A game of fantastic adventure inspired by classic RPGs of the 1970s and 1980s. Players delve into forsaken ruins, battle fearsome monsters, explore haunted forests and perilous mountain ranges, sail the high seas in search of lost lands, recover fabulous treasures, and unearth secrets of ancient magic.

Old-School Essentials Game System

A free game system encompassing the Old-School Essentials core rules. Pair with either the premium game or the free compendium.

Premium Game

This premium content package + PDF bundle presents the complete Old-School Essentials game, featuring:

• 13 fantastic classes: Acrobat, assassin, barbarian, bard, cleric, druid, fighter, illusionist, knight, magic-user, paladin, ranger, thief.
• 10 classic races: Drow, duergar, dwarf, elf, gnome, half-elf, halfling, half-orc, human, svirfneblin. All presented as race options (for AD&D-style character creation) and demihuman class options (for B/X-style character creation).
• Over 200 spells: Complete cleric, druid, illusionist, and magic-user spell lists.
• Over 300 monsters: Including classics such as mimics, dragon turtles, piercers, shambling mounds, banshees, carcass crawlers, terrible eyes, liches, deep ones, the terrifying tarrasque and many more classic 1970s/1980s-era monsters!
• Over 300 magic items: The apparatus of the crab, ioun stones, the deck of many things, dancing swords, holy avengers, and many more!
• Over 150 monster tokens: Featuring old-school black & white art from the game. (More tokens to be added in a future release.)
• Full PDFs of the game: The Player's Tome + Referee's Tome (since v25.07.25).
• The complete game text: Journal entries for the complete game rules, including advanced optional rules and full guidelines for creating and running adventures.

Buy the premium Old-School Essentials game in the Foundry store.

Free Compendium

A free, community-made compendium with the following content:

• 7 classes: Cleric, dwarf, elf, fighter, halfling, magic-user, thief.
• Over 100 spells: Complete cleric and magic-user spell lists.
• Over 200 monsters: Including dragons and dinosaurs, golems and giants, slimes and oozes, beast-men and unholy spirits, animals monstrous and mundane.
• Over 150 magic items: Enchanted arms coveted by every warrior, scrolls, staves, and seeing stones, alchemical concoctions, rings of power, boots and cloaks woven with magic.

The free Classic Fantasy Compendium is a Foundry VTT module separate from the system. If you own the Premium Game module (above), you do not need the free compendium. Find it within Foundry VTT's module browser with the search term classicfantasy.

You may also copy the manifest link below and paste it into the manifest link input box.

https://github.com/NecroticGnome/ose-foundry-content/releases/latest/download/module.json

Installation

Find this Foundry VTT game system within Foundry VTT's system browser with the search term ose.

You may also copy the manifest link below and paste it into the manifest link input box.

https://github.com/NecroticGnome/ose-foundry-core/releases/latest/download/system.json

Troubleshooting and User Support

It's always appreciated when users submit an issue for all kinds of user questions, comments, and concerns. For those who prefer support via public chat, we recommend asking in:

• The #ose-virtual-tabletop channel in the Necrotic Gnome Fan Discord server.
• There are unofficial Foundry VTT user communities for many other languages if you'd prefer to discuss Foundry VTT in another language. Keep in mind that it's unlikely you'll find answers to your questions about a less popular game system like Old-School Essentials, but they are good for asking questions about Foundry VTT in general.
• The /r/FoundryVTT community on Reddit may also have answers to your Foundry VTT questions, but it is another general Foundry VTT user community that may not have many users with specific knowledge about OSE. Be sure to write [OSE] in your post subject and select FVTT Question from the "Flair" menu.

We do not offer user support for the free game system via email. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Contributions

Any feedback is deeply appreciated. Please browse the open issues and if there's not a matching one already, open a new one.

If you're a web developer, look for our CONTRIBUTING.md file.

If you speak a non-English language, Join the ose project on Crowdin.

If you'd like to support some of the contributors of this game system, we keep a list of tipping/patronage links in the THANKS.md file.

Contributors

Thanks goes to these wonderful people (emoji key):

Godforsaken84 🎨	Stephen FAURE 💻 👀	Ian Engleback 💻	Grim 💻	WallaceMcGregor 🌍	IGALEGOI 🌍	Lorenzo Castelletta 🌍
herrsquash 🌍	Igor Teuri 🌍	hogwrassler 💻	Tim 💻 👀	Michael Schilling 💻	Adam Oresten 💻	bakbakbakbakbak 💻 👀
Josep Torra 🌍	Amir Arad 💻	justinthejaguar 💬	Carl Ellis 👀	Stewart Webb 💻	Ronner 🌍	ZzNoah 🌍
Henrik Bonsmann 👀 💻	Apewall 💻	Andrea Costantini 💻

This project follows the all-contributors specification. Contributions of any kind welcome!

Weapon quality icons, and the Treasure chest are from Rexxard.