AD&D or HackMaster?

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

At the moment I play 4E and I have no intention of stopping, but I also want to play AD&D. This is partly for nostalgia and partly because it's great for playing on forums in that it doesn't need maps.
However: I have just found out about HackMaster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HackMaster), and it looks really cool.
Which should I buy?

[Matthew]

Either one is fine. Be aware that Hack Master 4e and 5e are pretty different from one another, and that 5e is much farther away from AD&D than 4e. I guess a lot depends on how much of the "in-joke" stuff you want; personally, I would go with AD&D.

[LibraryOgre]

I'm going to start the contrarian trend and suggest "neither". Go with Castles and Crusades.

AD&D is a good game, but it's mired in a lot of baggage people have around 2nd edition. Mention ThAC0 and some people start comparing it to war crimes. This baggage makes it less than ideal if you have experience gamers.

Hackmaster 4e I never could get through, in part because there were 8 separate $20 monster manuals. It had some good concepts, but it took the "we're satirizing old school" vibe a bit far.

Hackmaster 5e (Hackmaster Basic is out now) is a good game, but fairly complex at the character generation stage. That said, I recently bought a copy of Frandor's Keep and may be running that, soon.

Castles and Crusades, on the other hand, is fully compatible with TSR-era Basic, 1st, and 2nd edition AD&D... about the only thing you need to do is flip the ACs from decreasing to increasing. Most common monsters are in the Monsters and Treasures book, and you convert fairly simply those that are not. Character creation is fast, but the primes system allows you to have varied characters. Humans, with their third prime, are a viable option without being the only viable option. The major problem with the game is a relative lack of multiclassing options (the 4th printing lists some, but I haven't had a chance to explore them), but the classes are fairly robust and you can make a lot of things work.

[hamlet]

I recommend AD&D, or OSRIC if you're not willing to shell out cash for this.

But then again, my opinion is not unbiased.

[Lhurgyof]

I'd say Hackmaster 4e.