COMPLETE beginner's guide to Old School Runescape

Welcome to Old School Runescape! This is a general guide for anyone starting out, where my goal is to teach you how to learn the game, rather than giving you an exact checklist of what to do. I hope this guide helps, or that you learn at least one new thing from it. Make sure to check out other OSRS beginner guides on Youtube so you can get opinions from a wide variety of people. That way, you can use the cumulative knowledge you gain from a multiple sources to form your own conclusions on what you want out of this game.

Most importantly and above all, enjoy the journey!

0:00 Intro
1:10 OSRS vs. Runescape 3
2:15 Wiki (money making and skill training guides)
3:13 Runelite
3:54 Runelite plugins
5:01 The rules
5:47 Ironman modes
7:32 Grand Exchange
8:02 Bonds
9:30 Membership
9:59 Stuck in f2p
10:49 How to earn your first bond
12:29 How to maintain membership through bonds with gp
15:00 Quests
15:53 Which quests should you start with? (optimal quest order)
16:36 Quest guides (wiki, youtube, quest helper plugin)
18:16 Achievement diaries
19:05 Goals
20:20 Ironman guide

Early game goals:
21:38 Barrows gloves
22:00 Quest cape and Diary cape
22:20 Fighter torso
22:31 Bone crossbow
22:44 Ava's devices
23:04 Herb runs
23:37 Magic secateurs and Fairytale I
23:46 Fairy rings and Fairytale II
24:10 Graceful outfit
24:57 Stamina potions
25:22 Spirit trees and Tree Gnome Village
25:33 Dragon Scimitar and Monkey Madness I
25:50 Birdhouse runs, Bone Voyage, and Fossil Island
26:23 Slayer
27:14 Black mask
27:30 "How do you make your screen look like that?"
27:43 Skilling minigames
28:06 Skilling outfits
28:22 How to get 43 Prayer
29:22 Construction
29:57 World 330

The community
30:52 Aging playerbase
32:15 OSRS is more fun with others
33:07 Discord servers and Youtube
34:05 Runescape friends will change your life
34:56 Reddit and Twitter
35:19 Twitch
36:00 Scams
37:24 Enjoy the game and ignore the vocal minority
38:28 Follow along someone's journey on Youtube!

Official OSRS website:

Wiki:

Oziris ironman guide:

BRUHsailer ironman guide:

First birdhouse run:

Official OSRS Discord server:

Subreddits:

-My socials

[brassicac]

the osrs wiki is actual peak. in my 20 years of video gaming, never have I seen a wiki better maintained and interconnected with a game ever. it's crazy how much we take standalone wikis for granted. "fandom wikis" are obnoxious, and some game wikis are horribly formatted. osrs wiki rocks

[alteraro]

This is so incredibly well done. The community, and potential new community members, have needed this for a long time. The hardest part of Runescape has always been getting started. In order to attract and help new members, this should be on the OSRS front page. Or this video could be the final part of tutorial island just before being teleported to Lumby. Awesome job Kip!

[fowrt]

to all you experienced players out there, watch it anyway even if you learn nothing, kip deserves the views

[ruben]

31:47 you ain’t lying bro. I used to love to play RS back in middle school (2005). Since I didn’t have a PC, I’d go to the public library to play it until I got kicked off. Im in mid mid 30s and I just started playing again and man! What a nostalgic feeling. I can’t believe I still remember a lot of it. Thanks for the video.

[MatthewScott-Green]

Cant wait to get started! (I have 100+ days play time and can almost finally play the game)

[koopakape]

As a new player, I mostly think this is an incredible video, so much stuff right out the gate like RuneLite and the wiki are complete gamechangers, and I love the general, vague ideas for things to do or goals to consider to point me in the right direction. However, one thing I'd mention to potentially do differently in future similar content: you start getting into stuff that's a little over my head, overwhelming and kind of offputting like, for example, explaining that "oh, for prayer you should just uhhh buy 392 dragon bones and go to this particular altar somewhere dangerous and far-off in the world where you can get PKed and blah blah" like... kinda getting ahead of yourself and momentarily letting your ultra-veteran mindset slip through. No, I'm just watching starter guides, I'm not ready to have the magic sucked out of how cool it is that I can bury newbie-monster bones to level up prayer while I fight stuff for other types of exp, I don't wanna be told it's not worth it already or the "omg minmax ultimate ultra-meta way to do it". That kinda stuff isn't for an "introduction to the game" guide imo, would be better-suited to an alternate, "advanced tips once you're used to the basics" or "optional tips for minmaxing if you wanna save a lot of time" guide. Similarly how you keep saying "ESPECIALLY for ironman" over and over and just generally bringing up ironman a lot, which IMO feels like it has nooo place in a beginner's guide rather than, again, an alternate, more advanced guide...

But again, generally, for the vast majority of the video, it's absolutely excellent and an extremely needed, wanted and valued resource. My criticisms up there are just a bit of a pet peeve I see a LOT of people do in a LOT of newbie guides for games, and ESPECIALLY in a game like OSRS where you really want to go at your own pace and just sorta discover things and slowly advance your game knowledge and skill, a lot of us getting into a game like that don't wanna be beat over the head with "high-end meta tips" right off the bat in a vid that otherwise is PERFECTLY crafted for us.

[BrothersDrinkwater]

I have thousands of hours in OSRS and I wish I had this video back in the day. Great job mudkip! This is the kind of stuff that’ll keep our game alive for years to come!

[PandaBearZ_]

I REMEMBER YOU FROM years AGO! I am so glad you're still here and alive. You helped me back in 08-09 I believe coudl have been 2010 but thankful for the refresher!

[DeadlySpedly]

Literally started playing an hour ago I needed these tips

[MyFinalHour]

Im a maxed end game player with multiple accounts but I will still watch all of this to support mudkip’s hard work :D

[tony]

as a maxed main im so happy to finally find a guide for me

[SpliffQuest]

Just started OSRS a couple days ago, I'm 32 btw hah, and no, I hadn't played it until now! I'm in love. And thank you a ton for this video! It's very well put together and clear, and the thought process flows like a leaf on a stream... or sumthin

[iAutodidact]

I'm watching this anyway just because the way Mudkip explains stuff for newbies is genuinely helpful.

[jollygrapefruit]

A general tip I've given to a few of my friends who started playing is to not get all hung up on efficiency. Just because you don't have all the optimal gear to do something doesn't mean it won't be worth it to do anyways. For example, Blast Furnace can be done solo, and one you get to steel smiting, even with buying every piece of coal and bribing the foreman, you can still turn a good profit and make excellent smithing XP without ice gloves or goldsmith gauntlets even on an Ironman account. If every time you decide to embark on a new skill or money maker, you stop to backtrack into items or quests that will make it more efficient, you'll just end up playing the entire game beside a walkthrough.

[Trippy_Times]

Been playing for over 20 years and still consistently use the wiki skill guides.
VERY useful. Thanks for making this

[matthewrobert]

I appreciate this. As a kid I did 0 research and just kinda ran around. Friends gave me stuff and that’s how I got through lol. I’ve barely done any quests and barely spent time actually trying to make money. So 32 year old me appreciates this a lot

[datguy]

ive been playing rs since 2005 and have gotten friends to try osrs, but it can be challenging to explain things to new players sometimes. so thank you for this guide, ill have any new players give this a watch and itll hopefully help them out more than having a veteran player just dump information on them. love the content man, keep up the good work.

[ratsyja]

Hey Mudkip, Love the vid, I've been watchin ya for a while and love all the content, for any of the new people he has a series I watched way back when he made them called "Maintain a bond" thats a great place to start. That was way back when bonds were only 4m but all of that content just like his new content still stays relevent because he teaches you the skills you need not just the here and now. I played way back on Miniclip and came back to OSRS shortly after it came back, made my first bond killing ogresses and mining gold it takes a really long time on f2p but once you get to members so much opens up to you. So much more of the map, Skills like hunter or fletching like shown in his old video still will make you money and is still really good, never thought I would be 2100 total lvl on main but I really love this game and would recommend anyone to get into it despite the learning curve and the point and click old style you have to get used to but for me has nostalgia lvling woodcutting only behind lumby when I was a kid and just selling to general store XD, love the vids as always man and keep up the good work.

[ConyeOSRS]

Watching this as a late game player just to relive that early game nostalgia (and of course for the usual quality content from mudkip)

[DarkTempz]

You never truly "quit" Runescape. You just take long breaks. On the OSRS & RS3 grind!