CASTLE OLDSKULL – Sword & Sorcery Book I is a role playing game supplement written and published by Kent David Kelly. This is the first book in the Castle Oldskull System, an OSR role playing game system. The supplement is covered by the Open Game License and some content is considered to be Open Game Content as a result.
This is a 345 page book that is available as a Pay What You Want supplement from DriveThruRPG. One page is the cover, six pages are the front matter, six pages are the Table of Contents, three pages are the Foreword, one page is About the Author, seven pages are ads for other supplements and three pages are the Open Game License.
The Description explains that this is the first volume – Basic Player Characters – in the Castle Oldskull system. That it can be used to customise existing games, with a variety of optional rules, and that it is not simply a clone of the earlier games but has new rules, customisation options and clarifications.
Chapter 1: Introduction explains Castle Oldskull, role playing games and how the book can be used by veteran players, especially for introducing new ones. What to do with optional rules is also in this section, followed by an extensive description of standard game terms, which are then summarised in a table. To a large extent, this is a “What is a role playing game section?” but much longer than usual.
Chapter 2: Understanding the Game starts with separating players from player characters, and how to deal with players getting these confused or using knowledge that their character would not have. There are definitions of different uses of the word “level” followed by what is possibly the longest explanation of dice in any RPG system. The game is divided into different phases, starting in dungeons, progressing to the wilderness, getting land grants then moving on to other planes (in the BECMI system, this is essentially how BECM worked).
Chapter 3: Player Character Creation is on how to create a character. This covers the basics, such as generating ability scores and different options for rolling or modifying them, what makes a hopeless character and what are considered to be the four core races; human, elf, dwarf and halfling. Other races are mentioned, but not gone into; these are described as being suitable for the Advanced game.
Chapter 4: Introduction to Character Classes gives an overview of the four standard classes used in this system, fighter, thief, cleric and magic-user. There are optional rules on multi-class characters and qualifying for classes based on ability scores.
Chapter 5: Interpreting Ability Scores starts with some rules on modifying them. This is followed by the bonuses and penalties for each ability score. There are also some optional advanced rules amongst these, such as rules on learning spells, spell failure and sanity.
Chapter 6: Survivability starts with hit dice and hit points and continues with saving throws.
Chapter 7: Character Races (Ancestries) has descriptions of the four base races used. The three demi-human races – dwarves, elves and halflings – all have some optional rules. The elven section also references The Pegana Mythos.
Chapter 8: Introduction to the Cleric gives the basics of the cleric class, its special features and spell use and some suggestions on deity-favoured weapons. The first three levels are covered. As in earlier games, the cleric does not get any spells at first level.
Chapter 9: Spell Casting and Divine Spells has some content on spell casting that is appropriate for both clerics and magic-users. This includes an optional rule called Dreamlands Empowerment whereby the spell user can dream of the Dreamlands and empower their spells. There is a list of first level cleric spells, both holy and unholy. Higher level spells are briefly mentioned.
Chapter 10: The Fighter follows a similar theme to the chapter about the cleric, as do the others on the base character classes. The class is described and there are some optional rules.
Chapter 11: The Magic-User again follows a similar theme and has a section on spellbooks.
Chapter 12: Arcane Spell Casting has a selection of first and second level arcane spells, with a note on higher level spells. The details of spell casting are covered in Chapter 9 so aren’t repeated here.
Chapter 13: The Thief follows a similar theme to the three previous classes has more optional and advanced rules.
Chapter 14: Thieving Skills covers the skills of thieves with modifiers due to ability scores, minimum and maximum skill percentages and optional rules on the effects of armour and thieves’ abilities for non-thieves. The last is because the thief was introduced by other players to the game, and therefore other classes didn’t have any access to thieves’ skills. Which, considering that many of them were pretty basic, makes little sense. So this rule allows other classes to have a chance with these skills; thieves will just be a lot better.
Chapter 15: Alignment covers the original three-alignment system of Law, Chaos and Neutral. There are details on using alignment in the game and a table of how a character of a particular alignment would react in a number of situations. Optional rules cover adding good and evil, for the nine-alignment system, class limitations based on alignment and unaligned creatures – creatures that basically lack the intelligence for Neutrality to be a conscious choice.
An End to Sword & Sorcery Book One is some closing words from the author.
CASTLE OLDSKULL – Sword & Sorcery Book I in Review
The PDF is decently bookmarked, although it could be to a little more depth. However, some of the bookmarks lead to the wrong locations; they may only be a page out, but they still lead to the wrong places. The Table of Contents is to a similar level of depth and is also hyperlinked. Navigation is decent but it could be better. There are a variety of stock and public domain black and white and colour illustrations, but these are frequently not in complementary styles nor have the necessarily been placed in the best manner. Presentation could be better.
In some ways, like Swords & Wizardry, this is a rewriting of the original rules, bringing in new rules and adding fixes to problems that later editions tried to solve. Some of the explanations are in a depth rarely seen in most modern systems as many assume at least a little familiarity with the concept of RPGs and most familiar with probably any version of D&D will already be familiar with how much of what is covered. The spell descriptions are very in-depth too, and interestingly have a bit of flavourful text beneath their names.
In some ways, this supplement is great for introducing new players to the game, for it goes into great depth on the subjects covered. However, this similarly makes it a bad way of introducing new players because there is simply too much writing to absorb it all. This is definitely not a quick start. So, it covers a lot of material that existing D&D players will probably already be familiar with, but in more detail and with more options, but could also be a bit overwhelming for new players. This leaves it with no definite market to appeal to. It will work as a toolkit for adding options to other D&D-based games, especially OSR games. It is also not remotely a complete game. At the end of the supplement, a reader will have learned how to create a character, and their abilities and advancement up to level 3 – and that’s pretty much it. No monsters, no combat rules or anything else. It does refer to other supplements in the CASTLE OLDSKULL range for creating locations and the like, but really, any created characters will not be able to do anything in such. There are three more books in the series stated to be in development, but without those supplements this one is not of much use.
It’s impossible to give Book I a true review without the other supplements, because it simply doesn’t stand by itself. Sure, there are options that can be added to other games, but that’s not really enough. This supplement is an interesting read but it requires more to truly evaluate it; fortunately, it’s Pay What You Want. CASTLE OLDSKULL – Sword & Sorcery Book I can be downloaded for free by clicking here.
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