Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day Post #2: Why play Swords & Wizardry?

In my first post for the Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day I covered some alternate rules you can use in your games.  You may want to take a peek if you haven't already, it's some pretty straight forward stuff on saving throws.

In any case, a lot of the bloggers today have been writing reviews of sorts of S&W.  Each discussing what is great about the game and why you should give it a shot.  I must say, though there is no need for yet another, I'm going to throw my two cents in the hat.

If the question is "Why play Swords & Wizardry?" you can imagine many different answers.  Not only because of different view points, but the fact that S&W is REALLY 3 games.  Or more, really.   More on that in a minute. So I'm going to try to answer the question for the 3 major versions:

S&W Whitebox:  The Whitebox edition of the game is supposed to reflect the original 3 little books that were OD&D.  Now, some people get a little bent out of shape because of some liberties taken with the rules.  I've actually seen someone say Delving Deeper was closer in hit point progression so they preferred that (note: this isn't completely accurate from what I've seen).  Some decry the (optional) ascending AC and single saving throw, but all that aside, even the Whitebox edition of S&W can stand on it's own feet as a great game.  Call me a fan of the optional rules.

You want rules-light?  Boom.  You got it.  Want just the fighting-man, magic-user, and cleric?  You got it.  Who needs thieves?  You only need some d6's and a d20 to play this game.  The print edition is pretty small, perfect for traveling light when you are out and about.  I've often thought about having it with my on an airplane with some graph paper.

The best thing about the Whitebox is that is is the easiest to hack and manipulate.  I've seen Balrog player classes created using Whitebox rules.  You can really create whatever you want pretty easily because there are no major rule systems to break.  You can see examples of the customization with products like Crypts & Things, Hideouts & Hoodlums, Ruins & Ronin, and so many others.  Whether it's generic fantasy, or something weirder, Whitbox can handle it.  Oh, and it's free.  The PDF anyways.

S&W Core Rules: I kind of hate to say it, but the Core rules are kind of the middle kid that doesn't get as much attention.  It's more robust than it's Whitebox brother, but this is the fellow that started S&W.  Like the Whitebox it's got the OD&D feel, with the addition of the rules and fun from the Greyhawk supplement.  That means you get your thief class if you want it, and variable damage dice for weapons, etc.  It's close enough to S&W Complete to be almost indistinguishable during real play.  The PDF is free, with the print edition being about the size (length and width) as many other RPG books.  It's pretty slim and light though.  It won't break your back on the way to a friend's house. 

Some of the writing is different between the Core Rule and Complete in some spots, as is the art.  But in the end what will make you choose this over Complete is that it lacks all the other "advanced" classes.  If you don't want druids or monks in your game, go with this.  If someone can help me with more differences between the two, I'd love to know.  I haven't done a full page to page comparison yet. ;)

S&W Complete: This is it.  This is the game I play.  It's the Core Rules plus things from the other supplements of OD&D.  The big difference as far as I can tell are the extra classes.  Assassin, Druid, Monk, Paladin, and Ranger.  You also get the Frog God Games art and fonts, which I'm a big fan of.  This game ends up playing as sort of a AD&D-lite game.  To me this is a great strength.  It balances the two worlds.  In fact, I was able to run White Plume Mountain, a famous 1E module with S&W Complete with no problem.  The game is flexible enough to cover gaming materials for Basic D&D too. 

Though Labyrinth Lord is known as another Rosetta stone of sorts for the OSR, I'd choose S&W Complete because of the support for it!  Rappan Athuk, Monstrosities, Tome of Horrors, Razor Coast, and a host of other FGG products are available for S&W Complete.  Though they could be run with other systems, S&W carries a banner for products that is hard to beat.  I say play Swords & Wizardry Complete because you have a versatile set of rules that is easy to run, easy to find great products for, easy to hack in order to include other games' mechanics (like zero-level play), and as you might be able to tell with this event going on, a huge and awesome community.  

Review: The Majestic Wilderlands

Going along with my recent posts about sandboxes and Wilderlands, I thought now would be a good time to do a review for a product I recently got in PDF and print that I was very pleased with.  Rob Conley's Supplement VI: The Majestic Wilderlands is an example of one of those campaign settings that was born out of the original Wilderlands of High Fantasy I mentioned in last week's post.

 
Before I get into the thick of things, I have to first admit I am not very well versed in the lore of the original Wilderlands.  So for me, it was hard to know where Bill Owen and Bob Bledsaw end and Rob Conley begins.  The piece of the name 'Supplement VI' comes from the idea that this product is a continuation of the original supplements from the original D&D ruleset.  The Majestic Wilderlands are what Rob Conley's Widlerlands campaign turned into, and within you'll find character options, spells, items, and lore.  One curious thing I found was that Rob thanks Matthew Finch for putting together the Swords & Wizardry Core Rule, but the book reads as something to be used with the 'White Box' rules. Rob has informed me this product was made with the S&W Core Rules used d6's so that explains that!  You'll see this with the references to d6 as opposed to the other types.  Any crunch of this book could easily be made read for use with S&W Core/Complete and other old school games pretty easily though.

The book first describes character options, such as new types of fighters, clerics, and magic-users.  All the new class options are interesting, however Rob makes a point to say they are NOT balanced.  This was by design, a mere reflection of 'reality'.  However, there are some obvious class choices that there is almost NO reason not to take.  The Mages of Thoth for instance, have a Magic Shield making them invulnerable to many types of spells.  You'd have to hope your players have a desire for exploring character types, because you could easily find yourself a cabal of Thoth Mages.  That said, the new class options can be used in most other campaign settings, especially the Fighting-Men options.

Next, races are covered.  Nothing major here other than a few new races, with some house-ruled modifiers.  I DID like the flavor and lore descriptions for the origin of races.  Whether this is Rob's creation or otherwise, a very cool background for the races.  Rob also has a whole section on 'Abilities' which come off a lot like skills from 3.x D&D.  Useful for transplanting those concepts into the older-style game, though I'm not sure I'd want to use them.  If I want a game dictated by skill points, I'd run my other favored rulesystem (Pathfinder).  There are some neat combat house rules included here as well.

Next up are sections on magic, which include some flavor reasoning on why magic works the way it does and some new spells.  Then you get the monster and treasure sections.  Short, sweet, and full of really neat stuff.  I really enjoy the lore for vampires and lycanthropes.  The magic items are cool too, easily transferable to another setting.

The rest of the book then covers Rob's version of the the Wilderlands.  Rather than a hex map with no filling like the original Wilderlands, this book goes into some detail of each region of the world.  Cultures, religions, and geography are discussed.  For such a short book, you get plenty of information to start running a campaign.  You can run a very varied one at that, there are 'Northlands' type regions, Middle-East/Egypt type regions, and more.  What is considered the 'main campaign' area are the regions of the famous City-State of the Invincble Overlord.  Again, enough detail is given to get the story going, but still plenty to be filled in my your own game.

Overall, I think the Majestic Wilderlands is a great book.  I read it cover to cover.  The print version comes in a size close to the LBBs and won't take much space on your bookshelf.  You can get the PDF and Print together for pretty cheap.  If you go and get the basic Wilderlands of High Fantasy maps (and even the old books with hex location descriptions) you are ready to roll for a campaign.  Even if you just had this book, it's plenty to get a world set up for your players to explore.

Verdict: Get it if you want a light-weight campaign setting book or just want some inspiration for your own homebrew world.  It's a quality book with a lot to appreciate.

I really like Rob's work.  I hope to post some reviews of his Points of Light books available from Goodman Games at some point.  They are really neat books too. 

Review: Hideouts & Hoodlums

Hideouts & Hoodlums is a variant of Swords & Wizardry written by Scott Casper of Great Scott! Games.  You can purchase the PDFs of the rules, supplements, and newsletter at DriveThruRPG here.

In the introduction to S&W, author Matt Finch states 'Take this framework, and then imagine the hell out of it!', which I think Scott Casper really took to heart when he wrote H&H.  In the introduction to H&H Scott describes his love for comic books and 0E D&D as a youth.  He had wished there was a way to combine the two passions, and now it seems he created his own solution.

H&H is an old school rules game of Golden Age Superheroes.  It features the charm and attitude of those comics while keeping the basic rule structure (or lack thereof) of S&W.  Since this game runs off S&W mechanics, Scott makes sure to notate in the text what is directly lifted from the S&W Whitebox rules and it helps show that all in all those 0E rules are very adaptive.

Before the modern age of superhero comics, the stories of the time were a bit more simple and 'pulp-y'.  Scott does a good job of infusing that into the game, referencing characters like Doc Savage and Dick Tracy as examples of the main character classes.  This time around you have the Fighter, Magic-User, and the Superhero.  For the most part the Fighter and Magic-User do not differ from the original game, but the Superhero could be seen as a re-themed Cleric.  Instead of turning undead, they 'wreck' things, which is an easy way to represent your superheroes abilities.  No trying to figure out if your character's unique powers don't fit the ruleset, the 'wreck' mechanic is all inclusive.  Scott also accounts for 'alter-egos' in the form of Superheroes being Fighters when 'out of costume'.

Overall the game is a great twist to the rules you might be used to seeing.  Though it's a lot of re-skinned 0E stuff, it just WORKS.  Scott also seems to be writing material for the game in much the same way 0E was originally released.  In the PDF bundle from DriveThruRPG, you get Book I: Men and Supermen, Book II: Mobsters and Trophies, and Book III: Underworld and Metropolis Adventures.  A big nod to the Little Brown Books, the content is relatively easy to digest.  Of course, after reading through I was trying to figure out what class Batman would be...

And then I read the supplements!  Here again, Scott mirrors 0E, and the first supplement 'Supplement I: National' reads almost just like the original Greyhawk supplement.  It adds the 'Mystery Man' class, which functions similar to the Thief but is the 'Bat-Man' or 'the Shadow' archetype.  The supplements function the same as the original supplements, adding more things to the existing classes, adding more monsters, treasure, and rule options.  Interestingly one includes the infamous body-hit-location rules from Blackmoor.  

Scott has also been releasing a newsletter of sorts called The Trophy Case.  The PDFs are available at DTRPG but are FREE.  They are a nice addition and include a lot of interesting tid-bits like comic history and plot hooks from reality and past comic adventures.

Verdict?

I'd say H&H is a fun variant that is worth looking into.  The PDFs are cheap, you can get every bit of material for under $20.  A complete game ready for your tabletop.  There is one caveat that I should point out.  The material is spread out much like the original books.  This can make organization a real hassle when you are looking at all the different tables and relevant information.

My recommendation to GreatScott! Games would be to go the way of S&W and compile the books and supplements into one larger PDF/book.  The organization of S&W is one of it's high points and H&H could benefit from the same sort of re-work.  Further, it'd be neat to see this compiled book placed on lulu.com (or other vendor) for some Print-On-Demand goodness.  I'd happily add H&H to my growing OSR bookshelf.

In other words, head over to DriveThruRPG and check it out!