Swords and Wizardry ruleset and modules?

[StylinLP38]

I was researching old school D&D gaming and I am a big fan of The Lost Lands: Stoneheart Valley / "The Wizard's Amulet", "The Crucible of Freya" modules. So I went to Frog God games website and found this module and Barakus and many others from Necromancer Games comes in two rules sets. Pathfinder and Swords and Wizardry. It seems that Swords and Wizardry is D&D 0e edition. Which is a very easy drop in for even running this rule set in 1st and 2nd edition D&D modules.


Is there a Swords and Wizardry ruleset or plans to make one? I would love to run these modules as a campaign. I am not a D&D 3.5 or Pathfinder fan.

[Mortar]

Celestianfrom the forums here has been looking at doing an official ruleset. I am not sure where the discussions with Frog God Games and/or SmiteWorks are. He will no doubt see this and chime in.

[Trenloe]

Not much progress reported recently here: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?35420-Swords-amp-Wizardry-Ruleset-Progress

[celestian]

Unfortunately Frog God Games's busy schedule kept us from aligning to get this project moving. (We had started talking January of this year). I've had to withdraw my S&W ruleset proposal due to my own workload schedules at this time.

[Mortar]

Unfortunately Frog God Games's busy schedule kept us from aligning to get this project moving. (We had started talking January of this year). I've had to withdraw my S&W ruleset proposal due to my own workload schedules at this time.

So you are saying I really ought to learn LUA then? :)

[celestian]

So you are saying I really ought to learn LUA then? :)

I'd be happy to offer help as I can. I'd even suggest using the AD&D Core ruleset as a base. It's pretty close to what is needed (and one reason I was looking at doing this project). It's no small task and needs to be created by someone with a love for the system.

[Mortar]

The extent of my lua knowledge would mean you'd end up doing all the work...or anyone I know with a hint of lua would get a string unending PMs or emails :D

[celestian]

The extent of my lua knowledge would mean you'd end up doing all the work...or anyone I know with a hint of lua would get a string unending PMs or emails :D

Start learning now and in a year or so you'll know more and have the project probably done ;)

[Mortar]

Not promising miracles, but I will have a crack at it. :)

[damned]

I'd be happy to offer help as I can. I'd even suggest using the AD&D Core ruleset as a base. It's pretty close to what is needed (and one reason I was looking at doing this project). It's no small task and needs to be created by someone with a love for the system.

Do this Mortar


The extent of my lua knowledge would mean you'd end up doing all the work...or anyone I know with a hint of lua would get a string unending PMs or emails :D

Dont do it by PM.
Do it in the forums or at the least in Discord channels so that others can have access to and learn from the interaction.

[Mortar]

Do this Mortar
Dont do it by PM.
Do it in the forums or at the least in Discord channels so that others can have access to and learn from the interaction.

I have already forked his repo and I have been peeking around at the files. I know that the character sheet and the combat tracker are the recommended start points so that is my planned starting point.

[Mortar]

Okay here is a question for damned, Celestian, and Trenloe if his forum travels bring him here.

Is it easier for me to create and maintain this ruleset long term by using the AD&DCore ruleset that Celestian has built ontop of/or modified from the 5e ruleset? The way I understand it, changes to the underlying CoreRPG would need to be "fixed" at each of those steps to work in the final project, and then in turn I work out to how implement into the ruleset I am working on.

Or is better for me to use CoreRPG as the base, then build the ruleset layered on that like most of the other ruelset?

I am aware that the second option may take me a lot longer, due to more work needing to be done by me, but it just seems in the long this will make updates easier to deal with.

[celestian]

It would definitely be loads more work to make a entirely new ruleset layered on CoreRPG.

My plan was to use AD&D core and adjust for rules specific to S&W. Doing that with the CoreRPG ruleset would be much harder, same or moreso with the 5e ruleset as well.

If you use AD&D Core you'd just need to maintain updates like I do with the 5e ruleset and CoreRPG. When they add something in the 5e ruleset or fix bugs I do a diff on the new 5e ruleset and mine. There are certain areas where this is no longer needed (character sheets and various things) but in general it's not to difficult but can be time consuming. Since I update the differences for CoreRPG you'd not need to worry about it.

So, when I push out a AD&D Core update you'd want to just review what I've done using a diff tool and decide if you want those changes or not.

You could just make S&W a extension used with AD&D Core which might be less work in the long run tho has it own complexities.

You can also layer it on AD&D Core. While it's not an official ruleset for FG I do maintain it as best I can and if a time comes where I get hit by a bus you could just flatted your layer into the latest AD&D Core and you'd have your own moving forward (that's what I did with 5e ruleset when I first started).

You could also do what I did and get the 5e ruleset and start trimming off what doesn't fit S&W.

The method I would choose is make a new branch of AD&D Core and update yours as things are updated in AD&D Core. I think that is the simplest with the most freedom and ease IMO.

As I said tho, it's a not a simple task. Learning LUA and FG will take a while (and I am by no means an expert). You'll need to love doing it for free more than likely.

[damned]

mortar what celestian is saying is that he gives you permission to fork his code.
eg his code is a ruleset layered on CoreRPG.
You would be taking the celestian code as it is at todays point in time and then reworking it for S&W
This will reduce your dev time by about... hmmm... 90% and your learn time by a good chunk too.

You will of course need to learn and understand what celestian has done and why etc

You will not need to keep track of celestians build going forward (although you might :)) but you will have to adjust each time CoreRPG is updated.

[Bidmaron]

damned, I thought he was encouraging mortar to build on top of his ruleset, not editing his ruleset (unless celestian got hit by a bus, in which case he would then merge into the current AD&D and not ride on top any more).

[damned]

if he wants to do it as a commercial ruleset it cannot be layered on top of a non Smiteworks ruleset.
celestian has most kindly given him permission to take a forked copy and run with it.

[Bidmaron]

Well, I guess that makes sense. Don't know how it could work any other way. Just didn't want a soul brave enough to launch into ruleset development to start off confused (cuz I sure was).

[Mortar]

I was totally confused....thus my post. I didn't grok that ADD Core is essentially a new ruleset already. damned sorted me out in his own way as usual :)

I have imported Celestian's excellent code base into a new repo, and am getting the basic info (readme, licenses, etc) sorted out.

This ought to be one helluva a learning experience.

[doseyclwn]

Any update on this?

[daggerfortysix]

Seems I have found myself getting more and more interested in OSR and especially the Swords and Wizardry system. I'd like to know as well if there is any progress on this for fantasy Grounds.

[doseyclwn]

I know a lot of people that I've talked to use Roll20 for tokens and a mpa, but I am not a fan of roll20 and would love to use FG for my games.

[LordEntrails]

I know a lot of people that I've talked to use Roll20 for tokens and a mpa, but I am not a fan of roll20 and would love to use FG for my games.
You do know you don't need a dedicated ruleset to play a game of S&W using FG right? Has anyone bothered to create a CoreRPG, MoreCore or DORCore character sheet? Or maybe just seen how close the new 2E/Classic D&D ruleset works for S&W or whatever OSR version you want to play? (Yes I know they are not identical...)

[daggerfortysix]

I didn't realize that, I'll try it out. I've been so spoiled with 5e!

[Randy Crockett]

I was wondering if anything ever came about with this? I love S&W myself, and would really love to have something that I don't have to do a bunch of mods to to run my campaigns.

[damned]

I was wondering if anything ever came about with this? I love S&W myself, and would really love to have something that I don't have to do a bunch of mods to to run my campaigns.

Have a look at the official D&D 2E ruleset... it is very good and not that far from S&W. And everything is done for you.

[doseyclwn]

Would it be possible to edit the 2e character sheet to more closely resemble an S&W sheet?

[LordEntrails]

Would it be possible to edit the 2e character sheet to more closely resemble an S&W sheet?
If you create an extension you can edit the sheet to look like anything you want. The more you alter it, the more coding you will need to do.

[celestian]

Would it be possible to edit the 2e character sheet to more closely resemble an S&W sheet?

That's how I started my first project (well, making the 5E sheet look like 2E).

[damned]

be aware that you dont want to change stuff that breaks the content...

[doseyclwn]

I'll post this in the Core RPG sheets thread as well, but here's a basic template for Swords and Wizardry Characters. Very basic. Based off of work that user Szbatom has already done. . .

[Myrdin Potter]

I know of someone that is slowly working on a S&W ruleset (you can find him by looking at the questions being asked in the programming forum). More core has a programming tutorial by damned and his example rule set is quite close to S&W as well.

[Lensman]

Thanks for this - It will come in helpful in a few months.