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Actually, after thinking it over, I think I was a little too biased from seeing the B/X similarities in the game, and knowing that was meant to, in some ways, emulate the gameplay of D&D. But I failed to consider that very early on, GroupSNE was also into (Classic) Traveller, and did the...

Sightseeing? No... Combat. Core Rulebook I covers the Basic Combat rules. Rulebook II covers the Advanced Combat rules, and Rulebook III covers the Master Combat Rules. In 2.0, the Advanced Combat Rules were the Standard combat rules, and the Basic Combat rules were the Simple Combat Rules...

It is indeed.

So, bopping around the internet, looking up some stuff for my Sword World thread, I came across this very interesting page. It's the website of a gaming cafe in Tokyo, and it has a ranking by year of the TRPGs selected for play in the cafe, going back to 2010. It's a wonderful snapshot of the...

Well, you have to remember that Sword World came out of a group of people who were originally SF/Fantasy enthusiasts and translators. So, initially, in the 1980s, there was probably some element of interest in the "exoticness" of western fantasy. But, in the years since then, it's been so...

Since the designers originally started with D&D, I don't think it was so much the effect of different games and their resolution systems, but that when they went with their 2d6 system, they had to decide what to do with ties, and since resisting magic fell under the saving throw system in D&D...

Sure. I don't have a problem with a spherical bloodied condition in a vacuum. My problem was more with the multitude of conditions in 4e and the effect that had in play. I thought 5e did well in paring those down, and making combat less reliant on them.

Yay! A question! That is one of the non-intuitive parts of design. In a normal, unopposed check, you need only match the target number. In a contest where there is no active/passive aspect (for example, initiative), a tie means that the in-game result is a tie, or else there is a re-roll. It is...

Trigger means, "If x, then y." If the monster is bloodied, then they get an extra attack, or their special attack automatically recharges, or something like that. It's quick, easy to remember, it's interesting and then it's gone. Bloodied as a condition means that the effects of that condition...

Now we move to the thickest sections of the book, the Rules. The chapter actually starts with Skill Packages, but since we covered that during character generation, we'll move on to Action Checks. Action Checks are the basic mechanic of the game. In function they are just like the d20 checks of...

I feel like I'm getting a little bogged down in the character generation, so let's see if we can't wrap it all up in fell swoop. I don't know how much it tends to come up in actual play, but like D&D Sword World puts a lot of emphasis on language. All races can speak and are literate in the...

The next step in character creation is buying levels in skill packages. As mentioned in the previous post, your origin gives you an initial skill package (or two, in my case), and 2,000-3,000 initial XP to buy additional levels. The cost for a level in a skill package depends on whether its on...

Before I start, I'd like to emend an earlier post. I posted a link to a Fandom wiki for a Sword World 2.0 English translation. As I consider the Fandom wiki interface as proof that the Devil exists and that he hates us, it pleases me to provide a very nice alternative. The good folks on the...

Let’s start with some artwork by Mikako Mikaki! Two kinds of character generation are offered: “simple” and “deliberate.” Simple character generation is using pre-generated characters. A handy flowchart is presented: Choose a sample character -> copy the character sheet -> put together the...

Oops. I talked about Shinwa in the other D&D in Japan thread, and forgot to introduce them here. Shinwa was the original holder of the D&D translation license. They’re the ones who brought BECMI to Japan. From 1985 to 1991, Japan had only BECMI for D&D. So you can imagine why Shinwa’s pivot to...

I would like to start by emphasizing that this Let’s Read is not meant to be a translation. Unlike my Let’s Read of Moldvay’s Basic Rules, I’m going to try to avoid getting too deep in the weeds with the actual text, or the minutiae of each paragraph. And I probably won’t be spending too much...

No, it's a Japanese copy, ordered from Amazon Japan. I live in Japan and have no problem with Japanese. The thread will be in English, though! ;)

Having finished a Let's Read of the rulebook that brought me into RPGs, I thought it would be interesting to do something completely new to myself, and not very well-known by the RPG community at large. Sword World! Japan's most popular fantasy role-playing RPG. My copy will actually arrive in...

We end our Let's Read with Dungeon Mastering as a Fine Art, Moldvay's final advice to novice DMs. The title is taken from Holmes, but whereas it was merely the title of the sample dungeon section in Holmes Basic, here Moldvay uses it to provide explanation of six axioms of DMing, and ten...

I think you're somewhat misunderstanding the terms here. Wizards won't release an "OGL". The Open Gaming License already exists, and it's out of Wizards' hands. The question is whether they will release an updated SRD (System Reference Document) under the OGL. Anything designated as Open Gaming...