Swords & Wizardry - A Amazing retroclone by Frog God games

[Cryomancer]

Here is an interesting video



Did I played it? Sadly no. did I watched games about it while doing other things with 2x speed? Yes. Did i read the rules book? Yes. What it have of positive over other retroclones?

• The game is simple to get into. There are a "lite" version where you only needs d6 and d20 and even the most complex ruleset is just 144 pages long. And the player session is just 73 pages long. If you don't plan to play as a caster/hybrid nor to play, reading pages 6 to 45 is enough to play the game.
• Mechanics from old school D&D are streamlined without killing the RPG mechanics on it. Saves got streamlined and are much easier to track with the option to play with multiple things to track
• Armor class, has ascending and descending AC(see image bellow to see an example)
• Old School high lethality. No 4e/5e ultra inflated HP where low level PC's and monsters can soak multiple cannon shots.
• Old school glorious spells. Disintegrate which disintegrate, summoning demons is extremely dangerous,
• You gain XP by finding treasure and doing non murderhobo things.
• The 144 page book has rules for stronghold management, hireling management, naval combat and even aerial combat.
• Is extremely easy to port other OSR modules and old school D&D modules to S&W.
• Rules for DM's create his own monsters
• The PDF can be downloaded for free on God Frog games site.

Here is an example of a dragon. Is too weak for my taste(IMO dragons needs to be far stronger) but you can see how monsters are. And how AC works. You can see the two numbers on Armor Class. The 2 is for descending AC and the 17 in "[]" for ascending. 7~9 hit dices means that you roll dices for each hit dice. Very few monsters has more than 10 hit dices in the game. Monsters are far nastier not cuz they can soak a lot of damage but cuz they can do nasty things. Succubus can summon demon princes.

Some interesting comments in the video posted

 

[Morblot]

Dude, it's Frog God Games.

 

[aleph]

Yet another retro clone. Like there aren't already dozens...

 

[Bara]

Were you slightly drunk when you typed up the company name?

Some interesting comments in the video posted

Not sure what makes this interesting though? Compatability between all of the OSR retro-clones/adventures and TSR era stuff if very much known thing for those in OSR club.

 

[7h30n]

Wasn't this among the first (freely) available retroclones, released in 2008? On top of that, it's still among the best.

 

[Mortmal]

"Did I played it? Sadly no" Will you ? Probably not you wont get anyone easily , everyone want 5E . Maybe for a long term group who want to try something else, but why that one instead of DCC, LOTFP ,any of the countless retro clones or why not just 2E. There's still no port for fantasy grounds either, so i certainly wont.

 

[7h30n]

Well, I have to agree since I really like LOTFP, and I may try to switch my 5e group to it. But, I still have tremendous respect for S&W for codifying the OSR (among with other early retro clones).

 

[Cryomancer]

everyone want 5E

Could be worse, everyone could be wanting 4e... And the TT RPG genre passing for a huge decline.

5e is not bad, but is not good as old school editions. You can try to find a group on their official discord, fakebug page and so on an play online if you wanna.

Compatability between all of the OSR retro-clones/adventures and TSR era stuff if very much known thing for those in OSR club.

I think that depends. Some retroclones has a specific focus. For eg, Lamentations of the flame princess can work well on dark fantasy adventures but would't work well on a "normal" high fantasy setting,

 

[Morblot]

Dude, it's Frog God Games.

 

[Stella Brando]

There was a thread in this forum where we played using these rules. I played a little but then dropped out due to business/laziness.

The Search for the Sorcerer? Something like that.

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/play-by-post-in-search-of-the-sorcerer.96626/

 

[NerevarineKing]

The fact that the title says "a" instead of "an" is bugging the shit out of me.

 

[Stella Brando]

I don't have an problem with it.

 

[Mortmal]

everyone want 5E

Could be worse, everyone could be wanting 4e... And the TT RPG genre passing for a huge decline.

5e is not bad, but is not good as old school editions. You can try to find a group on their official discord, fakebug page and so on an play online if you wanna.

Compatability between all of the OSR retro-clones/adventures and TSR era stuff if very much known thing for those in OSR club.

I think that depends. Some retroclones has a specific focus. For eg, Lamentations of the flame princess can work well on dark fantasy adventures but would't work well on a "normal" high fantasy setting,

Yes but you need a large community , you need to filter many people to find decent people. When i play i intend to have a long term , deep campaign , that will last 2 years and take hundreds of hours of work. Most people provide inane story full of tropes, boring ,that wont get past starting levels and they will quickly give up . So i am almost forever DM... There's playing and there's playing. My RPG habits are like a religion, no compromise and thriving for perfection.Players must be playing till 2am and not wanting to leave, i need to see tears of gratitude in their eyes when i am finished.

 

[NerevarineKing]

I don't have an problem with it.

Alright I'm sending you to the gulags.

 

[nikolokolus]

There was a thread in this forum where we played using these rules. I played a little but then dropped out due to business/laziness.

The Search for the Sorcerer? Something like that.

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/play-by-post-in-search-of-the-sorcerer.96626/

We eventually switched to BRP Magic World (essentially Elric!/Stormbringer), but S&W is is a very flexible system and about as open-ended as you could hope for as the forerunner of AD&D.

 

[Mortmal]

There was a thread in this forum where we played using these rules. I played a little but then dropped out due to business/laziness.

The Search for the Sorcerer? Something like that.

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/play-by-post-in-search-of-the-sorcerer.96626/

We eventually switched to BRP Magic World (essentially Elric!/Stormbringer), but S&W is is a very flexible system and about as open-ended as you could hope for as the forerunner of AD&D.

I read the rules, seems almost identical to becmi with less levels,less bloat, oh yeah you can use ascending or descending AC , means you want thaco or not. Demi humans are not a class, but a multiclass which is pretty much the same again , elves were fight/wizard. Spell list is exactly the same, vancian system.
A good system not reinventing the wheel, but i dont see really why this one instead of any other OSR.

 

[nikolokolus]

There was a thread in this forum where we played using these rules. I played a little but then dropped out due to business/laziness.

The Search for the Sorcerer? Something like that.

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/play-by-post-in-search-of-the-sorcerer.96626/

We eventually switched to BRP Magic World (essentially Elric!/Stormbringer), but S&W is is a very flexible system and about as open-ended as you could hope for as the forerunner of AD&D.

I read the rules, seems almost identical to becmi with less levels,less bloat, oh yeah you can use ascending or descending AC , means you want thaco or not. Demi humans are not a class, but a multiclass which is pretty much the same again , elves were fight/wizard. Spell list is exactly the same, vancian system.
A good system not reinventing the wheel, but i dont see really why this one instead of any other OSR.

Well, if you want to play a game that is as close as possible to Original D&D (i.e. the 1974 version) with all of the supplements, but compiled into a single book and actually intelligible as a game system, then S&W Complete is a pretty good way to get that experience. Of course there's been plenty of OSR rules sets released since then that are different, more unique, slicker, whatever, and fill a lot of different niches, so sure, pick the one that does what you want it to do.

Personally, if I ever do run an OSR (or OSR adjacent) game again I'd probably go with Old School Essentials, just because it's so well organized and designed for use at the table, or maybe DCC RPG with the DCC Lankhmar boxed set.

 

[Stella Brando]

Lankhmar

Nice

 

[Mortmal]

There was a thread in this forum where we played using these rules. I played a little but then dropped out due to business/laziness.

The Search for the Sorcerer? Something like that.

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/play-by-post-in-search-of-the-sorcerer.96626/

We eventually switched to BRP Magic World (essentially Elric!/Stormbringer), but S&W is is a very flexible system and about as open-ended as you could hope for as the forerunner of AD&D.

I read the rules, seems almost identical to becmi with less levels,less bloat, oh yeah you can use ascending or descending AC , means you want thaco or not. Demi humans are not a class, but a multiclass which is pretty much the same again , elves were fight/wizard. Spell list is exactly the same, vancian system.
A good system not reinventing the wheel, but i dont see really why this one instead of any other OSR.

Well, if you want to play a game that is as close to Original D&D (i.e. the 1974 version) with all of the supplements, but compiled into a single book and actually intelligible as a game system, then S&W Complete is a pretty good way to get that experience, but there's been plenty of OSR rules sets released since then that are different, more unique, slicker, whatever and fill a lot of different niches, so sure, pick the one that does what you want it to do. Personally, if I ever do run an OSR (or OSR adjacent) game again I'd probably go with Old School Essentials, just because it's so well organized and designed for use at the table, or maybe DCC RPG with the DCC Lankhmar boxed set.

DCC has some nice stuff , but from a DM point of view it seems a bit too heavy to play , too many crits table, for attack and spells etc. Would use it only with computer tools.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

There was a thread in this forum where we played using these rules. I played a little but then dropped out due to business/laziness.

The Search for the Sorcerer? Something like that.

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/play-by-post-in-search-of-the-sorcerer.96626/

We eventually switched to BRP Magic World (essentially Elric!/Stormbringer), but S&W is is a very flexible system and about as open-ended as you could hope for as the forerunner of AD&D.

Good times anyway.

 

[nikolokolus]

There was a thread in this forum where we played using these rules. I played a little but then dropped out due to business/laziness.

The Search for the Sorcerer? Something like that.

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/play-by-post-in-search-of-the-sorcerer.96626/

We eventually switched to BRP Magic World (essentially Elric!/Stormbringer), but S&W is is a very flexible system and about as open-ended as you could hope for as the forerunner of AD&D.

Good times anyway.

Yeah, I had a lot of fun running that. It was the first time I ever tried to run a PbP game, so there was a lot to learn on the fly. Maybe if life slows down enough again to put the energy into it I might try it again. I'm pretty busy running a face-to-face monthly game for a couple of friends and a bi-weekly virtual table top game these days for another group, but there's always hope.

 

[nikolokolus]

There was a thread in this forum where we played using these rules. I played a little but then dropped out due to business/laziness.

The Search for the Sorcerer? Something like that.

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/play-by-post-in-search-of-the-sorcerer.96626/

We eventually switched to BRP Magic World (essentially Elric!/Stormbringer), but S&W is is a very flexible system and about as open-ended as you could hope for as the forerunner of AD&D.

I read the rules, seems almost identical to becmi with less levels,less bloat, oh yeah you can use ascending or descending AC , means you want thaco or not. Demi humans are not a class, but a multiclass which is pretty much the same again , elves were fight/wizard. Spell list is exactly the same, vancian system.
A good system not reinventing the wheel, but i dont see really why this one instead of any other OSR.

Well, if you want to play a game that is as close to Original D&D (i.e. the 1974 version) with all of the supplements, but compiled into a single book and actually intelligible as a game system, then S&W Complete is a pretty good way to get that experience, but there's been plenty of OSR rules sets released since then that are different, more unique, slicker, whatever and fill a lot of different niches, so sure, pick the one that does what you want it to do. Personally, if I ever do run an OSR (or OSR adjacent) game again I'd probably go with Old School Essentials, just because it's so well organized and designed for use at the table, or maybe DCC RPG with the DCC Lankhmar boxed set.

DCC has some nice stuff , but from a DM point of view it seems a bit too heavy to play , too many crits table, for attack and spells etc. Would use it only with computer tools.

True(ish), but there's always this stuff from Purple Sorcerer Games, which is pretty much just what you were asking for.