Fantasy Flight Games FRGSW3001 Swords And Wizardry Complete Rulebook

by Matthew J. Finch, Erol Otus (Illustrator)

This book expands the Swords and Wizardry Core Rules to cover all of the early phase supplements from the 1970's. It creates a 1-volume resource allowing the players and game masters alike to create and run adventures and campaigns that will last for an entire lifetime. The game is supported by a vast array of adventures, and other resources that are produced by Frog God Games.

This is the game you played 20 years ago. It's true to the original style and philosophy that made the game great. No "Spot Checks" here. Simple, flexible rules that allow players and game masters alike to roll play and roleplay. This stand-alone tome provides all the rules you need to play the game. Its easily transferable as a rules set for other retro-clone games as well as those old dusty modules you still have in the attic.

In 1974, Gary Gygax (1938-2008) and Dave Arneson (1947-2009) wrote the world's first fantasy role-playing game, a simple and very flexible set of rules that launched an entirely new genre of gaming. In the year 2000, Wizards of the Coast, Inc. (holder of the "Dungeons & Dragons" trademark) released the "Open Game License," which allows third parties, like us, to use various intellectual properties historically associated with the Dungeons & Dragons game - although not the actual trademarked name itself, and with specific terms and restrictions.

The Swords & Wizardry rules are extremely short, compared to the multi-paged rule-libraries required to play most modern role-playing games. Yet this game contains within itself all the seeds and soul of mythic fantasy, the building blocks of vast complexity, the kindling of wonder. "Edition Zero" is so powerful because it's encapsulated in a small formula, like a genie kept imprisoned in the small compass of an unremarkable lamp. Take this framework, and then imagine the hell out of it!"

Genres: Role Playing Games, Games, Gaming, Fantasy, Dungeons and Dragons

144 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Swords & Wizardry is one of many "Old School Renaissance" retroclones of 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Throughout the rulebook, they refer to "The Original Game" because, while the Open Gaming License allows them to republish the rules of the original game, they cannot actually use the name "Dungeons & Dragons" anywhere in the text.

But S&W is pretty much 1st edition AD&D with some house rules, which is how everyone always played AD&D.

You might be wondering, why would anyone buy and play S&W when (a) it's still pretty easy to buy old 1st edition AD&D manuals if you want them; (b) there has been decades of RPG design, and several editions of D&D, since then, with 5th Edition currently being one of the most popular RPGs ever?

To answer that would require a little more history about the "OSR" that has been bringing thousands of old-school gamers back to the table to play games like the ones they first played as teenagers, and drawing in quite a few new players as well, who are captured by the simplicity and charm of D&D the way Dad used to play it.

Speaking for myself, I also find 5E somewhat unsatisfying; the rules are streamlined and polished and do what they are intended, but they also produce characters who start out as virtual fantasy superheroes. Not like the old days, when your 1st level character was apt to die the first time he ran into a giant rat!

S&W is one of many similar retroclones, and if you decide OSR is for you, ultimately which one you will choose is up to you, but S&W is very nicely packaged and has a ton of supplements already published for it. I actually have both editions, the one with the Erol Otus cover, and the recent printing that was Kickstarted with an all-female artistic team, and what I call the "Georgia O'Keeffe cover." (No, really, look at it!) It's a nice cover and the artwork is also all new for this printing, and as you'd expect, features a lot of nice illustrations of female assassins, druids, fighters, etc., in sensible clothing and armor.

It gives me a hankering to play, old-school style, and while I'm not sure I'd choose S&W as my OSR system of choice, it's also as good as any other, so why not?

For you old grognards: the changes from The Original Game are minor, adding some clarifications to dual-classing and multi-classing, removing the level limits for some classes, like Monks and Druids, and consolidating the complicated Saving Throw charts for different types of magical attacks from the original game into a single Saving Throw (but the original charts are presented for those who want them). Also, they revert to the old three-alignment system of Law-Neutrality-Chaos. There are a few other changes, but GMs are actively encouraged to house rule things.

[Darjeeling · Rating 4 out of 5]

Get it for free here:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/...

I got the pdf version from the download above and I really appreciate the fact that it comes with a full complement of bookmarks, including an alphabetised list of bookmarks for every monster in the books monster manual. It's also nice that the book comes complete with it's own monster manual.

Its's a strange beast, since it's very rules light, and yet several of the rules it does have are needlessly convoluted, with a large array of tables to decide weather or not something hit, rather than simply saying 'OK, its got 15AV, so beat 15 on a D20 to hit'.

Here is how movement is calculated:
'Base movement rate divided by 3, times ten feet, is how far the character can move in one round.'
Why!? Why not, 'Your movement is 15 feet. You can move 15 feet.'

I get that a large part of this whole OSR thing is that it is a re-collection and re-organisation of the original D&D rules, so it partly exists for archival/historical purposes, and is quite nice to have in that regard. The book itself also states that if you don't like a rule, feel free to either not use it or change it. So fair enough I guess. My quest continues for the perfect OSR rules. I think the plan at this point is probably to look through Vengers 'The Islands of Purple Haunted Putrescence' and then see if I feel inspired to either use his 'Crimson Dragon D20 Revised' system, or if feel like modifying 'Swords and Wizardry' so that it's more to my liking, or if neither are working for me and I need to buy 'Dungeon Crawl Classics' and see if that does the job.

[Joseph Riina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not too far off from BX D&D, but the writing here is a bit clearer with intent, which makes sense since it's Matt Finch and he's got probably the strongest idea of what OSR games should be in his head.

[Björn Boots · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ich habe die gedruckte deutsche Hardcoverversion des Buches, erschienen beim System Matters Verlag, gelesen. Das Buch ist ein sehr gelungenes Werk. Das Layout ist sehr übersichtlich gestaltet worden, ideal für seinen Einsatzzweck als Hauptregelbuch eine Pen&Paper-Rollenspiels. Das vorhandene schwarzweiße Artwork ist inspirierend und weckt Erinnerungen an lange vergangene Tage der Wunder und Abenteuer.

[Charlie Warren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Swords & Wizardry is a retroclone game that harkens back to the early days of the hobby but also updates the mechanics with a modern touch. There are several versions of Swords & Wizardry available (Light, White Box, Core, and Complete) along with various hacks and many other retroclone games available so what makes Swords & Wizardry: Complete my favorite and the one I always recommend first? My reasoning is simple. Similar to many others, my gaming group was so hungry for new D&D material that we completely ignored the version any products were intended to be used with and kept what we liked and ignored the rest. Simply put, we played a mash up of Basic and Advanced rules in our games. Swords & Wizardry: Complete perfectly simulates the feel and complexity of the games I played in during the 1980's! I cannot argue that there are not rules changes because there are - single saving throw & ascending AC to name two - but it does not complicate or confuse. Plus, these rules accomplish this satisfying gaming experience with one slim volume of rules.

[Wolf Stettler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great OSR role playing game. Easy to understand and to play. If you are not familiar with the old school renaissance (old school role playing), you might want to read Matt Finch's Quick Primer for Old School Gaming (http://www.lulu.com/shop/matthew-finc...) for not being disappointed.
There is a free pdf of the roolbook at Frog God Games, but the book is well worth its price.

[Wurp · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite version of Dungeons and Dragons! It's true to the New OSR Primer - NPCs are not just cookie cutters of characters, interacting with the world feels like interacting with a real world instead of playing a video game with predefined solutions.

Dungeons deep and caverns old! Adventure awaits!

[Malum · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another take on the OSR gaming movement. Really good GM section, but the classes seem a bit unbalanced.

[J.R. Handley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was helpful in my quest to start my own campaign as a noob DM.

[John Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Super Simple easy to read and follow and reference Retro Clone of Original white box Dungeons and Dragons.

[E.T.Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

S&W is my preferred incarnation of the many OSR systems available though I prefer the loose-and-light White Box version.

[Max · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the plus side, I generally like the artwork in the version I read, which is the third printing, where they handed the design work to a group of women. It's nice to see most of the example characters in the artwork be women, and in general there's a pretty cool aesthetic going. I especially liked the detailed borders on each page, which change from section to section. I'm somewhat less enamored of the game itself, however. The idea of a single unified saving throw is cool in theory, but it ends up removing some of the ways that the old school saving throws differentiate classes. I do think allowing only fighters to make full use of strength bonuses is an interesting idea, and I enjoyed just how obviously the ranger is Aragorn. I find it odd that there's no illusionist, though. I feel like there was a nice selection of spells and monsters and treasure, the three of which combined take up most of the book, but there isn't really enough details on any of them, which I imagine would be frustrating for the starting GM. And I also feel like the rules are too bare bones. Certainly, I'm free to add a pile of other rules and options from different D&D variants, but at that point I'd rather just use a different game. The idea of a D&D clone with artwork to help it appeal more to women is pretty cool, but I feel like this particular game may have been a poor choice, at least if the goal is to bring in total newbies. Also, on a much lesser note, I find myself really annoyed by how the game treats Law and Chaos as synonymous with Good and Evil, since that removes much of the point of the distinction and ignores how the original D&D treated things. I don't regret helping the Kickstarter, but I can't say I especially enjoyed reading this, and I doubt I'd use it over one of the many other D&D editions and variants that are out there.