Old-School Essentials Archaeological Notes on the Rules

Old-School Essentials (OSE) is a retro-clone compatible with the 1981 Basic/Expert D&D rules (B/X). This document—intended for those with a passion for rules archaeology—discusses the clarifications made in OSE in certain areas, as follows:

• Errors: Mistakes in the B/X rules have not been slavishly reproduced in OSE—an effort has been made to correct obvious mistakes.
• Ambiguities: Areas of ambiguity or contradiction in the B/X rules have been clarified in OSE, while attempting to cleave as closely as possible to the apparent intent of the original rules.
• Expansions of scope: The scope of a small number of rules is expanded in OSE, applying them to more general situations than are explicitly allowed by the B/X rules.