After a year of running Swords & Wizardry as a celebration of sorts of D&D’s 50th anniversary, Matt Finch’s restatement of the Original D&D rules deserves a review. I won’t bury the lede: I love this game, so it’s an easy recommendation from me. My prior old school experiences had all been functionally one-shots and I was vigilant for friction points or frustrations that might arise over long-term play, but after running more than thirty sessions I’m still a satisfied and enthusiastic DM.
For newcomers to the wonderful world of Swords & Wizardry, there’s a constellation of versions out there: Swords & Wizardry Whitebox focuses only on the contents of the first three “little brown books,” Swords & Wizardry Core compiles the first little brown books along with the Greyhawk supplement (e.g., it’s “white box” with the thief added), and Swords & Wizardry Complete compiles the (non-brand identity) contents of the little brown books and its successive supplements (notably Greyhawk and Blackmoor). The most recent edition is Swords & Wizardry Complete Revised, a light update of the prior Complete edition. In essence, Whitebox represents the start of OD&D in 1974, whereas Complete summarizes OD&D as it was shortly before the bifurcation the game into the Basic and Advanced lines in 1978. It’s been printed by a couple publishers over the years, and is presently available here in two flavors: Complete and Whitebox.
I’ve been playing “Complete” this past year, and although I’ve been billing the weekly game as a glimpse into the world of D&D as it was fifty years ago, I haven’t been a stickler for “historic accuracy.” I’ve been using the quality-of-life improvements provided by Swords & Wizardry, such as ascending AC and the unified saving throw. We’ve also been using a more modern type of player turn: instead of subdividing rounds into phases (e.g., “movement & missiles” or “declare spells”) in the Chainmail wargaming style, characters just resolve their business in one swoop, moving and acting without the formality of war-game phases.
And I confess I’ve also just been ignoring a few rules. Since we’ve been playing theater-of-the-mind style, movement rate hasn’t been tracked very closely, and I usually just refer to it to answer the question of “can this monster chase you down while you flee?” I’ve also thrown out orthodoxy about race restrictions for classes. It hasn’t actually come up that much, but I figure if someone really wants to make a dwarven cleric, why limit them? I don’t think it’s exactly game-breaking to permit an elven ranger as a PC since I’m not trying to run an officially sanctioned league or something, and there’s no intricate world-building I’ve done that forbids halfling druids.
I’ve already mentioned the inclusion of rules for ascending AC and the simplified saving throws as things I like about Swords & Wizardry, but what else makes this set of rules so great? First, it’s compact: just one book. The hardcovers are “standard” letter-size, but there’s a lot of game crammed into about 140 pages. Compared to Player’s Handbooks, it’s a teensy bit thicker than good ol’ 1e Advanced, but slimmer than 3rd and 4th Edition. It’s not so big to feel like work, and not so small that it feels too spare or sparse. In this regard, much of the strength of the rules comes from what isn’t written down: there are no rules for swimming/drowning, or attacking from horseback. Some folks might find this frustrating, but personally I find it liberating: I’m not constantly compelled to flip through the book to try to look up the precise penalty/bonus for this or that. It gives room for creativity or quick adjudication, which in my case is usually just distilled down to a d6 roll (e.g., “on a 1 or a 2 the blow knocks you off the horse”).
Similarly, spell descriptions are rarely mechanical, and often expressly defer to DM fiat. This is either a feature or a “bug” depending on your particular perspective. For my part, I enjoy the openness. And of course all of this has been discussed ad nauseam in gaming circles, so perhaps I should focus more on Swords & Wizardry specifically than something that can apply to just about any old-school (or rules-light) game.
After more than thirty sessions, what particular insights do I have into this game? First, you can get a lot of mileage out of just the core book. I’ve been running from pre-written modules for the most part (Lost City of Barakus and Rappan Athuk), but the majority of the foes the party has faced generally come straight out of the monster section, and are simple bandits, goblins, drow, wolves, etc. Similarly, my players (at least those who return to the table week-to-week) don’t seem to miss the abundant character options of later editions. Where the diversity of character options arises in this edition comes from perks conferred by loot & treasure.1 With that in mind, I recommend that DMs give the characters cool equipment they find in the dungeon, even if it’s not especially magical or doesn’t have a particular mechanical effect. Don’t just award a shield, make sure the shield has some kind of heraldry or iconography on it. And even better, make that iconography relevant to the dungeon/setting… perhaps a cultist recognizes that the fighter is lugging around a shield bearing the goat sigil of the Great Horned One and subsequently mistakes the fighter as an ally… or attacks them on sight as a blasphemer.
As for other tips, don’t be afraid to let the characters trick their way out of situations (e.g., charm, sleep, etc.)… that’s certainly a well-known old school methodology that permits the players to use the tools provided to them. As a DM (or “referee” technically) don’t be disappointed by having them “miss the fight”… think of it has letting them find a shortcut to the next cool part.
Oh, and here’s a good thing I’ve learned: if you’ve got three players or less at the table, let them run two characters at once. This lets the party have enough muscle to get things done at level 1, and score enough gold to start hiring men-at-arms to help supplement the party’s ability to tackle bigger foes later on. I think this can be rewarding for the players as well because they can explore different styles of character and strategy simultaneously. And, of course, everyone automatically has a spare character in this circumstance, which helps soften the blow of those level 1 deaths.
As for shortcomings or points of friction that have come up, I think Swords & Wizardry could use a slightly more elegant way of generating impromptu treasure. This is, of course, more of a shortcoming of OD&D generally than Swords & Wizardry, and in truth is hardly an actual problem. If I were more organized I would roll up a few treasure lists for common situations like “what do humanoids have in their pockets” or “dungeon discoveries” and just roll or apportion loot from those tables as needed. Rolling treasure by-the-book tends to result in gold and gems, which is all well-and-good, but it can be a bit time-consuming to do in play. It’s not so bad after a “major” encounter where it can function as a little bit of a table break to the let the players high-five each other after triumphing over a foe, but it’s more of a drag if they simply dispatched six zombies without too much trouble and are itching to see what else is in the dungeon. I think “Complete Revised” has modified treasure generation a bit, so I should do some more studying to find out if that “problem” has actually been solved. But, like I said, I could just do a little more prep ahead of time and roll up some treasure hoards to deploy as needed. Lately I’ve been using a “treasure die” I ordered from Viridian Games– if the players have had a random encounter of some variety that feels like it should lead to some treasure, I have them give that big 12-sided die a roll. Often it results in some “pocket change” treasure (simply “Coins” or “Equipment”) but they can also end up with quite the boon too! The other night after investigating some desiccated corpses hanging in the webs of some giant spiders, they found a “Legendary Item” so I had to do a bit of rolling on the Major Magic Item tables to find out what they found. The lesson there, of course, is if you want them to just find 2d20 gold… just give give 2d20 gold. If you want to risk having them find the Deck of Many Things in an ogre’s treasure sack then roll that treasure die! But I am digressing from Swords & Wizardry, since this is basically just discussion of my own experimental treasure generating efforts.
What’s next for me after a year of Swords & Wizardry? Well, right now it’s more Swords & Wizardry, this time as a player. The “build-a-group” efforts of the past year have borne delightful fruit in that one of my players has rotated in to do some DMing in his world for a bit, so I’m sitting in a player’s seat for a bit and working to keep a Magic User/Fighter Elf alive to see level 2!
I’ve also experimented with going even older-school and just recently ran a Swords & Wizardry: Whitebox game at a convention, with good results. I’m certainly not done with Swords & Wizardry yet. There is plenty of room in my heart for other games, of course, and indeed room for other old school systems too (Old School Essentials and Lamentations of the Flame Princess being perennial co-favorites of mine). Unfortunately, there’s not plenty of room in my schedule! So, for those of you looking for a recommendation or endorsement, check out Swords & Wizardry for a nice tidy ruleset that runs great for low-prep games and can keep you busy for a while. It runs just fine on its own “rules as written,” but like many/most/all OSR games you can add all sorts of houserules to it to modify it to your table’s taste. If there’s one thing I’m reminded of from the recent convention game, it’s that the rules simply need to be a playground for the players (and you!). Sure, a playground can have some fun pre-fabricated structures anchored to it, like slides, swings, or merry-go-rounds, but equally important is open space for folks to do their own thing too.
- Character traits also derive, of course, from the “emergent story” based on how the dice fall too. Some characters, for example, get a reputation for being deadly with a bow based simply on a session of hot dice rolls. ↩︎