What I love about the OSR is that the rules are cross-compatible and the community is mostly steady, predictable, and consistent. We don't need a rules revision or tons of special action types based on some made-up game designer's feelings about what D&D should be. Since version 3, D&D has been this ever-changing thing, like an MMO that needs to turn over the compost pile of class balance to keep things interesting. We get game-designer fads that sweep through the core game design and then get abandoned.
The OSR? They usually pick a version, clean things up, make a few optional expansions, and leave it there. While DCC makes the most changes, the designers of DCC don't put the game in the OSR at all, and that is a good choice.
Old School Essentials is my favorite BX, and Swords & Wizardry is my all-time favorite Zero Edition. Adventures Dark & Deep is an incredible First Edition implementation. Any adventure written for them is cross-compatible.
I don't get that in 5E. I am buying shelves of books for piles of options I will never use. The library grows and grows. The game gets fat and bloated. I am not really getting anything for all that bloat, and as it grows, the game gets worse, not better.
Why am I buying rules I will never use?
It feels like the worst of hoarding and collector-market game design, and at a point, it is tough to even call the bloated behemoth of a library a "game" anymore.
For me, a game has to be simple, and you should be able to store the rules in your head. For most OSR games, this is easy.
For 5E, it starts off easy, but as your library grows, you are the frog in a slow-boiling pot, and you don't realize your game is a pile of dead books until it is already too late.
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