Sword Noir: A Role-Playing Game of Hardboiled Sword & Sorcery

[FraserRonald]

Hardboiled sword & sorcery--it's Conan seeking for the Maltese Falcon, it's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser in the Big Sleep, set in Lankhmar, it's hardboiled crime fiction in the worlds of sword & sorcery.

It's Sword Noir.

Inspired by mashing up the novels and stories of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Robert E Howard, and Fritz Leiber, Sword Noir: A Role-Playing Game of Hardboiled Sword & Sorcery is a new RPG from Sword's Edge Publishing. In it, characters' morals are shifting at best and absent at worst. The atmosphere is dark and hope is frail or completely absent. Violence is deadly and fast. Trust is the most valued of commodities--life is the cheapest. Grim leaders weave labyrinthine plots which entangle innocents. Magic exists and can be powerful, but it takes extreme dedication to learn, extorts a horrible price, and is slow to conjure.

Now is the time for your characters to walk down mean streets, drenched in rain, hidden in fog, and unravel mysteries, murders, and villainy.

Sword Noir is now available at RPG Now.

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

Sounds very interesting.

What's the system like?

What is magic like?

How do ypu keep divination from spoiling plots (assuming there is divination)?

How's combat?

Miniatures?

How is the "noir feel" achieved?

Thanks.

 

[FraserRonald]

Sounds very interesting.

Glad I've got your interest. I'll try to answer your questions as directly and concisely as possible.

What's the system like?

It's 2d10 vs a Target Number. The character is built using Qualities, some--like "Concept"--are specific in what they are asking, others are left open to the player. The Qualities provide modifiers to the roll.

There are a couple of characters from the Everthorn setting (included in the PDF) here that should give you an idea how characters are built. However, these are Narrative Characters (basically, NPCs), and so rather than ranks, the NCs Traits are Target Numbers, which their Qualities then modify. Only players roll dice in Sword Noir. However, other than that particular difference, the Qualities that you see are the same as what a Player Character might have.

There's also a discussion of Qualities here.

What is magic like?

Magic is done as a Quality. The power, range, duration, area of effect, etc of the magic provides the Target Number. There's also the possibility of physical damage and madness whenever one uses one's magic.

In Sword Noir, magic is based on the five Chinese elements and their mystical attributes. One creates a Quality out of one of those attributes. As an example, one of the pre-made characters provided with Sword Noir has the following Qualities: Mage of Fire - Charm of Revealing (Good); Word of Fire (Great) Those Qualities are pretty open-ended, and that is the intention. Explain how the character is using that Quality to create the effect, then roll.

How do ypu keep divination from spoiling plots (assuming there is divination)?

There is divination, however, because the magic rules are very loose and abstract, there is no mechanical barrier to using divination--save for high Target Numbers based on the chronological distance of the event foreseen, and possibly the range from the character. Why, then, would divination not spoil the plot? In practice, the creativity of the GM, which, I think, has been the only thing for many systems that puts a leash on divination--creativity when delivering on what the character sees and creativity on incorporating that into the plot.

How's combat?

As with all Tests, it is a roll against a Target Number. However, unlike some systems, one is either an attacker or a defender. Once a character as the initiative, the defender needs to take seize that initiative else continue to defend.

Things work a little different when there are multiple opponents--which, frankly, can be murderous unless one is a very competent combatant--as discussed here.

Miniatures?

They are not required. There's nothing that would discourage their use.

How is the "noir feel" achieved?

The definition I have for Sword Noir is:Characters’ morals are shifting at best and absent at worst. The atmosphere is dark and hope is frail or completely absent. Violence is deadly and fast. The characters are good at what they do, but they are specialists. Trust is the most valued of commodities–life is the cheapest. Grim leaders weave labyrinthine plots which entangle innocents. Magic exists and can be powerful, but it takes extreme dedication to learn, extorts a horrible price, and is slow to conjure.

Every design decision was made to address one or more of the elements of that description. There is also a section of the book that unpacks the description, discussing how the game attempts to achieve each element.

I hope that answers your questions. If you have more, be sure to send them along.

Thanks again for your interest.

 

[FraserRonald]

Also up on the website now to give you an idea of what you're getting into is the character tracker, the character sheet, the pre-made characters, and a map of Everthorn--the city setting presented in Sword Noir.

 

[Helfdan]

Just did my first read-through! I like the ambiance. The rules are pretty friendly as well... one of the most intuitive "Fate-like" games I've seen. And thanks for statting out a certain iconic pair of heroes... Really, this seems like one of the best systems to run a either classic sword and sorcery or musketeer/pirates campaigns!

Great Job!!

 

[FraserRonald]

Just did my first read-through! I like the ambiance. The rules are pretty friendly as well... one of the most intuitive "Fate-like" games I've seen. And thanks for statting out a certain iconic pair of heroes... Really, this seems like one of the best systems to run a either classic sword and sorcery or musketeer/pirates campaigns!

Great Job!!

Thank you very much! I am very glad to hear you're happy with it.

Now I'm going to piss you off. At least maybe a little.

I think that if you want to run an S&S or swashbuckling campaign, some of the inspirational systems I listed might be better. I don't think I totally met my Sword Noir definition with these rules in that one can pretty much ignore the genre and use the system. That'll be a feature to some and a bug to others. I hope it's a feature to most.

And part of the real joy of statting out our iconic pair was seeing Ed Northcott bring them to "life" in the art. That was worth writing the who book.

Thanks again for your support.

 

[FraserRonald]

Sword Noir: A Role-Playing Game of Hardboiled Sword & Sorcery is now available as a 104 page softcover 6” x 9” book with black & white interiors. Print + PDF from RPG Now is priced at $10.73. If you’ve been waiting for the print book, wait no longer. If you have purchased the PDF and have not received a discount code for the print version, contact me and give me your customer number and I’ll see that you get one.