[S&W WB] Deliberate differences from OD&D?

[Falconer]

What are some ways in which White Box is deliberately different from OD&D and why?

[James Maliszewski]

The most obvious difference to me -- because it bugs the heck out of me -- is the unified saving throw, though I've never quite understood why it was adopted.

[cadriel]

There are heaps of differences between S&W and OD&D, it's actually something that has always bugged me about S&W being described as fundamentally the same:

- Universal attribute bonus - in OD&D Strength and Wisdom don't give any bonuses, and the Dex and Con bonuses are at different points. S&W White Box has the same bonuses for everything.
- Strength bonus - OD&D doesn't have a strength bonus to hit or to damage.
- Bonus from Prime Requisite - In OD&D it's just the PR that determines this, in S&W it's the PR, Wisdom and Charisma.
- OD&D has rules for redistributing attributes at a 2-for-1 rate, S&W White Box does not.
- Weapon damage in S&W White Box is totally idiosyncratic, with no parallels in any edition of D&D. OD&D assumes d6 damage for everything.
- Surprise - OD&D has defined surprise rules (1-2 on 1d6), S&W suggests "a judgement or a die roll of some kind, depending on circumstances."
- Initiative - OD&D has no initiative rules. S&W does.
- Dungeon rules - these are completely missing from S&W White Box. There are no rules for secret doors, listening, random encounters, and so on.
- Treasure Type - this is completely missing from S&W White Box and replaced with a XP-based treasure system.
- Magical weapons - in OD&D pluses go to hit, except when against specific monster types they also go to damage. S&W: White Box does not specify which.

There are doubtless other differences throughout, but these are some of the big ones I can find.

(Edited to add more detail / clarify a couple of points)

[Finarvyn]

Aug 24, 2010 22:48:55 GMT -6 James Maliszewski said:

The most obvious difference to me -- because it bugs the heck out of me -- is the unified saving throw, though I've never quite understood why it was adopted.

Matt told me that the unified saving throw was part of the S&W "product identity" and that it was needed as a part of making S&W it's own game. Personally, I don't use the unified saving throw.

[cadriel]

Aug 25, 2010 8:11:25 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

Matt told me that the unified saving throw was part of the S&W "product identity" and that it was needed as a part of making S&W it's own game. Personally, I don't use the unified saving throw.

The unified saving throw is something I'd never use (specifically because I love saying "save versus dragon breath" when I'm using it to adjudicate a dragon breath-like effect) but I can sorta see it as standing in the tradition of the Tunnels & Trolls "saving roll."

But it does irk me, as do the list of things I put up above, because I don't like how S&W is effectively in the middle. It's too much of a clone to be its own game entirely, the way Spellcraft & Swordplay and LotFP:WFRP are more than just clones, but it's much less faithful to the source than Labyrinth Lord or OSRIC. I see it as being closer to Castles & Crusades, which I'm also not a fan of - although on the whole I prefer S&W's supporting material to C&C's.

[James Maliszewski]

Aug 25, 2010 8:11:25 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

Matt told me that the unified saving throw was part of the S&W "product identity" and that it was needed as a part of making S&W it's own game.

That makes some sense, although there already was the precedent with Labyrinth Lord and OSRIC for presenting multiple saving throw categories in a retro-clone. It's the biggest rules divergence from OD&D that really bugs me, perhaps irrationally, but there it is.

[Falconer]

Yeah, the unified saving throw is lame, and the inclusion of ascending AC is also lame. But the part I hate most is the universal attribute bonuses. I don’t have an articulate reason but somehow this is my biggest peeve of all time (and the main reason I never even considered going to 3e when it first came out).

[cadriel]

Aug 25, 2010 14:53:12 GMT -6 Falconer said:

Yeah, the unified saving throw is lame, and the inclusion of ascending AC is also lame. But the part I hate most is the universal attribute bonuses. I don’t have an articulate reason but somehow this is my biggest peeve of all time (and the main reason I never even considered going to 3e when it first came out).

Yeah, I'm not much of a fan of S&W's ability score structure either. It's not consistent with any edition of D&D ever, like the weapon damages, which I think is a major problem - it's not that I am against innovation but I think such a game should be up front: it's not OD&D.

The most annoying thing to me is that it doesn't reproduce OD&D's minor rules, a number of which survived into AD&D and the Rules Cyclopedia relatively in tact. Searching for secret doors, listening at a door, running over a trap, surprise and so on. To me these are the things that rammed home the idea of D&D as a dungeon exploration game, and it's a shame to sell people something that is supposed to be "more or less OD&D" without them.

[danbuter]

I think the unified Save is one of the best additions in the game. My other favorite was ascending AC, though I wish the old style AC had been eliminated completely from the books.

[Finarvyn]

Aug 25, 2010 14:53:12 GMT -6 Falconer said:

Yeah, the unified saving throw is lame, and the inclusion of ascending AC is also lame. But the part I hate most is the universal attribute bonuses.

Tree good opinions, so three counter-thoughts:

1) I'm becoming a fan of the "fortitude, reflex, willpower" saving throws from 3E. They make a lot more sense to me than the original saving throw table, which seems to have numbers scrambled more-or-less at random. I also like them because F=Fortitude=Fighter, R=Reflex=Rogue, W=Willpower=Wizard, which I can remember in play. My goal is always to have simple rules I can play without having to look up much during the game, and F-R-W does it for me.

2) I love ascending AC because of the "bigger is better" notion. I house-ruled this back in the 70's because it made so much more sense to me. (It wasn't quite the same as the 3E rule, but pretty darned close. My rule was that AC0 was no armor, AC1 was shield only, and so on. Then your "armor rating" was AC+10. 3E wrote it up better than I did.)

3) Having one chart for all bonuses is easy for me to remember, which is a bonus for me. The one I like best is actually from B/X, I think:
3 (-3) 4-5 (-2) 6-8 (-1) 9-12 (+0) 13-15 (+1) 16-17 (+2) 18 (+3)
but I didn't use it because the original white boxed set didn't have many bonuses at all. This was an issue discussed by the "S&W WB Steering Committee" and I followed their lead. (My personal theory is that these original LBB bonuses were supposed to be applied to d6 rolls instead of d20 rolls, so they had to be kept small. This would make the +3 Dwarven Hammer a really kick-butt weapon.)

S&W was the rules set I was encouraged to write, not exactly the rules I play.

[waysoftheearth]

It's interesting to see how different game features are important to different folks...

For me, I like the single saving throw; it's a welcome simplification. And you can always apply a modifier for four of the five original categories to arrive at (more or less) the original if it matters that much. I especially like that the PC saving throw improves at each level.

I wish ascending AC had been skipped, but I understand it was a S&W legal requirement. The point (at least one of the points) of a "clone" is to be compatible with all the original material, and ascending AC isn't much use there.

I also think the unified ability modifier is it a welcome simplification and addition. It gives each ability a meaningful value. Admittedly I can't really see how charisma should adjust XP earned though -- that feels a bit too much like "charisma is the least valuable stat, so let's amp it up a bit".

[Finarvyn]

Aug 28, 2010 8:21:45 GMT -6 waysoftheearth said:

I also think the unified ability modifier is it a welcome simplification and addition. It gives each ability a meaningful value. Admittedly I can't really see how charisma should adjust XP earned though -- that feels a bit too much like "charisma is the least valuable stat, so let's amp it up a bit".

Guilty as charged.

[James Maliszewski]

Aug 28, 2010 8:21:45 GMT -6 waysoftheearth said:

I wish ascending AC had been skipped, but I understand it was a S&W legal requirement. The point (at least one of the points) of a "clone" is to be compatible with all the original material, and ascending AC isn't much use there.

I suspect the intention was to make S&W more appealing to gamers coming into old school play via WotC's edition, much in the same way that C&C does. This a big of the reason why I bristle a little bit whenever I hear S&W described as an "OD&D clone," because, unlike OSRIC or Labyrinth Lord, its rules diverge quite significantly in a number of places from its inspiration.

That said, S&W's a very fine game and I enjoyed playing it. Eventually, I moved on from it because I kept modifying so many aspects of it to bring it back in line with OD&D that I figured I might as well be playing the original game. Plus, I planned on writing stuff of my own and the S&W license requires the inclusion of ascending AC notation in brackets after the descending with no exceptions allowed. That was probably the nail in the coffin for my interest.

[maasenstodt]

For what it's worth, I thought I'd chime in to serve as a bit of a counter-balance. Since picking up the little S&W:WB hard back, it has become my favorite iteration of D&D.

All of the things that others have criticized in this thread, I view as features. That's not to say that I don't tweak things, but I find WB to be the best platform for building my own game that's available. It's also the easiest introduction for youngsters to D&D that I've found.

I applaud it wholeheartedly.

[tombowings]

I too enjoy many of changes made in SW:WB. It feels like a simplified version of OD&D and is a great starting place for tinkering to occur. When playing OD&D even, I don't use any of the "adventuring rules" for listening beyond doors and finding secret ones. I usually handle these things through players telling me what they are doing and I tell them what happens. No need for dice.

I guess that I like SW:WB being different that OD&D because I have both at my disposal. I may feel differently if SW:WB was the closest thing I had to the original game.

[James Maliszewski]

Don't misunderstand me: I really do think S&W, in both its forms is a great game and likely a good "bridge" to old school gaming for players unfamiliar with it. My criticisms are largely personal, based on my own preferences. The only big issue I have with S&W is the way it's presented as if it were a clone of OD&D, because it's a lot less like the LBBs than even Labyrinth Lord is and LL is explicitly intended as a clone of B/X, which is several years and iterations removed from the LBBs.

[Falconer]

Yeah, temper my criticisms too in the light of my previous thread, entitled “[S&W WB] Best Intro to the Hobby”. I simply would have thought that cloning as close to the original as legally possible would be the way to make it the most acceptable across the board. Everyone has their own house rules to OD&D, but everyone has different ones, so at least by hewing close to OD&D it gives you an equitable starting point.

[James Maliszewski]

Aug 29, 2010 12:06:44 GMT -6 Falconer said:

I simply would have thought that cloning as close to the original as legally possible would be the way to make it the most acceptable across the board. Everyone has their own house rules to OD&D, but everyone has different ones, so at least by hewing close to OD&D it gives you an equitable starting point.

That's what I would have thought too, but, obviously, Matt felt differently, for reasons he can probably best articulate.

[cadriel]

Aug 29, 2010 11:48:01 GMT -6 James Maliszewski said:

The only big issue I have with S&W is the way it's presented as if it were a clone of OD&D, because it's a lot less like the LBBs than even Labyrinth Lord is and LL is explicitly intended as a clone of B/X, which is several years and iterations removed from the LBBs.

This is spot-on accurate: Swords & Wizardry is a decent little game as games inspired by OD&D go. It is NOT OD&D, not even a clone in the sense of Labyrinth Lord or OSRIC. Yet it is mis-labelled as an OD&D clone, and people play it thinking they're playing OD&D. Unfortunately its creators have perpetuated this misunderstanding and the game has an undeserved reputation as being "more or less" OD&D. People interested in OD&D play S&W and form impressions based on that. And that's not quite right.

For me, this is something of a sore point, as I was expecting a real clone on the caliber of Labyrinth Lord. I found somebody else's idiosyncratic game based on OD&D, which changed things in ways that went against my own tastes - the lack of the dungeon rules, which I see as a core part of D&D as I like to run it, was the big one for me - not a bad thing in and of itself, but unfortunately marketed. If this had been sold as more like Jason Vey's Spellcraft & Swordplay, or even Chris Gonnerman's Basic Fantasy RPG, I would have thought much more highly of it.

[jblittlefield]

Aug 24, 2010 22:48:55 GMT -6 James Maliszewski said:

The most obvious difference to me -- because it bugs the heck out of me -- is the unified saving throw, though I've never quite understood why it was adopted.

I love the unified saving throw. It seems much more intuitive to me to make the save and apply an appropriate attribute modifier than to have to choose between five oddly named categories.

[jblittlefield]

Aug 25, 2010 14:53:12 GMT -6 Falconer said:

Yeah, the unified saving throw is lame, and the inclusion of ascending AC is also lame. But the part I hate most is the universal attribute bonuses. I don’t have an articulate reason but somehow this is my biggest peeve of all time (and the main reason I never even considered going to 3e when it first came out).

Part of why I chose WB for my "homebrew base" is because of these three things. Remember, WB was intended as more of a "rules skeleton" than a complete ruleset.

Don't like the unified save? Import the old categories from LL or OSRIC.

Ascending AC rub you the wrong way? Use the original descending system (heck, it's still in WB).

Don't like the universal attribute modifiers? Use the LL or OSRIC tables.

Personally, I prefer WB's "openess".

[jblittlefield]

Aug 29, 2010 7:59:10 GMT -6 maasenstodt said:

For what it's worth, I thought I'd chime in to serve as a bit of a counter-balance. Since picking up the little S&W:WB hard back, it has become my favorite iteration of D&D.

All of the things that others have criticized in this thread, I view as features. That's not to say that I don't tweak things, but I find WB to be the best platform for building my own game that's available. It's also the easiest introduction for youngsters to D&D that I've found.

I applaud it wholeheartedly.

Ditto

[Deleted]

Sept 2, 2010 13:45:21 GMT -6 jblittlefield said:

Aug 24, 2010 22:48:55 GMT -6 James Maliszewski said:

The most obvious difference to me -- because it bugs the heck out of me -- is the unified saving throw, though I've never quite understood why it was adopted.

I love the unified saving throw. It seems much more intuitive to me to make the save and apply an appropriate attribute modifier than to have to choose between five oddly named categories.

FWIW I agree with JB. Its easy and intuitive. Its also easy to customize which is a nice plus.

[aldarron]

Aug 25, 2010 5:55:23 GMT -6 cadriel said:

Initiative - OD&D has no initiative rules. S&W does.

Somebody pointed this out in relation to the Holmes edit, but OD&D really does have an initative rule, or a suggestion anyway:

"Dexterity applies to both manual speed and conjuration. It will indicate the character's missile ability and speed with actions such as firing first, getting off a spell, etc."

Note the sentence refers to the order in which melee actions will occur. The Holmes Dexterity based initiative method was a clarification of what was already indicated in the 3lbbs.

[blackbarn]

I don't mind a single saving throw, but I don't like this particular implementation as some classes are simply better at ALL things you'd use a saving throw for. Granted, this can be easily changed by the DM by giving certain bonuses/penalties to the different classes for different dangers (though a standard base save for all would be better if one is to go that route).

I'm seriously puzzled why anyone wold object to both types of AC being included though, as that can only increase compatibility and draw in more players to give "old school" style games a shot, And it's such a minor thing to note the ascending AC in brackets, taking almost no effort or space, and granting lots of added compatibility to the highest number of potential players. Is it mostly because WB gets billed as a clone that makes these things not appreciated?

I guess there is still room for a "proper" OD&D clone then? But where would the creator of it draw the line on rules that were so vague we still are debating what they mean to this day?

[Deleted]

Nov 3, 2010 10:33:02 GMT -6 blackbarn said:

But where would the creator of it draw the line on rules that were so vague we still are debating what they mean to this day?

I believe this is the main issue with releasing a "true" clone of OD&D. One can postulate on the ambiguities within the 3LBB - but at some point, a personal judgment call is going to be made. Not that this is negative - we all do it, & the spirit of the game remains intact.

[James Maliszewski]

Nov 3, 2010 10:33:02 GMT -6 blackbarn said:

I'm seriously puzzled why anyone wold object to both types of AC being included though, as that can only increase compatibility and draw in more players to give "old school" style games a shot, And it's such a minor thing to note the ascending AC in brackets, taking almost no effort or space, and granting lots of added compatibility to the highest number of potential players. Is it mostly because WB gets billed as a clone that makes these things not appreciated?

Speaking only for myself, yes, the AC issue rankles because S&W is promoted as an OD&D clone, when in fact it diverges considerably from the LBBs in areas where there's no ambiguity in the original texts, so it's not a question of my simply disagreeing with one person's reasonable interpretation of the source material. That's the same reason the unified saving throw bugs me.

[talysman]

Nov 3, 2010 15:55:45 GMT -6 James Maliszewski said:

Speaking only for myself, yes, the AC issue rankles because S&W is promoted as an OD&D clone, when in fact it diverges considerably from the LBBs in areas where there's no ambiguity in the original texts, so it's not a question of my simply disagreeing with one person's reasonable interpretation of the source material. That's the same reason the unified saving throw bugs me.

Same here, for both the ascending ACs and the unified saving throws, plus the ability score bonuses and penalties. I know it shouldn't matter -- I can change them if I don't like them -- but it still bothers me.

When not considering S&W as an LBB clone, I actually think it's a great game. If I ever finish my clone project, I'm going to include a spell system, but suggest that it can be replaced with the spell list from S&W (or alternately from LL or its OEC supplement.)

[James Maliszewski]

Nov 3, 2010 16:26:06 GMT -6 talysman said:

When not considering S&W as an LBB clone, I actually think it's a great game.

Most definitely! I had a lot of fun using it in the early days of my current campaign, but, ultimately, I wanted something that had far fewer divergences from the LBBs and so I abandoned S&W. I still think very well of the game, though; it's a great design and certainly seems to have found a lot of favor outside the old school community, perhaps helped by the very changes to OD&D that I find so distracting.

[verhaden]

Nov 3, 2010 16:26:06 GMT -6 talysman said:

Nov 3, 2010 15:55:45 GMT -6 James Maliszewski said:

Speaking only for myself, yes, the AC issue rankles because S&W is promoted as an OD&D clone, when in fact it diverges considerably from the LBBs in areas where there's no ambiguity in the original texts, so it's not a question of my simply disagreeing with one person's reasonable interpretation of the source material. That's the same reason the unified saving throw bugs me.

Same here, for both the ascending ACs and the unified saving throws, plus the ability score bonuses and penalties. I know it shouldn't matter -- I can change them if I don't like them -- but it still bothers me.

When not considering S&W as an LBB clone, I actually think it's a great game. If I ever finish my clone project, I'm going to include a spell system, but suggest that it can be replaced with the spell list from S&W (or alternately from LL or its OEC supplement.)

There's also Delta's Book of Spells here.