Product– The True OSR – Obsolete Shi**y Rules

System- The True OSR – Obsolete Shi**y Rules

Producer– Tin Hat games

Price– $25.00 here   https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/454627/the-true-osr-obsolete-shi-y-rules-eng?affiliate_id=658618   

TL; DR-What the hell just happened? 87% 

Basics– Why don’t we fight about the rules!  OSR is to RPG as metal is to music.  OSR is an EXTREME rules light RPG.  Let’s break this down.

Base Mechanics- This is a d10 based system.  You want to do a thing? Roll a d10 and add a bonus from the associated statistics.  You get a 6, you succeed!  Or not, if the Master(GM) decides the number is higher, or if he or she is just mad that day!  This is a rules based game, but not the kind of game where there are many rules.

Combat- Combat is quick and simple.  All characters roll initiative. Then in initiative order, you get 2 actions.  Actions are moving, attacks, reloading, and anything else you might want to do.  When you do an action, you can make it heroic by spending XP and roll on an epic table where you may be awesome or completely fail!

And honestly that’s it!

Mechanics or Crunch–  This is an interesting one that might be too streamlined!  The game is VERY theme heavy and rules light.  It might be so rules light that new players might not know how to play, much like early DnD needing a friend to bring you into the cult because the rules were so obscure. That said, it aims to be very punk forward and rules light.  And in that it succeeds.  What this book does have that is amazing is over 100 pages of random tables full of crazy things for the players to interact with. However, I feel that the rules-light nature hurts it a bit when new players are learning what the hell is happening!  4/5

Theme or Fluff– You can say many things about OSR, but you cannot say it has no theme.  This book oozes theme.  It’s like hitting a rock concert after hard drugs in a spray painted van.  Every page is full of crazy things, art, and words.  It is an assault on the reader how much is going on on each page-in a fun way!    5 /5

Execution– This is a good book with one unforgivable sin.  This is a fun book, but not a book that honestly reads easily.  I “think” I know how to play by reading, but the layout makes following everything a bit hard.  There is amazing stuff here, but the disorder overshadows the text.  It honestly verges on the distracting sometimes.  Also, there are multiple random characters, but I wonder if those are pregens or NPCs.  Does it matter?  This book also doesn’t have an adventure.  Give me an adventure to play out of the box please!  4/5

Summary– Someone once said, hippies were mean people cosplaying as nice people and metalheads are nice people cosplaying as mean people.  This book feels like that.  The book is a full-on assault on the senses, but it’s fun.  The layout of the rules are kind of all over the place and hard to follow but they are there. Also, they, meaning the author, the rules, or even the community of OSR players, don’t care if you use them or not.  It’s more about crazy gonzo fun.  And that is where the book succeeds.  This is pure grab your buds, hope you played right, but if you had fun you had fun!  It is not balanced in any way, nor is it any sort of guidance in how to run the game.  But that’s not the kind of game this is.  If you want some even-more-crazy-than-DCCRPG old school tabletop fun, then give OSR a try.  If you need even a hint of structure, then this might not be for you.  87%