Five stars because the they/them below me is crying about identity politics.

The game has an enemy stat block for "Dervish" (if you weren't aware, that is the name for a real-life Muslim religious order).

Five Stars.

EDIT 9/8/23: Thanks to Necrotic Gnome for responding to my reveiw! When the updated PDF is released I fully intend to update my reveiw to the five starts this game deserves!

I want to like this book. The rules are fun, it's well organized, etc., but I can't.

The game has an enemy stat block for "Dervish" (if you weren't aware, that is the name for a real-life Muslim religious order). They are described as "Fanatically religious, nomadic people who wander steppes and desert regions, living in tents," "Intolerant of other religious beliefs," and have a trait called "Holy War" that describes them invading, forcibly converting, and enslaving other religious communities. An image of a man in traditional Dervish clothes accompanies this stat block.

At best, this is an extremely loaded and questionable way to depict a minority culture. Maybe this is a holdover from White Box D&D? I'm not sure, but I can't recommend anyone support this game while it contains something this distasteful.

I've had a great time GMing this well written dungeon full of color and wit!

Updated: I updated to 4 stars because my original review was a bit unfair. I was just feeling more overwhelmed playing OSE than I would have expected after my first play with a poorly organized OSR adventure. That's quite helpful really so are the saving throws and really going through the book most of what would be critical to most sessions is there.

My real issue is: 1) that it could include abilities for more classes instead of spell progression 2) the OSR adventure was a disorganized mess (and not an OSE product)

As others have mentioned, this Foundry module for OSE Advanced lacks content from the books (Monster encounter rolltables, magic items treasure tables, various monter stats) and for a VTT module there's little to no automation features. At this price point I'd have expected more. At time of writing, it's been over 2 months since the last update to this module currently at v1.0.4.

Great intro for anyone wishing to get into Advanced Dungeons and Dragsons, or any RPG for that matter.

Great product. Super useful zine for old school fantasy games. Well written, high quality.

It lacks automation. Some features like drag and drop seem to work. Also, none of the monsters have any art to them. This is why the module gets 3/5

Very helpful and the develop is quick to respond to issues. No complaints really

A very useful addition to Foundry VTT for your OSE games.
A great ingame reference.

What would make it 5 stars? More tutorial content.

Quick Equipment is one of the most useful variant rules I have ever seen in a fantasy role-playing game. This is a must-buy.

I like the layout of it, and have used it for several of my other OSR games such as Scarlet Heroes and Shadowdark.

Figured I would finally write a review of this. Honestly, this has become my favore B/X retroclone. Great, concise writing. Good layout. Good art. Good play aids.

All around, a very well done game. Also takes the cake for my second longest running campaign (ended after two years) only seconded to AD&D 1e.

The gold standard for old school fantasy RPGs! It was this with the addition of "Deathbringer" that make my favourite fantasy RPG experience. I am pretty excited about discovering "Lamentations of the Flame Princess" though. So this game might have a competitor!

Originally posted here: https://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2018/09/class-struggles-necromancer-part-2.html

One of the newest necromancers on the block and designed specifically for Old School Essentials. This is designated as "Play Test Material" but it really is ready to go. There have been necromancers for OSE before and there is at least one necromancer for other B/X-Basic games written by Gavin Norman already. Here the Necromancer is a subclass of the Magic-user, as would be expected, and some notes are given about using these new spells for the magic-user. But thematically they fit with the necromancer much better. The new spells are from 1st to 6th level and there are 12 of each. I see why there are twelve of each; to fit the style and layout of what Gavin does with his OSE games. But I would have been tempted to make it a nice 13 per level myself.

The spells are good and fit well. Some we have seen in other forms and formats over the past few years, but that does not detract from this book at all. Do you want a great OSE necromancer? Well, here it is. The format used here could be adopted for all sorts of other magic-user type classes or subclasses like the Illusionist or Enchanter for example.