Mongoose Pocket Player's Handbook, The

For the OGL System to be this wide reaching, it has to be codified and presented in a basic format stripped of all complications first. That is the purpose behind this book, the Mongoose Pocket Player’s Handbook. In these pages, readers will find the system in its simplest form. Character creation and rules, the kernel for any roleplaying system, dominate the first part of the text while the central theme for most games- combat – is given the middle of the book in great detail. The two most common exotic features of most games- magic and psychic phenomena –provide the last section and sum up this simple presentation of the OGL System.

With this book, a Games Master can take any setting or rules codex based on the genre he wishes to play and run with it. No other basic rulebooks are needed. This reduces the expense and paperwork required to play variant systems, making it easier for Games Masters and Players alike to jump right in to the games they want to play without having to buy books pertaining to games they do not. As the above quote notes, there is little complication in these page besides the rules themselves. This text is intended as a reference tool and a means of keeping the important factors of the OGL System in one book without forcing Players and Games Masters to hunt through flavor text to find what they need.

In short, this is the Mongoose Pocket Player’s Handbook- a simple guide to the rules of the OGL System. It contains exactly what a reader needs to play the game and nothing else. With this guide to the intricacies of the OGL rules set, Players and Games Masters can make use of any other setting material or devise their own for a campaign that is uniquely theirs while still retaining the basic framework of every other OGL game. If it is a basic rule covering characters, combat, equipment, or special effects, it has a home in these pages. That does not mean that there will only be dry, boring language in these pages, but the majority of the text has been spent on outlining the rules needed to play basic OGL games.

Everything else is the province of the reader’s imagination. After all, imagination is the heart of all roleplaying. We have brought all the rules together for you in this book. What you do with them from here is up to you – fundamentally, this is what OGL and roleplaying games are all about.