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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aldarc" data-source="post: 9427519" data-attributes="member: 5142">Going back to an earlier point about "Why B/X was adopted as the lingua franca of OSR, I also add that it likely also served as a greater point of contrast for the OSR crowd when it comes to "what's wrong with modern D&D?" At the time that OSR was getting started, the two big systems out there were 3e D&D (and later PF1) and 4e D&D. IMHO, B/X would serve as a better counterpoint offering to either of these games than either 1e or 2e D&D would. This is not to mention "Red Box Nostalgia." FWIW, OSE Basic is pretty short. It's a little over 50 pages. However, OSE's B/X Essentials is deceptively long. B/X Essentials is composed of four booklets: (1) B/X Essentials Core Rules, 34 pages; (2) B/X Essentials Classes and Equipment, 44 pages; B/X Essentials Cleric and Magic User Spells, 34 pages; (4) B/X Essentials Adventures and Treasures, 47 pages. You may be able to shave pages from that count due to reprinted material (e.g., OGL, credits, etc.) and layout, but you are still looking at roughly 140 pages for OSE's B/X Essentials. B/X Advanced, which converts 1e D&D to B/X, is naturally longer still. I would also add that 5e D&D is an intentionally verbose game. People complained that 4e D&D was like reading a technical game book, and so 5e D&D was written in a way for people who like to read D&D books for the sake of it. It's not written in a concise manner. There is a lot of filler writing and inefficient layout. Rules are buried and hidden in walls of text and horribly indexed. How "light" would the rules of 5e look if Gavin Norman was doing the layout and editing? Interestingly, what some people in this thread have mentioned is that what makes dungeon-crawling a "slog" for them isn't the combat; instead, it's the dungeon play procedures and book-keeping. Personally, I don't particularly care if combat is more complicated or slower. I want it to enhance the intended play experience. I hope that combat is fun. Combat isn't what really makes or breaks a dungeon exploration game for me. It's the dungeon exploration rules that do as that's presumably why I am interested in playing a particular dungeon-crawling game. Your post elaborates better on my earlier point that I made in my post:</blockquote>

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