Old School RuneScape Beginner's Guide: Your First Day in Gielinor

Welcome to Gielinor

Old School RuneScape (OSRS) is a 2007-era MMORPG that has been actively developed by Jagex ever since. Don't let the graphics fool you — the depth of the game is enormous, and modern OSRS has more content than the original 2007 version by an order of magnitude.

This guide gets you from "I just made an account" to "I know what I'm doing for the next 10 hours." No prior MMORPG experience assumed.

Platform note: OSRS runs on PC (official Jagex Launcher or the community-favourite RuneLite client) and mobile. RuneLite is the recommended desktop client — it's officially permitted by Jagex and adds quality-of-life plugins without giving you any gameplay advantage.

Free-to-Play vs Members

OSRS has two tiers:

• Free-to-Play (F2P) — 17 skills of the game's 23 are available. Combat is capped at level 20 Prayer and you're locked out of most quests. You can play forever with zero cost.
• Members ($13.99/month or bond) — Full game. Every skill, every quest, every boss.

Recommendation: Play F2P for your first few hours to learn the interface. Once combat feels comfortable, either subscribe or buy a bond in-game with GP (Gold Pieces) — bonds are ~15–17M GP each currently, tradable, and grant 14 days of membership. F2P bond farming is very slow for beginners; expect to pay real money for your first month.

Tutorial Island

You start on Tutorial Island. Follow the glowing arrow above your head — it always points at the next instructor.

You'll be introduced to, in order:

1. Gielinor Guide — Basic controls, camera. Left-click to interact, right-click for menus.

2. Survival Expert — Fishing, cooking, fire-making, woodcutting.

3. Master Chef — Cooking bread.

4. Quest Guide — The quest journal. Quests are non-optional in OSRS: they unlock skills, gear, and areas.

5. Mining Instructor — Mining tin and copper, smelting bronze.

6. Combat Instructor — Attack and Strength basics against a rat.

7. Bank / Prayer / Magic — Deposits, prayers, and a starter fire strike spell.

Do not rush — read what each instructor says. When you finish, you're teleported to Lumbridge, the main starter town.

Your First Hour in Lumbridge

You spawn on the roof of Lumbridge Castle. Here's the priority list:

1. Set your respawn point (optional)

Talk to Father Aereck in the graveyard behind the castle church — you can't change respawn until later, but knowing where he is matters for future quests.

2. Complete Cook's Assistant

Walk into the castle kitchen, talk to the Cook. This is the fastest F2P quest — grab an egg (chicken coop east of the castle), pot of flour (windmill south of Draynor), and bucket of milk (cow field north). Reward: 300 Cooking XP, which puts you at level 10 Cooking immediately.

3. Complete Restless Ghost

Talk to Father Aereck again. Head to the Wizards' Tower south of Lumbridge, get the amulet from Father Urhney, return to the graveyard. Reward: 1,125 Prayer XP — that's level 9 Prayer from level 1. Prayer is slow and expensive to train later; take every free source you can.

4. Complete Sheep Shearer & Doric's Quest

Both are handed out just outside Lumbridge. They give small XP rewards but are quick and count toward your Quest Point total (needed to unlock other quests).

Interface Basics

The bottom-right panel is your inventory. You have 28 slots. Everything you carry lives there.

Key tabs (default hotkeys F1–F12):

• Combat Options (F1) — Toggle between accurate / aggressive / defensive / controlled styles. This is how you choose which combat stat gets XP.
• Skills (F2) — Your 23 skill levels. Right-click a skill for a goal-setting popup.
• Quests (F3) — Green = done, yellow = in progress, red = not started. F2P quests are listed separately.
• Inventory (F4) — Your bag.
• Equipment (F5) — Currently worn gear.
• Prayer (F6) — Active prayers.
• Spellbook (F7) — Magic spells.
• Friends / Ignore / Clans (F9) — Social panel.
• Settings (F11) — Graphics, audio, controls.

Middle-click drag rotates the camera. Scroll to zoom.

What to Train First (F2P Priority Order)

Skills level from 1 to 99 (with 200M XP as the true cap). Don't chase 99s yet — focus on getting every skill to a functional level.

Priority skills for a new F2P account:

1. Cooking (level 15+) — Cook shrimps and trout for free food. Failed cooks burn; higher level = fewer burns.

2. Woodcutting → Firemaking (both to 15+) — Chop trees, burn logs. Essential for future skilling.

3. Fishing (level 20+) — Fish trout / salmon at Barbarian Village for food and XP.

4. Attack / Strength / Defence (level 30+ each) — Combat basics. Train on cows first (Lumbridge north field), then hill giants (Edgeville Dungeon).

5. Mining (level 15+) — Iron ore at Al-Kharid mine, sell for early GP.

6. Prayer — Bury bones from every kill. Do NOT drop bones early on.

7. Ranged (level 20+) — Bronze arrows on cows if you're a ranged fan.

Don't worry about Runecrafting, Magic, or Smithing until you're comfortable with the game — they're much slower and less rewarding at low levels.

Money Basics

Currency is GP (Gold Pieces / gp). Beginner benchmarks:

• 10k gp — First hour. Sell any drops you don't need at the Grand Exchange in Varrock.
• 100k gp — After a few hours. Buy full iron armour, an amulet of power (if F2P) or amulet of strength.
• 1M gp — First major milestone. Rune equipment is now affordable.

The Grand Exchange (GE) in north-west Varrock is the auction house — set buy/sell offers and walk away.

How to earn early GP in F2P:

• Mining iron ore at level 15 Mining (Al-Kharid mine). ~100–150 gp per ore, and each takes 1 tick.
• Chopping willow logs at level 30 Woodcutting. Fast XP and steady GP.
• Killing green dragons at high combat (level 60+). Big early goal, ~3k gp per kill from bones + hide.
• Doing early quests for cash rewards (Prince Ali Rescue = 700 gp, Doric's Quest = 180 gp, etc.).

Combat & Death

When you die, you keep your 3 most valuable items (4 if you've completed the Ghosts Ahoy quest and use protect item prayer). Everything else drops on the floor where you died.

Items on death:

• You have 60 minutes to return to your death pile. Other players cannot pick your items up during this window.
• If you don't return in time, items become visible to others.
• If you die again during this window, the first pile is destroyed.

Prayer flicking is a term you'll hear — it's not important until much later. For now: use Protect from Melee / Ranged / Magic (unlocked around Prayer level 37, 40, 45) when fighting stronger enemies.

PvP / Wilderness — the area north of Edgeville is the Wilderness, where any player can attack any other. Do not enter with anything valuable. Wear only what you can afford to lose. Beginner accounts should stay out of the Wilderness entirely for the first 20+ hours.

Where to Go Next

Once you've done the Lumbridge quests, work through this checklist over your first 10–20 hours:

1. Reach Varrock — Walk north from Lumbridge. The Grand Exchange lives here.

2. Do the Varrock quests — Romeo & Juliet, Vampyre Slayer, Demon Slayer, Rune Mysteries.

3. Reach Falador — West from Barbarian Village. Home of the White Knights and a huge castle. Party Room is in the north.

4. Complete Waterfall Quest (Members only) — 13k Attack + 13k Strength XP with no combat requirements. This is the #1 first quest for members: it takes any account from level 1 combat to level ~30 in an hour.

5. Complete Dragon Slayer I — Unlocks the ability to wear rune platebody and use the amulet of glory teleports. The medium-tier gear ceiling for beginners.

Bookmark the OSRS Wiki (oldschool.runescape.wiki). It is community-run, exhaustively accurate, and effectively required reading. Every quest, every drop table, every skill guide is there.