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

Posted by Billiam Babble on Feb 17, 2010; 2:17am
URL: http://the-lost-and-the-damned.71.s1.nabble.com/S-W-White-Box-clone-of-the-first-ever-D-D-system-tp4568607p4583882.html

I think I get what your saying about the bad rash of OGL games, but honestly, check it out, apart from the ascending armour class system there is absolutely no resemblance to WoC's SRD 3.5.   Which is why its a fascinating interpretation of the OGL licence.

There are no skills, feats, attacks of opportunity and all the other stuff that defined 3rd edition D&D as different from AD&D 1 and 2.  My only problem is that prior to the Holmes and Metzner Basic/Expert sets I have never been able to look through an older edition of D&D, so I'm in no position to defend the quality of this supposed replica.  I've seen a few OGL games.  I am very aware of the bizarre travesty/curiousity that is d20 CoC, which I guess was a natural conclusion, when the D&D d20 Monster Manual was borrowing from Lovecraft, and d20 Modern was being developed (and I still wince at level progression in Star Wars as well, 4th level stormtroopers, pfft).  

The only other retro-clone I recently come to know well is the Basic Fantasy Roleplaying Game which is very similar to the 1980's Basic / Expert, more so than to D&D 3 or 3.5 - similarities are the armour class system and the fact that the levels go to Level 20.  Classes, spells, prices, saving throws are all from those original sets, not the SRD.  I was assuming and hoping, perhaps very wrongly, that the S&W Whitebox was loyal in some way to an older edition of D&D otherwise the decision to bring it out would make no sense at all - but that raises an interesting point in itself: perhaps I want to own something that appears to be from the distant past so badly that I believe anything they put in front of me, until I get my hands on a facsimile of OD&D.  So I don't really have a basis assuming that OD&D plays like that - but if I was engineering a game backwards it might end up looking like S&W Whitebox, but who knows, perhaps d6s were not the core dice apart from the d20 - but it would make sense.  

You said yourself that OSRIC makes for useful reference for AD&D players.  Again, perhaps its a case of just having copies of rules for new gaming groups when we don't fancy photocopying delicate old rulebooks (as long as the game was as good as true to the originals, as in the case of OSRIC).  Also you make a good point, who can Whitebox be aimed at?  The OD&Ders won't be interested, and it's barely a whole system for new players.  Perhaps it's intended market has something to do with this bizarre phantom of an idea about a golden age of pen and paper role-play.  Perhaps some players are looking for an psuedo-authentic freebie with which they can one-up friends.  In all honesty, I don't think I'd ever actually play it, but in saying that, it's rather nice having a single rule set which doesn't pressurise me into buying lots of accessories (but this may be my knee-jerk reaction against the multiple Players Handbooks in DnD 4 which makes a mockery of having 3 "Core" rulebooks).

Personal confession: I rather like the idea that these OGL /retro-clones having a large (at least an online) following, because when I fantasise about writing solo-gamebooks, I find it much easier to adapt Basic D&D, than I would DnD 3.5 or the utterly baffly DnD 4 - therefore there might still be an audience for me! ;)