Mausritter vs Old-School Essentials
Compare Mausritter and Old-School Essentials side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.
| Mausritter | Old-School Essentials | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy |
| Tags | Rules-Light, Inventory Management, Hexcrawl, Dungeon Crawl, Sandbox, Exploration, Deadly, Attacks Always Hit, Random Tables, CC-Licensed Rules | Dungeon Crawl, Exploration, Hexcrawl, Deadly, Sandbox, Resource Management, Inventory Management, Random Tables, Vancian Casting, Strong GM Support |
| Core Mechanic | Roll a d20 equal to or under STR, DEX, or WIL to avoid a risky consequence. Attacks deal weapon damage directly, reduced by armour. Items and conditions compete for limited inventory slots. | 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 | Low | Low |
| Availability | Free core rules | Free core rules |
| Runnability | 4 of 5 book tools | 5 of 5 book tools |
| License | Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0); Mausritter Third Party Licence | OGL 1.0a |
| Third-Party Publishing | Commercial publishing allowed — Mausritter Third Party Licence and Mausritter SRD | Commercial publishing allowed — Open license |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Publisher | Exalted Funeral | Necrotic Gnome |
| Year | 2020 | 2019 |
| Languages | English, Portuguese, Ukrainian, Italian, Polish, Dutch, Spanish, Russian, Czech, French, German | English, Italian, Spanish, French, Czech, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean |
| Best For | Groups who want mouse-scale sandbox adventures where clever plans and careful supplies matter more than fighting. The rules support exploring dangerous ruins and returning treasure to a safe settlement. | Groups who want treasure-driven dungeon expeditions and open wilderness campaigns with fragile starting characters. |
| Highlights | Condition cards occupy inventory slots, forcing a choice between carrying supplies and enduring setbacks. Spell tablets trade greater power for faster depletion and dangerous miscasts. Faction goals advance between sessions, letting the world change beyond the mice’s immediate adventures. | 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 | Damage beyond Hit Protection reduces Strength and can incapacitate a mouse after a single failed save. Depleted spell tablets require specific fictional tasks to recharge. Advancement improves attributes and endurance rather than offering classes or extensive ability choices. | 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. |