Runequest & Minecraft

The stereotypical default "adventure start" for D&D is, "You are all at an inn when...!"

The exact same starting default in Runequest is, "Your tribe declares this hill next to a river shall be their new home!"

Runequest is a much lower-level experience. Its iconic start is similar to another beloved game, where you start in the middle of nowhere and build, craft, and explore the world.

Runequest is a lot like Minecraft.

When you have D&D, you assume this pseudo-modern Renaissance setting, with the typical British castles, thee and thou, those Ren Fair theme park towns, bustling markets, tall ships, jousting, knights, princesses, comical bards, and every other trope across a thousand years of history jammed into one time period.

D&D is a game of stereotypes.

D&D is, by default, set in a time of plenty. If a town doesn't have it, traders will bring it in, and people will have enough money or resources to trade for whatever they want. Almost every D&D setting (outside of Dark Sun, but even that is a wealthy setting that does not worry about food) is like this. Trading routes have been long established. There is a vast "fat and wealthy" class. The towns and cities are enormous, and the borders between kingdoms are often drawn on well-established maps.

In Runequest, that starting scenario means your tribe is worried about the number of cows, oxen, sheep, chickens, and horses it has. People are building houses. People in your village go out in the hills and forests to forage. Others are tilling the land to plant crops. A few are building defenses. Some are making primitive tools and clothing.

You, the town's young adventurers, are called upon to go save someone who went missing, deal with raiders trying to steal your food or animals, explore the wilds looking for resources, and investigate ancient sites of mystery on your land. You help out where you can, but as your power grows, the town sees you as more important, being the problem solvers and people they call upon during a crisis.

Sound familiar? Yeah, that's Minecraft.

Oh, and by the way, you are likely crafting your own weapons, learning magic from things you find in those ancient sites, becoming more robust to deal with threats, and finding treasures lost by heroes of old in those ruins. As your town expands, the threats grow, and you begin working with surrounding settlements or fighting with them. You start to discover the secrets of the land and universe. Your power grows. You can craft better weapons and armor and enchant them.

That is all, um, Minecraft.

Runequest is Minecraft with a Bronze Age "mod" put on top of the game. Granted, this is a very simplistic way of describing the game and sort of unfair because it offers so much more, but it is far easier than describing it as "sort of like Conan and Ancient Greece, if you read the Odyssey, but not really that way." But when you look at how the lowest level of the world works, the day-to-day life of people is a lot like what you do in a Minecraft game.

Take care of the animals, till the fields, build houses, craft weapons and tools, build defenses, cut roads, explore, deal with dangers, threats, and hostile forces, learn magic, fish for food, hunt, trap, craft a bow and arrows, train, and explore ancient places of mystery.

This is your jam.

And that Runequest jam is Minecraft. Minus all the crazy builds, those are still possible if you play on longer arcs and open your mind a little. But the gameplay loop of the typical Runequest village start is surprisingly similar. You don't have iron, but you do have bronze as your "quality metal" and magic.

D&D is far too cosmopolitan and modernized, especially in its modern form. In Pathfinder 2, I get the feeling that Steampunk DoorDash is operating with spider mechs, delivering food from a magic Internet communication system, and the world is the Industrial Age. D&D has this "Age of Sail" feeling where worldwide trade brings commodities from distant lands to local markets. D&D is fat, wealthy, affluent, civilized, and with established governments and social norms. The towns are immaculate, built up, and look like tourist towns with dressed-up cosplay actors and many stereotypical Ren Faire things. Starships fly in from out of space. Gates connect the planes, and the outer planes are places everyone knows about. Gunpowder exists. Magical healing means no one gets sick. Parts are a parody of the fantasy genre, while others are so modern or sci-fi they don't belong in the game. D&D is more of a 1900s Victorian fantasy these days.

D&D and Pathfinder 2 are modern-day genre games that wear fantasy cosplay.

We are one step away from the designers of these games introducing cell phone magic items because characters can't be expected to not have those, and players won't know how to function in a pretend world without them.

Go ahead and laugh.

I will be right on this one day.

With Runequest, you are stripping away two whole technological ages. The Renaissance and Middle Ages have never happened, nor will they ever happen. You don't even have organized churches. Faiths are personal. Sea travel is hazardous, and with smaller boats, it is short-range. People need help to keep their animals cared for and in pens and must store food for longer winters. Tribes move into unsettled areas and try to settle them.

There is no iron or steel.

If you live in a small town, you won't have an "adventure shop" selling weapons, tools, torches, and armor. A smith will craft all these, and other tradespeople will craft essential gear like ropes and leather goods like packs. You won't have a wandering magic item merchant. Trade caravans exist, but only along major routes. There is no "industry" in this world. There are no "world-spanning governments" or "massive organized religions." People fight hard to scrape out survival.

You may even craft and sell your own goods. Get crafting skills, gather or buy resources, and tell your referee that your character will be crafting between adventures or during downtime.

You will be able to make quality gear and make coins on the side.

You add the technology level of D&D and all the trade, social, governmental, and world-spanning advancements with it. Once you have mass-produced iron, you will have an industry, universities, worldwide trade, exploration, colonization, a settled world with nations, and a powerful church. And you say high magic is added to this? That is an accelerant towards mass colonization and conquering the world.

The best model for relating Runequest to others is Minecraft. This is a survival game in which you need to craft your technology yourself out of the things you find. There is an "urban and social" part of Runequest that ignores the survival aspect, but 99% of the world is made up of these small towns and settlements fighting for survival in a hostile world.

How Do I Play This? HARP, Part 1

Creating a HARP Fantasy character is easy! By following the six painless steps below, your character will be complete and ready for action in no time.

All right, let's put that to the test. We want to create a character and get up and play quickly. Considering that I wrote an article on Rolemaster, where I could not get past the skill advancement system, this one will put me to the test.

Let's design a simple fighter, Lug.

Step 1: Choose a Profession

Lug chooses fighter! Picking a class is easy, so let's figure out the rest.

Favored Categories

The first thing we see is "Favored Categories" on page 13. I can feel the panic setting in! This isn't D&D! I want to run back to the d20! Let's chill; we want to figure out how to play this game and make a note of them:

• Athletic: 2
• General: 2
• Combat: 8
• Physical: 8

From the book:

So when creating a Fighter, you have 2 initial skill ranks to assign to the Athletic category, 2 to the General category, 8 to the Combat category, and 8 to the Physical category. Once these free skill ranks have been assigned, any additional skills desired in any of the four favored categories are purchased at 2 points per skill rank. Skills in categories outside of a Fighter’s favored categories, such as the Subterfuge category, are purchased at 4 Development Points per skill rank.

Oh. These are starting skill ranks? What is a skill rank? It is like a zero to N skill level. You do not have the skill; it is rank zero. The skills gained during character creation are free skill ranks in those areas, not development points (earned during level-ups).

All skills start at level 0 - unskilled; everyone has every skill at level zero. Putting one skill rank gets you skill level one. This is not like most 2d6 systems that force you to "buy" a skill at level zero and introduce another level below that of "unskilled."

Zero is no skill - simple.

Development Points (DP) work differently than skill ranks. At every level, you get 50 DP. Since our fighter has four Favored Categories of skills (athletic, general, combat, and physical), all skills in those groups cost 2 DP to buy a rank increase, while those outside those four categories cost 4 DP to buy a rank increase.

So, the DP costs of skills in Favored Categories have nothing to do with the skill ranks gained during character creation. Good to remember!

So, do not need to spend those two free athletic skill ranks on one skill - they are not DP! You get two free athletic skill ranks, one skill at level 2 or two level 1 skills. Skills are one of the big stumbling blocks here, but once you understand the difference between the free skill ranks you are given and how Favored Categories determine how many DP it takes to rank up a skill in that area, you will get this easy. This does come up later, and you will be getting free skill ranks from other sources (not spent like DP), so understand the difference!

Buying Skills

There is a table in the skills chapter, and our maximum rank at level one is a +6. So we will pick:

• Athletics (2 total): Climbing+2
• General (2): Perception+1 and Resistance(Stamina)+1
• Combat (8 total): Long Blades (Long Sword)+2, Bows+2, Brawling+2, and Disarm Foe+2.
• Physical (8): Armor+2, Endurance+2, Jumping+2, and Swimming+2.

That was not too hard! It's far more accessible than picking Pathfinder 1e skills. Note that there is a box on page 35 listing the most important skills and what they are used for, including the Endurance skill, which determines hits. There are many good ones. Read this and see what they do.

Also, note that we had to make a few mandatory subskill picks. These skills are noted with a cross symbol on the skill chart on page 36. Weapon skills are unique in that Lug is skilled primarily with his long sword, but all other weapons in the long blade group are at a -10 from his total skill.

Resistance(Stamina) is not like weapon skills, it is a saving throw, and the other Resistance specializations are unskilled (will & magic). Resistance(Stamina) is just like a fortitude save, so saving throws (and hits) are leveled up as a part of the skill system in this game. This is a massive difference between this game and B/X and 5E!

Endurance+2 is his "hit points" skill, and the level of this will affect Lug's total final hits. You do not get free hit points as you level; you need to buy skill levels in Endurance.

Armor+2 reduces the maneuver penalty to all agility and quickness-based skills and abilities to its minimum.

Perception+1? Not falling into traps!

This is how HARP works: saves and hit points are skills that can be improved. Armor penalties are reduced by skill levels. And as you will see later, you never roll under an ability or skill score. HARP is a d100 exploding roll-high system. You never roll under. You almost always try to get a 101+ on a roll to succeed. In a sense, it is like a d20 roll-over system but percentage-based. And exploding!

I am already liking this system.

Key Stats

Next, we have a section called Key Stats, and they are:

• Strength, Agility, Constitution, Quickness

These are just informational for character creation and give you a guide of where to prioritize your ability score point allocation. Focusing on these four areas will make a good fighter. So this is a free "min-max guide" and nothing you need to write down.

Professional Abilities

Next, we get to choose two Professional Abilities.

All Fighters may choose two abilities from the following list: Close Shot, Lightning Reflexes, Shield Training and Speed Loader.

These are listed under the Talents & Other Options on page 56 of chapter 7. We will choose Shield Training and Lightning Reflexes. He can now "use the trained bonus for the shield" and gets a "+5 Initiative." Flipping later in the book, shields have two defensive values, a better one for trained and a worse one for untrained. Noted. We will be using shields, so we want the training bonus.

Level Bonuses

After this, there is a paragraph listing bonuses gained at different levels.

Beginning at first level, and then every fifth level thereafter (5th, 10th, etc.), Fighters gain a +10 bonus to any Combat skill of their choice. No Combat skill can have more than a +30 bonus from this ability. Beginning at first level, and then every third level thereafter (3rd, 6th, etc.), Fighters also gain a +5 bonus to any one skill from the Athletic or Physical categories. No skill may have greater than a +25 bonus from this ability.

So we only get two of these:

• A +10 in any combat skill we choose (we picked Long Blades).
• A +5 bonus to any skill from the Athletic or Physical categories (Endurance).

We Are Done!

That is it for class selection. I think the hardest part was figuring out how the skills work, but once we realized they were all "free skill ranks in these areas" and unrelated to development points, it became really easy to understand.

Also, note the section for totaling skill bonuses on page 35! Skills have formulas for determining their percentages, and most skill totals are modified by two ability scores (or one twice). Our class also gives us a special bonus for two skills (noted above). We haven't calculated anything yet since we don't have ability scores. This is a different system where you make skill and unique ability picks before stat generation and design a fighter subclass to begin.

This was not as hard as I expected. I needed a few key pieces of knowledge to make good choices based on my class and that chart on page 35 (note "Power Point Development" for casters). Once you get used to the "key skills" different builds need and the concept of free skill ranks versus development points, you can easily sail through this step of character creation.

We now have our class, a list of favored skill categories, our skill list started, and two professional abilities. Step one is done, and we will move on to step two next time!

Off the Shelf: Against the Darkmaster

You can't talk about Rolemaster-like systems without including Against the Darkmaster, another MERP-like game similar to HARP. This is far more MERP-like than HARP and aims to recreate the experience of a Lord of the Rings-style game with random villains of the epics called the Darkmaster.

One can't ignore the evolution of HARP with the Martial Law book. This addition brings the game closer to Rolemaster, showcasing its adaptability and potential for new experiences. HARP + HARP's Martial Law book is a full Rolemaster replacement but with far less complexity.

Against the Darkmaster is more MERP-like, with simplified rules and simple crit tables. It is the easiest of all the RM clones and games. This is also the best if you are doing an epic campaign where the heroes will face down the campaign's main villain in an epic ending battle.

Rolemaster FRP and Rolemaster Classic are the hardest to learn, and the new Rolemaster Core is a little less complicated but still daunting. A lot of people like the new Rolemaster Core books, though, and the new game is worth supporting since ICE is a good company that keeps these classic games alive.

Golarion vs. Others

Runequest's world of Glorantha is killing my interest in Golarion.

The Pathfinder world has a couple strikes against it now, at least for me:

• A theme park world
• Appropriates Earth's cultures
• The remaster's retcons
• The world is too modern with steampunk and guns
• Sanitized, all upsetting content removed
• No savage Conan feeling, too much cute
• Art panders to social media (selfies, Day of the Dead, etc.)

I was playing a GURPS version of the 1e world, but that predictably fell flat since the world is a leveled place, like every d20 fantasy world, and converting is too much hassle. A lot of love went into the making of Golarion; there is no doubt about it. The early art is fantastic. The work done on adventure paths is excellent. But the world is less a world and more of a commercial enterprise meant to sell you adventure paths like a cereal aisle.

I would have loved for Paizo to retire Golarion and create a new world for the remaster, along with new iconic characters. Support the old world via a "legacy" content line, and maybe open that up to the community to publish for. Really, with all the new monsters, dragons, Starfinder 2 integration, and underworld bad guys, why not?

Golarion needed to be retired.

I would have loved to see what the art and creative teams could have created with a blank slate.

I loved this place. It was cool when it felt like Conan. I always disagreed with the shameless copy-and-pastes of Earth cultures here, with the Egypt area feeling tonally off completely, even in 1e. When my brother and I saw the Egypt area, we cringed and felt a company like Paizo could be more original and not have to be appropriate cultures and copy others. Looking back, I outgrew Golarion and may store my PF 1e books again since I am not playing 1e.

I had hopes for the world, but my hopes were more considerable than reality.

Nostalgia is a lie that is related to self-harm and is a form of depression.

My GURPS Dungeon Fantasy game will likely move to its own world, more focused on dungeon-crawling and hex maps and less on converting 15-year-old d20 content. If I played 1e, I would use the world. If I am not playing either version, there isn't much holding me here (except for a few thousand pawns, easily repurposed as GURPS pawns).

I was flipping through my Glorantha books and realized that in this world, I can point to a spot on a map, open a book, and read about its history. In Pathfinder, I can do that, but I need to buy the adventure path or get a brief summary in the core world guide. Golarion has a limited written history, and like many d20 worlds, people are in a place just because they are. They did not come from anywhere; the maps are mainly static, and the borders rarely change.

Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms have a few similar issues. The settings are not in active development, and they are a strange collection of random materials across decades of game editions. They don't exist in a game-neutral form written to keep history consistent and logical. Like Golarion, the worlds exist to support published adventures and novels. They were commercial concerns, meant to ship products.

But the Runequest world is fascinating. The central area has a deep history, a back-and-forth between empires and other forces, rebellions and upstarts, dragons, and the rumblings of ancient wars. The default Glorantha starting area is the tabletop RPG fantasy-world equivalent of the Star Wars original trilogy or Lord of the Rings. This is the battleground of the gods, and you start out as the simple tribespeople and farmers of the land, rising to glory.

Another world that provides this fantastic historical overview with vast layers of detail is Harnworld. The setting is game-neutral, and the writers focus on cultures, peoples, history, maps, and supporting the world. This is a deep and detailed world; you can get more out of it as you dig into it.

Runequest's Glorantha is hands-down the best Bronze Age setting. Harnworld is one age past that, the best Middle Ages setting. Renaissance settings are most D20 worlds, and most D&D settings, along with most other OSR games, fall into this category. 

I don't know a game that does Renaissance that well; most of them fall into the "adventurer class" trap and lean hard into theme parks. Warhammer FRP would be my best example of a Renaissance-like setting, but Warhammer is more in its own genre these days. Failing that, Midgard by Kobold Press is the best Renaissance-style setting, but it also does Steampunk.

I don't feel the Golarion lure anymore. Many places feel like Disney World-themed entertainment areas rather than part of an authentic culture. Egypt Land! Africa Land! Norse Land! Techno Land! Not Ravenloft Land! Asia Land! Undead Land! France Land!

When I was a kid, I thought this style of theme park world was interesting, and I had Mystara.

These days, I am outgrowing the entire concept of a randomly taped-together theme-park world, and it does not make any logical sense other than the "gods made it this way" and "it has to keep being this way just because."

The way C&C does it is superior and respects the original culture far more. Write a sourcebook in a themed setting, and don't try to shove it into a world. The world the players will be immersed in is an Egypt-like high fantasy setting. Players don't get to "opt out" of being a part of the culture by being a robot or dragon person or some silly outsider like a talking puppet or houseplant.

Or worse yet, wearing cosplay horns as a Tiefling, and cultures may see demon-blooded backgrounds as corrupted by the pits of Hell or Undead lords. Then, the game has to force a change in the original culture (that should be respected) in order to support the game's silly and random backgrounds. Of course, ancient Egypt accepts androids, were-jackals, and skeleton races! You will break the character creation system if you don't force a culture to respect every background equally.

It sounds horrible in a modern context, but to properly respect the culture, you need to consider certain things. If you made a race of "Set-like" jackal folk just because you have cool art for them, you can't force that historical culture to accept servants of the underworld as regular citizens.

Are you saying modern culture is superior to another one you are trying to recreate? That is colonialism. Before inserting your values into the equation, you must respect the people, time, and place. A lot of these games written for modern audiences are colonializing the hell out of these theme-park cultures they want to adopt and me-too for book sales.

Or do what Runequest and Harnworld do: Write a new culture that is "inspired by" instead of "stealing from." Make it so players need to learn and adopt a part of that culture for their characters instead of letting them be outsider planar saviors again and again.

Respecting a culture means players must engage with and immerse themselves in it.

Off the Shelf: HARP

HARP is another I just saved from the sell boxes.

For one, the long out-of-print bestiary is now available in print-on-demand, so we can have a hardcover monster book. The game is a simplified Rolemaster, and I recommended this to a friend who plays Rolemaster, but she does not have time to sort through all the rules.

HARP offers 90% of the Rolemaster experience with a fraction of the complexity. But what's truly exciting is the reintroduction of the expanded crit charts in the Martial Law book. These charts can serve as a springboard for your own creative results, allowing you to truly shape the game to your liking. It's like the B/X version of a Rolemaster game, offering more freedom than the full AD&D or 3.5E experience.

I still have Rolemaster Classic here, and while it's a nice set of books, the rules take more time than I have and far more time than she does. She was playing Rolemaster more loosely and making most of it up, which isn't bad, but there is a difference between winging the rules and actually playing the actual game with the correct characters and powers. I hope she likes the HARP rules, and they both simplify her experience and offer the full game.

HARP is the Rolemaster for everyone.

They are working on a new streamlined Rolemaster, but it feels early. We don't have an updated bestiary, and three books in the series have been released. At this point, HARP is a complete game.

Is HARP worth playing these days? Well, it is still supported; you can get PoD books for everything, and the game is solid. The last publication date was 2022, and an adventure was published recently. One big difference is that there are no psionic magic types, though psionics are in the HARP sci-fi books.

Why HARP when I have so many other great fantasy systems? Runequest, Dungeon Fantasy, Open Quest, Mythras Classic Fantasy - these are all fantastic games. None of them are Pathfinder or 5E, which gets me out of the d20 rut I have been in for the last year. HARP is the easier Rolemaster, and since my friend plays, I might save this game so I can play with her.

Also, the game has this very retro 2000s feeling, and it is strange to highlight that since these are now retro games. The "ages" of tabletop RPGs can be roughly split into 10-year periods:

• Golden Age: 1975-1985
• Silver Age:  1985-1995
• Bronze Age: 1995-2005
• Copper Age: 2005-2015
• Modern Age: 2015+

So, starting in 2003, HARP is more of a Bronze Age RPG born out of the MERP split from ICE.

But again, why play? HARP feels like a character-designer game, much like a GURPS. You put time and effort into building a character, something cool you can invest in, and that becomes your experience throughout the world. I like games with character creation that takes, time, thinking, planning, and a knowledge of the rules. Games with simple character creation seem disposable to me.

We will see where this goes, but I was happy to find these so quickly and get them back on my shelf.

Mail Room: Mothership 1e Deluxe Set

I had given up on this game, and the Deluxe Boxed Set took a long time to arrive. This game is huge, raking in 1.5 million in pledges and then taking three years to finally ship. I am happy to have it in my hands, and I congratulate the team for pushing through a mammoth project with a lot of custom parts (the boxes are excellent).

What is it?

Ambitious is one.

Simplified and well-play-tested is another.

And ultra-deluxe for the large boxed set. They really went all out with a gold-embossed box with heavy cardboard. This is not a cheap boxed set; it is premium quality.

It feels like a genuine "Mork Borg in space" is my final feeling.

Unlike Alien, this is all sci-fi horror. It is also a d100 roll-under system greatly simplified from the original Mothership 0e edition. Like Alien, it has hard-sci-fi roots but includes many others, like the original "inspirations" bingo card from the Kickstarter. So this covers anything from xenomorphs to demons, killer robots, invasions from Hell, and many other movies where the monster is a metaphor for something terrible we do to ourselves but is put into a monster form for easier digestion.

You could easily toss many Roger Corman movies, Starship Troopers, Outland, and The Exorcist movies on that card. The Abyss and its horror movie knock-offs, like Leviathan and the Deep Blue Sea movie, are other thoughts. The Blair Witch Project would be another, the movie Species, and maybe Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Even sci-fi horror gems like Them or any swarm monster movie with giant insects would work well here, too. Zombies of any type would fit right in.

They have abandoned character improvement, preferring a story-based improvement system where if you survive, your character "ranks up" and gains more importance and stature in whatever universe you are playing in, thus being afforded more resources and power. You saw this between the first and second Alien movies, where Ripley went from "another crewmember" to "expert on xenomorphs." If the third Alien movie had followed this formula, she would have been a character in Burke's position in the third movie, which would have been a fantastic character arc.

Does it do Alien well? It could. Are Cepheus Engine and Hostile more complete games? Yes, but not laser-focused on horror like this game.

The one thing I love here is this is not all an Alien movie clone. You get some indie sci-fi horror games, and all they copy is Alien and that is it. We have all types of horror here, and you could throw in some elder gods from Cthulhu and their cults and still be on target.

A strong recommend here, and my faith in this game has been restored with an excellent boxed set.

In the End, There is Only One

I've carefully curated my collection of OSR games, and C&C stands out as my top choice. It's the one that remains on my shelf while I've boxed up ACKS, Swords & Wizardry, Dragonslayer, Old School Essentials, Labyrinth Lord, the Rules Cyclopedia, and others. I am not selling them, only storing them.

5E and Pathfinder 2 have found their way into my sell boxes. The mythical game with the mythical 5E or PF2 group ain't happening. I swear sometimes I buy things out of hope and it never works out.

I have Dungeon Crawl Classics on a secondary shelf, but that is in the gonzo fantasy genre, unlike C&C or OSR. GURPS and Dungeon Fantasy are on my current shelves (with Pathfinder 1e as the campaign resource). GURPS is an excellent solo game. That will stay out regardless, even for the "realistic fantasy" genre, which does better than any game.

My only other fantasy games are entirely different systems, and Runequest is included in that. Some of the d100 sister systems, such as Mythras Imperative, Open Quest, and Basic Roleplaying, are alongside that. There is something elegant about a game that gives you advancements in the skills you use during play, which means if you want to get better at something you are terrible at, such as a dodge skill, well, start dodging things that could hurt you.

No magical XP can automatically grant abilities you have never practiced, had to rely upon, or even used. That level 20 thief picks up a bow he has never used for the previous 19 levels and suddenly is a master archer with many deadly archery feats? It's dumb.

And I know the above applies to games like C&C, too. But I am sick of games that hand you freebies and gimmes. These designers sit here like some self-conscious Twitter user begging players to like them better, and oh, here is another free power: please play my game! More powers coming! Buy the power-creep splat-books, please! Power, abilities, power!

Modern level-based games have become pandering swamps of player coddling where you don't earn a thing, everything is given to you, fights are fair, and they exist in an unrealistic and childish AAA video-game mindset. Please move along and see the content! Others are waiting behind you!

C&C is better in this regard compared to 5E and Pathfinder 2E. Of all the level-based games, it stays quiet and out of the way the most. All my classic adventures, OSR, B/X, and Advanced, are on the shelf. I have them out for the memories and not to play.

I just have the best games on my shelves. The other OSR games were distracting me. You can have so many rules on a shelf that nothing gets played. These are minor differences between X, Y, and Z numbers, rules, or mechanics. None of that matters. Stick with the best. For me, C&C does away with messy skills and saving throw systems. The ability scores do all the heavy lifting.

One of the things I love about OSR-style games is their simplicity and accessibility. A prime example is the 4x6 index card, your character sheet. It's a testament to the streamlined nature of these games, where you can get a complete gaming experience from such a compact tool. C&C is the best of the lot and stays out of the way for the most part. There are few charts to reference and none to flip through during play.

Other than that, my dreams and fantasies are in games like GURPS and Runequest.

The one level-based game I have left is one that mostly stays out of the way of the fun and doesn't try to interject itself into my game every turn with a page reference and chart lookup. Simple is better.