Hmm. When playing online, I feel like Pathfinder/DnD5e put a lot on the game master in terms of lots of prep, battle maps, tokens, etc. B/X etc can be played much more theater of mind, and so would seem to require less work. In person, probably less of a distinction.
Personally, I have tired of the modern 5e/Pathfinder type games where the play often revolves around combat that takes way too long, where playes don't interact much, spend their time waiting to roll the dice and gazing at their character sheets trying to find an answer rather than by interacting with the world.
OSR systems have a ton of already published modules and campaigns to draw from, if you want zero prep (beyond reading, and maybe drawing out maps or something). Otherwise, it's about the same as running any other system in my experience. Easier than some, harder than others. The Dolmenwood campaign provides a lot of information for the DM, too.
At least for me now, I'm quite older than I used to be, and I don't want to have to read a lot of information or setting details ahead of time to be able to run a game as a GM.
> I don't want to have to read a lot of information or setting details ahead of time to be able to run a game as a GM.
That's not something you need to do for OSR, though, at least not in general. Dolmenwood is obviously based on that, it's a complete setting paired with a game system. But you can grab an OSR game system without paying much (if any) attention to the setting it may provide. Hell, even for Dolmenwood, I can't be bothered to read it all (it has a lot) and I enjoy making up my own things, so I'll still use the system and just use the setting as inspiration.
Half of my sessions are, "What monster piqued my curiosity this week on my skim through some system's monster manual? Can I create a scenario around it or a bunch of them?" The other half are "I wonder what the river pirates are up to this week, maybe they raided a nearby town and there's an award out for their capture. But what if they were actually hired to do this raid by someone even more nefarious than them..."
No real setting concerns, drop the PCs in a random place and the players will figure it out.
In both old-school and OSR RPGs, I've GMed quite a few (various early D&D/AD&D versions, DCC, OSE, Shadowdark, Mausritter), there's an enormous amount of work a GM needs to put into it ahead of time to make it fun for players. Even for published modules! It's too much for me
Personally, I have tired of the modern 5e/Pathfinder type games where the play often revolves around combat that takes way too long, where playes don't interact much, spend their time waiting to roll the dice and gazing at their character sheets trying to find an answer rather than by interacting with the world.