The Best AD&D Style Games

Old-School Essentials put out the 2026 revision, and I have been sitting with the two core books longer than I meant to. Creative Commons instead of the OGL; the rules they actually needed to tidy; a pile of examples the earlier printings were thin on; and Advanced Fantasy is the only game they support these days. I like those books. I am just not sure they have decided which game they are playing.

Classic OSE was a restatement of BX: smaller hit dice, a short class list, race-as-class as the default shape of a person, spells that stop where Expert stops, and a level cap at 14. Advanced Fantasy was always the other product. Same procedures, extra classes, a race-and-class split, and a stack of AD&D features turned down so it wouldn't conflict with BX. It always reminded me of a cleaned-up version of the classic Labyrinth Lord game, or a BX+.

The revision brings first edition back into the game with optional d10 fighters sitting next to the old hit dice. Race-and-class sits next to race-as-class. High-level play is a DIY chapter that tells you to borrow from somewhere else if you want spells past what Expert printed. The publisher is clear about the cap: 14, and nothing BECMI is in the box.

So the question is no longer “is this a pretty BX book?” It is “is this BX, or is this AD&D Lite?” Once you ask that, you need to compare OSE Advanced to the other AD&D-like games on the shelf.

If you want AD&D-Lite: Swords & Wizardry

Swords & Wizardry Complete is my AD&D-Lite game. It is an OD&D zero-edition that gobbled up a bunch of expansion books and parts of AD&D, but refused to leave the 1970s and stuck with the little-book feeling. Assassin, monk, druid, paladin, ranger, one saving throw, 9th-level spells, characters that do not bounce off a wall at name level, and a monster list with magic resistance. That is what “lite” has to mean if the word is going to do any work. A demon can shrug a spell, and casters are not the masters of the universe anymore. We get the high-level spells and abilities here!

The high-level game is in the book.

OSE Advanced gives you the names. Paladin, ranger, illusionist, split race and class, and now the optional bigger hit dice. What it will not give you is the rest of that 1e machine, such as magic resistance, high-level play, and classes with a bit more depth. I still love the S&W fighter better than any other BX or 1E clone; this is peak OSR gaming. The single saving throw number is genius and erases pages of saving throw tables from the game.

S&W has a couple of expansion books that bring in barbarians, bards, illusionists, warlocks, and more monsters. If I want the "AD&D-isms" and don't want the full AD&D weight, Swords & Wizardry wins every time and comes with me in my travel bag.

If you want AD&D: OSRIC

If I actually want first edition, I play first edition, or I play the clone that exists so people can keep writing modules for it without the messy "for the first edition of the world's most popular role-playing game" prose. OSRIC was never trying to be the pretty book on the coffee table. It was a legal, usable AD&D clone so the community could ship adventures and say the name out loud. I am not waiting for it to become a lifestyle brand, and the game is already done, loved, and this is how we play 1E these days.

We had a major revision with OSRIC 3.0, and this is the new 1E standard-bearer. I know we can get the PoD books of the originals (with misprint errors), but I want the definitive source that opens the door for third-party publishers. I support OSRIC 3.0 with its new CC-based license. The originals are fine if it is "just me," but once we start playing with others and wanting new adventures and material, OSRIC will win every time.

OSE does not do that work. It will eat a mountain of BX and a lot of 1e content if I am willing to convert by feel, which I usually am, but that is not the same as sitting down with the 1e stack. I do not grab OSE Advanced because I want segments, weapon speed, magic resistance, and a spell list that treats 9th-level spells as optional. I grab it for BX procedures and a few extra toys. Oh, and the books are smaller and easier to travel with. OSE wins if I am on vacation and need a travel game.

When I want AD&D, OSRIC is the living clone. The revised OSE books are doing something else.

If you want AD&D-Plus: Adventures Dark & Deep

Joseph Bloch’s pitch has always been the continuation question I keep coming back to: what if Gygax had stayed and kept developing first edition instead of walking out of TSR in 1985? Adventures Dark & Deep starts from 1e and from the public hints about where that game was supposed to go next: new classes, a rebuilt bestiary, cleaned-up combat, and the whole thing treated like a product line that kept moving. This started as a what-if AD&D if Gary had stayed, and became a love letter to 1E with a few modern twists and treats.

I love this game but do not have the time to play it. This is my "ultimate AD&D" fanservice game. The combat is cleaned up, and weapon speed actually works. The skill system is genius. There is a Lite version that strips the game down to a playable core set of options, yet still is a remarkably complete game for the levels people actually play.

What OSE Advanced still is

I am not boxing the revision up. Leaving the OGL for Creative Commons is the right long-term move. The examples of play are what previous OSE printings were thin on, and one purchase path instead of five overlapping cores is easier for a new referee. I can still carve a Classic game out of the new books; they include a Basic Play section.

The old books are still fine. I can not upgrade, keep playing for decades, and house-rule in whatever I want. This is BX, not 5E. Factor in the Carcass Crawler zines, and I have more character races than any of the other three games on this table, including the new favorites people keep asking for. Those races will sit at a S&W table or an OSRIC table just as easily. The B/X world is still the more open room that way, and I am not locked to whatever a VTT character builder decided to support.

None of that fixes the focus problem. BX is a low-resolution game. AD&D is a high-resolution game. Put them side by side, and the BX picture gets blurry. Optional bigger hit dice, a parallel character-creation method, and a high-level chapter that admits I will have to loot another book for spell lists; that is two games sharing a spine, with the extra material not in the box.

If they later print a high-level book, a love-letter to BECMI, the conversation changes. One page of optional rules for high-level play does not turn OSE into an AD&D-clone, and so much is missing that this should have been left to another expansion.

OSE Classic, the discontinued Tome, the thing that made the line matter, was the best-in-class BX restatement. The revised Advanced books are a very good catalog of BX procedures plus selected 1e toys, scaled to Expert. As a BX game with extra hats, I will use them. As AD&D lite, they don't beat Swords & Wizardry Complete. As AD&D, they do not beat OSRIC. As the next step past an expanded first edition, they aren't even in the same room as Adventures Dark & Deep.

I try to know which feeling I am feeding before I take a book off the shelf. The new OSE will feed the BX one if I turn off half the options. For the other three, I buy the game built for them. For 90% of the cases, Swords & Wizardry is just right for me.

We just have so many good AD&D options these days that it is hard to see OSE plus one page of optional high-level play rules as real competition for any of them. The new OSE books should have left this out, or did a BECMI-like expansion later.

To Tweak or Not to Tweak? Capturing the Era

Do you tweak your games? It depends on how important it is to you that you are playing "exactly what was played" in the 1980s, down to the last class ability and numeric value. You are not tweaking the OSE fighter to make it more them, just rolling with what you got. After all, the class was designed like this; it worked back then, and why change it?

I have a few good reasons to bump OSE fighters' attack bonus by 2 across the board at every level, but is that the original game? No, it wasn't. And yes, it was. We did tweak and make adjustments back in the 1980's, too; very few of us played rules-as-written unless we were playing AD&D in a hobby store or other organized setting.

D&D was the home of the houseruled game.

AD&D, we tended to obey Gary's wishes and keep it as it was when we played with new people. Those were the "organized play rules," but even then, houseruled home games of AD&D were a huge thing.

We tend to put older games on pedestals and preserve them exactly as they were, trying to recapture the moment by not changing a thing and sticking to every letter printed on the page. We have a false sense of the past in which sticking to only what was written on that day was "official," and we artificially elevate its value.

Objects in the mirror may appear more important than they were.

It is important to have perspective and not silence the work of creators of third-party zines and others who turn OSE and BX into a living, breathing game open to discussion and expansion. To them, the game is a modern platform, worthy of support and expansion, and new and fresh ideas are the way forward. They take the base game, written in today's era, and move it forward, as if we had the same open license and freedom we could have had back in the 1980s, had TSR not been so closed-shop and litigious.

If you see OSE as a modern platform, you will, of course, tweak and mod it.

If you see OSE as a 1980s rules-simulator, you will be less likely to mod it.

If you are more into the rules-simulation side of the hobby and do not want to mod the game, then games like Swords & Wizardry and its 1970s simulation of the game's state during that time will appeal to you more. Also, there are some who absolutely do not want to list a page of houserules to a new group, and that can scare people away faster than anything you ever understand.

I have had a group of new players never begin a 5E game since I had a page of houserules, and I wanted to use the 2014 game (since that meant a few players did not have to buy new books). The group never started. They all found other things to do. The game died before it even began.

Why do we need all these houserules?

Is the game broken?

I don't want to buy a new game that is broken and needs all these house rules I will never understand!

Houserules can scare off new players, since they see a list of things they don't understand, have to mesh with a new game, and figure out the "how and why" of how it all works before a die is even rolled. Most will just quit and go do something else that doesn't need houserules. There is great value in saying, "This is what we are playing." You can point to one book, and the discussion is over. The contract is set; learn that book. This is the game we all agreed to, and we can play.

I am not against house rules, but I know how hard they can make it for some new players. For a group comfortable with each other and the game, houserules are great.

And games like Swords & Wizardry, which replicate the 1970s state of the game, the rulings, the common assumptions of the meanings, and laying out exactly where the clear and vague parts were, while trying to present the commonly agreed-upon interpretations, are also invaluable, even from the perspective of historical simulation.

If Dungeon Crawl Classics is a reinterpretation of "1970s play" through a modern game design lens, rooted in 3.5E-era sensibilities, then Swords & Wizardry is the actual game we played in the late 1970s. The games offer two views of the same era: DCC is more focused on random tables, imagination, and fun, while S&W presents the game as it was at that moment in time.

The pain of Vietnam was dulling; the gas lines and inflation of the 1970s were still in the discussion; the hippies had all gotten jobs; condo-living was a thing; disco was dying; arena rock was resurgent; and the era of over-the-air TV was being replaced by cable. The Cold War still raged on. The Reagan era was just over the horizon.

And we did not have AD&D yet. We pieced together rules from the original books and did our best to figure everything out. When BX came along, it was a restatement and clarification, the game coming into focus.

And the AD&D books took a few years to release! In 1977, it was the Monster Manual, followed in 1978 by the PHB, and in 1979 by the DMG. Imagine taking two years to release a game today, book by book. There was a whole year with just the original books and the Monster Manual; none of us knew what to do, what rules to use, and what was coming. The Monster Manual dropped into the middle of this discussion, and many pulled it into their existing games as-is.

By the time 1979 rolled around, it was all AD&D, and the 1970s and the original chaotic game we embraced were over. We had our official "organized play rules," and that was that. But those five years from 1974 to 1979? Those were the days of zero edition, and what DCC tries to replicate, along with the game Swords & Wizardry presents and reframes so well.

OSE is both a simulation and a modern platform, depending on your wants. It is best for new players of the game, and it will get better in the new edition with more examples of play and additional features to help new players. You can play this as a recreation, or use it as a platform to support gaming moving forward, just like a 5E.

The original BX games are exactly what they are, without the new presentation or reframing. They are locked in time, cannot be written for (outside of OSE), and will not change. They are more valuable as "the actual thing" and a historical record, and weaker as a platform. They were both released in 1980 and reflect the newer era. Remember, the red and blue books were released the year after the DMG came out, and reflected the "for kids" easier version of the game.

Many of us chose to stick with AD&D and ignored these books, though they had a certain charm.

I feel the same way about S&W as I do BX, in that S&W is the easier version of AD&D, streamlined and stripped down to the best parts, and all the slow, heavy, and excess rules out of the picture. If I want AD&D today, I have OSRIC 3.0. Communities and open licenses are more important than nostalgia. The platform for creativity comes first.

S&W recaptures the lighting-in-a-bottle of the 1974 to 1979 period, along with all the common assumptions, interpretations, and the original "hippies in a van and black felt neon paint posters" sort of feeling that era had. This could be seen as a "modern platform" too, and the expansion books treat it exactly that way. It is also an "easier" version of AD&D, before the huge rulebooks came out and clarified every little vague area of the rules and inconsistencies.

The Case for OSRIC Over Swords & Wizardry

Swords & Wizardry still has a lot of high-end combos and exploits that turn the upper-level game into a thrash-fest, where you can use a buff-focused caster on a monk to deal death and insane amounts of damage. This unhinged high-level game is familiar to those of us who enjoy Dungeon Crawl Classics, and that is a feature of 1970s gaming - not a flaw or oversight. The game was designed to have insane power combos at high level, and that is what it is.

This is also a feature of 70s gaming: if you reached a high level, all bets were off. DCC does this so well and encapsulates the feeling of the time; you go from hero to insane god of power. S&W has that swingy, unhinged play at higher levels, and it is meant to be a houserule, ban exploits, and serve as a "house system" for a group that likes to hack and add to the rules.

At lower levels, this is like "enhanced, houseruled BX" and it plays identically. There are flavor differences here in some of the classes, with slightly more abilities and power than a standard BX character. Some of these abilities are coming to OSE (fighter multi-attacks per round vs. 1 HD or less creatures, assassin backstab) in the next version, so S&W does get a lot right and sets the BX standard in many areas. The fighter is the standout class for me, and it feels much more satisfying to play than the OSE version, without needing to houserule or wait for next year's revision.

And, S&W is cross-compatible with any OSE race. OSE tends to set higher racial level limits, so that is more of a bonus than a drawback. I will play S&W and use the OSE races as-is, and it is a great-feeling combo, and I can have my dragonborn, tieflings, and all the nu-fantasy classics right there in a comfortable game with the OG classes as they were in the 1970s.

AC, hp, HD, hit-modifiers? The same across OSE and S&W. There is one saving throw number in S&W, which I still feel is genius, and lets that number be used for any saving throw effect. I am not trying to decide if a save is a wand or a spell. It is a save. Some classes get bonuses to specific areas. If a new effect comes along, such as a save versus entanglement, mental attack, parasites, life leech, or confusion, it is just the save number. We are done here.

In OSRIC, the high-level game is far better balanced and sane, and the game holds together much better without dipping into exploits or unintended consequences. The high-end game holds together, and it is not as wild or swingy. It is intended to be played "as-is" and not hacked or homebrewed. This is the OG 1980s convention-play official rules, and you don't really deviate from the book.

By the time we get to the 1980s, balance is important, and those groups grew tired of the high-level swingyness. The game lost something, that slapstick, freewheeling, punch. The rules needed standardization for convention play. We needed "one way to play" so we could all play together.

OSRIC is the perfect game for capturing a moment in time when gaming was at its best. Sorry, Stranger Things, nobody played 5E in the 1980s, and Wizards of the Coast and its Magic: The Gathering would bankrupt TSR ten years later. I was there when the hobby stores reduced the D&D and RPG space for MTG tables, and a hobby shop owner told me, "Nobody plays D&D anymore here."

If you want to play high-level AD&D adventures without having to houserule cheese combos out of the game, OSRIC will do a fine job. If you play DCC and love the cheese combos, and love seeing a monk slap a dragon around like he was Bruce Lee, play S&W. At lower levels, though, S&W works exactly like BX and does not feel unbalanced.

OSRIC will hold together at higher levels much cleaner, at the cost of increased complexity, more record keeping, and slower play. OSRIC also has the higher base hit-die values than BX, which I see as a negative. I don't like fighters having a d10 hit die since it inflates hit points and slows combat. Sure, you are more survivable as a result, but the more constrained and tighter hit dice of BX make the game more deadly, and fast-playing, and higher-level characters do not have as many hit points.

1E started the "bag of hit points" slog that got worse in every edition past this, and even AD&D 2E started to give monsters hundreds of hit points as a result of the tougher characters in AD&D. Combat got very slow by the time 2E rolled around, and people left for GURPS.

By the time we got to 4E, monsters had 1,400 hit points, and Wizards had completely lost their minds.

BX has the best hit dice and keeps the classic d4 thief and magic user that we have all come to love and fear. S&W shares that philosophy. ORSIC starts the hit point slog, and complexity and slower play increase as a result. More hit points do not equal a better game. In fact, constraining hit points makes the game better, since each point matters.

Also, death is an issue. In OSE, it is death at 0 hp. In OSRIC, it is bleeding out and death at -10 hp (OSE will get this in the revision). In S&W, it can be either death at 0 hp or death at a "negative level hp" with bleeding out. S&W feels the best to me, and gives me either option. Death is heavily houseruled, though, but it is worth mentioning.

That said, who plays games past level 14? I think maybe 3-5% of the gaming population plays games at this level. For 95% of everyone else, just picking up Old School Essentials will be fine for games that last way past the time when most campaigns wrap up and end. Level 14 is an epic power level in BX.

If you are playing that long and appreciate the pedantic depth that 1E brings, start and stick with OSRIC. If you couldn't care less about table modifiers, weapon speeds, and other 1E minutiae, stick with OSE. If you want the 1E feeling without the 1E rules and want things to stick closer to houseruled BX, play S&W.

I doubt you will ever see some of the exploits and cheese in S&W since very few play that high. You could play OSRIC, OSE, and S&W and barely see a difference up to level 14. There is a lot made about nothing here, and houseruling and banning silly combos is expected in S&W. Most do what we did, let it happen once, laugh, and then ban it as a cheese move. There is a magic in being the first to find these, and then the gods catch up to your tomfoolery and ban the silly combo.

Zeus would be sitting up on Mount Olympus, shaking his head and telling the epic heroes to "cut it out."

This is sort of the relationship between the players and the referee in these games, too.

The game and the rules were a fluid dialogue and free-form train of thought. They were less of a set of rules and more of a discussion of fantasy fulfillment within a loose framework.

As a side note, S&W uses the magic resistance mechanic from 1E, and S&W's monsters are closer to 1E in compatibility. Any OSRIC or 1E bestiary is easily a S&W resource. Also, with S&W, you get classic demons and devils out of the box, whereas in OSE, they come in a book being delivered next year. From the previews, the demons and devils in OSE will be their own thing, interesting designs that seem fun to play and have unique threats and mechanics. If you want to stick with the classic infernal monsters, S&W and OSRIC will be your best bet.

I like S&W since the classes bring more to the table than OSE, and the expanded classes feel great and play well. If I want a bard, I can have a bard. There are two bards, too! The bard is a storyteller druid, while the troubador is a performer illusionist. We also have necromancers and warlocks. The expanded classes rock and are a lot of fun. In OSE, the bard is more of a druid-style and feels more basic and straightforward.

That said, there is nothing wrong with simplicity. Where S&W classes have that oomph, the OSE classes are iconic and feel perfectly balanced. They are a touch on the simple side, and being a former 5E player, S&W's diverse assortment of class abilities appeals more to me (C&C is the same way for me).

Coming from BX, the straightforward and iconic OSE appeals to me greatly. 

Coming from 5E and DCC, the allure of S&W with its custom class abilities is irresistible.

Having grown up in the 1980s, there is nothing wrong with OSRIC or sticking to the tried-and-true.

One Point of AC and Stat-Flation

Old School Essentials, BX D&D, and Swords & Wizardry, along with White Box, use a base AC of 9 for unarmored targets. The ascending AC to-hit number (AAC) for this is 10 or higher on a d20. In AD&D, the unarmored AC became 10, with an ascending AC to-hit number of 10 or higher on a d20. The formulas are slightly different to calculate: in BX, 19 - AC equals the AAC to-hit; in 1E, 20 - AC equals the AAC to-hit.

I have always preferred the BX base AC of 9 to the later AC base of 10. For one, the extra room in the AC muber started introducing new types of armor to fill gaps, like banded or splint mail, and the armor game felt muddled in comparison. Fighters tended to head towards plate mail anyway, and more types of armor did not really add much to the game.

The differences in AC come up when trying to use 1E modules or monsters in BX games; you need to make a one-point adjustment in the AC value to get the numbers perfect. There is no AC 10 in a BX game like there is in a 1E game.

Sometimes the numbers are exactly the same, but you will see a one-point difference in the AAC value. The Kobold on OSE has AC 7 [12], while the Kobold in OCSRIC 3.0 has AC 7 [13]. You will notice that both numbers add up to either 19 or 20, but the 7 [12] number of BX just feels more natural to me.

Which game has the easiest to-hits?

S&W gives a +1 to-hit modifier at STR 13, and a +1 damage modifier at 16. Only fighters get these bonuses; a +1 cap optional rule is present for other classes. This is the most hardcore game, but it is also the fairest.

OSRIC gives a +1 to-hit modifier at STR 17, and a +1 damage modifier at 16, and this is for all characters.

White Box typically gives a +1 starting at STR 15, and in some games this only applies to damage, while in others it applies to both damage and to-hit.

OSE gives a +1 to-hit and damage modifier starting at STR 13, and this is for all characters. This is the most generous game, but also the least fair.

So, in general, S&W is the most hardcore game that limits ability score modifiers the most, while OSE is the most generous. OSRIC is less generous, while White Box is slightly more. I like the less generous games when it comes to ability score bonuses, since it takes the focus off having high ability scores, and it allows more of the 3d6-generated characters to be viable.

In S&W, a STR 7 character is not penalized in terms of melee damage or to-hit, so I can be happy with rolling a 7 for my thief's STR, and it will not affect their combat abilities one bit. In OSE, that STR 7 thief will have a -1 in both to-hit and damage, and with a 1d4 dagger as a weapon, that becomes huge. In OSRIC, a -1 to-hit. In White Box, same as S&W, no penalty.

That STR 7 thief is just not viable in OSE or OSRIC.

In S&W, my STR 7 thief is just as deadly with a dagger as a STR 15 thief. We have the same chance to force open a door. The stronger thief can carry 10 more pounds of loot. I can be a scrawny, no-good thief in S&W and still feel perfectly fine, not like I am being penalized.

3d6 generation is still viable in White Box and S&W; more characters can be played since the ability scores matter less. Shouldn't they matter? Actually, they shouldn't, since we want the focus to be on problem-solving and the environment. That +1 to-hit and damage will fool you into thinking combat is still a viable option, when in any BX or 1E game, it just isn't.

And the stat-flation that plagues D&D 3 through 5E started in BX with the universal ability score modifier table and those too-generous ability score modifiers. The moment you open up "bonuses for everybody" is the moment you begin to need heroic ability score generation methods, such as 4d6 and drop the lowest. You are trying to "give everyone a bonus" in something, and it starts breaking the game.

In 5E, a +4 for everybody at 18 breaks the game. And given most characters are guaranteed these days to have at least one 18 in their prime attribute, the entire game is just building a bridge on broken pilings. The original polyhedral dice begin to mean less and less the higher the modifiers go, to the point where they become meaningless. Even the d20 became meaningless in D&D 3.5E with +20 to-hit numbers, and the designers had no clue except "make the numbers bigger."

Wizards have consistently gotten the math wrong for the last 25 years, and we have edition after edition to prove it.

"4d6 and drop the lowest" is just trying to solve a problem that too-generous ability score modifiers introduced. Remove the importance of modifiers, and 3d6 is viable again. Ability scores become descriptors instead of critical numbers for the game. My weak, scrawny thief is just as deadly and should be treated as a serious threat. A low STR is just a physical description at this point and has less of an impact on the game, or a minor one at best.

If I get lucky and roll a STR 18 thief in OSE? A permanent +3 to STR and damage all the time, even with that 1d4 dagger. Sure, it sounds fun, but it introduces an imbalance and upward pressure on ability scores, where the 97% of other characters who aren't as lucky feel penalized and not viable.

My STR 7 S&W thief? Sure, he gets no bonus to-hit or to damage, but he is just as deadly as any other thief. The focus on ability scores is removed, and my character must be clever and interact with the environment to survive, rather than relying on them and the false sense of security they provide.

Combat in any version of the early game, 0E to 1E, is a losing proposition.

That +3 is not going to help you when a random goblin kills you with a shortbow. Sure, the +3 feels great, but it creates a mix of entitlement and a false sense of security. This is one of those times when "it doesn't matter" and "it does matter" are both true at once; it just depends on your perspective.

And once you put too high an importance on ability score modifiers as a way to "win the game," you will get into the physiological differences between races and genders, and that whole argument. My female, lithe, STR 8 Egyptian temple assassin is just as deadly and dangerous as that male half-orc STR 16 assassin with the bulging muscles. Remove the ability score modifiers, and you remove the entire argument.

Plus, if we are trying to simulate fantasy fiction, a high STR only really mattered for fighters and those moments the writer wanted to flex on cleaving enemies in two with a greatsword. For most other characters in that narrative, a high STR never really came into play that much. That STR 8 temple assassin is going to be just as deadly to Conan as any other, in terms of narrative fiction.

When you get too many game designers in a room, they will make the math matter more than the narrative fiction, and something of value will be lost.

Swords & Wizardry is the OSE of AD&D

Want to play an AD&D 1E-like game, but don't want all the rules? Want something more than Old School Essentials, love the demons and devils of AD&D, and want to progress all the way to the highest-level 9th and 7th level magic-user and cleric spells? But you do not want all the AD&D rules? You do not want to get bogged down in all the minutiae and charts and tables of a 1E recreation? Do you want OSE-like hit die values without the higher dice of AD&D?

Swords & Wizardry is 1E-Lite, and quite likely the perfect game for you.

Where OSE is the beautiful simplicity and unmatched organization of BX, S&W is rules-light AD&D. This is the perfect zero edition set of rules, before AD&D came along and became an overwritten, heavily ruled, detail-focused, and messy set of charts and tables for every minor adjustment. S&W is the "fast table play" version of AD&D I always wanted.

And the single-saving-throw-number mechanic is still genius.

S&W is OSE for AD&D.

Now, S&W isn't as well organized as OSE, not by a long shot. But it does not need it. Where OSE is the meticulous layout and bullet-point presentation, S&W is more a freeform discussion of the game, done in as little text as possible, keeping it to just what you need to play. There are boxes that explain the history of the game's rules, making modding easy, and explaining how things were different in the 1970s versus the more structured 1980s.

This is also a key difference: S&W is rooted in the 1970s version of the game, whereas OSE lies closer to the cleaned-up, highly organized, and simplified 1980s. Before they removed demons and devils, and things were still very swingy and OP, like the S&W fighter, S&W preserves the 1970s version of the game before TSR went corporate, and we had the for-adults AD&D and for-kids D&D split and messy divorce.

S&W is from a time when there was one game for everyone, with everything in it, yet it retained the simplicity of BX. It was uncensored, unfiltered, and unafraid to leave things up to the players and the referee to work out. There are parts of this game where you are supposed to "make it up yourself," and that is the game's beauty.

S&W was not afraid to let some classes be OP in certain areas, like fighter and combat, whereas OSE tends to tamp down everyone's power and stacking abilities. S&W has combos that are OP at high level, and that is a beautiful thing. S&W also explicitly gives STR bonuses to-hit and damage only to fighters, and even rangers and paladins are excluded from this bonus (they have other powers).

S&W ends up having the best fighter class in the OSR and gives them a massive role-protection bonus. Other classes must make do, and it is not really a problem. I like this choice because it reduces the importance of ability score modifiers and does not make high-STR thieves OP. You can be a STR 7 thief and not have a damage or a to-hit penalty (though STR 6 or lower starts to get penalized for all characters). As an optional rule, high STR can be capped to a +1 for other classes (if the bonus is present), but only fighters get the full bonus.

Ability score modifiers are not as important in S&W as they are in OSE, and that is a good thing that avoids ability score inflation. Many more classes are viable (and not penalized) for a straight 3d6-down-the-line generation method here than in any other OSR game.

The game has expansions, too, covering modern classes like the bard and druid. So if you want expanded classes that go all the way to the highest level spells, this is your game. It is AD&D without all the complexity; it just runs and plays as fast as OSE, and it has the missing high-level game where you can cast wish, holy word, time stop, and gate spells.

Since the hit dice and AC values match OSE perfectly, everything is 100% cross-compatible between OSE and S&W, since they are practically sister games. Monsters, treasures, and adventures are all 100% compatible between OSE and S&W. S&W can be seen as a "character mod and full conversion" for OSE.

Racial level limits are higher in OSE than S&W, so if you use that rule, agree on which game is dominant, and stick with that. If you use OSE's suggestions, that opens the door to using any of the OSE races, including those in the Carcass Crawler Zines, as potential S&W races. This opens up tieflings, dragonborn, ratlings, and many other races to S&W play.

S&W is the missing AD&D-style rules and level expansion for OSE.

Where AD&D can be slower and heavier, with things like weapon speed and all the different values on the ability score charts, S&W sticks to the "fast and fun" play of OSE. You could play OSRIC 3.0 instead, but it wouldn't play as fast or be as easy to get into. OSE will win the new player experience battle, but S&W will win the high-level play and class options battle. Add in the OSE races, and S&W wins the player options battle in any OSR game.

If you love OSE but miss AD&D, then S&W is your dream game. This game often flies under the radar, but it is one of the original OSR games and is still going strong.

S&W is also one of the most moddable and open OSR games out there, easily pulling in everything you love about OSE and putting an AD&D framework on it all. You don't need to give anything up.

ADAD: Legitimacy

A group of goblin bandits are holding the quarry outside of town.

I played this scenario in 5E, and I felt this sense of comfort. It will be no problem; I have an unrestricted power that lets me toss magic bolts every turn, we can heal, this one gets an advantage on many attacks, and we are all doing super significant damage with maximum ability score modifiers. Every magic character can fling damage as if we were playing an MMO.

In fact, the entire encounter felt like an MMO. I had this "bored sense of it being a waste of time" running through my head as I played it out. Just get me to the boss fight to finish this and turn in the quest rewards.

In 5E, I had so much power before level five that I was tired of the game and uninterested in whatever stories I could tell with it. This was the ultimate easy mode, and I quit the system.

5E is over-reliant on false empowerment, where they double the hit points and make daggers do 1d4+5. There was no damage scaling in the original game, so we did not need all these fixed modifiers. B/X started these out-of-control modifiers, and I prefer 0e or 1e games where those modifiers are scaled way back and kept under control.

You could not infinitely blast away with cantrips. You did not have feats that added damage to attacks. Your ranger had 20 arrows and a melee weapon. That is what you have to deal with the situation. Do you have a mage? Do you want to expend magic to solve this, or is there another way?

Swords & Wizardry was like this: The game did not hand out bonuses like popcorn and candy, and only fighters thoroughly enjoyed the STR bonus for to-hit and damage. Other classes, even the fighter sub-classes, did not get the bonuses. Swords & Wizardry gets it right like Shadowdark gets it right by keeping the numbers under control.

You start throwing fixed modifiers into everything, and they take over the game. A fixed modifier of more than half the dice size, like a 1d4+5, is a sloppy game design that invalidates the meaning of the dice. It is a significant mistake in 5E's math. For all the vaunted 'bounded accuracy' 5E hyped (and later tossed out) in the design, they did nothing on the damage dice and let those numbers get out of control.

In ADAD, to-hit modifiers for STR start at 17, and damage starts at 16 - which is only a +1. Most characters will never see a melee damage modifier unless they use magic weapons or are fighters who selected weapon specializations. You need to understand the rules and where your fixed modifiers come from, and you aren't just given everything.

I can play a character who does flat weapon damage; it is not a problem, and the game is designed that way if the monster hit points are low and kept under control. The polyhedral dice mean more if hit points are lower, and when Wizards' D&D starts scaling hit points two to four times and you lean on fixed modifiers far too much, the game breaks hard.

Dungeon Crawl Classics has replaced D&D for me. Shadowdark is still the best 5E, but if I want super-heroic fantasy with many character powers and toys, then DCC fills the need. It is far less complicated than D&D, with its mess of actions and complex builds, and I can run DCC character sheets by hand.

ADAD is perfect for first-edition games. I want characters to do without and have limited powers and options in the first five levels. They need to work together during this time and think smart, use gear, leverage skilled classes, and play smart.

In my 5E game, the party rarely needed synergy or cooperation. Everyone was an “army of me,” and healing did not need to be shared; everyone could heal themselves or rest it off later.

ADAD hits the serious game notes perfectly for me while providing new options to explore.

In DCC, monsters can be deadly, and my characters must work together. At first level, they have quite a bit of power, so they are capable and potent. The world can hit back hard, death is easy, and healing relies on a cleric and a god’s benevolence, which can run dry.

With ADAD, I am playing stories again, and characters must make hard choices when taking risks. Sometimes, there is no choice at all, and fighting is unavoidable. The fewer powers and abilities characters have, the better the stories become. What they get means something, and being a thief in these games is fun; since few have repeatable powers, your thief skills begin to shine, and you are doing all sorts of sneaky things to get away with the crazy plots the party thinks up.

Your weapon speed matters, your armor matters, your encumbrance matters, and the few powers you have matter. Your party composition matters, along with your hirelings. How you travel matters. Rangers can make a journey where you are lost and lose party members to wilderness encounters into easy navigation, and a few times, you make camp. Did you take enough hirelings, pack animals, and carts to haul your treasure back home? Do you have a home?

DCC, S&W, and ADAD all have this style of gameplay. Some are a little more rules-light than others, and some are more gonzo fantasy. They all have that legitimate game loop, where you need to be careful about how you approach situations and think beyond an encounter, and the game forces you to consider the entire journey.

DCC + OSRIC = Ultimate Sandbox Gaming

Dungeon Crawl Classics tells you to "borrow" a magic item and treasure system from any other old-school game. Oh? I can? From the Dungeon Crawl Classics rulebook, page 393:

Consequently, this work does not include detailed rules for assigning treasure to monsters or encounters. The existing volume of D&D work includes several such systems which are robust and well defined, and which can be easily adapted here. The author suggests you adapt an existing treasure system of your choice, but carefully and deliberately evaluate the randomized results. Always ask yourself: “Where did the monster acquire such wealth? And what happened to the local economy in the process?”

Oh! I can! Well then, this game is as good as any:

OSRIC is a fantastic game and reference guide combined into one unforgettable book. This is worth playing as a stand-alone game, but this book is designed to do the "reference and compilation" work as an old-school reference book. So let's use it that way!

This is an excellent choice for a supplemental source of treasures, charts, magic items, and other dungeon-focused stuff. You can even use the monsters mostly as-is; just adjust hit-die size based on size (d6 up to a d12) and set the Fort/Ref/Will saves equal to half-hit dice (plus ability modifiers, if needed). AC is a simple calculation. Attack Bonus will start as hit dice, and could go 1-8 points higher depending on combat skill and abilities.

DCC AC = 20 - ORSIC AC

DCC Saves = (OSRIC HD / 2) + Ability Mods

DCC Hit Die Size = OSRIC HD, d6 to d12 (based on size)

DCC Attack Bonus = OSRIC HD (as a base)

There are your DCC conversion formulas. Now you have a complete bestiary, too. Oh, and an equipment list. The only things you won't use are classes and spells. You could use those classes for NPCs and limit the DCC classes to heroes only. You could "mod" the game, do away with the DCC race-as-classes, and use OSRIC races for a "race plus class" mod for DCC classes.

Another good choice, which is OGL-free, is the Revised Edition of Swords & Wizardry. You have 100% compatible ascending AC here, but you must convert the saves as in OSRIC (same formula). The hit die size will also be size-based, as above. S&W is so good it deserves to be played as a stand-alone, but it is excellent as a reference, too.

OSRIC has more in-depth magic items and treasure tables, so if you want those classic "what does this necklace do" moments, this book will give you those results. S&W is more straightforward and faithful to zero-edition, which fits better with the DCC era. OSRIC just has more stuff and gives an AD&D vibe.

OSRIC, p124

What I love about OSRIC is that it includes many tables and other stuff, and the entire book feels like a revised AD&D. It also gives your DCC game the AD&D feeling, which has this "grounded" feeling like the world is sane and realistic. Still, your characters will end up completely being the opposite. You even have a random dungeon generation system in OSRIC and ways to stock this with monsters and treasures in the book, so you have a complete minigame built into the resource.

You get hirelings, wilderness rules, random parties, town encounters, random NPCs, dungeon dressings, trap tables, trick generation, and the infamous "red light professions" table that no AD&D reference guide would be complete without (with representation of both sides of the coin). AD&D was made for college students, so OSRIC also captures the "seedy side" of these fantasy worlds, which is a welcome thing to see in this age of hyper-censorship.

OSRIC feels like the "missing half" of DCC to me. Yes, the monster stats will be different when you convert them in, and you may need to tweak them as you play with them and make them your own. You may want a more challenging or leisurely game, which is up to you.

OSRIC, p299

But the idea of DCC characters trying to survive in an old-school OSRIC world, with that authentic AD&D feeling of an ordinary world with dangers lurking underneath, the medieval world trying to live and survive as usual, plus magic being feared and unknown, is a compelling game world. You could do the whole world with random generation and just hex-crawl.

The Adventures Dark and Deep Book of Lost Tables has everything you need, random wilderness hexes, random settlements, random dungeons, random towns, and everything else you need to build a hex-crawl world one die roll at a time. The new ADND books are directly OSRIC and first-edition compatible, so you won't have table results that won't make sense if you use OSRIC.

This book's random wilderness terrain system relies on a referee to lay out coastlines, cities, mountains, rivers, and other features, but you can randomly generate everything. I suggest doing this semi-random; if a feature makes sense, like encountering a lake and feeling a river should feed and flow from it, put it in! If you have a settlement, set in a few logical roads connecting it to "something" out there. If you feel a coastline should be here, add and extend it. Feel like you want a major river blocking your way? Add one and make it extend out. Lakes that should meander a couple hexes should do that. If this is a significant mountain range, make that happen. If you want a city, add a city. Major elevation change? That happens here! Want some ruins? Add some ruins. Really want a unique feature? Add it! Feel a dungeon or cave should be here? Then, it should!

The world should be 50% of your input, and the tables should just fill in the blanks.

Also, even if you add something, like a city, you still need to learn precisely what it is and its state. This could be an elven fortress, dwarven stronghold, halfling hovels, human trading port, ruins, war-ravaged settlement, or a significant orc encampment.

OSRIC, DCC, and the Book of Lost Tables are a random campaign generation powerhouse, plus an old-school sourcebook and reference guide that will keep you busy seeing what is around the next corner, in the next hex, or in the next town for a very long time. With DCC, you won't be sure what is next for your character since the randomness in that game goes well with a procedurally generated campaign like this.

Swords & Wizardry: Designer Notes

I love this game.

Swords & Wizardry Revised stands out with its unique 'designer notes' boxes scattered throughout the book. These notes delve into various house rules, options, unclear parts of the original game rules, and other hacking information, providing a deeper understanding of the game's mechanics.

One notable aspect of Swords & Wizardry Revised is the absence of 'thieves' tools' in the equipment list, a feature also present in the original game. This absence significantly empowers thieves, making them more dangerous and tricky. They can now pick a lock with whatever they have at hand, like a chicken bone found on the floor of a cell. A thief always has a lockpick hidden somewhere or can quickly fabricate one, and they don't need to haul around a toolbox filled with picks, hammers, spikes, and a pry bar.

Part of the game introduced later institutionalized tropes we live with today, and those were not always part of the original design, ever considered, or seen as a "must-have" for play. Are you telling me to use a class feature, and I need to buy and possess gear? Can it be taken away from me?

Again, just like giving only fighters a STR damage bonus to attacks, removing thieves' tools from the equipment list improved the thief class. Sometimes, what you remove from a game makes it superior, and these sacred cows must be done away with.

Also, the game talks about crits and how automatically assuming "double damage" is far too powerful and suggests a +1 damage instead. The game's hit point scale is far lower than modern games, and doubling damage on crits would make fights into "spamming attacks for crits." The only class that has a doubling damage mechanic is the thief on a backstab, and that is it. Do you want to double your damage rolls? Play a thief.

Even Shadowdark removes the CON bonus to hit points after level one because hit-point inflation is real. That game realizes "what you take away" makes the game better.

At some point in D&D's history, they became too generous and started handing out the same bonuses and class features to everybody. This was likely when the D&D game was being marketed for children, so they started standardizing every bonus, and similar house rules made it into the game, where "everybody got everything." Suddenly, mages were rolling a 20 and doing double damage with a quarter-staff hit. They got a STR bonus for that damage, too.

Nobody asked why.

Nobody thought this pushed up hit points and made the dice less meaningful.

After a while, a goblin in D&D 4E had 30 hit points, whereas in B/X, they had about 3, and in 5E, they had 7. A dragon in the game's first version averaged 30-50 hit points; in 5E, they have 200-600; in 4E, dragon hit points went into the thousands.

Daggers in all these games still do 1d4 damage.

Newer versions of D&D use multi-attacks, huge modifiers, and doubling and tripling mechanics to mitigate the scaling through class features. All they do is write more and more rules to solve the problem they introduced into the game when they put this artificial scaling in the first place, all the way back in D&D 3.0. The game takes longer to play, requires more reference, classes are orders of magnitude more complicated, and the game is this artificial slog to play when it does not have to be.

Factor out damage scaling, and all those rules will go away. But they won't have anything to sell you.

I would prefer to use that dagger in Swords & Wizardry than in any modern implementation of D&D made by Wizards.

Swords & Wizardry: Great Design

The more I read Swords & Wizardry Revised, the more I like it. There is this fascinating use of "negative space" in some ways modifiers are applied, in that not everyone gets every modifier. D&D and B/X have been too generous with ability score modifiers for too long, and the inflation of hit points, character stats, and the overall numeric range of the game has suffered.

It is like someone making a mod for Monopoly and giving the car a +2 movement to all dice rolls. Okay, fine, as long as the other pieces have equal benefits. Well, in the game's next version, that bonus is the car rolling 3d6 for movement instead of 2d6, and, well, since dogs can be fast, the dog gets the +2 movement modifier. After a few game versions, all the pieces roll 6d6 for movement, different properties have different "movement point" costs for various pieces, and people still wonder why the game takes so long to play and why movement phases are terrible.

This didn't improve the game at all. This was a "shell game" with the math, which worsened the game.

In Swords & Wizardry, the to-hit and damage bonuses from a high STR score are exclusive to the fighter class, maintaining a balance in the game. All classes get a missile-fire to-hit bonus from a high DEX, which further stacks with the STR bonus for fighters. This means the only positive to-hit modifier for every other class comes from leveling, ensuring a fair playing field. You mostly roll an unmodified d20 versus AC for all to-hits, except for magic weapons and attacks from behind (or elevation, which can give up to another +/-2 for to-hits, p41).

The modifiers in Swords & Wizardry are straightforward and not universal, split into different categories. The highest to-hit modifier for STR is a +2 (17-18), and for DEX, it is a +1 (13+). An 18 STR gives a +3 damage modifier. CON modifiers to hit points are capped at a +1 per HD for a 13+.

The modifiers are far less than B/X, AD&D, 3.5E, and 5E.

AD&D started the "ability score stat inflation" by making ability score bonuses too good, and the 4d6 and drop the lowest ability score generation method. B/X and BECMI simplified modifiers to appeal to a younger market and simplify math. They gave bonuses to everyone since that was "fair," and that was a mistake.

In other words, zero-edition had "bounded accuracy" long before 5E did, and using the term "bounded accuracy" is just a polite way of saying, "We got the math wrong since 3rd Edition, and we still can't get it right." The original math was perfect. There was no reason to change it in AD&D other than to break compatibility for royalties, and it has been downhill ever since.

If you keep overall to-hit modifiers low, there is little reason for AC values to surpass 20. Suddenly, all armors work better now! Also, the to-hit bonuses from leveling and magic items mean much more. Letting fighters have this massive buff makes them the "lords of battle," which is how it should be.

If damage modifiers are kept low, a d4 damage dagger still means something. When 5E characters do d4+4 damage, there is little point in keeping that die around. A die roll modifier equal to or larger than the die means your design is broken, and the point where it reaches half the die is a warning sign.

Will players complain about rolling flat d20 versus AC to hit? This is how it will be for most classes until level three, when the first +1 kicks in. Yes. This is a more demanding game. Just because you are getting a +5 to-hit in 5E versus that AC 15 goblin does not mean you are getting that modifier in S&W, which is a +0 versus AC 13.

Notice the goblin's AC bump in 5E? Remember the Monopoly example?

The ancient red dragon in 5E has an AC of 22. In S&W, it is 17.

There is a curve in S&W where a 20th-level fighter gets a +13 to-hit, so assuming an STR bonus of +2 and a +2 magic weapon, this is a total +17 to-hit versus that dragon. You are not doing multi-attacks, and your highest damage modifier possible with that +2 weapon is a +5, so your damage will not be in the hundreds of hit points per turn, it will average ten points of damage per hit. 5E, we will probably have a +12 to +14 to hit modifier, so they are on par with each other, but the AC values in S&W are lower.

This is how it was in the older editions. The low levels are tricky. But the higher levels start getting better and better. Damage output in 5E is artificially scaled, with high hit points and a flat to-hit curve, combined with a logarithmic damage curve. In S&W, damage output stays flat, but your ability to hit increases, thus increasing damage output.

The difference is that a d4 dagger versus an adult red dragon with 44 hit points in S&W is still a threat. In 5E, there are 256 hit points for that adult red dragon. Who cares about a dagger? You need a +8 damage modifier and multi-attacks to even be noticed. More die rolls, rules references, attacks, long turns, and certain classes limited to smaller weapons become worthless. Lower hit points mean the weapons and attacks you make stay powerful and mean something, and the original die shapes hold value longer. Higher hit points only mean more time spent in the rules (and during your turn) figuring out how to nullify Wizard's hit point scaling.

Remember the Monopoly example?

I would rather be a thief in S&W backstabbing that dragon than a thief in 5E doing the same thing. Even if I am "doing more damage in 5E," the amount of character building, rules references, stacking bonuses, and special subclass powers needed to get there means I spent "more time in the rules" than the S&W thief.

The S&W character, by comparison, is more powerful.

And players spend far less time in the rules.

Off the Shelf: Swords & Wizardry

I put Swords & Wizardry aside, thinking the OGL-free update was a fun game. I had moved beyond this and started exploring other old-school games. It was a mistake to shelve this game.

Shadowdark is cool, and it is a tight, almost board game-like version of 5E that many thousands of players love. Old School Essentials is the pinnacle of small-book B/X and an expensive set of books to get your hands on. There are many OSR games these days, and they all repeat each other endlessly, with minor changes here and there.

I wrote an article looking for a "treasure system" for Dungeon Crawl Classics since the book explicitly states, "Take a treasure system from another game." So, I went on a quest looking for the ideal "treasure system book" to use with DCC. My best-of-the-best were OSRIC and Swords & Wizardry.

OSRIC was very good, and the magic-item charts in that game are some of the best ever written. OSRIC is the "better AD&D" these days since the AD&D reprint books on DTRPG are so full of errors they are laughable. Don't use your original copies of AD&D; play OSRIC and save those as collector's items. OSRIC and DCC work very well together, the only issue being OSRIC and descending AC conversions to DCC for the monsters.

I found that 90% of Swords & Wizardry can be used as an expansion book for DCC. The monsters import right in, as-is. The single-save number of monsters works better than the 3.5E style saves of DCC, especially for monsters then who cares about 3 saves for a creature? The treasure system and horde generation work perfectly with the game. All the generation charts work perfectly. The only things you don't use are classes and spells.

Swords & Wizardry and DCC are so tight they are almost like sister games.

Do you want classic zero-edition monsters and treasures in DCC? Get this book. S&W is the best "stuff book" ever written for DCC. It has all the missing monsters and treasures.

Once you see S&W in that light, the next step is to consider playing it standalone. The single-save mechanic is a genius-level simplification of the pedantic B/X save system, and if you need to modify it for a single monster, like bats having a +4 to all "reflex" saves, then you just make that ruling and move on. They are bats. If the save is used for a dodge, then bats are good at dodging, and I give the bats a +4. I am done. The game gives me the power to make a ruling.

Swords & Wizardry released an options book this year that fills in all the "missing classes" in newer games. They did an amazing job of "backporting" these classes to zero-edition. You get bards (druids) and troubadours (illusionists) here, so you get both flavors of the class. You get barbarians, warlocks, demon-hunters, illusionists, necromancers, and much more. The barbarian is more of a Conan class and amazingly fun. If you felt S&W was missing the "fun parts" of the newer games, this is your book.

This is the missing expansion. Swords & Wizardry needs this to be on par with modern OSR games. You get all the fun classes of 5E with none of the power gaming, bloat, or overdesign. This is the OSR game most like 5E in terms of classes, but it keeps power levels under control.

Thank you.

They also massively expanded the monsters in a "Foes" book, another fantastic hardcover with over 300 new monsters for the game. Swords & Wizardry is a massive game now, in a three-volume set. It is still a compact game, very streamlined, with excellent presentation and a tight format that packs a lot into its space. The art is consistently outstanding.

Unlike OSE, this game has plenty of demons, and the whole concept of good versus evil is baked into the design. Adding chaos-aligned warlocks and necromancers in the options book adds the evil classes to the game. The options here exceed both Shadowdark and OSE, and the classes feel great. Also, only fighters (and only fighters; not paladins, rangers, barbarians, or any others) get the STR bonus to attack and damage in S&W (to melee and ranged attacks), which is another genius design decision.

The tamping down of die roll modifiers speeds gameplay makes AC numbers meaningful and controls hit-point inflation. Any game that seriously gives all classes the same STR to hit and damage bonuses needs to rethink its design. You also get the lower-than-1-HD multi-attack ability here. You play a fighter because you want to be a lord of war and combat. Other fighter classes get all sorts of special abilities to compensate for the lack of bonuses, so it is fair to everyone. These zero-edition fighters rock, man. They feel like Death Metal should play when your turn comes up.

This is the one change I wish OSE had made, as the OSE fighters feel plain and uninteresting in comparison. All the classes have these fun abilities baked in, and they are far more detailed and versatile than OSE classes. OSE feels too simple compared to S&W, and in other ways, S&W is more streamlined than OSE. The single-save is a genius mechanic.

Compared to Castles & Crusades, S&W is the more straightforward system. I know this is heresy! I love C&C! But Swords & Wizardry does more in fewer pages and leaves much more up to you. This is the best pre-AD&D system, roleplaying at its finest in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It still has the AD&D feeling, though, without all the charts and bloat.

Swords & Wizardry is the game AD&D should have been. I know, more heresy! S&W sticks close to the B/X framework, eliminates all the fiddly bits, and makes every class awesome with signature abilities and party roles. The game is tight and streamlined. It has an ascending AC system, and the math is easy. Modifiers and hit points are under control. The new, OGL-free version is a clean, tight, effortless design with zero baggage.

This is the perfect game to graduate to after Shadowdark when you want a streamlined zero-edition game with many options and that classic pre-AD&D feeling with all the AD&D-isms you love about that game. It is the best reinterpretation of the zero-edition rules, is endlessly expandible, and has those streamlining features we love about Shadowdark. Encumbrance is simplified. Thieves are the only class to get the +4 backstab bonus from behind (other classes get a +2). You get a lot of re-sorting of the benefits newer games tend to "give everybody," and they get parsed out to classes to make those classes unique and meaningful in play and to a party.

As a "stuff book" for DCC, this is the one to go with since the monsters are trivial ports. This gives you a solid treasure system, treasure horde generation, encounter tables, gear lists, and all sorts of missing pieces DCC does not come with. Even the expansions are highly usable. If you have DCC, pick up S&W and thank me later, and you will have all the classic AD&D creatures at your fingertips and a treasure system that works amazingly well with DCC.

Your DCC characters can finally thrash that cloud giant fortress with the white dragon, and get appropriate treasure for each monster there. Finally!

But the two new volumes in the game are game-changers. These take the game from an "oh, this is a cool game" to a must-play standalone system. Swords & Wizardry Revised is my new go-to OSR system, and it has eclipsed many of the standard bearers I have grown used to. Give each class here another look, and compare them to OSE and Shadowdark; you will see a lot of "extra fun" built into each class, with plenty of the best "problem-solving tools" provided.

This game is up there with DCC in terms of fun and design. Where DCC is the gonzo, wild, often very swingy, and hilarious epic experience, S&W is the serious, focused, clean, tightly-tuned, and streamlined design that delivers classic dungeon crawling with minimal fuss and chart references.