One thing I loved about Holmes and Moldvay /Mentzer red boxes was having a set of rules that didn’t overwhelm new players with lots of material that they won’t need until later.
I know that most osr games are rules light enough that it isn’t too much, but I was wondering if there are any systems out there that seperate out the ‘basic’ and ‘expert / advanced’ levels like that?
A particular peeve of mine is that spell descriptions seem so often to be presented alphabetical so that the 10 spells that might matter are lost in a bunch of pages. But even just class descriptions or saving throw tables that cover the whole range make level 1 look like a stepping stone, rather than a satisfying place to play many an adventure!
Any suggestions?
It might sound like a stretch, but do you know Beyond the Wall…?
Moldvay Basic is available again, albeit only in PDF. I refer to it all the time.
White Box: Fantasy Medeval Adventure Game is a great choice. Everything caps around level 5.
Blueholme Pretense caps at level 3. Another great choice.
I thing Dungeon Crawl Classics has an into version as well, though I have never read it.
