Sword World RPG
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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 countries 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/
The System
Sword World RPG
Sword World runs on the so-called 2d6 System. It shares a lot of DNA with Basic D&D for obvious reasons; attack matrices are the order of the day, and damage rolls direct you to a fuckhuge "rating table" to determine how much hurt you actually caused. This was a compromise to squeeze a bigger range of numbers out of two d6 but that doesn't change the fact that it's clunky as hell. Still not as bad as Rollmaster though.
Outside of combat Sword World was ahead of its time, with a single unified roll mechanic for skill checks. It's just stat bonus + skill + 2d6 vs. a target score; 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. 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 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.
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.