Beginner guide

11 chaptersabout 20 minutes in all

Old School RuneScape explained from the very start, for anyone who has never played. Each chapter takes one idea at a time, in the order a new player meets them in the game.

Start reading Glossary

Chapters

Chapter 1: What the game is An open world with no single goal: skills to train, quests to finish, monsters to fight and a market run by players. 2 min read
Chapter 2: Tutorial Island and the first hour Making a character, the island every player starts on, and what to do on arriving in Lumbridge. 2 min read
Chapter 3: The game screen What the minimap, the orbs, the chat box and the side panel’s tabs are for. 2 min read
Chapter 4: Skills and levels What a skill is, how levels and XP work, and all 24 skills in four groups. 2 min read
Chapter 5: Fighting The three combat styles, the skills behind them, health and food, gear tiers, and what to fight first. 2 min read
Chapter 6: Quests What quests are, why they matter even to players who only want levels, and short free ones to start with. 2 min read
Chapter 7: Money, the bank and the Grand Exchange Coins, where to keep things, how the player-run market works, and honest ways to earn early on. 2 min read
Chapter 8: Getting around Walking and running, the map, the main towns, the teleport every character has, and where not to wander. 2 min read
Chapter 9: Death, the Wilderness and staying safe What happens when a character dies, why the Wilderness is different, and how to keep the account itself safe. 2 min read
Chapter 10: Free-to-play and membership What the free game includes, what membership adds, and the two ways to pay for it. 1 min read
Chapter 11: First goals A short list of goals, in order, for the first day and the first week. 1 min read
Glossary Every word players use and the game does not explain, from AFK to XP.

Key figures

Skills: 24 15 free
Quests: 182 24 free
Highest skill level: 99 Level 92 is halfway
Highest combat level: 126 Every character starts at 3

Words to know

XP (experience): Points earned by doing a skill. Enough XP raises the skill’s level. Level 2 needs 83 XP; level 99 needs 13,034,431.
Coins (gp): The game’s money, also called gp (gold pieces). 10k is ten thousand, 1m a million, 1b a billion.
Grand Exchange (GE): The trading post in north-west Varrock. Players place buy and sell offers, and it matches them with other players’ offers, no meeting needed.
F2P (free-to-play): The part of the game open to everyone without membership: 15 skills, 24 quests and part of the map.
Members (P2P, pay-to-play): Paid membership. It adds 9 skills, 158 quests and most of the world to the free game.
NPC (non-player character): Anyone in the game that no person controls: shopkeepers, quest givers, bankers and monsters.
Hitpoints (HP): Health. It falls when a character is hit and comes back one point a minute, or faster by eating. At 0 the character dies. It starts at level 10.
AFK (away from keyboard): An AFK activity needs a click only now and then, so it can run while doing something else. Players compare methods as more or less AFK.

The whole glossary