A faction of long-time Dungeons & Dragons fans prefer earlier editions to the current one and continue to play them. In addition, new games have been published which address the perceived inability of the current game to preserve the tone of classic D&D while still fixing some of the faulty rules of older versions. Castles & Crusades is one such example, utilizing the unified D20 mechanic of Third Edition while dropping what are often perceived as complications (Feats, Skills, Prestige Classes, etc.). Another alternative is HackMaster, which is a direct revision of 1st and 2nd edition AD&D with some added parody elements. Some variants have literally been around for decades, such as PrinceCon, which originated as D&D Convention in 1976, but by as early as 1979, its mechanics had already begun to diverge via local tailoring, typically in the form of streamlining to facilitate convention play. Recently, there has been a trend towards utilizing the permission of the Open Game License (OGL) to recreate the rules of earlier editions, and using those recreations to publish new material for the old games. In 2006, Rob Kuntz began releasing new material under his "Creations Unlimited" banner and also under the OGL. Similarly, Paizo Publishing has been working on a set of rules based on 3.5 which seeks to smooth out the rules inconsistencies that have grown up after 6 years of supplements. Their effort, Pathfinder, was released at Gen Con 2009.
In a similar manner, Chris Gonnerman used the d20 SRD to create Basic Fantasy RPG, and Goblinoid Games did the same to create Labyrinth Lord, both of which mirror the rules and flavor of the Tom Moldvay/David Cook/Steve Marsh D&D box sets.
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