Maze Rats vs Old-School Essentials
Compare Maze Rats and Old-School Essentials side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.
| Maze Rats | Old-School Essentials | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy |
| Tags | Rules-Light, Dungeon Crawl, Sandbox, Random Tables, Improvisation, Freeform Magic, CC-Licensed Rules | Dungeon Crawl, Exploration, Hexcrawl, Deadly, Sandbox, Resource Management, Inventory Management, Random Tables, Vancian Casting, Strong GM Support |
| Core Mechanic | Danger Roll: roll 2d6 + ability bonus (STR, DEX, or WIL), 10+ avoids danger. Advantage rolls 3d6 keep best two. Attack rolls use 2d6 + Attack Bonus vs. target's Armor. Spells are randomly generated from combination tables (effect + element + form) and erased after casting. | 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 | 2d6 | d20 |
| Complexity | Very Low | Low |
| Availability | Paid | Free core rules |
| Runnability | 2 of 5 book tools | 5 of 5 book tools |
| License | CC BY 4.0 | 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 | Swordfish Islands LLC | Necrotic Gnome |
| Year | 2024 | 2019 |
| Languages | English | English, Italian, Spanish, French, Czech, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean |
| Best For | GMs who want a dead-simple system with extensive random tables that generate adventures, spells, NPCs, and monsters on the fly. | Groups who want treasure-driven dungeon expeditions and open wilderness campaigns with fragile starting characters. |
| Highlights | Fits in 12 pages, extensive random tables for on-the-fly worldbuilding, spell generation system is highly creative, CC BY 4.0 license, near-zero prep | 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 | Very minimal: experienced players may want more mechanical depth, no bestiary or setting included, advancement is slow and simple, assumes GM comfort with improvisation | 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. |