Based on the rumors, we will get another game to replace the loss of Old School Essentials Classic Fantasy. I get why people like this game. At times, Advanced Fantasy can feel like "too much" with too many divergent options for races and classes, and the game becomes muddled with "too much stuff."
Did we really need the Svirfneblin, Drow, Half-Orc, and the Duergar in Advanced? I get it —Advanced sold far better due to "more stuff" — but at some point, I want a more focused core set, with the rest supported in option books. Classic Fantasy lets you do that. If they do add rules and options to OSE Advanced 2026, I hope they fold in all the options found in the Carcass Crawler Zines, which would make it a very compelling game. It is sort of a "go big or go home" theory, and I would like to see a lot of those options in the base game if it is not going to be streamlined.
Even an excellent BX game like Dragonslayer adds the Cyclopsman, a variant race not part of the core experience. A lot of games come close to the idea experience, but many diverge in places and don't provide that simple set of options. DS is still a good version of the game, just a little different.
Classic Fantasy also kept it simple, with the classic options. Only Labyrinth Lord (Classic Edition) remains as the purist BX game, with a few White Box options around, but those are all d20/d6 games. Another great option is Basic Fantasy, a game many swear by as the true heir to BX gaming's legacy.
It will still be possible to play a "Classic Game" with the 2026 OSE rules, since they include an appendix that lays it out. However, it still means cutting most of the book and sorting through it to say "yes and no" to different parts, which is a terrible experience for new users and those who just want a simple base game.
Shadowdark should have taught us to keep our core book game experience focused and straightforward. And a lot of these Shadowdark expansion books, I just want to forget now, since they clutter up the game with too many options.
Do we need another edition of BX? With all the variants of classic games out there, why do we need another game? Is this something the community tells itself we need? There are so many versions of White Box, 1E, BXA, and 0E out there. Do we have everything covered with Labyrinth Lord Classic and Basic Fantasy still in PoD? Or do we need another game because we feel we don't have a standard-bearer now? The community will step up and give us another option, and then invariably re-create what we had in OSE Advanced.
I get the feeling mixing "race plus class" with "race-based classes" in OSE was a mistake. If I want a 2026 version of OSE Advanced Fantasy, get rid of race-based classes and standardize the game on "race plus class," and streamline the game around that. Let a pure "Classic BX Game" do the race-based classes, and pare your game down to the best "race plus class" options that only work one way.
Similarly, if someone does do a new version of BX, please keep it to race-based classes only. Don't confuse things or try to make a game that copies OSE Advanced. Also, any expansion material for this new theoretical BX game should stick with only race-based classes.
I am all for letting OSE be more of the BXA, race-plus-class game, and for any new version of BX to stick to race-as-class.
A great option to OSE Advanced is Swords & Wizardry Revised. This is 98% compatible with any OSE material and offers an AD&D Lite experience with greater clarity and focus, while keeping ability score modifiers under tight control. It is a strict race-plus-class game, but it gives me the perfect blend of 0E and 1E material, plus a wealth of expansion content in add-on books.
S&W can completely replace OSE Advanced race-plus-class and port in its best options, plus it gives me more in terms of supporting the classic bestiary monsters, demons & devils, illusionists & druids, and even two types of bards in the Options book (bard and troubador). We also get necromancers and warlocks in the S&W Options book as purely evil character classes. All of these are far better than their OSE counterparts, many with dedicated spell lists.
And we get a monster expansion book for S&W, with even more monsters and plenty of 1E favorites making a return. With the core book, Options, and the monster expansion, you get a game that clearly rivals OSE Advanced, provides far more options, and does so with a straightforward, easily understood set of rules that feels superior to the limited BX.
0E predates BX, and comes before 1E, when everything got overly complicated. 0E also supports the best options and provides forward-looking 1E options. BX feels pared down and simplified compared to a full-featured 0E game like S&W, and by the time you expand BX into a BXA game, S&W will still have more and unify the classes and system far better, while still keeping the core rules in one book and far more straightforward.
Also, S&W handles fighters far better than OSE Advanced, and it does not need all the fighter mods from the Carcass Crawler books to make them viable character classes and interesting.
A cut-down BX is like Shadowdark, a simple, core, focused dungeon game.
A full 0E game like S&W is more like AD&D to me, a full-featured roleplaying game that does a better job than an expanded BXA-style game with a mix of race-plus-class and race-as-class options, and it provides me with superior options when selecting races and customizing my world.
Where 0E crosses over is into 1E territory, and it becomes the easier version of a full AD&D, Adventures Dark and Deep, or OSRIC. For those games, though, they typically use the one-size larger hit dice for classes (d10 for fighters, d8 for clerics, d6 for thieves, etc.) and things like segments and weapon speeds. As a result, combats are more protracted and play is slower than a BX, BXA, WB, or 0E game. Play 1E if you like this level of detail. Play other games if you don't want to bother with all the minutiae. S&W keeps the BX hit points and speed of play, while still feeling like AD&D.
I am looking forward to this new "pure BX" game and the revised 2026 OSE Advanced.
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