At this point, there a quite a few hacks of the classic flavors of D&D on the market. I love a good hack and exploring how the designer puts their own spin on well known material – like a cover song. The Old-School Essentials box set by Gavin Norman is maybe the killer of cover songs.
As the books say, this is a restatement of the Tom Moldvay Basic and Expert D&D rules. This is a bit of an understatement, though, as these rules are buffed and polished and streamlined to the point that I have trouble recognizing the original. It is there, mechanically, but this refinement is so total that it feel like a new game.
The rules are spread out over five slim hardcover volumes. This makes the whole thing modular and easy to manage. The text of the rules is similarly brief and precisely worded for maximum clarity. If you are looking for a sturdy, light, flexible old school system to run general fantasy games with, this has you covered. It blows pretty much every other system I’ve read out of the water with the exception of the Black Hack. We’re done. You can stop making old school system hacks.
The feel of this box set is something I can’t stop talking about. It is digest sized, which is way smaller than I generally like my RPG books, but for some reason, it works. The books…my library had a series of books around this size and heft dedicated to mysteries of the world like Stonehenge and the Loch Ness Monster. These books totally remind me of that – I want two dozen of them on my shelf, full of mysteries. They also do an excellent job with the art. If feels old school in some ways, but distinct. It isn’t mimicking Tramp or Otus, but gets to the old school vibe on its own terms. This is particularly true of cover artists Peter Mullen and Andrew Walter, but generally true of most of the interiors.
This is a must have, basically. Necrotic Gnome kills it. (There are two versions, by the way – the box with the five slim modular books, and an all-in-one book. In terms of content they are identical, but I prefer the utility of the box).
