Frog God Games has asked me to ask you what you would like to see in the upcoming Swords & Wizardry Boxed Set. Yes, your thoughts and opinions matter.
The S&W Boxed Set will be digest sized and consist of multiple booklets, with extra room built into the box for additional booklets and such.
Besides the rules, which will mostly be a re-editing of the current Swords & Wizardry Complete ruleset, what else would you like in your box?
As for me, I'd like the following (in no particular order):
- A digest-sized GM screen. For me, this is huge. Regular GM screens are too tall and block my view of the players at my table
- Adventures. Preferably at least one intro adventure and some examples of adventures for other level ranges
- A print of the cover art. Hey, one can always hope ;)
- Rules for making magic items, potions, and scrolls
What do you want to find in the new Swords & Wizardry Boxed Set? Tell us below.
I'd love to see character sheets with a set of pregens. The boxed set could be a great resource for convention games and demos more in-depth than SWL.
ReplyDelete- Let's skip dice, I have dice, or just limit to the ones actually used in the Boxed Set (sorry, d12)
ReplyDelete- GM Screen
- Adventures - an intro one with guide for new GMs, a small party/single PC ones would be nice
- Maps - both GM (with markers, names and secrets) and Player versions
- Cardboard flat minis or tokens with the pregen characters (I'm assuming they'll be there) - something players can put in front of their character sheet
- Something about domain level play, hardly anyone does that
I'd love to see pregens and an adventure
ReplyDeleteRules for creating your own classes.
ReplyDeleteLarger text. The current Swords & Wizardy Complete has text that is too small.
ReplyDeleteI think you hit the nail on the head as far as additonal content, Tenkar. A GM Screen, or some form of reference sheets, would be a huge improvement over the current Swords & Wizardry for reference. Adventures at multiple level ranges would be a huge help to have an idea of what proper mid and high level adventures feel like. And I'd love to see more of Matt Finch's practical advice for magic items and consumables.
ReplyDeleteRules for building your own design of spaceship please.
ReplyDeleteHow to build a hexcrawl. pointcrawl world with hexpaper. Spell cards, and weapon cards like the old Dungeon TAC cards by Judges Guild, magic item cards like Hargrave made for Arduin, A screen is fine, High quality, thick, full color carboard dungeon tiles or geomorphs.
ReplyDeleteNo RPG is perfect. S&W (for me) is close to. What I like: simple rules, old school feeling. I found that Whitebox works even better for me than Complete, because it is even more simple, and it is well supported with many interesting derivates.
ReplyDeleteMy wishlist for the box is more on the rules side. I have more campaign settings, and adventure modules I can play in my life. What I need is a simple, flexible set of rules with an old school touch. That said I'd love to see a book full of optional rules:
* Optional Classes: The Bard (casting illusionist spells), The Illusionist, The Barbarian and other Specialized Casters. The Priest (of a specific, generic deity), The Warlock, The Knight
* Optional Racial Features: I prefer e.g. +1 with axe & hamnmer, instead of +1 vs. goblins (same for elves with swords & bow).
* Optional Races: Gnomes, Planetouched, Dragonmen, etc.. No goofy races - just the classics-
* An optional skill system
* Even more optional rules: Encumbrance, Single Saving Throw, Weapon spezialization.
* Conversion rules to later editions
* Better multiclass rules. Single XP table. May be two with one for slow advancement for multiclass.
* Kits/Prestige Classes
Well take a look at Fantastic Heroes & Witchery. This is the kind of stuff I'm looking for.
Definitely the shorter DM screen. I've been using a friend's 5e screen because its much shorter than usual.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I'd like to see a Reader's Digest version/set of the tables from the Tome of Adventure Design book.
A separate book with Monster Stat Blocks
ReplyDeleteExpansion rules that clarify vagueness
Alternate cover art
Alternate character sheets for different classes
Some content similar to the Tome of Adventure Design would be awesome...a DM's idea book for making adventures with lots of handy random tables.
ReplyDeletePersonally, one of the things I really appreciated about the 5e Essentials Kit was the inclusion of not just a dice set, but one that included multiple d6s so I could immediately roll up a character without owning any other dice or getting out my old dice and without having to roll a single d6 multiple times.
A booklet of premade monsters and treasures per level as well as geomorphs/dungeon tiles. Some sort of legendary modules akin to Keep of the Borderlands. Go crazy on the art. Have art from professional to amateur. A few stickers to hand out for advertisement. Mass could combat rules and stats. Possibly some coins or tokens. Little magical things that would bring charm to the boxed set like necklaces pendants, rings.
ReplyDeleteReferee screen & adventures are solid ideas. I am also looking for tangible advice on the principle role as referee in osr/s&w games - which would be hugely beneficial also for the run-away 5e DM looking for the old-school feel again. One approach could be through Matt's 'Primer for the old school playstyle' and how these translate to actual examples of how the referee could design adventures himself. Examples of hexcrawl, magic item, monster design in S&W - all for the betterment of the referee-role.
ReplyDelete/Christian
I thought of another thing on the way home from work. Extra boxes as an add on. I'm assuming that Frog God and some of the 3rd publishers will start putting out more digest sized stuff. That original box will fill up fast. OH, and why not put part of the GM screen on the box? My thought is that the first box set should be "the basics" pretty much as is with some extra editing thrown and new art thrown in. Of course YMMV.
ReplyDeleteAs I wrote on the FGG #sword-and-wizardry Discord channel yesterday morning:
ReplyDelete"1) I enjoy the Swords & Wizardry Complete's 2nd printing artwork (especially the cover) and presentation. I especially like how S&W presents OD&D in a way that is easy to grok.
2) I think a copy of Matt Finch's Quick Primer for Old School Gaming tucked inside the box would be great (especially for new(er) players)."
I chimed in today to echo the GM Screen idea -- using the landscape-oriented CK Screen from Troll Lord Games (roughly 10 years ago) as something to mimic.
Looking forward to the box, no matter what the add-ons are. Lettuce makes the salad. S&W makes the S&W Box set.
Thanks for the ideas, all -- we're keeping notes on them!
ReplyDelete100% GM Screen in a smaller format. Maybe digest folded bu landscape (wide and short).
ReplyDeletePregen Chars and Printed Map for the included starting adventure would be awesome. Other than that a Gm Screen would be nice.
ReplyDelete