I’ve been running a science-fantasy campaign in a strange setting. After a while of using Old School Essentials, two major problems stand out. Firstly, OSE is not a great resource for beginning players. Secondly, it has poor balance and fit for the kind of campaign I want this to be. So this is a compilation of my additions, tweaks, restatements, and explanations. Key rules references are both Basic and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. This page should become functional players' guide as it grows more complete, and it will be our own basic/advanced hybrid OSR game.
But the main draw and point of this work is expansion of an already working ruleset to an original, play-driven setting. I am writing this as a supplement and it will be necessarily incomplete without a core ruleset, and that also means it can be slotted into many more fantasy RPGs than just the ones I'm intereested in, with some effort. Your mileage will vary.
I couldn’t have made this without absorbing unsafe amounts of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Gene Wolfe, Jack Vance, HP. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Frank Herbert, and some H.G. Wells and Jules Verne.
My wonderful and endlessly tolerant playtesters include Morgan, Chloe, Calven, Alberto, Carl, and Conner.