Amazing Adventures

Amazing Adventures lives up to its name.

This game is closest to a d20-style system of the classic Top Secret and Gangbusters games that TSR released in the 1980s. It covers the same subjects: pulp action, spies, gangsters, or period adventurers. If I were generous, I could throw the classic Boot Hill and Star Frontiers games here, too, but the latter would need a few conversions to get it feeling right.

The game doesn't have a "spy" class since "anyone can be a spy," and having the class would be "super obvious" and also "limit spies to a small set of abilities." The original Top Secret game had three classes, assassin, investigator, and confiscator, so it was a class-based design. Assassin was the most "fun" to play for most, given our D&D background, and combat and martial arts are always fun. The AA classes feel like a better mix for spy games, and you get a gadgeteer class, which opens up more high-tech gear-based spy genres.

Top Secret was a level-based game.

The classes feel right at home for the Gangbusters game since AA is a pulp-adventure game. You have the same "spy as class" problem as you do in Top Secret since what defines a gangster can vary widely. There is a "hooligan" class in AA that would cover most thugs and "heat" in pulp-gangster games. Still, there is no reason a socialite, raider, soldier, pugilist, pirate, or other class (or class combo) could be involved in the underworld and hold a rank in the criminal hierarchy. You can even multi-class a hooligan with any other class and get ideal hitmen, safecrackers, moonshiners, and many other mixed-class bad guys. You also get Indiana Jones-style world-hopping adventure, so this does more than Gangbusters.

Gangbusters was also a level-based game.

Boot Hill is relatively easy to emulate, but you will need one of the Boot Hill reprints or any other Western game to get price lists, guns, and a few other bits of topical information to do it right. You can do a Wild West game with the AA rules; it is just some period tropes, horses, steam trains, black hats, and a few iconic guns - but if you want a more grounded game, you need more data, and Western games typically do that research well. There are also ones in the OSR that are worth checking out. You can also have a more fantastic Wild West game with the AA rules, gadgeteers and mystics causing chaos and interesting plot hooks.

Boot Hill's level system was in "number of gunfights survived" and this did improve abilities.

Star Frontiers' adoption of a level system feels all wrong. I think AA could do a fun science fiction game since White Star is a fantastic game in the same genre with levels. However, with Knight Hawks, the game essentially became a "leveled game" with the addition of starship skills being for highly experienced characters only.

The skills are leveled, but the character's stats and hit points are not, but can be increased with XP. Once you spend 30-50 XP, the game begins to emulate levels in a way.

Star Frontiers needs the most conversion since many iconic gear items must be present to feel authentic. The other games on this list, especially Top Secret and Gangbusters, can be "close enough" with just the AA book. A warning, some of the items in SF are built for this game, like a laser pistol being able to be set to 20d10 damage in one shot. Sometimes it is better to use the "laser pistol" designed for AA than converting ones for other games, since the balance and gameplay will be better.

Trying to be too accurate on conversions can derail your entire game and make the effort fail. Not everything done in older games is "right" or "canon" and you need to be able to change things and get the feeling right rather than the little details. Being able to have grand, sweeping space adventures is far more important than letting a laser pistol do 20d10 damage.

These games have "flat" hit points, while leveled systems scale up with level. Once you put scaling hit points in these games, you get the "veteran" survivability factor, where more experienced characters survive longer. This is a good thing since all these games are relatively deadly. High-level gangsters and cowboys surviving ambushes are more cinematic. High-level space adventurers are able to fight their way across a planet and not stop to rest, which is also very cinematic. Even James Bond survives multiple firefights, taking "damage" as near misses until that final bullet lands.

In some strange alternate universe where TSR kept one system for all its games, this is the world we would be looking back on. I like AA; it feels capable yet sticks to the tried and true. It also does a lot with a little, and the classes are iconic across several genres and periods. The Powered/Gadgeteer class can even simulate street-level superheroes, a nice little touch. You could do a 1950s and 1960s superhero game with Batman-style heroes and enemies and feel at home in this system.

Amazing Adventures covers a wide swath of history and does it cleanly. It handles the speculative and fantastic well, without much custom power design and complicated characters. It also plays like any other d20 game, so it is not hard to learn.

I like this game, I can see myself playing it.

Is D&D 3.5E better than Pathfinder 1e?

Okay, here we go. Prepare for impact.

I love Pathfinder 1e, one of my all-time legendary games. No question the entire game is a masterpiece. It fixes many of the 3.5E problems. The design is solid. The expansions are legendary. The volume of work, to this day, beats any edition of the game.

I love Pathfinder 1e.

Is it an S-Tier game.

Hands down.

But the game has problems, in fact, it inherits all the 3.5E ones and adds its own. There are a lot of "gimme" powers, like the force missile (and other similar 3 + INT mod per day) shootee-powers that all wizard schools got, which were the precursors of today's cantrips. In 3.5E, the wizard is closer to the AD&D 2e wizard, and you get no "laser pistol" like you do in Pathfinder or 5E - your memorized spells are it.

Yes, that means in 3.5E, wizards are back to slings, hand crossbows, or buying wands of magic missiles, but that is spending money and thinking cleverly at the low levels. This is old-school and cool; it isn't a problem. Also, you are spending money, which is good. Too many modern games have nothing to do with money, and it is useless as a concept.

The hit dice are too high in Pathfinder 1e. I like the classes with the d4 hit die, and that feels like D&D to me. Damages are higher in Pathfinder 1e than in D&D 3.5E.

Pathfinder 1e also has the Golarion new-car scent all over the game, and it is hard to break it apart. It heavily leans into the imagery of Golarion, with the football-headed goblins and Paizo tropes, and I can't get away from that flavor. Pathfinder makes the same mistakes D&D 4 did, as it heavily leans into product identity and owned IP. Pathfinder and D&D 4E do not feel like generic fantasy games.

Some of the cutesy tropes in Pathfinder changed the world. Goblins are not enemies anymore since they are so iconic to the world and setting. You make the art appealing and endearing, and the entire game slides down into relativism, making every monster your best buddy and pal. Evil doesn't want its own space, and any land given will be used as a base to attack others. They want to sack, desecrate, and burn down everything that doesn't worship the horned devil.

Why?

The horned devil says so.

The line between good and evil was obvious in D&D 3.5E. There were no "story game" mechanics tracking corruption (Rise of the Runelords, later, Pathfinder Horror Adventures) that gave you an excuse for why your character did something evil. In D&D 3.5E, if your character did something evil, it was 100% player choice, and you lived with the consequences. I was shocked when I realized how stark the choices are in D&D 3.5E versus Pathfinder "padding" your choices with "uh-oh!" style rules.

In Pathfinder, the line between good and evil is blurred, and in Pathfinder 2E, there is no line. the evolution of tieflings from being half-demon blooded dhampirs who fought against demonic urges to pastel-skinned cosplay costume horn and tail options to use with a Russian accent - and this tells you everything you need to know about modern performative, influencer-friendly gaming.

Today's games are Fortnite-inspired dress-up pop-culture tripe. We left story gaming a while ago; it is all cosplay adventures. It might as well be the "banana guy" in the dungeon.

D&D 3.5E felt more generic and usable for any fantasy world.

Pathfinder 1e was written for Golarion.

The classic D&D 3.0 Deities and Demigods book had 40 pages devoted to the D&D pantheon. Another 100 pages were devoted to classic pantheons, such as the Greeks, Egyptians, and Asgardians. Most of today's DDG-style books focus exclusively on the "Licensed IP" deities, and Pathfinder does that, too.

Generic fantasy gaming feels like it died with D&D 3.5. Past this point, you either had to go to the OSR, or ignore huge parts of Pathfinder, D&D 4, and D&D 5 just to get what we had back then.

A nice 3.5E SRD can serve as a generic set of fantasy rules for any world, and it makes consistent sense while preserving a lot of the old-school assumptions of magic, classes, and how a fantasy world works. A 3.5 SRD does not have the "owned IP" of Wizards and Paizo and feels genre-neutral.

We need a Creative Commons 3.5E SRD, and that would go the next step into fixing the damage done to the community. I hope this happens, and I am ready to mend those bridges.

Besides, if I were running Wizards, there would be a drop down of "what edition do you want to play" on D&D Beyond, and it would be an inclusive, for every fan place - zero-edition all the way to 5.5E. The company needs to get out of "owning rules" and deeply into the "social network" part of the hobby, and this is where there is money to be made. Same maps and figures, same micro-transactions, the rules are just the backend parts you swap out for your favorite version.

Wizards, please, Creative Commons all your edition SRDs. This is the only way to force yourself to move forward. Holding onto these will force you into "old think" and keep you from realizing the dream of creating a space where everyone can play, no matter what edition they prefer.

You won't make money selling books.

You will make money being the place to play them.

D&D 3.5E feels closer to AD&D than it does 4E or 5E. Pathfinder 1e feels closer to D&D 4E and 5E. There was a point there in the 2010s where things moved away from the old-school, and embraced the Internet and social networking. The games embraced identity. The old-school assumptions were cast aside. You saw this even in the creation of the OSR at this time, D&D 3.5E could hold its own against the OSR, and you didn't need older editions. When Pathfinder 1e came along, the same rules felt and played like something modern and slick. This was the fork in the road that created the split between modern gaming and the OSR.

D&D 3.5E is the last of the old-school games. I still criticize it for the scaling-hit points, but that trend started in AD&D 2nd Edition. It is also heavily inspired by MtG, but not to the point where character builds take over the game. Since you don't get "heaps of special abilities" when you multiclass, it isn't as beneficial as in Pathfinder or D&D 5.

If you do multiclass, you are likely working towards a prestige class, which was mostly done away with for the most part in Pathfinder and all versions of D&D after this. Prestige classes are fantastic, and they give you something to work towards. I miss these. In new games, they constantly make "new classes," and you have nothing to work toward. The prestige classes in 3.5E are still amazing; you have a laundry list of prerequisites to fill, and once you do, you can start leveling up a new excellent class.

Parts of 3.5E are hilariously anarchistic and silly, like the "use rope" skill (that had a synergy with the climb skill) or how there is no "acrobatics" skill, and it is split into "jump, tumble, and balance." But these quirks make the game endearing. Skills have synergies! There is no penalty for unskilled use; it just defaults to your ability modifier. Some skills disallow unskilled use. You get a lot of skill points and can customize deeply.

In fact, these skills are very narrowly defined and apply to specific dungeon situations. I could see a wizard buying a few points of the balance skill (not a class skill for them), especially if dungeons have parts like shimmying along cliffs or narrow ledges. I can't see a wizard in modern games buying "acrobatics," a terrible skill with an awful name. Acrobatics sounds like my character will jump through flaming hoops in a circus. Pathfinder 1e adopted the acrobatics skill and piled jump, balance, and tumble under it - and it was a terrible decision.

D&D 3.5E skills were designed with the dungeon in mind.

Pathfinder 1e was designed as a generic RPG ruleset.

Skills' quirky and clunky nature is a charm of the system, not a problem that needs to be fixed and streamlined. Sometimes I feel the "acrobat" skill in newer games gets ignored, whereas here, having three different parts to improve means you will use them - or decide a few parts aren't for you, so you will pass on them. Plus, "use rope" is so stupidly nerdy and geeky that it has a charm of its own.

Pathfinder 1e was designed to sell "adventure paths," which were the beginning of "story gaming." Thus, the skills had to be more like a generic game to cover all the situations in the paths. D&D 3.5E was designed as a tabletop miniatures game, with skills and abilities that laser-focus on dungeon crawling. In D&D 3.5E, the story was equally the reasoning for the dungeon and the stories the players wrote through play. In Pathfinder, the story was primarily a sales vehicle for adventures.

I can play D&D 3.5E without a story and just as a dungeon crawler. Oh, you need to make a balance check for these squares to pass! D&D 3.5E was designed for a younger audience as a board game.

With Pathfinder, I can, too, but the game is designed for story gaming and leaned into mature themes to sell itself as such (and, in many cases, pulled them back from 3.5E).

Pathfinder 2E, ironically, abandoned the mature themes and returned to being a board game.

Story gaming is not dungeon crawling. I can play story gaming with any rules-light game and have a better time. True dungeon crawling is a board game.

Pathfinder has a lot of flashy, beautiful art. This was the game to play in the 2010s. It did a lot of things right. But it changes a lot, and it introduces a lot of modern mechanics. The game exists because Wizards made mistakes and abandoned a good thing. Pathfinder and D&D 5 feel closer to ARPGs and MMOs than the tabletop gaming I grew up with. Pathfinder 2 went its own way.

Pathfinder 2 also has this corporate aesthetic, a definite look and feel, and it is warping into an extreme style today, almost entirely stylized and overly careful and in some ways, oddly pedestrian with a softer feel. Pathfinder 1e had an edge to it.

D&D 3.5E has a unique style, stylized but classic in some ways. I liked the "lost tomes of knowledge" feeling, like the books were a part of the world you were playing in. Parts of the art were sketchy, like the books were created by adventurers or wizards, and informing you on how to survive in this world.

But more than presentation, playing D&D 3.5E felt like you were navigating through rules, class progression, levels, stories, and the world. When you got to a prestige class, it was the feeling of arriving to a new land after a long voyage. The books as tomes of knowledge helped reinforce the concept, and they were a part of the game.

No, it isn't better. Both games are products of their times. But D&D 3.5E is completely different than Pathfinder 1e. Calling Pathfinder 1e "D&D 3.75E" is a false statement, since Pathfinder embraces modern design theories, which you see advanced in Pathfinder 2E.

Also, D&D 3.5E feels more like Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms to me than D&D 4 or 5E ever will, or for that matter, Pathfinder 1e. This is the world's "home system," and this is when all the new content for these worlds stopped. The world books, gazetteers, and guides all stopped here - and there is a reason for that. Modern designs need to do specific worlds better, while 3.5E's design, especially with prestige classes, could see you working towards taking a particular job or role in the world as part of your progression. I can buy a book covering a part of the world and find new prestige classes in there.

In 5E? Every character multi-classes and combos these generic base classes, and you don't work towards anything except more damage and greater power.

But 3.5E exists as a system that was "taken away from us."

Pathfinder 1e was a reimagining with a modern style and art, and it was not the same thing. A lot of the rules were SRD clones, but going back and reading 3.5E again, I can say PF was a different game entirely built out of the same parts with a few upgrades and designed for a specific setting and story gaming.

We have never had anything like 3.5E since.

While D&D 3.5E and Pathfinder 1e are almost the same game, there are two key areas of difference.

Design and tone.

One is a story game that sells a world and adventure paths and begins the slide into identity gaming.

The other is a dungeon game meant to be played with miniatures, which preserves the old-school tone.

Dungeon Crawl Classics: The 3.5 Mod

I was doing some thought experiments on the best game to use as a Dungeon Crawl Classics expansion, and I went over the normal ones from Swords & Wizardry, OSRIC, Old School Essentials and a few others. But one obvious one crossed my mind...

D&D 3.5E. These are still available, and the core books have PoD options, so it is an interesting combination of systems. There is even a nice SRD available, and the combination can be run for very low cost. Note, even though Pathfinder 1e is D&D 3.5E, I am sticking to the originals since there is less added "fluff" to the characters, like the force missiles wizards get for free. Pathfinder 1e is a "gimme" game, and it is modded to give everyone lots of cool powers. It gets way more complicated as a result, and that comes at a price.

DCC feels like a 3.5E set of rules. They preserve the Fort/Ref/Will saves. The class attack bonuses are in-line with 3.5E. The games feel and play very similarly.

So, why use the game as an expansion? Well, DCC says "steal a magic item system," so 3.5E does a good job of being that game. Another reason is for the monsters, since the attack values are close, the monsters should be usable, given the AC values.

"Should" is relative, since the AC values in 3.5E tend to start at DCC values, and then move up to about 5 points higher than DCC's monsters at the high end. DCC caps its levels at 10, and 3.5E goes up to 20, so the higher-level challenge needs to be there in 3.5E versus DCC. There is a "max level" difference between 3.5E and DCC that causes the values to skew off at higher levels. Where a giant has an AC of 20 in DCC, the same giant in 3.5E will be AC 25.

Also note, that the ability score modifiers are higher in 3.5E than in DCC, where in DCC a 15 is a +1 and a 16 is a +2; in 3.5E, a 15 is a +2, and a 16 is a +3. This makes a difference in to-hits and in general raises the AC values a few points between the games. If you use 3.5E monsters for DCC, AC and hit points in general should be about 20% less. Attack damage is about the same, though that could be 20% less, if you find it too hot. If a monster has multi attacks, those should be given dice down the chain as the action die, just to be fair (and to use all the dice).

So, as a "stuff book" 3.5E works for gear, magic items, and monsters - given a few tweaks and changes.

The 3.5E Mod for DCC

But what if you used DCC as the 3.5E game engine? This is using DCC to drive the game, but most all of 3.5E as the content. The parts of 3.5E we use are:

• Use 3.5E monsters, gear, and treasure, as-is.
• Use the 3.5E ability score modifiers.
• Use 3.5E's races, as-is, any race can be any DCC class.
• Use 3.5E character generation.

What parts of DCC do we use?

• DCC classes and spells are used.
• DCC combat is used.
• Spell burn, spell checks, divine power, spell duels, and all magic rules use DCC.
• The DCC engine runs the game.

So, what is not used?

• The 3.5E classes and spells are not used.
• Except for magic items and spell-like abilities.
• DCC's race-as-class is not used.
• Or it is optional, racial modifiers and abilities apply.
• The CR and encounter balancing system is not used.

It does not seem all that special, other than now using a tougher set of 3.5E monsters, along with higher ability score modifiers to offset the higher AC's and hit points. Well, there are two new additions to the game with this mod:

3.5E Feats

The DCC rulebook mentions adding a feat system. Well, this is how you get it! I may eliminate feats that impersonate the mighty deed of arms die, such as cleave. If you had cleave, it would probably let you do that without doing a mighty deed, and let your deed die add to attack and damage as usual.

Remember all characters get a feat at first level, and humans get a bonus feat. This will go a long way to helping to-hits with weapon focus and help bring down that higher AC, and the increased power should help with the more challenging monsters.

Also, remember that fighters get bonus combat feats according to their class chart. This will begin to make them very overpowered, but the monsters are far tougher in this mod, so it should balance out. Who knows? You aren't using the CR system anyway, so tough is relative.

You could just say, "A feat at level one and every even level," for all characters, and be fine.

3.5E Skills

This is optional, but it sounds really strange. You could use the 3.5E skill system, with a few modifications. Since the thief skills "are" 3.5E skills, being forced to buy them does not make sense, and it overwrites the DCC thief skills. So skills only as an option, and with these special rules:

• If a character has a skill given by a level, the modifier is as-is.
• No points need to be spent on these!
• Skill point costs are as-per 3.5E.
• The highest level of a skill is the one that counts.
• Use the 3.5E DC system and suggested difficulties.

So a lawful thief, with a +1 pick pocket skill in DCC, could but the 3.5E skill "sleight of hand" up to a +4 at level one, and have that as their "pick pocket" skill, overwriting the +1 innate to the DCC thief class. At level 4, this skill increases to a +7, and if the thief spent no more points on that skill, they would have a +7 (overwriting the lower of the two, the 3.5E skill level of +4).

That same character, if all they want to do is use their innate pick pocket skill in DCC, does not need to spend points to raise the 3.5E skill "sleight of hand" to that level, or spend any points at all on it, if they choose.

This will lead to thieves having a lot of skill points to spend, but it also reduces the need to have a high INT to have all those points to spend, which was a flaw of the 3.5E skill system. This also frees up points for knowledge, craft, and performance skills; since skills are not crucial to class abilities anymore. If a class gives you it, you get it, no points needed.

Normally, DCC has no use for a skill-system - everything is covered with ability checks. This lets you have an optional skill system that is not tied up in keeping class skills maxed out. Some classes will get new abilities (fighter and the class skill of climb, jump, ride, and swim) to spend points on. The characters will be a bit more heavy, but be able to interact with 3.5E adventures and skill challenges.

Also, note the skills search, spot, sense motive, and listen (all WIS) will become very important, since 3.5E has these "sensory skills" and DCC does not. These will often be untrained skills (in 3.5E a +0 modifier for skills, plus any ability modifiers), and work as normal.

D&D 3.5E: The Best Version of D&D?

I know 3.5E has some huge exploits and issues, but wow, is this DMG good. Whoever did the 4E and 5E DMG lobotomized the game, stripped out anything cool about this book, and tossed away an astonishing amount of information.

This book has it all, treasures, random dungeons, random NPCs, weather, terrain, encounter tables, loads of traps, encounter building, pacing, creating adventures, how to run the game, random doors, dungeon feature tables, urban encounters, hirelings (yes!), leadership, campaigns, world building, planes...

Tons of variant rules are in here! Alternate ability score creation, monsters as races, creating new races, creating new classes, prestige classes, cohorts, familiars, mounts, animal companions, epic characters up to 30th level, artifacts, creating magic items, and one of the best magic item sections in any D&D edition...

A full glossary, sample dungeon tiles, sidebar lists, table lists, and an index.

Some of these things have yet to make a return to D&D 5E. Some of these sections took decades to return to the game, and they aren't even as detailed and well designed as what we have here. Some are still not a part of the game.

Nothing, no game, not even Pathfinder 1e, has come close to the level of detail and sheer usefulness as this book delivers in half the size of the Pathfinder 1e core rulebook, at 322 pages. The only fault? There isn't that much art, but who cares? The book is dense, but that makes it easier to use, I do not want to be flipping through a coffee table art book when I am looking for a chart I want.

Pathfinder 1e's GMG was good, but this is amazing. The Pathfinder book is far more useful for world-hopping, which, again, pegs Pathfinder as a story-based game. Most of the GM tools in Pathfinder are more useful for generating areas and NPCs for story-gaming. There is a lot of information on creating plots, stories, arcs, and large epic tales. I am betting they are relying on you still having your 3.5E DMG for all the dungeon-based stuff, but the dungeon-based information in the 3.5E DMG is like nothing I have ever seen. The D&D 3.5E DMG is a dungeon-crawling powerhouse resource, epic in scope, and it helps you craft incredible adventure sites and environments.

The Pathfinder 1e GMG feels weak in comparison, and it is a step down from the 3.5E DMG. Ultimately, it is a support book for playing adventure paths, filling in the "everything not in the adventure" around the sites laid out in the adventures you buy.

D&D 3.5E focuses in on the dungeon environment with a magnifying glass, and anything in that dungeon could kill you. Even a door, or a strange statue on a wall. The DMG surrounds the DM with a complete toolbox of dungeon devices, designs, and dastardly denizens. The book alone is a masterclass in stocking and building a dungeon. It makes sense, since D&D 3.5E's focus is squarely on "surviving those halls" and the entire game is almost a "dungeon survival tabletop game."

D&D 5E? Forget it, that game is so lost in story-land it might as well be rules-light FATE. 3.5E is a tactical wargame, better character builder, dungeon boardgame, and the stories are left up to the DM and players. You are not "forced" by game mechanics to come up with "inspiration sources" - you roleplay it all. There is no mechanical benefit for roleplaying, but the DM may smile upon high drama, heroism, and sacrifice.

Let people roleplay. We don't need rules for it.

Remember the era, this was the 2000s - Sum 41, Tony Hawk, the PS2 & 3, X-Box, extreme sports, snowboarding, BMX racing, The Offspring, skateboarding, and the entire era was filled with rebellion and attitude. D&D was still for nerds and outcasts. Geek culture was tied to the hip with D&D. There was no OSR, as it was just being born. The Matrix was still cool. The pioneers of gaming were still around, and future legends like Monte Cook were playing the game and writing the next books.

We knew how to tell a story and roleplay.

Like getting on a skateboard, you just did it.

3.5E was the best version of D&D Wizards ever put out. Yes, it had problems, but 5E does, too. I criticize West Coast designs like this, but this is the only West Coast design I like. 3.5E as a story game, like Pathfinder 1e? Forget it, play 5E, that is a better story game. But as a dungeon game? With dungeon-focused skills? And a focus entirely on dungeon crawling? That isn't overpowered, CR+1, handing out feats like candy, Pathfinder 1e?

3.5E was peak D&D.

This DMG was decades ahead of its time and it still has never been touched. If you think 5.5E is the ultimate D&D, I invite you to step back two editions to the 2000s, and get lost in the halls of a truly terrifying, almost Elden Ring level of difficulty, labyrinth where every step could be your last.

How to Play Adventures Dark & Deep (OSRIC)

While the original core books of Adventures Dark & Deep are out of print, the game can still be played. But how? You need a few books, and it all starts with OSRIC.

https://www.lulu.com/shop/stuart-marshall/osric-22-hc/hardcover/product-1yz9kqmm.htm

You can use AD&D, but the PoD copies on DTRPG contain errors, such as the number seven being transposed to one. It is much better to support the community, and the core game is a more accurate reflection using OSRIC. Plus, people are free to publish with OSRIC. It is not AD&D but close enough and open enough to do the same job or better.

Another option could be to use Swords & Wizardry with these books. You won't have the "first edition" experience, but it could be patched together and work fine.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/publisher/3728/brw-games

The Book of Lost Lore has the Adventures Dark and Deep "extra content" pulled out and made the first edition compatible; this is all the extra races, classes, spells, and an optional combat system. This book was created for those who wanted the "extra stuff" of ADAD but not the base rules, so adding this to OSRIC will give you a good approximation of the original game.

You also get the skill rules here, which are vital to the game experience. Customizing your character by spending experience points for skills is a fantastic feature and takes OSRIC to the next level.

The second part is the monster book, the Book of Lost Beasts. This is a pretty easy recommendation and changes the variety of monsters in the classic game to add more unpredictability. You also get lower planes creature generation tables, so things can be even more random.

So you have a few extra classes, races, spells, and monsters? Is this the game? What is so different? Is it OSRIC-plus? Well, yes. We are getting close to, not the actual game, but this is close enough. Considering the actual game is not much different than "OSRIC-plus," it works well.

Where things start to go differently is adding in the third book, the Book of Lost Tables. This gathers most of the tables in a hex-crawl system, dungeon creators, town creators, wilderness encounters, and a bunch of tales in the ADAD Referee's Guide and puts them in one excellent book that is good for any game. This takes normal OSRIC and turns the game into an emergent gameplay system packed with charts to generate an entire world.

If you are not playing in a classic setting, procedurally generating one may be the way.

Want more? Swords of Cthulhu adds all the classic "removed from the DDG" Lovecraftian mythos and packs the game full of evil cults and terrible monsters. This is a fantastic book but also optional since some groups prefer to avoid mixing mythos like this.

Another book in the line of books is Swords of Wuxia, which has a "Mythic China" setting right, respectfully, and does not borrow the culture for some "made-up place." The setting is called "Mythic China," it isn't some borrowed culture like the "Egypt area" of Golarion or D&D's Kara-Tur. This is the real deal, which is done with careful research and respect for the culture. It is a "do not miss" book that immerses you in this fantasy world.

Finally, and most optionally, the Adventures Great and Glorious book adds rules for domain play, mass combat, and high-level play. It is an "end game" book that feels the most optional here but may be necessary once characters reach higher levels.

You can play an OSRIC-style version of Adventures Dark & Deep if the ideas are essential. The original game was a hypothetical extension of the first edition, so this gets you close enough with all the added bits of the out-of-print game.

You then have to ask yourself, are the ideas in ADAD essential? Do the extra races and classes make a huge difference? Some players may be hard-pressed to tell the difference between an OSRIC game and the ADAD version. Is it all first-edition, and that is what matters. The ADAD version of "OSRIC+" adds more of the unexpected and mixes things with new classes and spells. The old-school skill system is worth the price of admission. The book of charts is one of the best. The treatment of both Mythic China and the Lovecraftian mythos is top-notch.

As an OSRIC expansion, these books are pure gold; there is nothing like them in gaming.

Off the Shelf: D&D 3.5E

I think one of the biggest fabrications in gaming in the last 20 years was that Pathfinder 1e was D&D 3.75. Yes, the games are practically the same, but in a few, key, important ways they are not.

D&D 3.5 is still its own game.

And Pathfinder 1e is not an upgrade, is it a side-grade. It is not D&D 3.75.

Pathfinder 1e is essentially a story game, designed to sell adventure paths. When they released, the company knew what to do, turn up the mature content, sex up the art, and target the game at older players. Rise of the Runelords has a "sin system" and got into all sorts of edgy and mature topics, far beyond anything Wizards would publish (as a mainstream book, with one exception). All this was removed for Pathfinder 2E, since their market is the nebulous audience on social media. They used a lot of mature topics and sex to sell Pathfinder 1e to an older audience, and it worked.

Pathfinder 1e is still one of my iconic, greatest of all time games. But D&D 3.5E is not a prequel, nor is it inferior - it is a different game entirely, even though it was cloned. Both games have huge flaws, yes, but the goals of a game design matter greatly here.

Pathfinder enhances character power, and you see the beginnings of modern gaming in here, such as the "force missiles" that evocation wizards get, the "free magic attack per turn" that you see in 5E and most all modern games with the cantrips. Back in 3.5E, if a caster runs out of spells, you are learning how to use a ranged weapon, quick. The game is more old-school and sticks to those sensibilities.

Also, in Pathfinder, you see a simplification of skills, and they combined 3.5E's jump, tumble, and balance skills into "acrobat" - which you see in every modern game. I do not like acrobat, since the name implies working in a circus, and I would rather have balance be a skill, in case a wizard wants to buy a few cross-class skill levels in it just to be able to shimmy along a cave ledge. The skills in D&D 3,5E were far more oriented to "dungeon map play" than Pathfinder 1e's skills, which felt more like a generic game's skill list meant for story play.

And D&D 3.5E is dungeon-crawl and miniatures oriented. Yes, Pathfinder 1e has the same map and combat rules, but everything in 3.5E feels tightly tied to the map-based play. Pathfinder is full of "story feats" and a bunch of other softer character systems, where D&D 3.5E always felt more like a "dungeon battle" game, much like what they wanted to do with D&D 4E but failed spectacularly at. The jump skill is there to jump chasms placed on the battle mat. The balance skill is meant to be rolled in squares that require a balance check. Tumble is for character who want to use that as a special combat move, otherwise you don't need it.

Use rope is for using ropes, and has a skill synergy with climbing. Skill synergies were big, and added depth to the skills that we don't see in modern gaming.

There were more prestige classes in D&D 3.5E, and they were worth building towards. Pathfinder 1e seemed to follow the single or multi-classing model and avoided prestige classing for the most part, and you rarely see prestige classes in modern gaming. Prestige classes are cool! They are often overpowered, but since you had to work towards them, they were worth it and felt like a special achievement. Even roleplaying-wise, you got treated differently, in new social circles, and you felt like a "somebody."

D&D 3.5E also felt far more world-agnostic than Pathfinder 1e. The game is not linked to a single "take it or leave it" campaign setting, the art isn't trying to sell you football-headed goblin plushies, and the iconic characters aren't overused to the point of feeling like the only characters in the world. The 3.5E Deities and Demigods book was mostly classical pantheons, with over twice the page count going towards "non D&D" gods and demigods. 3.5E felt more like a "generic fantasy game" than Pathfinder 1e did, by far, and you get a 3.5E SRD these days, and it practically feels like a setting-neutral game.

With modern games, I can't say any of them outside of the OSR feel setting neutral.

Pathfinder 1e also has a huge problem with subsystems and rules bloat. You buy a book, and they give you a corruption system or kingdom score to track. In D&D 3.5E, you get your character, and you play. The design of the game stuck to the dungeon-crawling, and anything outside of that was a referee ruling. You are not tracking a corruption score in 3.5E, you commit an evil act or fall victim to a dark curse, and the DM says what happens as a result.

You don't need all these silly subsystems that Pathfinder drops in! you are better off without them.

Make a ruling.

Play.

Pathfinder 1e amps up the number of feats everyone gets. There is a huge amount of power creep going on here, and this leads to more balance issues, record keeping, and power gaming.

In modern games, the lines between good and evil start to become blurred, and orcs and goblins are our friends! People with demon-blood are not fighting against the blood of pure evil, but just different and cosplay-friendly character options. Half vampires are just really pale and have special abilities. Anybody can have any ability score modifier.

In D&D 3.5E, alignment was a thing. The DM controlled alignment changes, and they weren't done by earning points in some add-on system. You did good acts, and your alignment gradually shifted from evil to good, but you needed to prove yourself. You did evil, and you started to drift towards the darkness. New games do away with alignment completely, and the games suffer as a result. Nothing means anything. There is no evil in the world. Characters do whatever they want. Nobody judges anybody. The world becomes cosmopolitan, small, peaceful, and boring.

Pathfinder 1e started us down the road of this same-ism. It kicked off the modern design and multitudes of different shaped character races. It blurred good and evil. There were some banger good and evil books in the series, but by the end, the iconic (and every evil) Hellknights of the setting were presented as sometimes heroes and figures worth of respect. The setting ended up confusing the rules and muddling the absolutes that fantasy needs to be compelling. They wrote entire triggering concepts out of the setting out of fear of social media outrage.

The game ceased being a tool to tell stories, and a means to create an alternate identity for social media. Pathfinder became too much "about itself" than "about my story." D&D 3.5E? It is a dungeon game, first, not a story game or something to see yourself in. The lines between good and evil are clear.

And yes, D&D 3.5E is a West Coast design, and feels like deck-building in MtG. This is designed by some noted designers, and some pretty iconic ones. I feel this game is the only West Coast design that I like, the original is the best here before social media came along and the game started to pander to outside forces. Yes, the hit-points and damage are scaled, but this started in AD&D 2e. D&D 3.5E still has that design purity, and it feels like it cares more about old-school sensibilities than any other modern game - even Pathfinder 1e, which is its clone.

Where Pathfinder 1e wants to be a story game, D&D 3.5E knows what it is - a dungeon crawler.

The world is left up to you.

And the story is yours to write.

Fear of Making a Ruling

Many modern games instill this "fear of making a ruling" in referees, and some games I read give referees no room to even make one. D&D 4 felt like this to me. We came away from that game with the feeling that all the referee did was read the text in the highlighted box, set up the monsters, play the monsters, and lay out the map for the next room.

The referee was a "play" button on a DVD player or a streaming service movie remote.

Also, the more rules a game has, the less the referee has to do. Some games barely need a referee, and many have solo-play modes, which are the game. The more "referee advice" a game pushes, the less free a referee feels to make a ruling. There are good general guidelines, but I don't see a few hundred pages of referee advice being needed.

In the first version of D&D we played, there was barely a page or two describing who the DM was and what they did. Since then, referee advice has grown, and now we need 500 pages explaining how to do something that was supposed to be simple and straightforward. Somewhere along the way, the art of refereeing a game becomes one thing, and today, it feels more like a training manual for managers instead of enabling creativity. Please play the game however the company requires you to, or the game will be unfun, and you will disappoint your players. Thank you.

These thoughts came up when I read about the corruption and sanity systems for the new Amazing Adventures game. Many games have these systems, basically "referee tracking systems" about various aspects of the character. They are also intended to "soften the blow" of a mechanic like a "save or die" sort of "save versus insanity" monster attack. Back in the old days, monsters did all kinds of nasty things to characters, save or die, turn to stone, level drain, rust away gear, burrow their way into the brain or heart for instant death in a few turns, and so many terrible effects pulled from horror movies.

We never needed "soft" tracking systems. While I appreciate them in the game, and they support the Cthulhu-genre play, things were much more harsh and absolute back then. They are here to help the Cthulhu genre; things were much harsher and more brutal, and they relied more on referee judgment. In AA, the corruption mechanic relies on the total mental damage taken. The system feels like a slow progression over 20+ levels, more than a system intended for a faster play experience. If used as-is, I would speed this up a little and tweak it to be a little more like the ones in horror games.

In Shadows of the Demon Lord, corruption is tracked per act and bumped up by one for each committed. The effects get progressively worse and can be reversed by repentance. There is a random chance for a "corruption manifestation" to appear. This system feels better to me, and in the old days, we would just "borrow it" for our AD&D game and keep playing. If the Rolemaster "Arms Law" felt like a better combat system, we would use that for AD&D, too.

In older games, "making a ruling" included "borrowing systems from other games." In today's games, you almost feel forbidden to do anything like that. It is a good thing Amazing Adventures and Castles & Crusades are built to be "hacker games" like the ones in the old days; if you find a system you want to drop in and use or mod the rules in any way, you are free to go ahead and do it.

Soft tracking systems also sometimes break. I have had things I should have known happen, but they did not occur because the game's internal soft-tracking system prevented them. You must be brave enough to override what the game tells you to do and just say, "It happens."

If you feel it should happen, it happens.

And then you move on.

Never revisit, try to hack the soft-tracker, make the game work the way you should feel it should, or try to change the rules. You should trust yourself 100% of the time, make the ruling, and move on. This is true for every internal tracking system a game gives you for sanity, corruption, reputation, fame, renown, kingdom score, distrust, diplomatic factor, or any other numeric system the game provides to track some soft factor often hidden from the players.

There are times I feel a simple journal works better than all of these systems, and you can look back through the events of the campaign and say, "This event made the party more famous," and "That event corrupted these farmlands." You don't need soft-trackers since your journal lists things that happened, and you can make rulings on "what logically happens next" for each of them. You can also notice patterns and increase the effects of repeated actions, like a thief who always gets caught stealing from shopkeepers in an area (or a thief who never gets caught, and the shopkeepers start to take notice of things missing).

Most of the time, keeping a simple journal will beat any numeric soft-tracking system games try to introduce and produce much better (and varied) results that create a dynamic sandbox and game history.