Re: S&W "White Box" clone of the first ever D&D system

Posted by MortiS-the-Lost on Feb 16, 2010; 6:52pm
URL: http://the-lost-and-the-damned.71.s1.nabble.com/S-W-White-Box-clone-of-the-first-ever-D-D-system-tp4568607p4581979.html

For British gamers the 'White Box' is verging on pre-history, this is where it all started in the UK, this is the 'three barely understandable rules booklets in a box' that Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone imported into the UK back 1975. In some ways it can be viewed as D&D in it's primordial state. But it's worth remembering that Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson and friends had already been developing D&D for years before they published the White Box and unleashed D&D on the public for the first time. In fact there supposedly is a lot of debate as to who first came up with the idea and where exactly it all started. I'm noting to going talk about pre-history though, partly because it will quickly get off topic and partly because I don't care if Castle Blackmoor was the first game of D&D ever played or not.

All this aside it's interesting to see how the first published version of D&D worked and how things have changed since. However 'Swords & Wizardry White Box edition' is not White Box D&D, it's an OGL game. Under all it's old retro artwork and old school dice modifiers it's still the D20 system. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying S&W (nor the D20 system) is rubbish, I just need to make the point that should be viewed a Retro-D&D Emulator and not as the original rule-set itself (It's like running my old Atari and Spectrum games on my Laptop). S&W makes D20 play like White Box D&D in the same way that CoC D20 makes it play like CoC. As such it is an interpretation of the way White Box D&D played.
This makes S&W a rather strange niche product in comparison to most other 'OD&D clone' games. Devout players of the original 'White Box' D&D will not want it because A, it's based on that-there new-fangled D20 system and B, they already have the original White Box. Newer players wanting to play something 'old skool' and nostalgia junkies (like us) will not necessarily buy it because there are lots of other Retro-D&D  products out there to choose from (Hack Master, OSRIC, ect) and there's not real reason to pick one over another. Which begs the further question why are all these different companies making Retro D&D products? As has been said in previous threads it can't be for the money and with so many other companies producing similar materials it's not as if they are plugging a gap in the market. It's my philosophy that (unless your radically changing it or you can improve on it some what) producing something that a lot of other people produce is just crowding the market place for such products and besides most of these OD&D clones are free.(a few more words on this and then I'm going to get back on subject)
To look at it in a wider (an non commercial view) most gameing groups have their own set of tweaks and houserules (and in some cases derivative home-brew games) which make games play the way they want to play them. Therefore (in a strictly technical sense) there are as almost many different rules sets are there are GMs, nobody's group plays in exactly the same way as another group and yet with the advent of the internet and PDF files a lot of people are publishing what essentially are house rules and expecting other people to play in the way to do. In this environment trying to competitively sell such a product seems pointless as GMs I know, including myself look at many different sources for rules and grab what they need from each one. (and besides in 5 billion years the sun will explode, engulfing the earth and rending all human endeavour entirely pointless)  

sorry about that I don't seem to have train of thought so much as wandering dune-buggy of thought driving aimlessly toward the horizon.

I've decided to stop now and try to talk about the S&W White Box properly later.