Sword World RPG

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Mankind overthrew their oppressors and forged a new age ruled by the Sword. Thus: "Sword World"

Sword World RPG is a fantasy roleplaying system and setting from Japan, and is basically Japan's answer to Dungeons & Dragons as the single-most famous, well-known and beloved fantasy RPG in its home country. Ironically, it would never have existed if TSR hadn't fucked up.

Back in the late 80s, a bunch of Japanese guys in the anime and manga business (later trading under the name Group SNE) were approached by Kadokawa to run D&D campaigns for them, with the intent of printing "action replays" (basically, novelized transcripts) of the sessions in a Japanese gaming magazine called Comptiq Magazine to promote the game. It had to be done in Basic Dungeons & Dragons, because AD&D hadn't been translated yet. They called this story-fied collection of interlinked campaigns "Record of Lodoss War", and it got so big they were able to make a full-length OVA adaptation of it. (They also published Tunnels and Trolls in Japanese at about this time, which did reasonably well and proved there was pent-up demand for tabletop RPGs in Japan.) Seeing as they were making huge piles of money and people couldn't get enough Lodoss shit, Group SNE decided, "hey, let's make a deal with TSR and make an official campaign setting book for Lodoss! Tons of people would love to play their own Lodoss campaigns!"

And TSR, in its infinite wisdom, said no. They figured there was no way any Westerner would ever be interested in Japanese fantasy, and weren't interested in writing content exclusively for the Japanese market. So they just gave up on it and the Bitch went back to embezzling corporate funds through Buck Rogers games nobody played. With no other choice, the Group SNE team shrugged and said "Fine, I'll do it myself."

Their first creation was Lodoss War Companion RPG, literally Lodoss: The Campaign Setting, but using a new rules system of their own invention. It sold well enough that they took what they learned from Lodoss War RPG, improved the mechanics, and released them as a new game called Sword World RPG. This RPG was initially set up as entirely separate to Lodoss, taking place in a world called Forcelia. Eventually supplements were released that established Forcelia as actually being the world where the three series they had already released took place and added them as places within Forcelia - Lodoss from Record of Lodoss War, Alecrest from Rune Soldier Louie, and Crystania from Legend of Crystania.

In 2008, Sword World RPG: 2nd Edition was released, moving on from the Forcelia setting to a new setting called Raxia, which is established as a world created by the combined power of epically powerful, sapient, magic swords. A "2.5" edition, also set in Raxia, was released in 2012.

Sword World 2.0 and 2.5 are currently being translated into English by a group of fans on Reddit. The subreddit for the fan translation can be found at: https://www.reddit.com/r/SwordWorld/

1st Edition

Crunch

Sword World runs on the so-called 2d6 System. It shares a lot of DNA with Basic D&D for obvious reasons, just crunched down further for an audience that had probably never seen a polyhedral in their lives. Almost all rolls are 2d6 + stat bonus + skill vs. a target score, and computing attack damage sends you to a fuckhuge "rating table" to determine how much hurt you actually caused and how much was stopped by the enemy's armor. This was a compromise to squeeze a bigger range of results out of two d6 but that doesn't change the fact that it's kind of clunky. Still not as bad as Rollmaster though. Notably "life force" and "mental power" are stats generated in the same way as your other ability scores, so the huge ablative pools of hit points you see in later editions of D&D don't exist; instead you get damage reduction based on your character level and equipped armor. Much of the arcane flappadoodle AD&D (and later 3.x) became infamous for (fiddly weapon modifiers, special combat subsystems shared with nothing else, grappling) are still here but banished to supplements and optional rules.

Many non-combat rolls are actually opposed checks, where the GM rolls 2d6 + a difficulty bonus to get the target score. Rolling a 12 is automatic success and 2 is an automatic failure, but the rulebook goes out of its way to say that this doesn't automatically mean epic success or failure and warns the GM to refrain from being a dick just because the PC failed a roll. Another ahead-of-its-time (or possibly retro, since OD&D started out with generic fighting men and grew the other classes during playtesting) feature is the complete absence of restrictions on multiclassing. Your standard fighter, thief, priest and so forth are just "adventurer skills" that you can buy with XP and each cover their own separate chunks of a unnervingly 3.x-like ability list, as well as abilities representing the expected D&D style class abilities. So-called "general skills" also exist, work like AD&D's non-weapon proficiencies and (refreshingly) are earned through roleplay rather than wasting experience or proficiency slots on fluff. Buying ranks in a skill gives you a rank in all the abilities under that skill, a bit like Shadowrun.

This one little twist on the standard class system means you can make the gish characters Japanese fantasy loves so much effortlessly, and the ability to take a level or two in anything with no penalty beyond the XP cost and a lot of fringe benefits means there's no need for a dedicated skill monkey role. So-called "common adventurer abilities" use your best adventurer skill rating, avoiding the common 3e absurdity of needing to sink points into basic life skills like Climb and Jump.

Adventurer skills

• Fighter: You fight. Duh. Buffs all your attack and defense rolls but doesn't do anything else. Of note is the example in the rulebook: "A wandering swordsman who makes a name for himself solely on the strength of his sword, and eventually establishes a kingdom." This is what Old School Roleplaying looks like, folks.
• Thief: Like the D&D thief but without the crippling fear of effectiveness. Also buffs combat rolls like the fighter and can crit on 9s unlike any other class, but only if your weapon/armor weight is half the maximum you can equip. If you have levels in both fighter and thief, they don't stack and you have to choose which one to use at the start of each combat round.
• Ranger: Still the same vaguely schizophrenic Legolas knockoff, but before they gave him his animal buddy. Buffs ranged combat rolls but mostly used for stealth and survival in the wilderness, plus some oddball things like stabilize checks, predicting the weather and map-making. You also get a bonus to SURPRISE MOTHERFUCKER people if you have a chance to get the drop on them.
• Sage: Bear Lore experts. You can take this with the sorcerer skill and get an XP discount for it. Also if you fail a knowledge or appraise check you have to go to your local library and take a look (it's in a book) for a week before making another skill check to see if your character did, in fact, learn something.
• Bard: It's a bard. You know what a bard does. Since multiclassing is free, the bard skill doesn't cover fighting and just gives you Play Instrument, "spellsongs" and bardic knowledge.
• Rune Master: The caster skill. Comes in sorcerer (Wizard using ancient magic, spell list is like a greatest-hits version of the AD&D list without campaign-enders like Wish), shaman (Elementalist type, mostly a buffmancer with spells that only work when the elemental spirits are around; note that "mind" and "life" are elements) and priest (Cleric, does cleric things) flavors. The GM also gets the snowflake NPC-only dark priest (does what it says on the tin) and dragon priest (draconic sorcerer types who LARP as dragons and get spells to help with that) skills.

The World of Forcelia

(Translated) map of Alecrest and surroundings

In the beginning, there was only a great Titan, and when it died its body became the world; its blood became the seas, its dying breath became the wind and its grief-filled heart became fire that consumed its flesh to give rise to the gods. After the gods created the "ancient races" and then the world with their help, they began to turn on each other until they destroyed each other's physical forms in an epic final war between light and darkness. Because of this war, one of the four elemental gates intended to contain the world and keep it pristine forever was broken open, thus creating time as Forcelia's seas slowly drain out of the Gate of Water into the void.

Several thousand years after this came the Age of Magic, dominated by the stereotypical kingdom of Lufenia Zenithia Zeal Kastuul where archmages ruled and built your stereotypical crazy magitech artifacts every oldschool setting needs. Eventually Kastuul fell victim to its own hubris in an unspecified disaster where most of their magical knowledge was destroyed, and the less-magical humans threw off their oppressors to build a world ruled by the sword, where the balance of power was decided by physical might and not wizard bullshit. This "Age of Sword" is the period in which the RPG takes place.

Forcelia is believed to be a four-cornered world, with one sun, one moon and the aforementioned elemental gates at the corners giving it shape a la Exalted. The actual campaign setting in the Complete Edition rulebook is the continent of Alecrest, also known as the setting of Rune Soldier Louie; if there's a defined setting earlier than this, it hasn't been translated yet. The map vaguely resembles Eurasia as is tradition though the details differ greatly, deliberately painted with very broad strokes in the corebook and then filled in with "World Guide" gazetteers so that the GM can use as much or as little of it as he wants, much like Mystara.

Nations of Alecrest

• Oran: Oran is the largest nation in southern Alecrest and rich enough to slowly push away medieval stasis through active government-funded research. Their claim to fame is having the first and largest sorcerers' guild on the continent, and their leader Mana Rai is said to be the greatest sorcerer in the continent. Their other claim to fame is the Fallen City, a megadungeon dating back to the Age of Magic formed from the ruins of the floating city of Rex. Adventurers come there from across the continent looking for phat magical loots.
• Orphan: The Kingdom of Heroes, founded by high-level adventurer Rijal after he killed the evil dragon Krish for its single-handed destruction of the kingdom of Phan. Unusually autocratic: Rijal and his queen Melete rule their territory through charisma alone, with knights serving under him directly. When the nearby kingdom of Saine put down a major rebellion the usurping nobles sought asylum in Orphan and there are fears this spat could ignite the region.
• Ramliearth: One of the oldest kingdoms, Ramliearth is home of the Van Blade, the most powerful magic sword in Alecrest. They retained a bit more knowledge from the ancient kingdom and have more sorcerers than the other major kingdoms, while in the east the "Desert of Empty" stands as one of the only magic-dead places on the continent - considering the giant crater in the middle it's probably the epicenter of the disaster that killed Kastuul. Allies with Orphan and likely to get dragged into any future war with...
• Phandria: The textbook evil kingdom and one half of the former kingdom of Phan. After Rijal ran off with half of Phan's territory (and their queen) the part that was left was taken over by various criminal syndicates, assassin temples, cults to Dark Gods, &c. Naturally they want the rest of Phan's territory back and aren't afraid to fight for it, as they did in Rune Soldier Louie.
• The Ten Children: An alliance of ten city-states in western Alecrest, formed to pose a united front against the great kingdoms to the east. Created as one of the first major expansions to the setting.
• Island of the Damned: See also Record of Lodoss War. Located far to the south of Alecrest and considered cursed due to allegedly being the site of the final battle between light and darkness in the age of the gods, the odd demonic incursion and recurrent war.
• Farland: The Unreachable Land. Doesn't look that much like Australia, actually. Island continent to the southwest with one very notable trait: Group SNE pledged to never detail Farland in official products, so every GM could have the joy of filling it out for themselves. Seriously, imagine TSR leaving a big blank spot with "your setting here" in Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance in perpetuity.

External Links

• Sword World Translation Project Wiki - Home of the fan translators who use it to coordinate and track progress.
• Complete Sword World archives - Related to the above.