I missed it, and need to backtrack. This is bad! Use signposts consistently!

Prime Requisite

The ability score (or scores) that are the most important to the character’s class. The character’s score in these abilities can affect the rate at which the character accumulates experience points.

This is misleading at best for reasons we’ll analyze in depth later. The short form is that it sure doesn’t feel like Wisdom is the most important stat for a cleric or that Dexterity is the most important stat for a thief.

Alignment

The character (and every other creature in the game world) is aligned with one of three cosmic principles: Law, Neutrality, or Chaos (see Alignment, p18). This alignment determines how certain magic influences the character and should be used by the player as a guideline for role-playing the character.

This is a fantastic section. Signposted, not overwhelming, and interesting. There are cosmic principles! Everything is aligned with one of them! It lets us know why we care, how it matters, and where we should go to learn more. Really well done.

Hit Points (HP)

The character’s ability to avoid dying. The character has a maximum hit point total and a current hit point total, which are tracked separately. When a character is harmed, their current hit point tota is reduced. If this number reaches 0, the character is dead! Rest or healing can restore lost hit points (see p114), but never above the character’s maximum hit point total (this is only increased when the character increases in level).

This is way too much. It’s also, weirdly, the definition of HP in the book. It doesn’t get defined anywhere else, so now this summary page also has important mechanical definitions. Strange mixing of intents.

Hit Dice (HD)

The number of dice used to determine the character’s maximum hit point total. The character’s level determines the number of Hit Dice and their class determines the type of dice rolled (i.e. d4, d6, d8). (Some classes also gain a flat bonus to hit points at certain levels.)

Another definition, unclear at best. Say we’re reading Cleric. The first box says “Hit Dice: 1d6”. Then, our by-level chart for level 3 says: “3d6”. What’s going on here? There are actually two statistics that are called the same thing. The first is the Hit Dice Size. That’s the number that shows up at the top of the page. Then, there’s the Hit Dice Count. That’s the number of dice of Hit Dice Size you roll to determine your health.

In the book, these are called the same thing. So, when we read that our level 3 cleric has a hit dice of 1d6 and HD of 3d6, it would not be unreasonable to roll 3d6, get a 9, and then roll 9d6 to get our new HP maximum. This is totally wrong.

When the table says “3d6” it’s encoding both the size of the dice that we roll (d6) as well as the number (3).

Except it’s also more complicated than that! the Hit Dice Count is the running total. If you read that your new HD is 3d6, you might think: “Okay cool, so then I roll 3d6 and that’s my new HP, right?”

Nope! You roll 1d6 and add that to your previous maximum. It’s the running total. You used to have 2d6 hp, and now you have 3d6 hp, so you roll a single dice.

We don’t find this out until page 36:

When a character gains enough XP to reach the next experience level, the player should consult the description of the character’s class and note any improvements in saving throws, attack probabilities, spells per day, and other class abilities. If the character’s Hit Dice increase, a new Hit Die of the specified type should be rolled and the result added to the character’s maximum hit point total.

This all would have been way more clear if we were consistent with terms. Monsters have a Hit Dice expressed as a number. For instance, Trogs have a HD of 2. This aligns exactly with the definition we’re given: “The number of dice used to determine the character’s maximum hit point total.”

If we ever write the word “Hit Dice”, the next thing that comes should be an integer. If we see dice notation, that should mean it has a random number of hit dice.

This would be way more clear if player characters didn’t have Hit Dice at all, and just used Level, which is identical for levels 1-9, and no mechanics have special cases for 10+ HD creatures.

Instead, we can list each characters HP progression. Each level, a Cleric gains “1d6+CON” HP. Now, it’s totally unambiguous and also accurate. This is the approach that LotFP takes:

And it’s way easier to understand.

 3. Adjust Ability Scores

If you wish, you may raise your character’s prime requisite(s) by lowering other (non-prime requisite) ability scores. For every 2 points by which an ability score is lowered, 1 point may be added to a prime requisite. The following restrictions apply:

▶ Only Strength, Intelligence, and Wisdom may be lowered in this way.

▶ No score may be lowered below 9.

▶ Some character classes may have additional constraints.

This is a tough sell with weird restrictions. At this point, we don’t have enough information that this is an informed choice. If we have 14 Strength and 13 Intelligence, should we lower our Intelligence by 11 to go up to 15 Strength? What does the raw score actually do? All we know is that it’s our Rank, and that higher is better.

4. Note Ability Score Modifiers

Now that your character’s ability scores are fixed, make a note of any associated bonuses or penalties (see overleaf).

A very pedantic note here. “Overleaf” means “the other side of the page”.

This text occurs on page 14 of, which looks like this:

“Overleaf” of page 14 either could mean the other side of the spread (page 15), or the other side of the page, which would be page 13 (literally the other side of that physical page). What the author is actually referring to is actually page 16. We don’t need to get fancy! Just say “(see page 16)”!

9. Note Known Languages

Your character’s class determines their native languages. This always includes the common tongue and the character’s alignment language—see Languages, p19. Characters with high INT may also choose additional languages from the list of languages available in the setting.

Signposting the language rules on page 19 is great. The second sentence is weird. “Characters with high INT may also choose additional languages from the list of languages available in the setting.”

First, the characters aren’t choosing, the players are choosing. Second, “may choose” implies you have a choice about whether or not you want to choose additional languages. Take this choice away; it’s unnecessarily confusing. Third, the amount of languages you get isn’t signposted.

Compare:

“Your character’s class determines their native languages. This always includes the common tongue and the character’s alignment language (see Languages, p19). If your character has at least 13 Intelligence (see Intelligence Modifiers, p17), choose or randomly determine which additional languages they know from the list of languages available in the setting (ask your GM).

Ability Scores

We’re given a list table of specific mechanical effects with sporadically applied signposting. For instance:

▶ Melee: Is applied to attack and damage rolls with melee weapons.

▶ Open doors: The chance of success with attempts to force open a stuck door (see p118).

We get a page reference for open doors (p118), but no page reference for attack or damage rolls (p131).

Intelligence (INT): Learning, memory, and reasoning.

▶ Spoken languages: Denotes the num- ber of languages the character can speak.

▶ Literacy: Indicates the character’s ability to read and write their native languages.

Okay, so now I have enough information to decide if I want to raise my STR from 14 to 15 in exchange for lowering my INT from 13 to 11. As far as we can tell, improving STR to 15 does nothing, and lowering INT from 13 to 11 means we lose out on an additional known language. Seems strictly worse, right?

Maybe! We still need to read more to figure out if there’s some way to increase our stats. The next breakpoint is at 16 Strength (where our melee bonus goes from +1 to +2 and our open door chance goes from 3-in-6 to 4-in-6), and going to 15 puts us one point closer to that.

But that’s it right?

No! On page 117 (a full 103 pages later) we find out that the raw score itself is used (this is the first reference to this mechanic).

The referee may use a character’s ability scores to determine the character’s chance of succeeding at various challenging tasks.

The player rolls 1d20 and, if the result is less than or equal to the ability, the check succeeds. If the roll is greater than the ability, the check fails.

117 pages into the book we find out that raw ability scores have a full, totally unexplained use! GMs may use the score (so I guess ask them if they will do this?) for various ad-hoc rulings. In this case, every point matters, and is worth 5% on such tasks. MENTION THIS IN THE ABILITY SCORE SECTION PLEASE.

Charisma (CHA): Force of personality, persuasiveness, personal magnetism, physical attractiveness, and ability to lead.

▶ NPC reactions: Applies when hiring retainers and when interacting with monsters.

▶ Max # of retainers: Determines the number of retainers a character may have at any one time.

▶ Retainer loyalty: Determines retainers’ loyalty to the character.

What are retainers? How do you interact with monsters? What is retainer loyalty? Did I miss all of this or will we find out later? Signpost this stuff!

Classes

Summary by category

• HP Progression

  • d8: Dwarves, Fighters

  • d6: Clerics, Elves, Halflings

  • d4: Magic Users, Thieves

• Max Level

  • 14: Cleric, Fighter, Magic User, Thief.

  • 12: Dwarf

  • 10: Elf

  • 8: Halfling

• Armor

  • All: Cleric, Dwarf, Elf, Fighter, Halfling

  • Leather, No Shield: Thief

  • None: Magic User

• Weapons

  • All: Elf, Fighter, Thief

  • All except longbow and 2h swords: Dwarf, Halfling

  • Blunt only: Cleric

  • Literally just daggers: Magic User (can’t use staves)

• THAC0 / Saves

  • Improve at 4th, 7th, 10th, and 13th level: Dwarves, Elves, Fighters, Halflings

  • Improve at 5th, 9th, and 13th level: Clerics, Thieves

  • Improve at 6th, and 11th level: Magic Users

Then, each class gets some sort of feature.

• Clerics get divine spell casting, the ability to use all levels of divine scrolls, the ability to turn undead limitlessly with no range or line of sight restrictions (???).

• Dwarves have a 2-in-6 chance of detecting new construction, sliding walls, sloping passages, and non-magical room traps (missing forward reference) when searching (missing forward reference), 60’ infravision, and improved listening (2-in-6).

  • It’s unclear why Detect Construction Tricks and Detect Room Traps are in separate sections when they do the exact same thing.

• Elves get arcane spell slots, the ability to use all levels of arcane scrolls, improved chances for detecting secret doors (2-in-6), immunity to ghoul paralysis (so specific), 60’ infravision, and improved hearing (2-in-6 at doors).

• Fighters get absolutely nothing (???).

• Halflings get +2 AC when attacked by enemies bigger than humans (allowing them to have the highest AC in the game and highest effective HP), a 90% chance to hide in the woods or undergrowth (hiding is otherwise unspecified), hiding in shadows with a 2-in-6 success rate, optional bonus to individual initiative, improved hearing (2-in-6), and improved missile attacks (+1 to hit).

• Magic Users get arcane spell casting and the ability to use all levels of arcane scrolls.

• Thieves get Back Stab (“unaware” is never defined), 80% chance to decipher any non-magical language at 4th level, 90% chance to use arcane scrolls at 10th level, a level-scaled ability to do all of the following: climb sheer surfaces, remove treasure traps (not room traps?), improved hearing, hiding in shadows, move silent, open locks (so no one else can?), and pick pockets (so no one else can?).

  • Worth pointing out that some of the probabilities here are really funny. Thieves start with a 10% chance of disabling treasure traps, a 15% chance of opening locks, and a 20% chance of moving silently, for example.

Every class requires different amount of XP to level up, so the progressions can be a little confusing. Here are some visualizations, using a log scale for the x-axis:

The HP curve has a couple of eyebrow-raisers.

• Thieves have the most HP from 1200 xp to 1500 xp.

• Clerics have the most HP from 1500 XP to 2000 XP, from 3000 XP to 4000 XP, and from 6000 XP to 8000 XP. This is ~half of the first 8000 XP (the early game)! The difference is even more significant with positive CON bonuses.

• Dwarves lag slightly behind Fighters (they use the same progression, dwarves take slightly more XP to level up), except when the party reaches 400k XP, where Dwarves flipflop with Fighters for more.

Fighters eventually are the most accurate (after a mere 720k XP), but from 0 XP until 360k XP, it’s actually halflings that are the most accurate combatants. They have the same +Hit progression as fighters, but also get an additional +1 to hit with ranged attacks.

More eyebrow-raisers:

• Dwarves and Halflings have way better saves than everything else across the board, for basically all levels.

• Thieves have bad saves. This is is weird, because you’d expect that they’re the ones doing most of the saving. They’re the one at risk of getting traps sprung because they’re the ones actually capable of detecting and removing traps. Traps often have a saving throw component (like save vs death or die for poison needle traps), but they’re among the worst at actually succeeding at the role.

• Magic users have bad saves vs spells (???). Why are they worse than Thieves?

Now that we have all of the information, it does not look good for fighters.

Dwarves are just as accurate and just as hearty as fighters at almost all XP values. They have significantly better saves in all categories. They have infravision, double the probability to hear stuff, and double the probability to succeed at searching.

They can’t use longbows (but shortbows are nearly as effective and do the same damage), and can’t use 2h swords (which are mechanically very bad, more on this later). If you want to play a Fighter, play a Dwarf instead.

Meanwhile, Halflings also dominate Fighters. They have the same melee accuracy as Fighters from 0 XP to 360k XP (ie, the whole game). They have better ranged accuracy (because of their +1 bonus). They have less HP (d6 instead of d8), but actually have the most effective HP in the against large foes due to their +2 AC. A level 1 Halfing with +1 DEX, +1 Plate, and and +1 Shield is sitting on 22 AC vs large opponents. An Ogre would only be hitting on an 18 or higher. Further, they actually get stuff. They get improved initiative, improved hearing, and the ability to hide in shadows better than a level 5 Thief, and the ability to hide in the woods like a level 12 thief. Bananas.

Clerics outshine fighters as melee combatants for about half of low-level play (they have more HP), but also come with the ability to turn undead, cast very powerful divine spells, and have better saving throws. The major downside for clerics is that they can only use blunt weapons, and so miss out on heaps of magic weapons (2/3rds of random magic weapons are swords, and 70% of misc magic weapons are edged, for an overall 10% chance that a magic weapon is usable by a cleric).

Elves lag behind Fighters a bit (less accurate from 8k to 16k xp, 64k to 120k xp, and 360k to 600k xp), but in exchange for sometimes being less accurate and having a bit less HP, they get arcane spells. This is also a problem for Magic Users, which are pretty underwhelming next to elves. Especially if you tend to gravitate to low-level play (1-shots, tend to quit campaigns before 9th level, etc).

I think the power of the demi-humans is supposed to be balanced out by their lower level caps, but this feels very feeble. Levels past 9th are very insignificant; fighters and thieves are only gaining +2 HP per level (instead of 1d8 + CON), clerics and magic users are only gaining +1 HP per level.

Halfings feel it the most by capping out at 8, which feels very awkward on a game design level. You either play a halfling knowing that you stop progressing at 120k XP (while the MU keeps getting stronger until 1mil XP), or you gamble that this will literally never matter (because the campaign will end or your character will die) before this. I’d hazard the second is way more likely.

All in all, the class balance feels… half-baked. Feels like we could do a whole lot better.

Advancement

All characters who make it through an adventure alive receive experience points (XP), awarded by the referee (see p148). XP is gained from two sources: treasure recovered and monsters defeated.

Good signposting! This also clues us in, for the first time (on page 38) on what the goal is. We’re trying to earn XP and we do that by recovering treasure and defeating monsters. This feels a lot like board game manuals that don’t give an overview of how scoring works until the end, making it hard to contextualize all of the other mechanics being explained.

Now we know that we’re trying to defeat monsters and recover treasure so that we can earn XP, and the XP makes us stronger, which allows us to recover greater treasure and defeat stronger monsters.

Characters receive an XP bonus or penalty based on their score in their class’ prime requisites (see Ability Scores, p16). This modifier is applied to the grand total XP a particular character receives at the end of an adventure.

This is crazy. Not only from a rich-get-richer perspective (the fighter with 16 STR is already more powerful than the one with 13 STR, and now it levels up faster as well), but also from a bookkeeping perspective. Say a party of 4 PC and 2 Retainers hauls 1392 XP out of a dungeon. Split 5 ways, this is 278.4 XP, so that’s how much a base PC gets, and a base hireling gets half of that: 139.2.

But, don’t forget the adjustments:

• A PC with a -10% xp penalty gets 251

• A PC with a -5% xp penalty gets 264

• A normal PC gets 278

• A PC with a 5% bonus gets 292

• A PC with a 10% bonus gets 306

• A Retainer with a -10% xp penalty gets 125

• A Retainer with a -5% xp penalty gets 132

• A normal Retainer gets 139.2

• A Retainer with a 5% xp bonus gets 146

• A Retainer with a 10% xp bonus gets 153

If this is a rule you want to keep (for some reason), it’s way more efficient to directly reduce the XP thresholds. For instance, say that a fighter with a 10% bonus acquires 1819 XP across multiple sessions. They’d multiply that by 1.1x and be at 2001 XP, which is enough to level up (they need 2000).

The way this probably got recorded is that they earned 119 XP the first session, then 400 the second, then 900 the third, then 400 the fourth. They multiply by 1.1x each time, so they record 131 → 571 → 1561 → 2001.

We can cut out all of this nonsense by instead having each player divide their XP threshold by their bonus and then recording XP normally. Instead of writing 2000 as their threshold, they’d write 2000 / 1.1 = 1818. Then, when they earned XP, they just directly add it without any fancy multiplication.

So when we write our book, that's what we should do instead. Rather than explain that characters receive 10% xp from all sources, say that their requirements are reduced by 10%. It’s totally equivalent, and much less bookkeeping.

Characters cannot advance more than one level in one session. Any additional XP that would take a character two or more levels above their current level are lost, leaving the character at 1 XP below the total for the next level.

I understand this on a verisimilitude level, but it’s annoying for players in high-level parties that had a character die and are trying to catch up.

For example, say that you and all of your friends are 7th level. Fighters each need 56k XP to advance to level 8. Say this takes 8 sessions of 7000 XP per character each (because we’re playing lucrative high-level content). At the end of the first session, your fighter goes from 0 XP to 3999 XP. At the end of the second session, you have to stop at 7999 XP. Then for the third session on, the restriction doesn’t matter and you stop at 14999 (level 4), 21999 (level 5), 28999 (level 5), 35999 (level 6), 42999 (level 6), and finally 49999 (level 6).

It’s annoying but doesn’t actually do a lot and feels like kludge.

This is also a disassociated mechanic. It’s based on sessions not adventures. If Group-A plays for 4 hours, explores the first level of a dungeon and then goes back to town at the end of the session, plays the next weekend and explores the second level of the dungeon, then they can potentially level up twice. If Group-B plays for 8 hours, and does the same thing that Group-A did, but all in one session, they can only level up once.

Cleaner is to make the restriction adventure-based rather than session-based. Keep stuff in-the-fiction (much cleaner is to remove it; it’s not necessary).

When characters have amassed sufficient wealth, they will often wish to construct a base or stronghold and possibly found a domain. See Strongholds, p64 for full rules on building a stronghold and founding a domain.

It would be great to know why we’re constructing a base, stronghold or domain. Otherwise, this is coming out of left field and introducing concepts with no context. So far, this has been about defeating monsters and recovering treasure from dungeons, what do we need bases, strongholds, or domains for?

Unfortunately, following the page reference doesn’t provide any clues.

Equipment

Here we’re forming the basis of our economy. It’s totally broken.

We’ll start with labor, because that’s the basis of production. Peasants get paid 1g per month. Light infantry and oarsmen gets paid 2g per month. A blacksmith gets 25g, a ship’s captain gets 250g, an engineer gets 750g, and a sage gets 2000g.

So abstracting that a little, unskilled labor is getting 1g a month, skilled labor gets 2g a month, specialist labor gets ~25g a month, and high-status people get more.

First level Retainers (folks willing to go into dungeons) want 1g/day (so basically specialist labor) plus a half-share of the loot.

That lets us price stuff.

• A river boat costs 4000g (333 years of peasant labor, 13 years of blacksmith labor).

• A Cart costs 100g (8 years of peasant labor, 4 months of blacksmith labor).

• A riding horse costs 75g (6 years of peasant labor, 3 months of blacksmith labor).

• A Sword costs 10g (10 months of peasant labor, 12 days of blacksmith labor).

• Plate armor costs 60g (5 years of peasant labor, ~2 months of blacksmith labor).

• Garlic costs 5g (5 months of peasant labor, 6 days of blacksmith labor).

• Buying 1 of everything on the adventuring equipment list (backpack, crowbar, garlic, a grappling hook, a small hammer, a holy symbol, holy water, 12 iron spikes, a lantern, oil, 10ft pole, 7 iron rations, 50ft rope, a large sack, 3 stakes, a mallet, thieves’ tools, flint+tinder, 6 torches, waterskin, wine, and wolfsbane) costs 178g (15 years of peasant labor, 7 months of blacksmith labor).

Ah, but how much do adventurers make?

There’s a couple of ways to estimate this. The easiest is to use the XP tables. The book says (on p148)

Treasure that PCs bring back from an adventure is the primary means by which they gain XP—usually accounting for 3⁄4 or more of the total XP earned.

This is, from my experience playing modules, modest. I find it’s closer to 80-85%. This means that a character who earns 2000 XP will have earned ~500 XP from monsters and ~1500 xp from recovering treasure, at a rate of 1g = 1xp.

So that’s the character’s income. They’re spending paltry sums on expenses like nights at an inn (no prices given for some reason) and food (no prices given other than adventuring rations).

Another way to look at it is by checking out how much treasure is in modules. Here’s Hole in the Oak (a first party product):

Or Incandescent Grottoes (another first party product)

That’s a lot of money. If the party pulls out 1/4th of the loot from Hole in the Oak, that’s ~4500g. That’s 375 years of peasant wages. That’s enough to buy everything on the adventuring equipment list 25 times over.

One of the things I wrote about in Wealth and the Disintegration of Choice was that money is a what-to-buy choice-enabler. When you have so much money that you can buy both things, you’re no longer making choices, you’re just bookkeeping. That’s what happens immediately in OSE.

AD&D has it’s own (totally insane) methods to keep players poor (and thus force them to make choices about what to spend their limited funds on), OSE neglected to include any of these mechanics, and so players are lavishly wealthy to the point of completely invalidating this whole game structure.

I’ve seen a lot of people ask about this, and the best response I’ve seen was from Dyson Logos in this thread. It’s worth observing that all of these purchases are totally frivolous and outside of the core gameplay loop. This is a game about killing monsters and recovering treasure from dungeons so we can get XP, making us stronger so we can kill stronger monsters and haul more treasure from dungeons. “Running for President of Mechanus” is orthogonal to this goal.

I think the most common response I’ve seen is “well, where are they keeping their money? they should build a stronghold and hire guards to secure it”?

First… banks? Banks would love adventurers. People with no life expectancy, no one to claim their gold after they die (and so the bank keeps it), and loads of money to stick in. B2 - Keep on the Borderlands, the starter adventure that comes with BX, has a bank.

LOAN BANK: Here anyone can change money or gems for a 10% fee. The banker will also keep a person’s wealth stored safely at no charge if it is left for at least one month, otherwise there is a 10% fee. Loans at an interest rate of 10% per month can be obtained for up to 5 gold pieces with no security deposit; over 5 gold pieces requires some item of at least twice the value of the loan.

Second, why care? Like, say you keep your wealth in some insecure place. Then it gets stolen (via GM fiat). Oh no, now I won’t be able to buy… what exactly? There’s nothing to buy that’s relevant to the core gameplay loop!

In almost every other game I’ve played, the thing that adventurers buy is magic items. Now gold is directly tied back into the core gameplay loop. You want to get wealth because that lets you buy magic items which makes you more powerful and lets you get more wealth to buy more magic items.

In OSE, the magic items don’t have prices, and people explicitly talk about disallowing magic item markets in OSE

[…] And they accumulate magic items. The rules don't allow sales, so it's not unusual for a third or fourth level character to be seriously geared up, depending on the dungeons/adventures they've been through.

[…]

50 years of play and tradition says you don't sell magic items in B/X. You're welcome to do it in your game if you like, though. And you're welcome to think not selling them is silly.

To be clear, nothing in the book says that you can’t sell magic items (the poster is mistaken), but at the same time it doesn’t support you at all. My interpretation is that disallowing sales would be breaking tactical infinity. If a player is talking to a merchant NPC and offers them a glowing +1 sword for 50g, we allow that, right? Would they pay 100g? 1000g? And so on. Pretty soon, you actually need prices.

Hired Help

Limit per PC: Each character is limited to a finite number of retainers, as indicated by the character’s Charisma score (see Ability Scores, p16).

Good god this is so many retainers. The number is 4+CHA, so ~4 retainers per PC on average. Do folks tend to actually get anywhere near this limit? Are parties of 4 PCs going on adventures with 4 retainers each (yay 20-character adventures)?

The referee should determine the rate of pay desired by potential retainers, taking the following factors into account:

▶ Skill level: More experienced retainers will want a higher rate of pay, whereas those employed for unskilled tasks will have lower demands.

▶ Competition: Retainers may accept lower rates of pay if there are many applicants, but may demand higher rates if there is little competition for the job.

Well, the guidance is maybe better than nothing, but it would be really helpful to know how to mechanically resolve “may accept lower rates”, or what qualifies as “many applicants”, what “higher rate of pay” means (are we talking 3g / day instead of 1g/day or 30g/day instead of 1g/day).

I think it’s way simpler (and less confusing) to scrap all of the complexity. I use a non-negotiable simple chart based on their level for their daily wage, and a non-negotiable half share of loot.

Retainers have a loyalty rating, determined by the hiring character’s CHA (see Ability Scores, p16). This rating may be adjusted with GM fiat:

▶ Bonuses: A retainer’s loyalty may be increased if the PC has been particularly good to the retainer (GM fiat).

▶ Penalties: A retainer’s loyalty may be reduced if the PC has been cruel (GM fiat) or contrary to their word.

To make a loyalty check, the referee rolls 2d6 and, if the result is lower than or equal to the retainer’s loyalty rating, accounting for any (GM fiat) adjustments, the roll has succeeded.

Loyalty checks are made in two circumstances:

▶ Peril: Each time the retainer is exposed to a particularly perilous (GM fiat) situation. If the roll fails, the retainer will likely flee.

▶ After an adventure: If the roll fails, the retainer will not work for the PC again.

Phew, that’s a lot of GM fiat. It would be nice to have concrete guidance. If we give them a full share of treasure, what happens to their loyalty? +1 bonus or +2? How much does “cruelty” reduce their loyalty by? What constitutes cruelty?

I’m being persnickety here because this is a halfway solution. Without any of this guidance, the GM is free to have retainers just leave when they think that ought to happen. Then, the GM is free to make up probabilities if they’d prefer to roll.

When you hook a the-retainer-might-leave mechanic into a character’s stats (their charisma) and then ask me to come up with modifiers for an unintuitive curve, I’m going to complain. Say that a character of average charisma was cruel to his retainer, calling him all sorts of names and disparaging his courage. What do you reckon the chances are that they continue working? Did you recokon that they’d be 42%? That’s what a -1 mod gets you.

Armourer

Producing weapons and armour: Per month, an armourer can make five weapons, three shields, or one suit of armour. Maintaining mercenaries’ gear: A dedicated armourer is required per 50 troops. Assistants: An armourer’s output (either in terms of arms produced or troops maintained) may be doubled by hiring two assistant armourers and one blacksmith. If four assistants and two blacksmiths are hired, the armourer’s output may be quadrupled. An armourer cannot coordinate more assistants than this.

Price: 100g/mo

Okay, so an armorer costs 100g per month. The most expensive armor is 60g (plate), so they’re more expensive than just buying plate. This seems to imply that plate might not be available for purchase, yet there is absolutely no guidance on what sort of places should have which sort of equipment.

Sage

Sages are very rare individuals who devote their lives to the study of obscure knowledge. A sage may be consulted to answer unusual questions.

Time and cost: The referee must judge the time and cost required to research the answer to a question.

Chance of success: There is never a 100% chance of success in finding an answer.

This is such funny wording to me. It’s like a longer version of “literally make this up, we’re not providing guidance”. At least they let me know that I’m not missing anything!

Strongholds

Permission: It may be necessary to secure permission to build from an existing authority over the land. This may not be required if the land is uncharted wilderness.

May be necessary? May not be required if the land is uncharted wilderness?

Clear land: If the construction site is in the wilderness, all monsters in a 6-mile area (i.e. one hex on a typical small-scale wilderness map) must be killed or driven off.

How do we determine how many monsters are in the associated 6-mile area? No guidance is provided.

3. Design: The player creates a plan for the stronghold and calculates the costs (see construction prices overleaf).

4. Review: The referee should review and approve the player’s plans.

5. Hire engineers: For every 100,000gp cost of the stronghold, the PC must hire one engineer (see Specialists, p60).

6. Construction: Once the land has been cleared and construction materials de- livered, construction may commence. The time required depends entirely on the stronghold’s total price: one day of game time per 500gp.

(note, the prices are not overleaf; they’re on the next page)

The procedure here is clear and simple enough, I’m just totally baffled about what we’re doing.

Simple Approach

For simplicity, the cost of a stronghold may be increased by 25% to account for interior details, including: reinforced doors, stone stairs, flagstone flooring,

tile roofing, windows or arrow slits, bars and shutters on windows, and standard furnishings.

Okay, so we pick a bunch of components, like maybe we get a Keep, 4 castle walls, 4 moats, and a drawbridge for 95500g. Why are we buying this? Is there mechanical benefit to buying a Keep instead of the cheaper Tower? Do we need castle walls if we have a moat?

The difference between a Tower and a Keep is 5000 years of peasant labor, so it seems worth pausing to think about. We’re able to hire 500g/day worth of labor, so our original project will complete in ~10 months of game time.

After which:

The PC may wish to attract settlers into a cleared area. In addition to ensuring the safety of surrounding lands, the character will have to fund construction of other buildings (e.g. accommodation, commercial facilities, transport infrastructure, etc.) to attract settlers. Advertising may also be necessary. The referee will determine the costs involved and how many settlers are attracted.

If settlers move into the PC’s domain, the character can expect to gain 10gp of taxes per year from each settler.

Ah, so this is an investment scheme. We get 10g per settler per year. I don’t look forward to determining (with no guidance) what all sorts of buildings they need and how many followers are attracted.

Also, as far as I can tell, the income from settlers here is not worth XP, which means it’s still totally outside of the core gameplay loop.

It seems like we’re playing money so we can build strongholds so that we can earn money, but I’m still not sure WHY.

Say you invest your 100k and you’ve got your keep and you’re earning 10g per year for each of your 2000 peasants, minus some sort of upkeep costs for all of the soldiers you’re hiring for maybe a net income of 10k annually. After a mere 10 years, you’ll be profitable! What are we doing here? Why are we not just adventuring?

There’s a hilarious table that lets us know that each window costs 10g, or that a 10x10 patch of wooden floor runs us 40g (3 years of peasant labor?).

Magic

We’re using Vancian Magic: casters memorize most of a spell in the morning (or pray to their diety for the ability to cast it) and then cast it later in the day. In order to cast the same spell twice, you have to memorize it twice.

Each caster can prepare a certain number of spells based on their level, for example a 4th level magic user can prepare 2x 1st level and 2x 2nd level spells.

Arcane casters need to memorize from a spell book which…

contains exactly the number of spells that the character is capable of memorizing (as determined by the character’s class and level).

Other editions of D&D lets magic users learn additional spells (but only prepare a limited amount) as the adventure. Not OSE - your spell book has strict, low limits.

Additionally, learning spells isn’t free:

When the number of spells an arcane spell caster can memorize increases (e.g. by gaining an experience level), they can increase the selection of spells in their spell book. In this way, the number of spells in the spell book may be brought in line with the number of spells the character can memorize. This is possible in two ways:

▶ Mentoring: The character may consult an arcane guild or mentor to learn new spells. This process takes about a week of game time. The spells a character learns in this way are determined by the referee, who may decide to let the player choose.

▶ Research: It is also possible to add spells to a spell book by means of Magical Research. […] Researching a new spell takes two weeks per spell level and 1,000gp per spell level.

Okay, so now when the magic user levels up, the party needs to let them take a break for “about” (why make this fuzzy?) a week (if they have a mentor) or 2 weeks per spell level (holy cow) if they don’t.

But wait! This only works most of the time:

There is a minimum probability of 15% that any magical research endeavour fails. If the research fails, the money and time invested are lost.

So the GM needs to decide, via fiat (with no guidance) what the probability that the research fails is, under the explicit constraint that it has to be at least 15% for some reason.

So sometimes you hit 7th level and want your shiny new 4th level spell. You decide to spend 2 months and 4000g to research it, and then… randomly fail. Does this sound fun?

Duplicating spell effects: Many magic items duplicate the effects of a spell, gen- erally costing one week of game time and 500gp per level of the mimicked spell.

Multi-use items: If the item created can replicate a spell effect multiple times (for example a wand with charges), the cost in time and money is multiplied by the number of uses.

Other items: Some magic items do not mimic spell effects precisely and for these the referee will have to use discretion. The more powerful the item, the more diffi- cult it should be to construct. As a general rule, items should cost from 10,000 to 100,000gp and from 1 month to 1 year of game time to complete. Some examples: 20 arrows +1 (10,000gp, 1 month), plate mail +1 (10,000gp, 6 months), crystal ball (30,000gp, 6 months), ring of x-ray vision (100,000gp, 1 year).

Okay, so this gives us some indication as to prices (500g per spell level effect, 10000g for a +1 sword or +1 armor), though all magical crafting (including 1st level spell scrolls or potions of healing) is locked behind being a 9th level magic user (300k xp). Weird.

Finally, spells recharge after a night of uninterrupted sleep:

Rest and time requirements: A spell caster can memorize new spells after an uninterrupted night’s sleep. It takes one hour to memorize all spells the character is capable of memorizing.

This incentivizes degenerate gameplay. Consider a low level party of Fighter, Cleric, Magic User, and Thief. They’re exploring a dungeon and run into Orcs. The Magic User blinds the Orc Leader with Light. The Cleric heals the Fighter’s wound after the battle. They all have the same HP as before, but are now out of spells. They could press on, or they could leave the dungeon, rest, and come back in the morning at full strength.

More abstractly, when a party spends their spell slots, they are weaker until they rest. Resting costs very little (just food), and it’s relatively easy to secure a camp a ~mile or so near the dungeon entrance (see How to Tackle a Dungeon - Part 1). Mercenaries (as discussed) are very cheap.

The players are incentivized to go into a dungeon, spend their spells solving problems, retreat outside and regain spells, and repeat. There’s normally a few elements that stop this from happening:

• The inhabitants bolster defenses over night

• The inhabitants leave with their loot

• The inhabitants track the party and raid them at night

• There’s some sort of ticking clock on an adventure design level (the princess will be sacrificed at the height of the full moon)

OSE doesn’t have any of this guidance and the first party adventures do not include any of these elements. Old modules have rudimentary instructions for how the inhabitants respond to an incursion, for example, here’s Keep on the Borderlands:

Orc losses cannot be replaced. If this tribe is attacked, they will have the males at area 15. watching the entrance, ready for a second try by the adventurers. If the leader is slain, the survivors will seek safety in area B., if possible; otherwise, they will flee the place entirely, carrying their goods away.

So what actually happens when the players go into Hole in the Oak, kill the Ogre or heretic gnomes after spending spell slots, and then retreating back above ground to rest? Nothing as written! Presumably the factions react somehow but it’s totally up to the GM to figure it out with no guidance or framework.

Spells

There’s a couple of important ones that I’ll mention because of how they heavily interact with defeating monsters and recovering treasure.

• Cure Light Wounds (Cleric - 1): 1d6+1 healing as a first level spell. This will effectively replace natural healing, and means that a party with multiple clerics has a lot of staying power.

• Detect Magic (Cleric/MU - 1): The only way to check to see if something is magical is to spend a spell slot.

• Light (Cleric/MU - 1): Save vs spells (~25%) or be blind for 2 hours. Blind creatures cannot attack. This is an extremely powerful single target debuff.

• Charm Person (MU - 1): Extremely powerful mental domination. Save vs spells or be charmed for a full week (at least).

• Magic Missile (MU - 1): Auto hits from 150ft, which means that a mages can lock each other down by spamming magic missile at each other in combat.

• Sleep (MU - 1): Knocks out 2d8 HD worth of the lowest HD creatures within 240ft with no save (???) where it explicitly says they can be killed with no defense “Creatures enchanted by this spell are helpless and can be killed instantly with a bladed weapon.” Sheesh. Not so fun when a party of 5 level 1 PCs insta-dies to a single level 2 magic user.

• Find Traps (Cleric - 2): Makes cleric situationally stronger at finding traps than Thieves. Given that this is a level 2 spell, and magic research prices the cost items that mimic level 2 spells at ~1000g, I think it becomes pretty efficient (at very high wealth levels) to buy rings of find traps or lots of potions of find traps.

• Hold Person (Cleric - 2): Save or die for 4HD or less.

• Continual Light (MU - 2, Cleric - 3): Spend a spell slot once on a copper coin, have a permanent portable light source. Given that 6th level clerics and 3rd level magic users should be around (especially in cities) how much would you figure they’d be willing to sell a coin of continual light for? A few gold? It costs them nothing to make, and totally invalidates our main form of resource tracking (torches). Also can be used to blind permanently.

• Knock (MU - 2): Opens any sort of closed door with no randomness. Great spell to put on scrolls. Hurts the Thief’s niche: the MU gets Knock at 5000 xp; at which point the Thief has a 30% chance to open locks and cannot retry if they fail.

• Cure Disease (Cleric - 3): When a monster gives you a disease (rat, mummy, etc), this is how it gets removed. Important building block.

• Remove Curse (Cleric - 3, MU - 4): When you get cursed, this is how it gets removed. Important building block.

• Fireball (MU - 3): 1d6 per level to every target within 20ft of a point up to 240ft away. The magic user picks this up at level 5, so we’re talking 5d6 (avg 17.5) times the number of targets. So now a MU’s damage is scaling based on their level but a fighter’s is always ~1d8 + STR. Hmmm.

• Invisibility 10’ Radius (MU - 3): They got personal invisibility at level 2, but now they have group invisibility, which is way more useful. Now you can move your whole crew invisibly (with no time limit) through an area. Good for a scroll.

• Neutralize Poison (Cleric - 4): When you get poisoned, this is how you don’t die. Important building block.

• Charm Monster (MU - 4): Same as Charm Person, but works on monsters of any HD. Has a save based on the monster’s intelligence, but the bestiary does not list the intelligence of monsters (???).

• Polymorph Others (MU - 4): Save or be turned in a creature of the caster’s choice until you die. Effectively save or die.

• Commune (Cleric - 5): Ask your GM 3 questions when you get stuck per week. Sometimes the only way to resolve mysteries.

• Remove Quest (Cleric - 5): NPCs (especially wizards), traps, and dieties are often giving PCs Quests that they’re compelled to complete. This gets you your freedom back.

• Raise Dead (Cleric - 5): How to revive your friends. The cleric only needs to be 7th level to be able to cast this, which means that ideally most cities should have someone available. It only costs a spell slot; how much does a 7th level cleric charge for a 5th level spell slot? I price it at 900g.

Not covered here: 5th and 6th level MU spells. Those don’t start coming online until 300k XP. They’re fun to look at! Notably, the only way to turn a petrified player back into flesh is through the 6th level MU spell Stone to Flesh (castable after acquiring a mere 600k XP), so petrification is harder to deal with than dying (which can be fixed by a 7th level cleric).

Adventuring

If the players wish to, they may nominate one of their number as the spokesperson of the group, known as the caller. This player is responsible for informing the referee about the actions and movements of the party as a whole. Delegating this role to one player—rather than having each player informing the referee about their PC’s individual actions—can speed up play.

This is great advice that more modern texts miss. Having a caller is so nice, both for the players and also for the GM. Tables (especially ones with 4+ players) can get chaotic, so someone who is actively trying to listen to plans and then summarize them for the GM is extremely valuable.

One player should create a map of the areas being explored, based on the referee’s descriptions. Details such as monsters or traps encountered, clues to puzzles, or possibly interesting unexplored areas may be noted on the map as it is drawn.

Some guidance on how to do this would be awesome, for both the GM and the player. It is not trivial to accurately convey dungeon geography for either the GM or the mapper.

Weight: Coins
Weight measures typically come into play only when discussing how much characters can carry (see Encumbrance, opposite). As coins are the most common form of treasure found by adventurers, all weights are measured in coins. (Ten coins are equivalent to one pound.)

Makes sense; we’re setting up to measure things in 10ths of pounds. Coins are going to be by far the most common thing we’re carrying, so we can use coin weight instead.

On a practical level, a US quarter weighs 5.67 grams, or 0.0125lb, so a BX coin weighs 8x more than a quarter. It also means finding 10g in a pouch is finding a pound of gold.

Then, we get into the entirely optional encumbrance systems.

Two options are presented, basic encumbrance and detailed encumbrance. Now the GM needs to pick which sort of of encumbrance system to use, which is asking the GM to be the game designer. Do not do this! As the game designer, pick the mechanics that work the best, and then put those in your game.

Our first option is Basic Encumbrance, where you have a movement speed based on what sort of armor you’re wearing and whether or not you’re carrying significant treasure (GM fiat). Some guidance would be helpful here - for instance in my home games if you’re carrying more than a backpack fits (400 coins), then you’re slower.

The second option is Detailed Encumbrance where we count the weight of the weapons and armor, assume 80 coins worth of great, and set up some breakpoints. With up to 400 coins, you’re moving at 40ft in combat. With 600, 30ft. With 800, 20ft, and with 1600, 10ft. Plate mail weighs 500 coins by itself, a shield weighs 100, and a sword weighs 60, so we’re assuming that heavily armored fighters are at 720 minimum, treasure on top.

Notably, the weight of adventuring gear is never given for unclear reasons. This is odd! So much of the OSR culture is about resource management - counting torches, keeping track of rations, etc. Torches and rations have two constraining features: they cost money and they use up encumbrance.

I’ve demonstrated at length that the cost does not matter at all. 6 torches costs 1g. Characters start with ~110g and need to earn ~1500g to hit level 2. 1g for 6 torches is nothing.

Thus, the only constraint is encumbrance. It sure feels like the first time that players run into trouble because they don’t have enough oil or torches or rations, they’ll go back and buy a lot of them. Then, the immediate question is how many can they carry, or more specifically, how many coins do they weigh? Very, very bizarre that this information isn’t included.

Aside: Modules Do Not Provide Weights Either

The basic encumbrance system is only tracking the weight of treasure, so we expect treasure to be given a weight in coin, right? Here’s some treasure from first-party OSE modules:

• A hunting horn engraved with a stag’s head with ivy woven into the antlers (50gp).

• Human skull (carved with runes, magic).

• Jet black fruits (tomato-like, dangling delectably from the ivyEach fruit restores 1hp and turns the character’s eyes misty black for 1d3 hours. There is also a 1-in-10 chance of becoming addicted).

• An engraved silver box (50gp) may be found. It contains a fine dust: if inhaled, it heals 1d6hp.

• Platinum and sapphire chalice (upon the plinth, worth 2,000gp, full of water).

• A brass statuette depicting an obscene tryst between a maiden and a depraved unicorn (50gp)

• A golden bowl engraved with gecko emblems (800gp).

• 2 red candles in gold holders (250gp each).

• 2 gold chalices (encrusted with rubies, atop the altar, each worth 1000g)

• A silver jewellery box (200gp)

What gives? We have an encumbrance system that only counts the weight of treasure, measured in abstract coin weight, yet the adventures written for this system totally neglect to include the weight of the treasure.

This isn’t just the first party adventures. Basically no OSE adventure I’ve seen includes the coin weight of treasure. Bananas.

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Adventuring, Continued

The referee may (GM fiat) use a character’s ability scores to determine the character’s chance of succeeding at various challenging tasks.

The player rolls 1d20 and, if the result is less than or equal to the ability, the check succeeds. If the roll is greater than the ability, the check fails.

Bonuses or penalties to the roll may be applied, depending on the difficulty of the task (GM fiat). A modifier of –4 would be a relatively easy ability check, and a +4 would be very difficult.

A natural 1 should be treated as a success and a natural 20 treated as a failure.

This finally (on p114) gives us the full picture of what ability scores are for.

• Strength modifiers affect hit probability and damage for melee weapons and forcing open doors. The raw stat is used for GM fiat rulings for strength-based tasks (brawn, muscle, and physical power).

• Intelligence modifiers affect literacy (lol) and the number of bonus languages you know. The raw stat is used for GM fiat rulings for intelligence-based tasks (learning, memory, and reasoning).

• Wisdom modifiers affect all of your saving throws, but only against magical affects. The raw stat is used for GM fiat rulings for wisdom-based tasks (Willpower, common sense, perception, and intuition).

• Dexterity modifiers affect your AC and your chance to hit with ranged attacks. The raw stat is used for GM fiat rulings for dexterity-based tasks (agility, reflexes, speed, and balance).

• Constitution modifiers affect your max HP. The raw stat is used for GM fiat rulings for constitution-based tasks (health, stamina, and endurance).

• Charisma modifiers affect your reaction rolls, max number of retainers, and how loyal those retainers are. The raw stat is used for GM fiat rulings for charisma-based tasks (force of personality, persuasiveness, personal magnetism, physical attractiveness, and ability to lead).

So now we have the following resolution systems

• When you want to make an attack roll, roll 1d20, add your relevant attribute modifier, hit bonus, and get at least the target’s AC. You get better at doing this as you level up.

• When you want to make a saving throw (to avoid death, poison, rays, paralysis, breath, and spells), roll 1d20 and get at least your saving throw target. You get better at doing this as you level up.

• When you want to search a 10x10 area, roll a 1 on a d6 (unless you’re an elf or dwarf, then it’s a 1 or 2). You don’t get better at doing this as you level up.

• When you want to listen for a noise on the other side of a door, roll a 1 on a d6 (unless you’re an elf, dwarf, or halfing where it’s a 1 or 2, or if you’re a thief it’s based on level). Only Thieves get better at doing this as they level up.

• Thieves have a %chance of success for their skills, so we’re rolling 2d10, interpreting the result as a number between 1 and 100, and if it’s at most the number on the sheet, we succeed. Thieves get better at doing this as they level up.

Given that your ability scores are entirely out of your control and they never get better, it’s very awkward to think of when we’d actually want to use them. For instance, imagine using a strength check to represent swimming. Is a first level fighter with 14 strength actually better at strength-related tasks than a 14th level fighter with 13 strength.

I grepped through my catalog of classic modules and found the following references:

B1

• In not all cases will the contents be immediately identifiable—in the case of uncertain substance not obviously identifiable, multiply a character's wisdom times 5 to give the percentage chance of positive identification. Up to 2 characters may try to identify any given substance, but if both fail, the material will be a mystery to the entire party.

• Pool of wine—This pool is filled with powerful wine of a deep red color. Not only is it excellent wine, it has a taste so inviting that anyone tasting it will be prone to drink more and more until intoxicated! If a sip is taken, the taster will have a 60% chance of drinking more (regardless of the player's wishes). If this is done, three 6-sided dice are thrown and compared to the character's constitution rating; if the number rolled is greater than the character's constitution score, then the difference is figured, and this is the number of hours the character will be intoxicated (if the roll is equal or less, the character "holds his liquor" and is unaffected).

• Or she will have a 90% chance of drowning, modified by a -5% per point of dexterity. Items dropped to the bottom of the pool will be retrievable, but due to the extremely cold temperature of the water, characters will depend upon their constitution rating to see if they can stand the water enough to dive for things on the bottom. One check can be made for each character, with a 5% chance per point of constitution that they will be able to take the cold water (for example, a character with a constitution rating of 11 would have a 55% chance of being able to take the cold water and dive effectively).

B5

• If a thief should be so unfortunate as to fall, the fall begins at the middle of the climb or traverse. The thief may try to stop his fall by grabbing onto a bush or rock outcrop. He may try to do so after each 10feet of fall by rolling a 1d20. If he rolls his dexterity score or less, he has made a successful grab and stops falling. The thief takes 1-6(1d6)points of damage for each 10 feet fallen

B10

• Characters leading horses or mules must roll less than their Strength on 3d10, or the beasts will break away from them.

• This 20-foot ladder is trapped. The First haracter to touch it suffers an electric hock for 1d8 points of damage (halved by a successful saving throw vs. Spells) and must roll less than his or her Dexterity on 1d20 or fall to the bottom, taking a further 1d8 points of damage.

• While walking along any side street, the party is unfortunate enough to pass beneath an upper story window just as an elderly woman is emptying the contents OS her chamber pot onto the street below. Characters who fail a Dexterity check smell so badly until they next bathe, that all reactions involving them are made at a penalty of -2.

• If the attempt fails, the snake attacks. Characters attacking the snake must make a successful Dexterity check each round, or fall off the chasm wall.

B11

• An armor-clad PC cannot get out of the pit without help, and one in leather (or unarmored) must make a Strength Check (roll Strength or below on d20) to get out. A thief should try a Climb Walls roll to escape.

• Then again, you may give the players an important clue and then they forget it. (This is especially common if your players aren’t taking notes.) If this happens, you can allow the most intelligent PC an Intelligence Check before the lack of information proves fatal. Ask the player involved to roll 1d20. If the roll is equal to or lower than the PC’s Intelligence, that PC remembers the clue and you give the information again. If he fails, too bad; they really have forgotten.

• After the PCs have overcome the monster, you may allow a cleric a Wisdom Check. If he rolls his Wisdom or below on d20, tell him that he now recognizes the undead monster as a ghoul and knows that he can try to turn it.

Dark Tower

• The room is the lair of a huge, web-building metallic spider. A creature of apparently living steel, its web fills the room and touching it will cause entrapment. (Roll less than strength -5 on a d20 to break free.)

• Across the floor are strung or lain 20 long, hair-like wires. If stepped upon or touched, they will coil about the victim and after 2 rounds will do 2 - 8 points of damage per round to the victim as they turn red-hot. To remove, roll less than the average strength and dexterity on a d20. If not noticed in passing, they will be activated by each individual on a d8 roll of 1-3.

• […] they have only 6 seconds. Any who do not specify an action in that space of time must roll of less than their dexterity -10 on a d20 or suffer 5 - 40 points of crushing damage.

• ROOM OF CARRION: This room's floor is covered with human skeletons and rotting human corpses. The smell will gag those not making a saving throw against nausea (roll less than constitution -3 on a d20). Failure indicates loss of stomach contents and weakness equal to 50% normal strength for 2 - 4 turns.

• THE LOWER TEMPLE OF SET: The walls are mosaics of human sacrifice and various unnatural acts. If anyone studies them closely, roll less than constitution +1, on a d20 or be subject to fits of nausea and depression, which lowers strength by 50% for 2 - 4 turns.

• Worshippers of the god Set will have a 35% chance of communing as above. Only one successful commune is allowed per day with the god. Any characters aligned to good will begin to become ill and nauseous (saving throw: roll less than constitution minus 4 on a d20, failure to make indicates full effects) and suffer the loss of half strength for 1 - 10 turns.

S3

• It requires 1 round to be dragged to this toothy orifice, and there is a 5% chance per point of strength above 12 that the character grabbed can break free of one root tentacle.

• If any character attempts to step into the tube and then grasp a handle, allow a base 10% chance of success, +5% for each point of dexterity above 6. Failure equals a fall which will almost certainly prove fatal from the upper level, allowing 1d6 for each 10’ of vertical distance fallen.

• The first police robot disabled/destroyed here by the party will have a red card stored in its chest compartment, but it will have to be pried out carefully, so there is a 50% chance of destroying it, lowered 10% for each point of dexterity above 14 of the character making the attempt.

This is weird! When we step back a little, what we’re trying figure out three things: what the chance of success is, what happens if we fail, and what it costs to try. Frameworks like “The GM picks the attribute most closely associated to the task. The player rolls 1d20 <= their raw attribute score” are nice and simple, but only work as well as we all agree that this probability makes sense. Do we think that a character with 13 strength really ought to have a 65% chance to succeed at all strength related tasks from level 1 to 14? Does it matter?

Lots of games have tried lots of different task resolution systems. I maintain that ultimately all we’re trying to do is come up with the chance of success, what happens if we fail, and what it costs to try. I think saving throws and attack rolls make a lot of sense for OSE. They both scale based on XP, are differentiated by class (training). Attack rolls automatically scale based on opposition, saving throws do not (but the consequences do).

Attribute checks feel like kludge. It makes way more sense to me to get rid of them, then get rid of the raw stat (since that’s all the raw stat was being used for), but keep the modifiers. Use saving throws for all of the times when you would have normally used attribute checks. Boom, your game now has 6 less numbers to worry about and you dropped an entire corner-case concept.

Healing

Natural: For each full day of complete rest, a character or monster recovers 1d3 hit points. If the rest is interrupted, the character or monster will not heal that day.

Magical: Healing may also occur through magic, such as potions or spells. This kind of healing is instantaneous. Mag- ical healing and natural healing can be combined.

~2 HP per day of complete rest, so no adventuring, no traveling. It feels like this means that clerics become a complete necessity to due cure light wounds (which recharges every day), and becomes a massively faster way to heal. Good that there’s something though!

Drowning

The circumstances in which drowning is a risk—as well as the chance of drowning—are judged by the referee.

Example circumstances: Swimming in treacherous water conditions, swimming while wearing armour or carrying heavy or awkward items, fighting in water.

Example chances of drowning: A character swimming in rough waters while wearing heavy armour and carrying a heavy load may have a 99% probability of drowning. A character in the same waters but wearing light armour and carrying a light load may only have a 10% probability of drowning.

I guess this is guidance. At least I know that I should stop looking for swimming rules.

Dungeon Adventuring

Sequence of Play Per Turn

1. Wandering monsters: The referee makes checks as applicable.

2. Actions: The party decides what actions to take (e.g. moving, searching, listening, entering rooms).

3. Description: The referee describes what happens. If monsters are encountered, follow the procedure described in Encounters, p124.

4. End of turn: The referee updates time records, with special attention to light sources, spell durations, and the party’s need to rest.

I love this. This is what modern dungeon crawlers forgot to include in their rulebooks - actual procedures for dungeon crawling. We can move or seach. There’s a chance to encounter a (lootless) wandering encounter every time to keep the pressure up. Torches eventually burn out. Simple, elegant, and effective.

In familiar areas: When PCs are moving through dungeon areas with which they are familiar, the referee may allow them to move at a faster rate. For example, the referee might allow PCs to move at three times their base movement rate per turn, when moving through familiar areas.

Why are we being so vague here? Simpler to say “When the PCs are moving through familiar dungeon areas, they can move at three times their base movement rate in feet per turn.”

Otherwise, there should be guidance about when this should not be applied.

Dungeons often have many doors, some secret and others obvious. Many are locked and many are stuck.

Some guidance on the number of locked/stuck doors (instead of just “some”) would be nice! Keep on the Borderlands’s Caves of Chaos, for example, has no stuck door and 13 locks out of 64 rooms.

Some doors are hidden or concealed. Adventurers may choose to search a 10’ × 10’ area for secret doors. […] Searching takes one turn. The referee should always roll for the character searching, so that the player does not know if the roll failed or if there are simply no hidden features present. Each character can only make one attempt to search a specific area or item.

This is weird. Say that the PCs have extremely good reason (like they read about it a journal) to believe a secret door is exactly where it is. The 5 human PCs all search the correct square. They only have a 60% chance to find it (???).

The same math applies to searching for anything hidden (loot, traps, etc).

Dolmenwood is much more lenient:

Hidden features can often be located by narrative interaction (p150). Alternatively, players may declare that they are searching a certain object or 10′ × 10′ area for hidden features (e.g. traps, secret doors, hidden compartments, etc.). The Referee rolls a Search Check.

Each search takes 1 Turn. If space permits, multiple characters may search the same object or area. Up to 3 characters can simultaneously search a 10′ × 10′ area. Characters may search the same object or area again as often as they wish, each attempt requiring an additional Turn.

The Referee rolls all Search Checks, so that players do not know if the roll failed or if there are simply no hidden features present.

---

Traps

There are two kinds of traps:

▶ Treasure traps: Small traps placed on an item, to prevent it being tampered with or stolen (e.g. a poison needle on a chest or lock).

▶ Room traps: Large traps that are designed to affect anyone who enters a certain area (e.g. a pit that opens in the floor when walked over).

Triggering Traps

Each trap is triggered by a specific action (e.g. opening a door or walking over a particular area). Every time a character makes an action that could trigger a trap, there is a 2-in-6 chance of the trap being sprung.

Damage inflicted by a triggered trap is usually automatic, without an attack roll.

Monsters may be able to bypass traps without risk, if the referee wishes.

The 2-in-6 check for traps actually triggering is fantastic. It means that there’s mechanical incentive to having a marching order (the characters in the back only trigger the trip if the ones in the front didn’t trigger it and they get unlucky).

That said, I still don’t like this entire implementation of traps. Here’s Ben Milton's Take, and GFC's (which is my favorite).

As written, traps are mostly HP taxes (at best), and death machines (at worst). In order to make them interesting, we want to telegraph that they’re there and give the players some way to describe how they’re interacting with it.

Here’s a very positive example of this from Hole in the Oak

(21) Blade Trap

Stone blocks (walls, ceiling 10', and floor). Archway (8' high). Skull carvings (arches carved in the form of stacked skulls). Skeleton of dead warrior (lying in the arch in a pool of dried blood).

▶ South: Ammonia stench.

▶ Inspecting the skeleton: She died of a slashing wound in her right side.

▶ Looting the body: Badly damaged chainmail, sword, backpack with a musty rope and rotten rations, belt pouch of 25gp, brass skull necklace (15gp).

▶ Passing through the arch: A pressure plate triggers a scything blade to sweep out vertically from the eastern edge of the archway. Anyone in the arch must save versus wands or suffer 1d8 damage.

So the direction and wound type (from the right, slashing) as well as the skull carvings on the arch are telegraphs that something is special. I still don’t like that even if the players all simultaneously check to see if there’s a pressure plate, there’s still just a ~50% chance that they succeed, but I’ve already complained about this.

On a narrative-interaction level (what Dolmenwood advises), we’d have players who suspect there to be a pressure plate prodding the floor, checking the side of the arch for slits, pouring water to find gaps, etc.

Wilderness Adventuring

I’ve covered this extensively in the Survey of Overland Travel.

Encounters

When to Check

A check for surprise is made for any side that is not expecting the encounter. For example, if a monster is waiting quietly for an approaching party that is making a lot of noise, the monster would not have a chance to be surprised, but the party would.

Light and Surprise

Characters or monsters that carry a light in a dark environment are usually unable to surprise opponents, because the light gives their presence away.

Sheesh, this is a tough draw for the Thief. All monsters have infravision (and so don’t normally walk around dungeons with torches). The Thief does not, and so must scout and explore with a light source, negating the Thieves ability to effectively sneak in most situations.

If you want a forward scout (and you almost certainly do), you instead use a Dwarf or Elf (who can use infravision).

Monster Actions

The referee determines monsters’ reaction to the party. Sometimes, circumstances make it obvious how a monster will react. Otherwise, the referee may roll on the table below to determine how a monster reacts to the party.

The famous reaction chart! I have always found it frustrating that we’re rolling on this chart when we explicitly don’t know how the monster reacts, and the most common result (6-8; 44%) tells us that the monsters don’t know either. We need for something to happen.

The book lists that PCs commonly either want to fight, run, or talk; that’s very reasonable. If the PCs want to fight and we roll a reaction roll of 7, are the monsters trying to talk it out, run away, or fight back?

OSRSimulacrum goes over different reaction tables across different editions of D&D for further analysis.

Evasion and Pursuit

In The Dungeon

Compare the two sides’ movement rates:

▶ Fleeing side faster: The evasion automatically succeeds, unless the fleeing side is forced to stop.

▶ Fleeing side not faster: A pursuit occurs.

Wearing Chain or better (which is an massive survivability boost) puts us at a base speed of 60. If we check our dungeon encounters for level 1 dungeons, there is nothing slower than our fighters, so we’re never getting out for free.

Line of sight: Most monsters will not continue a pursuit if the characters get out of the monster’s range of vision.

This is… odd. When do you check it? Like, if someone rounds a corner, do all of the monsters just stop? Monsters don’t pursue through closed doors?

Dropping treasure: If the monsters enjoy treasure, there is a 3-in-6 probability that they will stop pursuit to collect any treasure the characters drop.

Dropping food: Hungry or less intelligent monsters may stop pursuit if characters drop food (3-in-6 chance).

How much treasure? Is 1 gold coin enough? Other than providing guidance for amounts (something simple like 20g per HD would be nice), this is great. Actual numerical and runnable guidance for common situations. It’s also player-facing so the players who read the book can know this is a mechanically supported option.

Obstacles: Burning oil or other obstacles may also slow or stop a pursuit.

And then we immediately pattern-break! Why give probabilities for dropping food and treasure, but then not give a probability for burning oil?

In The Wilderness

These rules are exceptionally clear; way more clear and detailed than the rest of the subsystems so far.

Combat

Here we go!

Combat Sequence Per Round

1. Declare spells and melee movement

2. Initiative: Each side rolls 1d6.

3. Winning side acts:

a. Monster morale

b. Movement

c. Missile attacks

d. Spell casting

e. Melee attacks

4. Other sides act: In initiative order.

I love a good sequence. There’s a lot of nuance here; can refer to my BX Combat Q&A post (original reddit post here; my account got banned for unknown reasons and reddit’s support has not responded) for common sources of confusion.

Main gotchas:

• You cannot move after you attack.

• You cannot declare melee movement unless you’re currently engaged in melee.

• If you’re engaged in melee, you cannot move unless you declared melee movement (which you could not have done if you were not engaged at the start of the round).

• You cannot shoot a ranged weapon if you’re engaged in melee.

  • The above three statements taken together means that if an archer loses initiative against an melee enemy, the melee enemy can run up to engage the archer and the archer cannot move (because they didn’t/couldn’t declare melee movement) and cannot shoot (because they’re engaged).

• All combatants on a side move, then all shoot, then all cast spell, then all use melee. This means:

  • A melee attacker might move to engage with a target, then the target gets shot and dies, and they’re stuck there.

  • Two melee combatants have to commit to where they’re moving to before either attacks.

• The only possible melee movement is backwards.

• There are no maneuvers. No grappling, no shoving, no tripping, no pocket sand, etc.

• There are no crits. Natural 1s always miss and Natural 20s always hit, but that’s it.

• Variable weapon damage is optional (???). By default, all weapons do 1d6 and are just differentiated by traits.

  • This means that by the default rules, a dagger does as much damage as a two-handed sword, costs less, can be thrown, only requires one hand, and does not make the wielder act last in a round.

• There’s are two hidden, implied phases of a round by the Slow trait on big weapons. The 4 phases are 1) Winning-side non-slow, 2) Losing-side non-slow, 3) Winning-side slow, 4) Losing-side slow.

• No melee weapons can attack from the second rank. There are a lot of weapon traits, but Long or Reach isn’t one of them.

• Ranged weapons within their short range are more accurate than melee weapons.

• There is no penalty for shooting into melee.

• Morale is optional.

• No guidance for anything outside of movement, melee, missiles, and spells is provided.

  • Can you open doors in combat?

  • Pick locks?

  • How does turning work?

  • Drinking potions?

  • Reading from scrolls?

  • What about special abilities like a vampire's gaze?

Note: Using THAC0 to resolve attack rolls results in very slightly different attack probabilities than when using the traditional approach of referring to the attack matrix.

As far as I can tell, this is completely incorrect.

Here’s the attack matrix:

This huge matrix is totally identical to using THAC0 under the stipulation that 20 always hits and 1 always misses.

Running Adventures

The Random Room Stocking table is a keystone for the design!

Out of 36 rooms, on average:

• 10 will be totally empty

• 2 will be unguarded treasure

• 6 will be monsters guarding treasure

• 6 will be just monsters

• 6 will be special rooms

• 2 will be trapped treasure

• 4 will be traps

That’s great variance of play! Also extremely useful is how well defined everything else. We have explicit tables for treasure in empty/trapped rooms by dungeon level, explicit tables for monsters for dungeon levels. This gives us a full framework! It also lets us write simulations for how loot and XP might be earned.

It also inspired some very helpful stocking guidelines: Actual Dungeon Mastering - Lungfungus and Stocking Per Moldvay - BXBLACKRAZOR. Both of these are extremely helpful for understanding treasure-balanced dungeon design.

Awarding XP

All characters who return from an adventure alive receive experience points (XP). XP is gained from two sources: treasure recovered and monsters defeated.

Treasure that PCs bring back from an adventure is the primary means by which they gain XP—usually accounting for 3⁄4 or more of the total XP earned. Characters gain 1 XP per 1 gold piece (gp) value of the treasure.

I know I mentioned this earlier (in reference to the core gameplay loop), and I also know that the merits of xp-for-gold have been talked to death, but I want to repeat them for posterity (and for folks not familiar with the OSR blogging scene at large).

First, the downside of xp-for-gold is that it’s very gamey and doesn’t feel correct in the fiction. A wizard sneaks into a dungeon and pulls out a platinum chalice. They become more vital (they gain HP), and can now learn to cast fireball?

NSR games (like Cairn) use on-screen event-based advancement (like Scars), which feels like an explicit rejection of xp-for-gold (so you’re incentivized to attempt to get scars).

Modern (3e and beyond) versions of D&D (and pathfinder) either use milestone leveling (level up via GM fiat) or xp-for-combat (so you’re incentivized to kill everything).

In Call of Cthulhu, you (very slowly) gain power by getting lucky on your skill rolls, then getting lucky again during downtime (so you’re incentivized to roll as much as possible).

In OSE, you’re incentivized to take easy fights and recover as much loot as you can. The recovering loot bit is interesting because it’s an objective rather than a task - there are a lot of ways to approach “get this chalice back to civilization”. The stuff guarding it becomes obstacles rather than goals. It’s also extremely nice to have explicit goals that the players can attempt to optimize around.

To me, this is a shining example of a properly designed mechanism. The players are incentivized to play in a certain way by the structures of the game itself, and this is in harmony with how we actually want to play.

Also! Now that we have a xp-for-monster chart, we can do some monster math

Generally, 1st level characters are in 1st level dungeons fighting 1 HD creatures. There is definitively variance here (variety is the spice of life after all), but nonetheless, it’s useful to get a handle on the XP curve.

We can tell that XP requirements for every level exponentially increase: The fighter’s curve looks like 2k → 4k → 8k → 16k → 32k → 64k → 120k → 240k. So, other than the jump from 64k to 120k (instead of 128k), we’re doubling each time. But, since monster XP also ~doubles, the amount of time it takes to level up (in term of sessions) stays linear.

So! Assuming that 1/4th of a Fighter’s XP comes from fighting equal HD creatures, this is how many such creatures need to be defeated (per fighter) at each level:

1. 50

2. 25

3. 29

4. 27

5. 23

6. 29

7. 31

8. 46

Getting to level 2 is tough! Then there’s also a big jump to go from 8 to 9 (the name level), but otherwise we’re looking at living through ~20-30 encounters as a Fighter. This is admittedly shallow analysis, and better analysis would be a little more wholistic (looking at ecology, first party module design, and factoring in monsters with special abilities being worth more XP). Hopefully though, this demonstrates that there’s a good chance that leveling up is pretty linear (and hence why my XP charts re-normalize with a log scale).

Monsters

Every monster has a physical description, a number appearing (very useful for a GM), a treasure type (very useful for a GM), and some sort of special ability(s) that makes them more than a bag of HP and damage.

This is impressive legwork. In modern times, it’s hard to find a bestiary that does all of this; it feels like people just don’t have the energy (or don’t want to try to deal with licenses/copyright).

Building Blocks

There’s a sense of coherent design with the monster abilities and the spells/equipment available to players. Monsters can curse, and so players can remove curses. Monsters can poison, and so clerics can neutralize poison. Monsters can kill, and clerics can resurrect. Monsters can petrify, and (extremely experienced) magic users can de-petrify. Characters can learn the language of monsters.

The XP:Treasure ratio for every monster is different. A lair of Kobolds has 6d10 kobolds (~33) worth an average of 165 XP. Their lair has treasure type J, which is worth an average of 25g, so not at all worth fighting over.

A lair of Orcs has 1d6•10 (~35) orcs, worth an average of 350xp. Their lair has treasure type D, which is worth an average of 3900g, so definitely worth fighting over. It makes sense to recruit the kobolds to fight against the orcs for some of their treasure.

Encounter Tables

More extremely useful legwork. The dungeon encounter charts have a nice mix of enemies (size variance, number appearing variance, HD variance, hostility variance, etc), and the wilderness encounter tables are backed by an interesting implied setting.

For example, in the Hills, there’s a ~10% chance we encounter a chromatic (evil) dragon and a ~10% chance we encounter a Giant. So, a full 20% of our encounters will be against huge, mythological creatures (not to mention the other sorts of huge, mythological creatures: griffons, giant rocs, hydras, chimeras, wyverns, lycans, medusas, and treants).

Another notable bit is that every terrain type includes Human encounters; 1/8th in everywhere except the desert where it’s 2/8ths. Every “human” encounter chart includes high-level adventuring parties, usually representing ~1/3rd of the sub-chart. This gives us an overall ~5% chance of encountering a high-level NPC adventuring party. This implies the world has a lot of adventurers.

Given this is the case, I would expect there to be some kind of market where these adventurers could exchange their unwanted magical items, perhaps for gold… but I think this is my personal demon.

Magic Items

The magic item generation system is extremely well specified. Fantastic legwork.

Each treasure type specifies either a number of magic items or specific magic items. For instance, type B gives “1 magic sword, suit of armor, or weapon”, and type D gives “2 magic items plus 1 potion”.

We generate the arbitrary magic items with this chart:

Then each category has its own generator. For instance, here’s armor and shields

I really appreciate the separation of loot between basic characters (levels 1-3) and expert characters (4+). Otherwise AC values get out of hand. I don’t have complaints here; the list of magic items is great. They’re mechanically detailed, flavorful, and fun.

Conclusions

OSE is in a weird spot. There are so many ambiguities and straight up missing pieces, and explicit options that it’s not really just one game, or a game that you can open up and play.

At the same time, it does a lot of the work that less-complete games aren’t willing to do. Fully described and mechanically detailed monsters, spells, and magic items. A host of first-party extremely good adventures. Explicit procedures for wilderness play, chases, and exploring a dungeon.

Overall, I think it’s worth buying and playing.

If you do want to play it, I recommend patching over the following design holes and letting your players know the following:

• Make fighters better somehow. ACKs gives them cleaves and damage bonuses as they level up. LotFP makes them the only class to gain +hit as they level.

• Make thieves better somehow. I recommend giving them infravision and taking infravision away from dwarves and elves, at the very least. Define how backstab works. Probably make backstab scale based on level somehow.

• Decide how Thief skills work. Are only thieves capably of picking locks and pockets? Does “move silently” literally mean silent (like magically silent)? Does “climb sheer” mean hand-hold-less? Carcass Crawler 1 helps a bunch here.

• Either use explicit weights for adventuring equipment (easy to use BFRPG’s Equipment Emporium and multiply pounds by 10) or just use simplified encumbrance and GM fiat about when they’re “heavily laden” (I say that if they have to outside their backpack, which fits ~30 pounds, they’re laden).

• Create some sort of gold sink. My preferred method here is to let players buy (extremely expensive) magic items. The prices I use in Sovereign should be perfect for OSE as well.

• Create some sort of market availability system to let players know what they can buy. LotFP uses different city/village prices and availability. I have an availability chart (inspired by ACKs).

• Decide how to interpret the reaction roll table in most common contexts. What does a result of “uncertain” mean?

• Figure out how spell-casting services work. Players are going to get cursed, die, etc, and want to buy curatives.

• Figure out how identifying magic items work. Are items obviously magical (in my games, they never show signs of aging)? Do magic armors obviously weigh less? Can you tell that a sword is +1 by attacking with it? How does a sage identifying a magic item work?

• Figure out how maneuvers (shoving, tripping, disarming, etc) work. I like the ACKs way where you can make an attack at -4 to hit, and if successful you do your normal damage. Then, the target makes a paralysis saving throw and if they fail, your maneuver works.

• Change the wilderness exploration system, OSE’s is nonsense. The easiest drop-in replacement that hits all the same notes is Simulacrum’s.