Just got this album yesterday in the mail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC8MHcD3944

The lead singer (Jason Tarpey) also writes Sword & Sorcery fiction & is a blacksmith.
 

Always have music on, pretty much 24/7 at my place, so there's always variety.  When gaming we'll use theme music ranging from heavy metal to Celtic to RenFaire to fantasy soundtracks depending on what we're playing that day.  So yeah.  Absolutely helps set the mood.

I think the issue is also that the various classes and subclasses have so many abilities.  In Swords & Wizardry for example, they still get away with a shorter sheet, with the entire back side being used for spells if needed, in part because the classes have fewer abilities in general.  I suppose I could use those, given that both games have the single saving throw.

And even 1.5 AD&D was adding spell trackers to their record sheets once Unearthed Arcana & Oriental Adventures were published so I can see the solution's utility.  It's still marginally better than 4 pages I guess.

Yeah, it's somewhat of a shame that they aren't turning one of the posthumous Tolkien books into a movie rather than the weird dumpster fire that Amazon is producing, but I understand it's because the Tolkien estate only sold the rights for Hobbit & LOTR.  These later ones would all make good movies with their narrower scopes.  And yeah, there are some pretty good historical inspirations out there for gaming. 

I think you're the first person I've ever encountered who ranks The Hobbit above LOTR & The Silmarillion.

I wish I still lived out that way.  I've done a bit of gaming recently on roll 20, but I find VTT gaming pretty unsatisfying. 

Yeah, I found Vance's writing to get old pretty fast.  Especially in Dying Earth.  I read the Planet of Adventure series first and found that one a little better, but the Cugel stories in particular just drag on.  And since he doesn't bother describing lots of things that get weird names it's sort of like "why bother mentioning them."  It's like reading Dr. Seuss without the illustrations.

As I think I mentioned here, Poul Anderson (Broken Sword) is just a meandering Avengers movie.  The John Carter novels are a Vin Dielesque series of loosely connected chase scenes.  Fritz Leiber is just dull beyond belief, with the Lankmar stories essentially being boring "buddy cop/heist" stories in a Medieval setting.  For Saberhagen I read the Changeling Earth and it felt much like many of these others.  A vague setting, lots of rather pointless chases with anti-climatic endings and ridiculous coincidences.  Most significantly a rather underwhelming big bad in the Orcus non-character.  I get that's partly the point, but meh. 

I read Zelazny's Amber series (or at least the first few books) a long time ago so I don't recall much beyond finding it slow.  Moorcock was too whiny, emo goth for my tastes.  Lord Dunsany, like William Morris, is just a bit too archaic, though there are some brilliantly evocative images in their books.

For the most part, with the exception of Leiber I do like some elements in most of these authors' works, but I just don't idolize them to the extent so many do, with the exception of Tolkien and, to a lesser degree, Lovecraft.  And of course many people can't stand them.

Welcome to the fray!  Great group of people here and the creator himself maintains a very active presence on these boards, which is pretty cool.

Ghul wrote:

With the inclusion of more Lemurian culture in the core game (and not mostly limited to the adventure module, Forgotten Fane of the Coiled Goddess), we've added the Lemurian deity Boetzu, which might fit what you seek:

BOETZU, “The Celestial Serpent”
Deity of Law associated with the sun, light, law, agriculture, society, protection, duty,
enlightenment, and the circle of life. Boetzu is said to manifest in the guise of a gargantuan,
serpentine dragon, or as a grizzled old sage.
 
Typical Clergy: clerics, monks, paladins, priests, shamans
Typical Followers: any (esp. Lemurians)

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

For combat, we were more easily able to spell out the things you can do within the framework of these broad categories: melee, missiles, magic, movement, and other actions.

While we don't have specific simulations spelled out in detail (i.e., Billy's cataphract makes a charge attack with a long spear. although his side lost initiative, and the lizard-man javelin wielder should go first, the referee is using the first strike rule, so Billy's cataphract gets to go first because of his weapon's larger weapon class), I do feel that the format and explanatory text makes each aspect of combat much more understandable than in previous editions. 
 

New deity sounds good; I know at least one player who will like him. 

As for combat, I don't recall ever reading the combat sections closely.  We just play it like we've always run D&D and have had zero issues with that.  Others outside my regular group that I've played with do the same thing.  I suppose if you're new to the game or older editions of D&D it might seem confusing.

Funny; just sketching out some character possibilities for an OSR mashup (Hyperborea/Labyrinth Lord/Swords & Wizardry) down the road and one of the PC's will be a Half-elven Illusionist/Thief, so basically a Ledgerdemainist, but I decided we should call him a Mountebank because it sounds cooler. 

Definitely like these titles.  Reminds me of 1e.  Much cooler to say "I'm Akazzikus the Conjurer" as opposed to "I'm Akazzikus the 3rd level magic-user."  DCC retains the level titles so I try to encourage my players to use them in the game for added flavor.