With B/X games, I started with my original preference, Labyrinth Lord. This hybrid mix of D&D and AD&D gave clerics a spell at the first level and had the best support with dungeons and expansions written for the game. This also had the -3 to +3 ability score modifiers I was used to and all my favorite AD&D monsters. The second edition of this is coming too, which is nice to see.
Then I was all over Old School Essentials. This had it all; the best organization, art, incredible presentation, and ease of use were second to none. The expansion classes are excellent and fresh takes on the classics through a B/X lens, including one of the best OSR bards.
It lacked the demons I expected, so it always felt incomplete - especially when Advanced came around, and this started to pull in AD&D concepts. The base game is limited to fantasy and generous with ability score modifiers. There is no percentage-based magic resistance.
This is still the best edition of B/X you can buy - especially if you are coming off of 5E and need to have rules support for many things. This is both a strength of the system and a weakness; if you need a rule - it is there. But B/X from earlier days was designed for you to just make it up as you go along. There is a difference in the B/X community between the "fully ruled" later editions and the "make a ruling up" earlier editions of the game. There is still much room in OSE to make up rulings; I just lean towards more freedom and my own rulings.
These days, I am gravitating back to Swords & Wizardry. This is a hacker's game, made to modify, and there are some genius-level simplifications here. A lot is left up to you on how to handle; where OSE will have rules for everything, S&W lets you make a ruling. This has the AD&D monsters, and it has percentage-based magic resistance. This also limits ability score modifiers to a lower range and limits STR bonuses for melee to fighters only.
Giving everyone ability score modifiers for every little thing pushes stat inflation. Straight 3d6 characters feel playable in S&W, whereas in many other games, they do not. The universal +3 modifier at 18 (for all classes) feels too powerful. I like fighters as the only class getting the hit and damage modifiers from strength. Late-era B/X had a lot of "gimmes" that I feel made the game too easy, and since the D&D game of that time was targeted toward kids, the B/X games that emulate late-era D&D feel like they give too much when they shouldn't.
The hardcovers are a bit tricky to find, but they are still being sold on Lulu.
Also, this is 100% compatible with White Star, and all that sci-fi goodness comes in, and you have a Starfinder-style magic and sci-fi game. This is awesome since I love the "science-fantasy plus magic" genre, and I have a game that does that and can pull from sci-fi and fantasy sources and have everything work with no conversions. Laser bow-armed space elves fighting space orcs in powered armor? It works.
The awesome Beyond Belief White Box-based "X!" minigames also play well with S&W, which are expansions to the game if you want them to be, or fun standalone one-shots. Mix those with any S&W material, and your game feels vast.
I need less to have fun with, and massive shelves full of 5E or Pathfinder books these days feel overkill. More is less. And the reverse is true. My imagination and game design skills are superior to "rules written in a book." I know, for some, the rules are a part of the fun - and if that is your game, Pathfinder 2 is a blast.
So I gravitate towards games that give me more creative freedom, with fewer rules written. This isn't "rules light," and I find some of the newer games are more rules heavy in that they impose so many "creative frameworks" on your imagination they limit your creativity and replace it with a rigid "author-approved system of creative play."
Astounding! Amazing! Incredible! Non-stop action using familiar rules! Who wants to read through reams of text just to get to the action? No-one right? These rules assume you know how to role-play. They assume you know about “Golden Age” comic book space fantasy adventures. (Sword & Planet rules through a retro lens). They assume you know how OSR products work. There, it’s done. You know how to play already. Just get on with it. Ray guns set to kill! Flash! Bang! Zoom!
Like the X! games say, and as the above excerpt from Jarkoon says, you already know how to play a roleplaying game.
Give me a box of Legos.
And watch me toss the instructions.
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