Everything by Kevin Crawford, his stuff is what got me into OSR in the first place... Starting with Silent Legions and just going to Stars Without Numbers from there, and so on...

Lamentations of the Flame Princess is excellent just for the sheer different take on what A dungeon crawl game can be...

I didn't get started in D&D until really the tail end of 2nd edition...I never got to experience what gritty D&D was...and even if I don't agree with everything said in LtFP it still has improved my games by expanding my horizon and making me be just a little bit crueler to my players (All in good fun of course.)

To me? Either Barbarians of Lemuria, Dragon Age, or Traveller...

OK, less tongue-in-cheek, DCC, Beyond The Wall, Scarlet Heroes, An Echo Resounding: A Sourcebook on Lordship and War, Red Tide Campaign Setting, The Crimson Pandect, Spears of the Dawn, Backswords and Bucklers, Backswords and Bucklers: Tavern Trawling, ACKS, ACKS Companion. Going with the above, you'd not need Domains at War, because that's what An Echo Resounding is, but it doesn't hurt to have both!

Barrowmaze.
High grit, high fatality dungeon sprawl.

Quote from: Saladman;844196The best of the OSR is Yoon-Suin, Red and Pleasant Land, Deep Carbon Observatory, Fire on the Velvet Horizon, Vornheim, Qelong...  That's not TSR-type stuff.

While the OSR as a whole still gets accused of being "all about nostalgia", some of the best stuff is about the roads not taken.

And while I, personally, am unabashedly nostalgic about some things, I've also enjoyed some of the clever new imaginings spun off from TSR D&D cloth.

Quote from: Orphan81;844203I didn't get started in D&D until really the tail end of 2nd edition...I never got to experience what gritty D&D was...

Same here, though making sense of many D&D tropes, including gonzo D&D as presented in a few, rare latter-day supplements (the macguffin in Wrath of the Immortals is the power core of a starship crewed by frickin' beagles), was a big jump for me. Oh, and getting acquainted with sources other than Howard and Tolkien.

Just to echo that even if you don't want/like ACKS, Domains at War is brilliant for mass combat, sieges, campaigning armies and so on. And is very compatible with most editions of D&D and their derivations.

Everybody's gonna have their own list. Since I can only vouch for what I've picked up and read, and since I'm not much of a shopper these days (hell, I'm compiling a few new suggestions from this very thread), here's mine.

Adventurer Conqueror King System. ACKS is my favorite OSR ruleset because I strongly identify as a Silver Age D&D sort of DM, and ACKS, from the DM's side, is basically all about setting up and running a consistent and lifelike world. This is not to say you can't do it with other systems, but ACKS offers a bunch of knobs and dials for the enterprising DM (and hopefully, in due time, his or her enterprising players) to move and turn. While sometimes intimidating on first contact, it ends up being a big help. I also love the way it repurposes existing D&D mechanics, fractal-like, into new subsystems. The fact that the default setting (admittedly, so far only hinted at) neatly lines up with everything I think a D&D setting should be, plus a dollop of exotic Near Eastern aesthetics, is a plus.

Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. If ACKS is the pinnacle of Silver Age D&D, DCC does Golden Age D&D with a ton of flair. It also boasts some great adventure modules. Its chief handicap, to me, is the legwork involved in writing new spells and patrons.

Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. Before 5e came out, it had my favorite race-as-class, lots-of-classes AD&D-1e-plus-UA set list of character options. Nevertheless, the setting still rocks. If the Weird Tales three ever gamed, I could see this being Clark Ashton Smith's game, with Howard playing a Kimmero-Kelt Berserker and Lovecraft an Atlantean Illusionist. If you're looking for grim, fatalistic, apocalyptic dark fantasy with a side order of Cthulhu Mythos horror, look no further.

In terms of settings and adventures, I can recommend Qelong for being literally fantasy f'ing Vietnam and metal as all hell (one of the bad guys is a Chaotic dwarf mercenary riding an undead roc); Red Tide for a truly mature, apocalyptic dark fantasy setting that combines Lovecraftian horror and shades-of-gray war against humanoids, among other things (the bits on the dwarf deity, creepy as hell); Anomalous Subsurface Environment for being gloriously gonzo and steeped in pop-culture references (I'm a sucker for those); and even the much-maligned Dwimmermount for being a textbook megadungeon with the sort of Silver Age sensibilities I mentioned above (admittedly I'm not familiar with Barrowmaze or Stonehell which are freequently held up as superior examples of that elusive beast, the published megadungeon).

Also, let's not forget the free stuff! There are two posters in these forums who have put out some amazing stuff, for free; misterguignol's 3-volume Tome of the Grotesque & Dungeonesque (can't find the link right now) is Gothic-horror flavored D&D that feels very different from Ravenloft, while estar's How To Build A Fantasy Sandbox is a fine manual (if sometimes a tad more steeped in detail than I'd care, but I don't think you have to use everything always). But the best free OSR product is probably Stars Without Number, that's even enticed me to buy supplements so I can pillage it for an eventual Traveller game.

The issues of Fight On !  and Knockspell zines containing Gabor Lux/Melan's stuff

Matt Finch's Quick Primer for Old School Gaming

Yoon Suin

Quote from: Sean !;844259The issues of Fight On !  and Knockspell zines containing Gabor Lux/Melan's stuff

I'll second the recommendation for Gabox Lux's stuff.

However (and I know this isn't a widely help opinion), I think the OSR really started with Necromancer Games and their revival of an old-school approach to D&D adventures and settings. Some NG products that really captured that approach:

Rappan Athuk
The Lost Tomb of Abysthor
The Wilderlands Boxed Set

Quote from: Haffrung;844298I'll second the recommendation for Gabox Lux's stuff.

However (and I know this isn't a widely help opinion), I think the OSR really started with Necromancer Games and their revival of an old-school approach to D&D adventures and settings. Some NG products that really captured that approach:

Rappan Athuk
The Lost Tomb of Abysthor
The Wilderlands Boxed Set

Actually, that's pretty interesting. My own return to old-school began with the same Necromancer products (plus a couple others).

Quote from: Sean !;844259The issues of Fight On !  and Knockspell zines containing Gabor Lux/Melan's stuff

Yes. Forgot about those. They were a big influence on me when I burned out on 3.5 and started looking back to my roots.

FIGHT ON! magazine, as a whole, contains a lot of good-to-great stuff. It's all over the place tone-wise, but then so are most campaigns.

Probably my favorite thing is that the essentials are largely available for free.  I'd recommend S&W and the SRD for the game for monsters.  It's a solid starting point that can give you game play for free for the rest of your life.  There are analogues for almost all the D&Ds you could want if S&W isn't your thing.

The other amazing thing is that with print on demand and PDF sales it's possible to pretty much buy the stuff from your favorite authors almost directly.  The OSR can easily keep itself from being tainted by commercial domination by a few powerful companies.  

S&W
S&W SRD
Microlite74 extended (and companions)
Vornheim
Yoon-Suin

Quote from: NathanIW;844425Probably my favorite thing is that the essentials are largely available for free.

Yes, that's a great point. A newcomer could enter this hobby with no more investment than a set of dice, and that's a wondrous thing.

Quote from: The Butcher;844244Also, let's not forget the free stuff! There are two posters in these forums who have put out some amazing stuff, for free; misterguignol's 3-volume Tome of the Grotesque & Dungeonesque (can't find the link right now) is Gothic-horror flavored D&D that feels very different from Ravenloft

Here's a page with links to all the free stuff I've done. Literally hundreds of pages of free stuff, now that I look at it. Good lord, why.

Anyway, thanks for kind mention, fellas.

"must-have" is tricky for the OSR, it largely depends on what you want to do with it.  I guess the one must-have thing is some form of rule-set.

That said, of course I strongly recommend both Arrows of Indra and Dark Albion as two of the most interesting OSR settings around, when you get tired of the same-old same-old.

Stars Without Number

Swords & Wizardry (particularily White Box)

Blood & Treasure + Nod Magazine