I'd like to start or join an OSR game in Columbus Ohio.
I could run the campaign, or somebody else could, we could play multiple games, trade off GMing in the same campaign, whatever. The following are my favorite games, but any OSR system would be fine. I can provide the rules and miniatures for anything listed below, but, again, other games would be fun too.
OPUS (One Page Universal System)
http://web.archive.org/web/20110306050018/http://grapeape.webs.com/
This ^ is a somewhat dated copy of the rules, but it hasn't greatly changed. Each set comes with six characters, and the rules are printed on the back of each character sheet. The system is simple, but allows for a lot of variation, and each set comes with a full campaign.
Orcs In Spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace!
This is from Dragon Magazine #149, and was written by Mr. Ken Rolston. This simple article provides an excellent set of roleplaying rules for Warhammer 40,000. You need a copy of the original
40K rules, but I have that.
Swordsmen & Skeletons / A Swiftly Falling Empire
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/177317/Swordsmen--Skeletons?term=swordsmen
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/177320/A-Swiftly-Falling-Empire-A-Large-Scale-Fantasy-Campaign-For-Swordsmen--Skeletons-SECOND-EDITION?term=A+Swiftly
Surprisingly excellent, this game is a complete version of D&D on a single sheet of paper. Not exactly the same, of course, but it does a marvelous job of minimization. The campaign requires the
PCs to save the world of Kyrthandria from the dark powers of the six Chaos fortresses. Essentially the campaign is a race against time. Dungeoneering is only the beginning. The armies of Chaos rampage across the Empire, only weakly defended by its armies. The
PCs must also gain political contacts and mercenaries to drive the enemy out, before humanity and its allies are completely destroyed.
Red Shield & Gold Eagle
A campaign set in Napoleonic Europe. Bonaparte is trying to conquer it, and the
PCs are trying to either aid or stop him, or both. Very well detailed to the period and its literature, it is one of the few
RPGs I have seen in which the players can cooperate or battle each other on multiple levels, without things completely falling apart.
Nazis & Nightmares
A fun and kinda zany one, the players are Allied Agents trying to stop the vicious creations of the evil Herr Doktor Verbotenschtuff from supplying Hitler with all of the magical, robotic and biological horrors he needs to conquer the world. An amusing device is that the campaign is played based around the Axis & Allies board game, with the actions of the players, and a REALLY vicious table of random Axis horrors tilting the balance for or against world peace or world domination.
The Cardinal's Guardsmen
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/410915/One-Page-Dungeon-Compendium-2022-Edition
This is a one page set of campaign rules from the 2022 edition of One Page Dungeon Competition. This one is also based in French history (a hobby of mine) set in the period of The Three Musketeers. However, it takes the amusing change of making the
PCs members of Cardinal Richelieu's Guards. You must save France from invasion by foreign powers. One fun random event has the Cardinal sending others of his agents to murder you for reasons of state.
As with all OPDC entries, it is system agnostic, so it could be played with OSR D&D or any other system that is to the player's taste.
Again, other systems could be used, or we could even play multiple one off games, with different group members GMing.