Swords & Wizardry is for original D&D, the three little booklets. Additional material from supplements depends on the version of S&W. There are White box, Core and Complete.
OSRIC (Old School Reference and Index Compilation) is the ultimate clone of 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Originally meant to be a tool for publishers to publish 1e compatible material. OSRIC webpage has tons of stuff.
Labyrinth Lord emulates basic and expert editions of Dungeons & Dragons in one book. Goblinoid Games has done a great job with LL. And with Original Edition Characters and Advanced Edition Companion supplements you can turn Labyrinth Lord into older-old-school version of D&D and in lite 1e version of D&D.
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Best thing is, you can get all three of these for free. And all of these are in print!
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Do you think these three old-school-rules are the holy trinity of D&D emulation of 70's and early 80's? Or do you have a better combination in mind?
They do seem to be the most popular and they emulate D&D and AD&D very well.
ReplyDeleteLogically, I think you would need to replace Swords & Wizardry with Delving Deeper. That's not a knock on Swords & Wizardry, which I think at least in some ways is superior to them all, but it's sort of a mash of OD&D (in it's various versions) and AD&D, and takes more liberties with the rules than any other of the three other more "straight" clones.
ReplyDeleteDepends on how you define the Holy Trinity of the OSR. S&W Whitebox is damn close to OD&D with some differences and yes, DD hues closer. S&W is much more accepted than DD, and if you define the Holy Trinity by use, the three mentioned would be the top three by far.
DeleteHistorically they are definitely "the Holy Trinity", but I think over time DD will replace S&W in peoples' minds as "The" original clone - closer both mechanically and in spirit than S&W.
DeleteI would find that not very likely on art, production, associated talent, support etc. reasons.
DeleteHow much time are we talking? :)
S&W has some differences what are actually very huge. For example one save only. But what I have learned by popularity S&W is the OD&D version. Delving Deeper I have no experience with. Maybe I should delve deeper in that system too!
ReplyDeleteAre there some other games to replace OSRIC as 1E and LL as B/X?
Thanks for the comments, well appreciated.