The hardcovers from the Shadow of the Weird Wizard game Kickstarter came on Halloween, which is a strange twist. This is the "not-horror" version of the Shadow of the Demon Lord game, sort of the same system and adapted for generic fantasy games, with a slightly "strange" twist, like a Dungeon Crawl Classics sort of feeling with mysterious magic and a world in danger and needing heroes.
Part of me feels Demon Lord is the more compelling game since the horror genre is woefully thin and underserved in gaming, while the generic fantasy genre is oversaturated to the point of "why bother?" Call of Cthulhu, Alien, and a few others are the big names right now, with Demon Lord nicely covering fantasy horror and delivering on the source material with some disturbing content. Demon Lord is the most "R Rated" of the bunch, and while it appeals to a niche horror audience, it does that very well.
The question arises, do I need another generic fantasy game? Whenever I put 5E in storage, I get this explosion of options that "do fantasy better." Castles & Crusades, Swords & Wizardry, OSRIC, Dungeon Fantasy, and Dungeon Crawl Classics are my amazing games that do the genre well. One of those is a GURPS game! C&C does a 5E-feeling game exceptionally well, with 90% less work. OSRIC is the best first-edition game out there. S&W is zero-edition awesomeness. DCC is emergent play through tables of chaos.
5E tries to do all of the above genres, but it does them terribly. I have "evil campaign" 5E books, but they are still overpowered 5E with a cheap Halloween mask on. I have unpredictable magic systems for 5E, but they rarely go far enough to be fun. I have books that mod 5E to be old-school, but they are patches to games that emulate the originals and do it far better.
Demon Lord survives because few games do horror and darkness as well as this game. The game does not need a fear mechanic since the players are the ones who feel it.
I like that the only dice used (in both games) are a d20 and a few d6 dice, which feel like white box gaming. Also, the game does not use "DC" - all tasks are attacks that roll against a monster's defense or challenge rolls against a straight target number of 10. Ability score modifiers are 10 minus the ability and added to the roll. Attacks against an attribute use the attribute as the target number. Attributes can be attacked to produce stunts.
The rules are dirt simple. They are more accessible than 5E by far and much more expressive and dynamic once stunts are used. You don't need D&D's weapon masteries and extra rules for weapon properties and what they do; you just stunt and roll against a creature's attribute. Who needs all those extra rules and unique weapon properties? Who cares? If I want to trip someone with a longsword, let me try, and throw a bane on the roll if the weapon wasn't "made for it" if that is the ruling at the table.
In the 2024 edition, D&D adopted the "more rules for everything" policy, which is a mistake. 5E, in general, follows this policy, too. An expressive rules system does a lot of the work for you, and all you need to do is pick up a copy of Savage Worlds to know this.
Expressive game systems beat ones that rely on rules for everything every time. The more a game allows you to freeform and try things, the more fun you will have.
Demon Lord starts you as a "level zero" character with an ancestry, profession, and wealth level, which can all be determined randomly. You pick a novice path (character class) when you complete your first adventure. So, a "funnel" game is going on here, and the characters are quick and straightforward to create. SotWW has this option, too, in the Sage's rulebook.
From the SotWW rulebook, page 8:
Shadow of the Weird Wizard is based on Shadow of the Demon Lord but sheds much of the bleakness and foulness of that game. Here, you play heroes who struggle to help those in need against sickness, despair, and corruption. You can make the campaign more gruesome if you wish, but the intent of this setting is for you and your friends to do good deeds and feel great about doing them.
Interesting. If you want, you can play this like the sister game, and the door is open for using it for horror. The characters are tougher and more heroic, so the deadliness likely isn't there for that fear factor.
Weird Wizard needs a niche, but my generic fantasy space is crowded. But that stunting mechanic and how simple the rules are grab my interest. The combinable classes and unlocking new ones as you level is a brilliant piece of game design. It feels like the classic game Final Fantasy Tactics, where you could have heroes who combined the classes' abilities as they leveled. You could have unique heroes with synergistic abilities.
The base game only has a human ancestry; all others are in a PDF supplement. This is an exciting choice and makes the game feel like Runequest. I like this choice since it allows groups to customize their worlds without including everything. This also keeps the core rulebook streamlined.
Survivability from Demon Lord has improved dramatically. The fonts are smaller, which could be better, but it is still readable. Also, the combat system has been tweaked to be more dynamic and tactical. In some ways, it feels like a 2.0 SotDL revision.
SotWW is a generic fantasy game for those who want a more traditional experience without all the gore and darkness of SotDL. It is a viable 5E alterative for high fantasy, and in many ways, offers greater customization and flexibility for characters than a shelf full of 5E books.
