Swords & Wizardry

The good folks at Mythmere Games have published Swords & Wizardry, a new version of the Dungeons & Dragons game as published in the early 1970s. It appears to be something in between the booklets of 0e and the Holmes' basic edition. As it states in the introduction, it is "an approximate re-creation of the Gary Gygax original fantasy role-playing game, created using the Open Game License." The PDF version is a FREE DOWNLOAD but you can also pay a few dollars for a printed copy.

I heard about this work via James Maliszewski over at Grognardia. Although I don't always agree with James' harsh criticism of 4e, I intensely enjoy his perspectives of "old school" fantasy RPGs. As a matter of fact, he was the editor of this S&W rule book.

I'm glad that someone has gone to the trouble of reinterpreting the 0e rules for modern gamers. Although I have PDFs of the original game, they were written for gamers who were already familiar with strategy war games and at a time when the term "role-playing game" was not yet coined. Even if you are not interested in actually playing S&W, it is sure to provide insight into the early days of D&D. It should also provide some guidance for conducting your own "old school" style of gaming. Maybe it will inspire the reader to simplify gameplay.

Who knows? Perhaps it will inspire me to take advantage of the OGL and publish my own S&W adventure module.