Knave vs Old-School Essentials
Compare Knave and Old-School Essentials side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.
| Knave | Old-School Essentials | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy |
| Tags | Classless, Rules-Light, Dungeon Crawl, Hackable, Ascending AC, Vancian Casting, Random Tables | Dungeon Crawl, Exploration, Hexcrawl, Deadly, Sandbox, Resource Management, Inventory Management, Random Tables, Vancian Casting, Strong GM Support |
| Core Mechanic | Roll d20 + ability score (1–10) vs. 11 + difficulty modifier. No classes: your abilities come from what you carry. Item slot inventory means every piece of gear is a meaningful choice. Spellbooks occupy an item slot and can be cast once per day (INT times per day total). 100 random careers provide starting equipment and flavor. Wounds reduce ability scores directly. | Attacks roll d20 against an attack matrix or an optional ascending Armour Class target. Saving throws meet a category target on d20. Ability checks roll at or below an ability score on d20. |
| Dice | d20 | d20 |
| Complexity | Very Low | Low |
| Availability | Paid | Free core rules |
| Runnability | 5 of 5 book tools | 5 of 5 book tools |
| License | Proprietary | OGL 1.0a |
| Third-Party Publishing | Not yet researched | Commercial publishing allowed — Open license |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Publisher | Questing Beast LLC | Necrotic Gnome |
| Year | 2024 | 2019 |
| Languages | English | English, Italian, Spanish, French, Czech, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean |
| Best For | Groups who want a classless, inventory-driven OSR game where characters are defined entirely by their equipment: with brilliant random tables and a full worldbuilding toolkit. | Groups who want treasure-driven dungeon expeditions and open wilderness campaigns with fragile starting characters. |
| Highlights | Classless: gear defines the character, item slot inventory makes every choice meaningful, extensive random tables for worldbuilding, CC BY license allows free modification, fits in a small book | Treasure recovered from adventures provides most experience points, rewarding successful exploration over fighting alone. Reaction and optional morale rolls let encounters lead to negotiation or flight instead of automatic combat. Stronghold construction and taxation let accumulated wealth support a growing domain. |
| Considerations | No character classes may feel directionless for some players, very swingy d20 rolls with low ability scores, minimal rules means heavy GM improvisation, combat is basic by design | Characters die at zero hit points, and failed poison saves are usually fatal. Demihuman characters combine ancestry with class and have lower level limits than human classes. Declared spells are lost if the caster is hit or fails a saving throw before acting. |