Yes, I've played quite a bit of the OSR stuff. It's generally based on Third Edition or 3.5 because Wizards of the Coast (who own D&D having bought TSR out of virtual bankruptcy) introduced the Open Gaming Licence for those two systems which rejuvenated the game incredibly by allowing anybody who was willing to follow the licence to publish material on a for-profit or non-profit basis. And some people came up with ways to create a 'First Edition Feel' game under that licence. OSRIC is my favourite example.
Wizards have now seen the light to, and core rulebooks from 1st, and 2nd Edition, and the old White Box have recently been reprinted, too - they finally worked out that they were losing money by not selling these. They focus on their new editions, but why not sell the old to those who want them as well?
Wow, really cool stuff.
I never understood why they didn’t at least keep the older stuff around, I mean the basic set at least. Say you want to play with your kids after homework, how do you get anything done when combat lasts so long in the current editions? Not that more detailed/grid combat rules wouldn’t be good for the hard core gamers or whatever. Good grief the basic book is only so many pages, couldn’t be that expensive to get it out there somehow. It’s not like ford only sells one product. You would have to figure it would be a diversion that didn’t rely on video games, almost has to be a good thing.
The cool thing about this old school thing is the folks who are doing it are really into it, just independent hobbyists, in my opinion.
Freegards