I’m 53 and I’ve been playing since I was around 12. And as a veteran player, let me just say welcome.. after all these years, I still play second edition, dungeons and dragons. And that’s why they have the armor class descending and increasing. Because in classic dungeons and dragons you’re on my class the lower got the better it was. And some of us old dogs don’t like to having a start all over again with new rules. So they’re giving an entry point for us guys and new guys that are used to the current rule system.. between me and you I believe is better. . It was easier to get killed, but it made it more exciting and you loved your character more after surviving such a perilous adventure. Forced you to think on your feet because you couldn’t rely on these new bubble wrapped rules.. They’ve made so many playable races now adventure is more like the Star Wars Cantina our game were more token like adventure. Which was good because it forced you to work hard on making your character interesting in different.. you didn’t have the luxury of just picking one of 1000 races and being different just for the sake of it. Again, for forcing you to use your imagination.. but anyway from this old guy to you welcome to the game. Happy to have you.. I’ll be subscribing keep up the good work

Nice video! White Box is really good. Its one of the gems in the OSR world.

This was a great review: clear, substantive, and (like White Box itself) straight and to the point. Well done.

White Box FMAG is my favorite RPG and has been since Charlie Mason released this book. Absolutely amazing ruleset. If you are interested, I released numerous videos of solo play using White Box on my channel.

Ive only played since around 1982. The White Box is by far one of the best! Easy, full of content, totally homebrew friendly. I do solo stuff with it too. This is the one I give people who claim they're not interested. It's dirt cheap but very valuable!

So glad you did a review of this! I just convinced my players to try a short campaign using these rules. I love them as the GM, easy and quick and lends to imagination, not mechanics! You might like Basic Fantasy Roleplaying and Tiny Dungeon. Both are great systems.

It was so awesome to hear a new perspective about the OSR. I commend you on your choice of game for the review. Also, you really are an old-school gamer if you write in your books.

I'm 40. I grew up DM'ing 2nd Edition AD&D in my teenage years. I never knew any Editions before AD&D 2nd. I DM'd 3.5 for about a year when I was 20-21, but my heart was always in AD&D 2nd. I never even played 4th or 5th Edition. I haven't played any TTRPG since my divorce when I was 22. I recently got back into it. The game I chose was DCC. Dungeon Crawl Classics. Although I do plan on dabbling with Shadowdark & Zweihander/Flames of Freedom and Lamentations of the Flame Princess along with The Book of Antithesis. If I had to pick an OSR clone-type of game, I'd have to go with the new DragonSlayer RPG. I'm in love with DCC/MCC tho. I'm not big on many of the Modules, some, but the modules aren't what sold me on DCC. I'm also thinking of picking up The Savage Worlds Adventure Edition to run with Heavy Metal Apocalypse on Kickstarter. Seems so awesome to fight Demons & other ancient evils with the music I love. A wild twisted game.

Your Basic Fantasy review (with the Luffy drip!!!!) had me hitting subscribe EASY but this is the review that cements for me that I made the right choice, seeing your positive vibes and energy, the truly truly old school method of scribbling in your game books, the excitement for the hobby...you might be new to the scene but you're Getting It with a quickness!!

I remember reading in an older D&D Edition, maybe 2e or 3e, that you get XP for overcoming or defeating monsters, not only killing them. So tricking a monster, finding a way of sneaking past, using diplomacy, or otherwise using your wits to bypass a monster was just as good as killing it for xp purposes. I always liked that take.

Great review! And welcome to the OSR!

love to see new DM's. Welcome to the cult! ^^ Also I love you're looking into OSR stuff. If you're interested, Warlock (Warhammer rules lite) and Black Hack is also an interesting take on the genre :)

I apprecaited watching your opinion on White Box. I really enjoy the simplicty it has. There is a add on at Drive thru rpg called Whitebox Expanded Lore that details other "standard" D&D classes and house rules. This retro clone and that add on were very influencial for me and got me started on making my own version of D&D rules. I look forward to more videos :)

Nice review and I LOVE your enthusiasm for trying something different and giving it a chance! I hope you get an opportunity to run a game with a group...Enjoy!

I spent about a year playing this game as a player, and I went through a big company. The game gives you enough freedom, while you feel that your decisions have weight. Since it was expensive to order a paper edition to my country at that time (and now it is impossible), I made a copy for myself, which I bound by hand. It's still nice to hold it in my hands, although when I play my games, I usually use the Old School Essencials

I did enjoy the video. Well done. And I enjoyed hearing a fresh perspective of the old systems.

also great to see you use markers for YOUR preference. This is the DM way. Love it!!!!

This is great! I'm so happy I found your channel!

Nice review! I love White Box so much! The Black Hack, Maze Rats and BlueHolme are also a great O.S.R. style games. For horror themed O.S.R, try Rats In The Walls or Eldritch Tales.

The inclusion of both Ascending and Descending armor class rules makes this game very compatible with old editions of D&D while also making it trivial for a group to move to using the easier Ascending armor class rules. Being able to grab an old adventure or campaign and run it without much modification is a really nice feature. People can dig up introductory adventures like B2: Keep on the Borderlands (which is now also available for 5E) or T1: The Village of Hommlet (part of the series: The Temple of Elemental Evil) or B8 Journey to the Rock. But if old modules aren't your thing. You can also jump straight into brand new adventures in a more new school style with old school rules. Trilemma Adventures runs a blog with FREE point crawl adventures that have weird dark fantasy themes and great art. Running WB:FMA or BFRPG or Cairn with some of free adventures is a great way to have a life time of gaming that only costs a few dollars!

Liked your review of this game. It is such a great game and value. Welcome to the OSR. If u can check out OSE, swords and Wizardry complete, and Tsr’s rules cyclopedia.

Cool review, just bought my own copy and am super excited to jump into it.

Great video, you make better reviews than most out there I have seen. Big fan of White Box myself, I have most everything out there that's old school D&Dish, and I was still okay paying for this as a POD. For anyone new to old school, this is a complete product.

This was very helpful, thank you!

White Box was one of the first physical OSR books I got, along with the Basic Fantasy Field Guide 1. White Box continues to be my go-to OSR system because the rules are few and simple, and the book is easy to navigate and just so full of great, inspiring artwork. :) There are some who doscover the OSR and stop there, but I advocate looking into as many other RPG systems as you find interesting. It's because of the OSR that I discovered RPGs beyond 5e. I've since become familiar with systems like Powered by the Apocalypse (Dungeon World or Monster of the Week are good starting points, depending on what you're looking for) and Fabula Ultima, if you like JRPGs and want to have that kind of experience around the table with friends. :)

I have Cairn and Old School Essentials but do not have White Box yet. Great breakdown.

Welcome to both the hobby and Old School Gaming! You have a WONDERFUL energy and I love your insights and editing. I subscribed! Here’s some other games I’d LOVE to see your thoughts on: Basic Fantasy RPG, Iron Falcon, and Swords & Wizardry. What time zone are you in?

I love seeing someone else who uses these game books as reference books. Highlighting, and marking the book is so useful and I find that sometimes they seem designed to be tough to reference. I like that you’re tagging your game stuff and making those things your own.

Awesome video! Really liked the Cairn one too. Excited to see more of your stuff!

I've been playing ttrpgs for 30 years and I love seeing people discovering the osr and other games besides DnD. Great review from a fresh perspective. I'm excited for future uploads.

I think this is going to be an exciting new channel! Subbed. I also think it's going to be fun to follow your journey as a gm.

I just subscribed and like this video, going to see what other RPGs you have reviewed before leaving suggestions for other RPGs. 🙃😊 Love your channel.

🙏 Here for more OSR content

Man I really looooove your style ❤

1st I am enjoying your videos and your discovery of the TTRPG world. Secondly, you HIGHLIGHT your book? I believe there are those in the hobby that would consider that sacrilege, but I commend you on your college student like approach towards learning the rules. A good rulebook is a well-worn rulebook. Happy gaming!

White Box is one of the Basic OSR books I come back to, I think because of the art and keeping to a lot of the simple systems of Basic. I haven't played many but I think it's one of the better ones. But like you were talking about, it's fun to mix things up with characters, I tend to like classless stuff better so you can sort of build up the character as you go to fit the campaign, and I like having maybe a bit of spellcasting alongside other skills, but it depends on what sort of game you're playing. When you do solo like you've talked about it's good to have a lot of tools at your character's disposal, or to run a party of characters I guess. One thing I've been thinking about doing with the dwarf/elf/halfling classes is just turning those into more classes, changing them a bit and then not really tying them to the character's background directly. Still an early experiment but it feels more interesting to me for some reason. I also like the idea of just letting characters find minor magical items that do simple, usually noncombat spells to allow for characters to feel more different from each other even if they're the same class. If you're looking for more games that diverge a bit from D&D in some interesting ways, I'll recommend Knave (the second edition recently got Kickstarted but it's not out quite yet. It's got of tables that seem good for solo idea generation, as well as a classless system that relies on what you have in your inventory to define the character) or Maze Rats by the same creator which has some similarities but takes another approach. Both are next level with how well thought out they are. The other I'd recommend you check out is Mausritter (this one's free in PDF), which comes across to some as maybe more kid-friendly but I don't really see it that way, it's just another way of looking at adventuring fiction. It's got some really cool ideas for inventory, spells, and magic items. It's a bit more whimsical because of its setting (mice kind of like from Secret of Nimh) but I think the ideas could be used to enhance other games, too. Really solid system, and a very quick read. A lot of these games sort of mutually influence each other so you're going to see some similarities, as well as with their Dungeons and Dragons inspirations, but even little changes can make things feel fresh. Great to bump into this review, looking forward to seeing more stuff :)

Great vid! Cheers!

Thanks for the review! I've yet to look at the White Box. I'm an oldie who's been through a good deal of the editions and all that and "back" to OSR a few years. Aside from being accessible to be people, for me the heart of OSR is in how these systems leave from for the imagination and more open problem solving as you pointed to.

Great video. 5e was my intro into TTRPGs, but it died for me once I discovered other systems.

great flip thru. def enjoyed

Great review! I love your perspective! How do you feel about "3D6 down the line" for stats, rolling once & keeping what you get?

Take a look at B/X Basic/Expert. Moldvay is good. Mentzer is better for beginners. Keep on the Borderlands.

I enjoy watching you discorver the OSR.

I leave copies of this one in little free libraries. Pass them out like religious tracts.

Check out 5 Torches Deep and Dungeon Crawl Classics, I look forward to hearing your opinion!

Liked and subscribed.

This is a great review! Would you ever consider reviewing Fate Condensed and Aperita Arcana?

I can't wait to see you try the game solo, will you make a video of actual play?

Good overview

Here are some other RPGs that I suggest for you to review. Hyperborea 3e, Shadowdark, Deathbringer, EZD6, and Crown & Skull. They are all super fun to run. 😊