I mostly play Swords & Wizardry. It is a retro-clone of Original Dungeons & Dragons.

I consider, Original D&D, Basic D&D, and even AD&D to be collections of tools, ideas, and concepts that we can use to create our own game.

The particular instance of a campaign using original Dungeons & Dragons, is its own game. Each campaign has it’s own characteristics dependent on it’s game master, it’s players, it’s emergent properties.

I say, “I run Swords & Wizardry.”

It would be more correct to say, “I run Hogwater with a foundation of the Swords & Wizardry rules.”

It’s our game

I build and run a game for the particular group sitting at our particular table.

We play the way we play because we enjoy it that way.

That group may be the only group in the past, present, and future of the world who could enjoy that game. That’s OK.

Some gamers think that our game is inferior to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, or Runequest, or 5E or whatever. That’s OK.

We are not them. We are different people with different preferences.

We play our game.