S&W is better than D&D
Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2016 3:42 pm
Controversial? Probably.
Clickbait? Heh. Maybe.
I love Dungeons & Dragons. We all do. But here are four ways I think S&W actually improves on the original rules it emulates:
1. Ascending AC
I admit, I was sceptical at first. I took one look at D&D in the 3e era and bleurgh, I hated it. I grew up with B/X and AD&D 1e, and I never had a problem with descending AC. Nevertheless, after trying both, I have to say that I find AAC more intuitive and faster at the table. So much so that even when I'm running B/X now, I mentally "swap" every AC to its ascending equivalent on the fly.
2. The single saving throw category
Saving throw targets are (more or less) arbitrary numbers. How many of those do you really need? Five? Three? Why not just one? Easy to remember. No pausing the game because someone used the wand of polymorphing against the 9th-level evil cleric and wait a minute while I look that up. Also, the single saving throw is usable for all sorts of other things. Thieves' skills, for example.
3. No level titles
I know some people love them, but I never liked the level titles in any version of D&D. They just seemed muddled. For example, why is a Curate (5th-level cleric) higher than a Village Priest (3rd-level cleric)? In the Church of England, at least, a Curate is usually an assistant to a Priest. Moreover, a Priest may well be called a Vicar (4th-level Cleric). So those are just synonyms, not different "levels" of anything. As for Lama, whoa, Gygax, hold it right there! What religion is this supposed to be, exactly? OK, let's look at thieves instead. They get to be Burglars (4th level), Cutpurses (5th), then Sharpers (6th). What's that about? Those are just different dodgy vocations; there's no hierarchy involved. Anyway, rant over. I never saw the point of level titles, and I was happy when AD&D 2e ditched them. Some of the retro-clones out there use them; I'm glad S&W doesn't.
4. The name Swords & Wizardry
It's unimaginable now that the original fantasy roleplaying game could have been called anything other than Dungeons & Dragons, though of course it could. And "D&D" trips nicely off the tongue. However, not all sessions of D&D contain dungeons. (Some games are wilderness hexcrawls, or city-based adventures, or multiversal plane-hopping quests.) Certainly not every session involves dragons. But Swords (fighting! done by fighters!) & Wizardry (magic! used by magic-users!) are surely right there at the conceptual core of the game. Moreover, Swords & Wizardry sounds a bit like "sword-and-sorcery" (the subgenre of fantasy that largely inspired D&D) and a lot like Fritz Leiber's Swords Against Wizardry, with the significant difference that the swords aren't necessarily pitted against the wizardry; perhaps they are, but also perhaps they might team up and fight side-by-side. You know, like in a party of adventurers or something.
Thoughts? Arguments? Any other things about S&W that make you happy because - finally! - someone got the game "right"?
Clickbait? Heh. Maybe.
I love Dungeons & Dragons. We all do. But here are four ways I think S&W actually improves on the original rules it emulates:
1. Ascending AC
I admit, I was sceptical at first. I took one look at D&D in the 3e era and bleurgh, I hated it. I grew up with B/X and AD&D 1e, and I never had a problem with descending AC. Nevertheless, after trying both, I have to say that I find AAC more intuitive and faster at the table. So much so that even when I'm running B/X now, I mentally "swap" every AC to its ascending equivalent on the fly.
2. The single saving throw category
Saving throw targets are (more or less) arbitrary numbers. How many of those do you really need? Five? Three? Why not just one? Easy to remember. No pausing the game because someone used the wand of polymorphing against the 9th-level evil cleric and wait a minute while I look that up. Also, the single saving throw is usable for all sorts of other things. Thieves' skills, for example.
3. No level titles
I know some people love them, but I never liked the level titles in any version of D&D. They just seemed muddled. For example, why is a Curate (5th-level cleric) higher than a Village Priest (3rd-level cleric)? In the Church of England, at least, a Curate is usually an assistant to a Priest. Moreover, a Priest may well be called a Vicar (4th-level Cleric). So those are just synonyms, not different "levels" of anything. As for Lama, whoa, Gygax, hold it right there! What religion is this supposed to be, exactly? OK, let's look at thieves instead. They get to be Burglars (4th level), Cutpurses (5th), then Sharpers (6th). What's that about? Those are just different dodgy vocations; there's no hierarchy involved. Anyway, rant over. I never saw the point of level titles, and I was happy when AD&D 2e ditched them. Some of the retro-clones out there use them; I'm glad S&W doesn't.
4. The name Swords & Wizardry
It's unimaginable now that the original fantasy roleplaying game could have been called anything other than Dungeons & Dragons, though of course it could. And "D&D" trips nicely off the tongue. However, not all sessions of D&D contain dungeons. (Some games are wilderness hexcrawls, or city-based adventures, or multiversal plane-hopping quests.) Certainly not every session involves dragons. But Swords (fighting! done by fighters!) & Wizardry (magic! used by magic-users!) are surely right there at the conceptual core of the game. Moreover, Swords & Wizardry sounds a bit like "sword-and-sorcery" (the subgenre of fantasy that largely inspired D&D) and a lot like Fritz Leiber's Swords Against Wizardry, with the significant difference that the swords aren't necessarily pitted against the wizardry; perhaps they are, but also perhaps they might team up and fight side-by-side. You know, like in a party of adventurers or something.
Thoughts? Arguments? Any other things about S&W that make you happy because - finally! - someone got the game "right"?