As always, before we start the review of Old-School Essentials, we would like to thank Exalted Funeral and Necrotic Gnome for providing us with a physical copy of the manual.

The award-winning roleplaying game, full of fantastic adventures, monsters and magic, can be purchased directly from the Exalted Funeral store in English for 40$. The Italian version is available on the Need Games website for 34,90€.

This 290-page volume contains all the information you need to bring tradition up to date. It is a retroclone that has updated the rules of the 1981 edition of D&D to make them accessible to a wide audience.

Returning to the Roots in Style

This edition is sure to delight nostalgic players, as the rules have been cleverly revised to allow you to set up a game in just a few minutes. It captures all the essence of those years, with a few strategic moves that enhance the gaming experience. The manual’s pages still feature dwarves and elves as character classes, as well as monsters, treasures, rules and spells. This edition provides years of gaming material.

So, let’s forget about structured storytelling, even if there’s nothing to prevent us from incorporating it into this game. The idea is to return to exploring dungeons full of wandering monsters and encountering dragons more often than is advisable. As you delve deeper into the dark depths beneath the surface, treasures and dangers grow in tandem. This approach is undoubtedly nostalgic yet still practical. A good example of this is the most frequently used tables printed on the endpapers.

Review of the Old-School Essentials Rules

Forget complex calculations and incredible combinations of talents and abilities. In Old-School Essentials, a warrior can only make one attack per round, and a first-level wizard can only cast one spell. The ruleset is extremely simple. However, those accustomed to the developments that the world’s most famous roleplaying game has undergone may find it challenging at first.

As usual, to use a skill, you roll a d20, but you succeed if the die result is equal to or lower than the skill level. Is that all? In fact, it is, and even the old THAC0 (To Hit Armour Class 0) mechanic has been revised and simplified — a significant detail.

The volume provides an exhaustive analysis of the rules governing equipment, magic, and magic items. It also devotes a large section to adventure management. The game’s focus is on exploration and the creative resolution of problems in a dangerous world.

The Game Master’s Role

As mentioned above, the narrator also returns to the past while keeping one eye on the present. The Game Master reverts to the role of Arbiter: a neutral judge and facilitator. The rulebook contains all the necessary information, including a chapter to help the GM manage non-player characters (NPCs) and monsters, use miniatures, and structure adventures (starting with dungeons). All this information is provided in just a handful of pages.

Taking on the role of managing a scenario created by the players’ actions and letting them act in often reckless ways, knowing that the adventure will end in certain death, can be a breath of fresh air. It’s not just about improvisation; it’s about adding an element of unpredictability to ensure that everyone at the table experiences moments of adventure and glory.

The Characters of Old-School Essentials

Character creation follows precise rules divided into 13 steps.

We begin by randomly rolling six ability scores: Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma.

The second step is to select a character class. There are seven to choose from: Cleric, Dwarf, Elf, Fighter, Halfling, Magic User and Thief. Each class has its own advancement table, specific talents and modifiers for rolls.

After rolling hit points and choosing your character’s alignment, you can define their equipment and change their armor class in just a few steps.

However, we recommend that each player prepare at least a couple of characters. The game is designed to be extremely challenging, so not everyone will make it to the end.

The Simple Aesthetic of Old-School Essentials

From an aesthetic point of view, we have in our hands a volume of essential elegance. As it is an old-school game, much of the manual consists of random tables. The addition of colour illustrations, alongside the classic black-and-white ones typical of early D&D editions, gives the manual a contemporary feel. More than thirty artists worked on the images. It would be impractical to list them all, but I always appreciate the seamless, organic flow and atmosphere from page to page.

Despite its hard cover and thick pages, the A5 format is convenient to carry, lightweight and easy to handle. The pale green colour used to space paragraphs and break up tables is an excellent choice, and readability is excellent. From an aesthetic standpoint, nostalgia meets modernity, a quality that extends to the organisation of the contents.

Old-School Essentials Review Conclusions

Finally, in conclusion, I’d like to share a thought. The evolution of D&D from edition to edition has always left generations of “old” players dissatisfied. Old-School Essentials caters to those who are nostalgic for the first edition and rewards the ingenuity and creativity of players who have to cope with simple rules and truly lethal situations.

Of course, the old-school style isn’t for everyone. To fully appreciate it, you need to step back from structured rules and millions of variables. However, I’m confident that, once you’ve overcome your initial hesitation, your passion for exploration will prevail and bring hours of lethality, creativity and storytelling to your tabletop.

If you enjoyed this review of Old-School Essentials, stay tuned for more OSR tabletop RPGs!