You might think that Osric is an orthodox, poetic, and slightly silly paladin. And that's right. Sir Osric, portrayed by Nathan Rice, in Dorkness Rising is exactly that. But he's not the Osric I meant.
Sir Osric is named tongue in cheek after OSRIC. Which means Old School Reference & Index Compilation. None the wiser? Neither was I. Old School refers to first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. And OSRIC is a complete rewrite of these rules. It's a retro-clone.
A rewrite of AD&D, is that legal? Not the first thought that popped up in my head, but you might ask. Well... Since TSR (who owned D&D) was bought up by Wizards of the Coast, it became part of the Open Gaming Licence. The OGL looks like a page of legalese definititions without any meaning for a common person like you and me. But it appears to mean that you can rewrite any rules owned by WotC, as long as you print this OGL in your book. You can't just copy the rules, but you can rephrase them. And you can't call it AD&D. But then it's ok. So that's what the guys at OSRIC did.
Suppose you are yearning to play old school AD&D. Suppose you burned or sold your old books, or suppose you never owned them. Then you can download OSRIC for free. Or let it be printed on demand at Lulu. Cool isn't it? Then you could play an old school, orthodox, poetic and somewhat silly paladin like... Sir Osric!
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