The 2006 retro-clone of first edition AD&D, rewritten and reorganized for 2025! OSRIC 3 is easier to learn, with more examples of play. This is the beginning of a new product line for Mythmere Games, to include adventure modules and much more!
OSRIC 3.0 is a tabletop fantasy roleplaying game that sweeps you back into the days when roleplaying was an art, when rules were simpler, and when epic adventuring was at its height — this is the game of the 1980s!
OSRIC is a “retro-clone” of first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.* This release is geared toward the 20th anniversary next year. Originally published in 2006, OSRIC has spawned thousands of adventures, sourcebooks, and zines — many of them distributed for free.
*Legal Note: Mythmere Games is not affiliated with Wizards of the Coast (WotC) or HASBRO, the holders of the “Dungeons & Dragons” trademarks, including “D&D” and “AD&D.” These terms are used solely to identify the WotC/TSR products being referenced for similarity/compatibility. OSRIC redescribes the underlying rules of the first edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons using terms, concepts, and language released under the Creative Commons License by Wizards of the Coast, and under Fair Use doctrine under USA copyright law.
New Version of OSRIC:
Easier to learn, with more explanations and examples of play
Avoids paragraph "wall of text" and favors granular “bites” of the rules.
Doesn’t use the Open Game License.
Provides licenses for third-party publishers.
Is closer to the original AD&D rules than OSRIC 2.0.
Art These books include the stunning cover artwork by John Sumrow, and the adventure module covers are by Del Teigeler, Kennon James, and Brett Barkley. Interior art features J.E. Shields, Brett Barkley, Kennon James, Del Teigeler, Matt Finch ... and we will do more art orders after launch, so there will be others! None of the art is A.I.
BIG NEWS: We have heard from many players that they’d like to have a portrait-oriented version of the rulebooks as an offset-printed, sewn binding hardcover. We have conferred with the printer, and are now adding new pledge levels to include portrait-oriented rulebooks with letter-sized pages.
Two new pledge levels are being added for the portrait-format books, and the portrait-format books can be added to any physical pledge as an add-on.
All pledges for physical books will receive a question about preferred format, so if you want to switch, you can do that later when you receive the survey.
This allows for any combination including the VTT, GM Screen, and additional books, either by using add-ons or by selecting a format option in the post-funding survey.
Player Guide The Player Guide contains all the rules for character generation and all the rules required for players. There are ten character classes: the assassin, cleric, druid, fighter, magic-user, illusionist, monk, ranger, paladin, and thief, together with rules for multi-classing and dual-classing. This is the book containing the combat rules, equipment lists, spell descriptions, and other resources for the player character. We have a complete working draft of the book, but we are still in the process of turning it from OSRIC 2.0 into 3.0, so we do not have a precise page count yet.
The physical book is a hardcover with pages about letter-sized (slightly smaller). It is smyth-sewn in signatures, and is wider than it is tall, so that it stays open to your page. The interior is black and white, and the pages are uncoated (not glossy). UPDATE: A portrait-oriented option is also available. After numerous requests, we have gotten a quote and decided to move ahead with this format as well. This is also an offset-printed, smyth-sewn hardcover.
GM Guide The GM Guide contains encounter tables, monsters, and dungeon-design tips; everything you need to run OSRIC as the Game Master. Like the Player Guide this is a smyth-sewn hardcover with the same dimensions and specifications. UPDATE: A portrait-oriented option is also available. After numerous requests, we have gotten a quote and decided to move ahead with this format as well. This is also an offset-printed, smyth-sewn hardcover.
Adventures
Curse of the Crooked Tower. A leaning tower outside the abandoned town of Finsburg once housed a Cult of Asmodeus. Now, something in the tower has reawakened, and the characters are tasked with investigating! This challenging adventure by Steve ("Zherbus") O’Connell is designed for 5-6 first-level adventurers run by veteran players. For inexperienced players, the adventure is best played with second level characters.
Whispers of the Death God.Ancient snake-people, an evil order of knighthood, and the sinister whisperings of a death god. This adventure is an assault on a mountain fortress that harbors a multitude of secrets. Written by Gábor Csomós, Whispers of the Death God is designed for 4-6 player characters, level 7-9.
Fortress Tomb of the Ice Lich. At Grathen Rift, the Ice Lich Vathudnar built a great fortress-tomb, populating the frozen ice-halls with his servants before sending his spirit out into the planes and strange dimensions beyond the material world. Thus far, no adventurers have dared to assault this legendary fortress ... until now. This epic adventure by G. Hawkins is recommended for groups of 5-8 characters of level 8-10, or 4-6 characters of levels 9-12.
Unless you're pledging at the ALL-IN level, you will see the adventures as "Add-Ons."
GM Screen The GM Screen is a four-panel, landscape-oriented screen containing important tables from the rules.We haven't finalized which tables will be on the screen, but the player-facing side will contain tables on the outer edges, with the art at the center. The GM side will be all tables (the to-hit tables, saving throw tables, etc.).
VTT Resources Virtual Tabletops (VTTs) are used to host a tremendous number of roleplaying games, possibly more than are being played at real tabletops. One of our objectives for moving OSRIC into the next decade is to provide resources for these VTTs.
Token Resources: The VTT package will include tokens for many of the monsters in OSRIC. These are still being prepared and we don’t have a total number estimated yet, but the plan is to include all the (non-aquatic) monsters from the book.
Complete OSRIC 3.0 Implementation on Foundry. We chose Foundry as the platform because there’s already a fully-implemented version of OSRIC 2.0 on Foundry, so there’s less work involved to adapt that for OSRIC 3.0. The OSRIC 3 Compendium allows you to track movement and vision on the VTT map with robust automation (which can be turned off for a lighter game). It includes the entire OSRIC 3 text as "journals" for quick reference, with thousands of pre-built ancestries, classes, spells, items, and NPCs. The system handles encumbrance, treasure-generation, encounter-generation and XP for you!
Print on Demand This book (details below) is printed and delivered by DriveThruPRG as a print-on-demand product. You will receive a code sent by us via DriveThruRPG which allows you to go to DTRPG and print a copy of this version "at cost." When you do that, you will be charged about $20 (the estimated cost of printing) by DTRPG in addition to the pledge amount, and they will also charge for the shipping. The Print on Demand version is very different from the two offset-sprinted, smyth-sewn hardcovers we're offering as the main pledges. First and foremost, this is a SOFTCOVER, not a hardcover. Perfect binding (glue binding) tends to be more durable on softcovers than on hardcovers, and we had to pick one option for the campaign, so we chose the more durable one. A hardcover will be available later. Secondly, this volume contains the text of BOTH the Player Guide and the GM Guide, for those who prefer to have the rules in a single volume. Thirdly, this book is a regular, portrait-oriented book rather than the "wider than tall" arrangement on the offset print versions. So, please be aware of the differences in the book, and of the fact that your pledge amount isn't the entire cost for the book (there's still approximately $20 to pay DTRPG, plus the shipping).
OSRIC 2.0 was written primarily to preserve the rules (WotC didn’t even have a legal pdf), and to serve as a reference document for publishers. Now, in 2025, the original books are available for sale in print on demand, although the covers are a later version and there is a disclaimer which has caused a lot of discussion.
Supporting DIY and Third-Party Publishers. OSRIC’s mission to support third-party publishers is still as valid today as it was in 2005. There is no open license for use of the original books. The Creative Commons License is more flexible than the OGL in terms of mentioning the term “Advanced D&D” (now it’s just the regular trademark rules instead of a contract expressly forbidding the mention of trademarks), but most third-party publishers prefer to have a compatibility license if they’re referring to a trademark or a game system.
Affordability. The pdfs of the OSRIC rules will be distributed for free once they are finalized. That’s why our pdf tier contains “extra” resources; the rulebook pdfs themselves are free within all the pledge tiers. Even in terms of the books, the OSRIC rulebooks are less expensive and have higher-quality binding than the print on demand copies currently available. Obviously, they are MUCH less expensive than buying the actual original books, which are moving into the pricing zone of collectors’ items.
For reference, print-on-demand copies of the original rulebooks (with pdfs) currently cost a total of $78.77, which is only slightly more than we’re charging in this Kickstarter, although the sewn binding we’re using is much higher quality than print-on-demand binding. OSRIC has certain advantages relative to the original books (more modern organization and presentation, the benefits of hindsight for avoiding ambiguities, and ease of learning), but the original books are written in some of the most flavorful language of any RPG, they cover somewhat more area than OSRIC (particularly for the GM), and they are the originals, which has a quality all of its own.
Closer Compatibility to the Original.Since OSRIC was the first retro-clone ever written, we were excessively careful about copyright. Now that hundreds of retro-clones have been published, we can spot several places in OSRIC where we can adhere more closely to the original rules of the game without violating copyright.
This is an ongoing list from Matt's change-log. There are other, more minor changes not listed here.
Option for Ascending Armor Class. The OSRIC default system for AC will remain descending, but there will be a section explaining how to use Ascending AC, and all AC notations will be "dual-system" like in Swords & Wizardry. For example, AC 4 will show up in OSRIC 3.0 as "AC 4 [16]." We have found through Swords & Wizardry that this dual notation isn't intrusive.
Adding Encounter Distance to the combat sequence, per AD&D rules. Not precisely the same method -- the AD&D rules for encounter distance and especially how they interact with surprise are at wargame-level complexity, when they really don't need to be. But encounter distance has been a missing element in OSRIC, so the basic concept is now in there.
Adding a Monk class. Numerically very close to the original, but with certain abilities dependent on meeting the stat minimum.
Initiative Sequence. The changes here are mostly nuanced, but we are bringing the system closer to the AD&D method of declaring your action at the start. The one "major" change is that you roll your own side's initiative (1d6, and you go in the stated segment) instead of rolling a die for the "other" side.
Item Saving Throws. This is the first area where we are backing away from the AD&D rules more than in OSRIC 2, due to licensing/legal under the CC as opposed to the OGL. We have trimmed down the number of materials affected, and slightly trimmed down the number of categories. It's now a quicker table to use, which is actually probably preferable for what it's used FOR (fireballs, disintegration), but it does mask some of the high detail of the original (no distinction between thick and thin rope, and so on). Material categories are Crystal/Glass, Leather, Metal, Paper, Pottery or Bone, Rope or cloth, Stone or gem, and Wood. Threat categories are Acid/Corrosion, Cold (Magical), Disintegrate, Fall (each 10ft), Fire (Magical), Fire (Normal), and Lightning.
Gnomes and halfing multiclass characters are limited to leather armor if using a character ability from a non-fighter class (e.g., casting spells or using thief abilities), not always limited to leather armor only. This brings the rule into line with 1e.
Slight changes to the fighter and the illusionist XP tables to bring them closer in line with AD&D.
Adding the DMG rules for druids, clerics, etc. to scribe scrolls and brew potions into the OSRIC class description (in other words, this is new to OSRIC but brings it in line with AD&D).
Changed the high level thief's spell casting from scroll to match AD&D more closely.
Returning the saving throw bonus for Dex on aimed magic items, AoE spells and other "GM says this is a Dex-type save" situations. This brings the rules closer in line with AD&D (was not included in OSRIC 2.0).
Unlike OSRIC 2.0, which used the Open Game License to access various concepts and terminology of D&D in general, OSRIC 3.0 uses the Creative Commons License to access this material. There’s a difference between license IN and license OUT. The WotC Creative Commons grant is the license used to construct the OSRIC game.
There will be two different licenses OUTBOUND, the licenses used by a third-party publisher to create and distribute OSRIC 3.0 materials. Users will also need to duplicate the CC grant license, because that grant was used for the underlying material. Using the licenses is free; we’re not trying to take a share, just to establish the framework.
AELF License. This is structured almost the same as the OGL, but it’s permanent and has some fixes to it. This allows for publishers to put some of their work into Open Content for other publishers to use. This license is already available for Swords & Wizardry and can be downloaded from our website, mythmeregames.com (download the User’s Guide; the license is in there).
Short License. This license is not released yet. It will be based on the Shadowdark license, with Kelsey Dionne’s permission. It is much more restrictive than the AELF license in terms of what you can copy (spells, monsters, etc.), but it’s a shorter, easier-to-understand license. It doesn’t create Open Content. We want to support open content, but to establish a format for Open Content, you need a longer and more complicated license, and we’re discovering from Swords & Wizardry that the length of the AELF License (even though it’s functionally the same as the OGL) is being seen as a hurdle for third-party publishers. Since our objective for OSRIC 3.0 is to enable third-party publishers, we’re offering a shorter license as an option.
Shipping costs aren’t included in your pledge amount; we will charge shipping in the BackerKit survey. Although we do not expect it to happen (see below), orders from countries outside the USA may come with an additional tariff charge depending on when the packages ship and whether international trade has returned to normal.
Effect of Tariffs. Since we print in the USA and since books are generally exempted from tariffs, we don’t expect any DIRECT damage from trade tariffs, other than a longer time being required for the printing process. Customers outside the USA should expect the normal level of tariffs, pre-Trump, but as far as we can tell the USA is not raising tariffs on books, so our trade partners probably won’t react by raising tariffs on books either. Since we don’t offer dice, miniatures, or other “extras,” we are currently in an area that’s not really part of the trade wars. Obviously we can’t guarantee that this will remain true, in which case there might be tariffs on the shipment. If that does happen, the risk is on the backer. We can’t absorb that risk without charging a lot more for the books, which we don’t want to do.
In terms of indirect effects, we may face a longer waiting time while the books are printed (affecting delivery date), and we will probably be paying higher prices for paper (we are absorbing that additional cost). Also, there may be some effect on total number of backers, since many customers outside the USA may choose not to purchase products from companies in the USA and many customers inside the USA may be conserving cash at this point.
In conclusion, we aren’t expecting any major tariff-related problems with this crowdfunding. There’s a risk, and this is certainly a scary time to be launching a major project. But we don’t anticipate any major problems, just a slightly lower profit margin and a longer turnaround time at the printer (because a lot of printing work is being done in the USA now rather than in China, which will slow down the system).
We estimate that the PDFs will be completed and distributed by November of 2025, with the books delivering in January of 2026 and the VTT Compendium in February of 2026. We currently have working drafts for the entire project: both rulebooks and all the adventures, but the process of turning OSRIC 2.0 into OSRIC 3.0 is still ongoing. In other words, pdfs won't be delivered right after the crowdfunding ends. We do plan to start releasing sections of the books as early as during the crowdfunding itself, allowing comments and suggestions.
