OK, this may be odd, but here goes:
I've played D&D in some capacity or other since 1983, and am generally speaking one of those guys for whom 4E didn't work. I GM roughly 75% of the time.
Over the years I've come to appreciate simplicity and low handling time more and more. And as a DM, I like stealing cool bits and pieces wherever I find them - from old classics like B1 to modern classics like Swordfish Islands. And now I'v gotten to the point where I'm tired of converting monsters; I want to free-form them off the top of my head without having to search through books and notes.
To an extent, I can of course emulate a great many D&D monsters, as can most long-time GMs. But I have recently found that things get muddled when I throw my inspirational material from several editions - and even from non-d20ish systems - into a notebook and just wing it from there, which is my standard method of running a game.
Now I have very seriously been looking into the Black Hack Heroic Fantasy (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/198621/Heroic-Fantasy) for my campaigning needs, simply because it is so rules-lite and has super easy-to-use-and-improvise monster rules.
Am I just getting older and weirder?
There is a game called Monsters & Magic that is OSR. It lets you convert old D&D or Pathfinder material for use very easily. It is in fact why I really like the game. It lets me use all of my old stuff with very little work.
I'm pretty similar; I like being able to convert on the fly which in practice means either using OSR-D&D stuff for conversion, or using an OSR ruleset. Converting from simple rules, or converting to simple rules. I ran a 3e to Pathfinder campaign and I ran a Pathfinder to 5e campaign, in both cases the stat blocks were a pain (but running in PF was certainly worse). I now find my best bet is converting OSR to 5e, or even easier converting OSR to another OSR - currently running Basic Fantasy to Swords & Wizardry and conversion amounts to "maybe take 1 off the AC. Or not." :D
Just use Basic Fantasy from now on.
If you know a system really well, on-the-fly conversion is no problem at all.
Quote from: Nerzenjäger;1045702If you know a system really well, on-the-fly conversion is no problem at all.
I agree, if you know your present reasonably well, reskinning or converting stuff from elsewhere is usually pretty easy. At least for low to mid levels. Not sure about say 11th + territory, but that's not a power level I like to play at.
Quote from: Darrin Kelley;1045626There is a game called Monsters & Magic that is OSR.
The Sarah Newton one that uses 3D6 instead of D20? Man I wish they would put out more stuff for that. The G+ group is pretty lifeless and all their efforts seemed to go into Mindjammer. Really thought M&M had potential if I wasn't going for something super rules lite.
Quote from: Derabar;1045802The Sarah Newton one that uses 3D6 instead of D20? Man I wish they would put out more stuff for that. The G+ group is pretty lifeless and all their efforts seemed to go into Mindjammer. Really thought M&M had potential if I wasn't going for something super rules lite.
She said in a response to me on TBP that more supplements for it are coming. But didn't give an ETA on it.
Yeah. Hers is the one that does 3d6 instead of D20.
I bought the two supplements from Ebon Gryphon Games for it. And I am pleased with them.
And before I got this nasty bout of the flu. I was working on doing a conversion of OGL Conan through the lense of Monsters & Magic.
Ease of Conversion is one of the major selling points of the OSR. You can basically mix and match everything.