It might just be me, but for a while I have been aware that I do not like reading text which is printed on top of a picture or heavily coloured/patterned background. The reason t might just be me is that my eyesight is so awful. I find focussing on normal text bad enough, but with the extra interference> Nah. At the moment I’m looking through Chivalry and Sircery 1st edition, photoreduced! Tiny, tiny font.
Meanwhile we have calls around the Hobby for “Old School” RPG rules, which seems to equate to a Class and Level system like AD&D1 or more constrained, but along that line.
However my idea of “Old School” is a bit older than people looking to AD&D 1e or 2e. It goes back to games like original (Not Basic) D&D and Tunnels and Trolls. RPGs were still finding their feet, people were exchanging ideas in fanzines or groups were making their own homebrew solutions to perceived problems or gaps.
So here is where I pull those two separate ideas together. It is time for a true Old School RPG, no, that’s not quite true, it’s time for an RPG in the spirit of the Old School, simple, loose, fun but cleaned up and with a coherent system. No d20 for this but percentile for that.
However, a lot of these “Old School” games, like Pathfinder or Hackmaster before them, are huge. Lots and lots and lots of details, classes, monsters and spells. not this. Keep it classless as possible, streamline it, because the book will be big, because it will be clearly laid out, large print black text on white pages, because those that remember the “Ols School” when it was brand new, are getting old and decrepit.