Blueholme came back into my radar as I had previously discounted it due to it's over-reliance on the original, IE it's "first-generation" clone status. And for the most part that's correct in regards to Blueholme Prentice, which is basically a 1:1 remake of Holmes Basic D&D, what I consider the worst D&D edition, chiefly due to it's nature of being a proto-starter set and the ridiculously fervent nature of it's miniscule fanbase. Blueholme Journeymanne is both better and worse, mostly better, and is worth talking about.
Now the first thing that dinged my bullshit detector was the game calling races "Species". It's been well known as a dog whistle proclaiming the author has political biases and believes the developmentally arrested blue-haired non-gamer hypocritical bigots of Blusky have a point that the word "race" is racist. This may have been the first published D&D clone to make this change, possibly before the dog whistle was invented. I'm not giving it a pass for that. I'm giving it a pass because it means it. Basically the section is named differently so you'll read it and figure out why. And then you're pointed to the monster section to determine your character "race" out of the entire gamut of options. If you want to play a Dwarf or Elf you're given the building blocks but told to put it together yourself. Which I think is rather ballsy. Humanocentrism hidden behind a requirement for excessive effort to make an Elf or Dwarf is an interesting bit of meta-design.
So in this one instance, I will reverse my decree for this one game. Blueholme Journeymanne is OSR, and pushes DIY harder than some other games in the sphere. Now that's not to say there isn't some dumb shit in here. But as I skimmed the game I ran into lots of elements that are expressed which I wish I saw in other versions of the game - burning oil & holy water mechanics, Fighter damage bonus married to level instead of strength or anything else, creating scrolls are baked into the magic-user class, actually limiting ranged weapons to be nearly equal to melee weapons, outlining subdual damage, lots of cool shit that's important and usually ignored.
I just hit the creatures section leafing through, it has a somewhat good explanation on how to implement "run any monster as a character race" which requires heavy adjudication on the part of the GM. This can be both good and bad, but it does make real the passage in OD&D about playing any monster as long as you start comparatively small. I would personally put a cap on all monster class levels if I chose to allow any monstrous PCs at all. Probably should be setting dependent, like most things.
The bestiary itself includes several entries - Amazons, Berserkers, Cyclopeans, etc. that gently tap on the idea of using the system for Wilderlands of High Fantasy. The "play any monster" aspect itself explores this setting stronger than OD&D does.
So intrinsically this game is based by association. There are bad rules, sure, but there isn't enough bad rules to ruin the overall chassis of the game. The amount of allowances allotted to the GM absolves at least some of these bad decisions, as is relegating them to "optional" status.
It is frankly a very tough race between this game and Iron Falcon as to which is the best game in the OSR. Both essentially walk the line between OD&D and AD&D1E, and I think Iron Falcon has the edge due to Blueholme's reliance on monsters having Dexterity ratings. But I think Blueholme's initiative system is worth testing to verify if it ends up being faster and more fun than Iron Falcon's traditional side-based d6 initiative.
On magic items: I think Blueholme has a clear style to it, there are cursed items of every type so testing the waters with an item is dangerous no matter the item. This was sorta true WAY later in the game (2E really) but in early editions especially those without ability bonuses, cursed items were often back-burnered.
Periphery: I bought everything ever produced for BlueHolme which isn't much. The Ref Repository seems to be a DM screen of sorts, consolidating all the tables and the like from the core into a short booklet. So much so that you could possibly run the entire game from the booklet without context (missing a few important elements but a baseline D&D would be secured)
The Explorer Encounters is incredibly worthwhile especially when you get to the Encounters section and you're given example Dexterity scores for many or all the monsters in the game. There's also some fun cameos such as David Bowie's Goblin King from Labyrinth.
While the Necropolis of Nuromen isn't much of a necropolis, it fits well within the Blueholme Brochure's light setting guide and does the job it was supposed to do, be a short example dungeon. The setting is better than the adventure, pulling a "Greyhawk" by having the game's title also be the name of a city/castle.
This OSR basically fell the wayside and has been discarded to the sands of time, but those of us looking into micro-design rather than macro/baby-design and therefore see what miniscule differences to the game can result in during play are obligated to pick this up and give it a shot, if nothing else to determine if initiative is not worth the rolls and going by Dexterity would be good enough.
