Sword World: What If D&D Didn't Matter?

This post is me suddenly realizing that I could Simply Write About something I've repeatedly alluded to in replies on social media: 

"If you've ever been curious what a fantasy adventure TTRPG might look like if it hadn't developed under the massive shadow of D&D, then you should check out Sword World."

I probably don't need to explain the shadow of D&D and how it warps the TTRPG landscape. It's the game everyone has played, it's many people's only game, and it's the game everything else is compared to. But the interesting thing is, that's not true across the whole world. In Japan, for example, D&D never got that initial foothold (something about dice availability, if memory serves) so the TTRPG scene developed in its own ways. Even now, D&D is simply Another Game That Exists. It's not the most popular one (that's Call of Cthulhu, interestingly enough), and it's not even the most popular one in the fantasy adventure genre: that honor goes to the subject of this post, Sword World 2.5.

I want to be clear, because the internet has (rightly) learned to be wary when an American wants to talk about something Japanese. This is not a post about how perfectly awesome Sword World is, or how it's better than "western" RPGs, or anything like that. This is about the fact that we have a genuine example of a fantasy adventure TTRPG that was under no pressure to compare itself to D&D, which feels a little like peeking into an alternate timeline. I, for one, find it fascinating to compare and contrast. Maybe you will too.

So let's talk about One Real Example Of What Fantasy Adventure Looks Like When D&D Ain't Shit.

Sword World 2.5

Just as a quick introduction, Sword World is the top fantasy adventure TTRPG in Japan. It's currently in edition 2.5, which is what I'll be talking about here. There's no official English version, so I'll be using a fan translation, which you can get for free HERE. There are three core books; I've looked at Core Rulebook I, which covers the general gameplay rules and the basic races and classes, along with a few monsters. My understanding is that Core Rulebook II and Core Rulebook III include some special additional rules and advanced classes, but I haven't looked at them yet. Trust me, there's plenty of interesting comparisons to observe just in the first book.

Classes & "Skills"

I'm starting here because it's one of the first and biggest differences someone like me would notice about SW2.5. It has classes and skills, but they don't work the way we're used to. Your classes are your skills. You don't put points into skills, or have your class grant you skill proficiencies that scale up automatically. No, when you make a skill check (or spellcasting check, or attack roll), you roll 2d6 and add your level in the relevant class. Most (but not all) checks have more than one class you could use, so you use whichever one you have the higher level in. If you don't have a relevant class at all, then you just roll a blank 2d6 (you don't even get your ability modifier).

As you may have inferred from the preceding paragraph, multiclassing is normal. I don't mean it's "allowed" or it's "not a variant rule" or it's "common." I mean it's the expected default. Every character is a mix of a handful of different classes, likely each at a different level. If that sounds overwhelming, that's because you're imagining "classes" that are much bulkier than the ones in SW. You don't have a five-page spread of abilities for each class. Your class is like... a paragraph or two. For example, the Fencer class explains that as long as you're using light weapons/armor you get an improved crit chance, and... that's it. Add your Fencer level to your combat rolls, just like anything else, and you're ready to rock and roll.

XP, Advancement, and Adventurer Level

While SW2.5 does have "experience points" and "levels," it doesn't work like how you're used to. Instead of reaching the next XP threshold and gaining a level, you spend XP to purchase levels of individual classes. The XP cost of purchasing a level depends on whether it's from a "major" or "minor" class, and how high your level already is in that class specifically. Have a look at this chart:

Brand new characters start with 3,000 XP worth of levels, so you might start the game as, for example, Sorcerer 2, Fencer 1, Scout 1, giving you magic as your primary focus but with a bit of melee ability for flexibility and a wide array of utility skills. Someone used to D&D would call this a 4th-level character, but in SW it's actually a 2nd-level character. This is because your "adventurer level" is equal to your highest class level, not your total number of class levels. Which makes sense, because we're on tight 2d6 math for everything, so we want to be measuring power by what's getting added to the roll, not by how many different things you can do.

How you gain XP in the first place is also a bit different than the D&D model. You automatically gain XP at the end of each session: 1,000 XP if you achieved your objective, or 500 XP otherwise. That's basically it. There's some bonus XP if you defeated monsters, but it's pretty small: 10 XP per level of the monsters defeated. The example in the book is if you win a fight against a 3rd-level monster and their four 1st-level minions, that's 7 levels total, or 70 XP. You also get 50 XP if you manage to roll snake eyes on 2d6 (a 1-in-36 chance). Both of these are a drop in the bucket compared to the base session XP.

But in addition to XP and classes, your advancement also includes "Growth" of ability scores. At the end of each session, you— wait a second, I haven't told you about ability scores yet, I'd better do that!

Ability Scores

Characters in Sword World have six stats. Which is funny, because if an American designer said that, many people would assume they had never seen a game other than D&D. But that's objectively not the case for SW2.5, and in fact there's a very specific reason to have exactly six ability scores: Growth. Your six stats are numbered 1-6 on your sheet, and at the end of each session, you roll a d6 twice, pick one result, and increase the corresponding ability score by 1. But wait, it gets even more interesting.

You don't add your ability score to rolls, you add your Ability Modifier, which is exactly what you think it is. This is even funnier than having six stats—people would call you a liar right to your face if you claimed that you had a score/mod duality for any other reason than D&D-brain. And yet, here we are. Anyway, you get +1 mod per 6 points of score. Most starting mods will be +2, some will be +1, and very very few will be +3. But this connects back to growth: if you have a score that's close to the next multiple of six, you can try to steer your growth toward it and get that next +1 (eventually, dice willing).

But growth isn't the only way that SW2.5 makes ability scores more relevant than in D&D. Weapons and armor, for example, have minimum Strength requirements. (Proficiency by class isn't really a thing, for the most part.) You use your Vitality score for calculating HP, and your Spirit score for calculating MP. I haven't found anything similar for Dexterity, Agility, or Intelligence, but still, the scores are getting more use than in D&D at least.

Side note because I know you're wondering: yes, you roll your ability scores. In order. That said, there's some amount of control: your choice of background gives you a set of flat numbers that your rolls are added to, and you also roll three full sets of scores and choose from among them. This model, alongside the growth mechanic, point to an interesting middle ground of guided chance in between the extremes of raw luck from old-school D&D and full control of modern point-buy.

I Am In Love With "Fellows"

In video games, sometimes an NPC will temporarily join your party, following you around and helping in combat but staying in the background the rest of the time. In some tabletop D&D-alikes, you can get hirelings that work similarly. In Sword World, you can do this with other people's player characters.

Want to share your character with the world? Make a Fellow Sheet, which summarizes their stats and includes a random roll chart for a few combat actions, and—get this—you even have to write down lines of dialogue your character would say when doing these combat actions. You can then post your Fellow Sheet online, such as in a fan forum, where people you've never met might pick them up to take along on their adventures.

Fellows stay in the background, contribute according to your custom random table during combat, and cannot take damage or die (in the event of a TPK, they're assumed to miraculously escape). Here's the adorable part: after using a Fellow, the book explicitly encourages the player(s) to contact the Fellow's creator (probably just a post online) both to thank them for their help and to give a recap of their character's little side adventure.

Power Tables

Remember I mentioned the issue of dice availability as part of the reason D&D didn't catch on right away in Japan? Well, SW2.5 is fully d6-based, and that includes rolling for damage (or healing). But apparently they didn't want everything to deal Xd6 damage, so instead they created Power Tables. Your weapon or spell will specify a "Power" rating. Find the row for that Power on the table, and roll 2d6. There will be a box corresponding to your result which tells you how much damage you deal. (You also add bonuses from things like your STR mod, but that's after you're done with the Power Table roll.)

At first I was surprised. Requiring a reference to a table on every single instance of damage is a bold move, though maybe you get used to it if you're referencing the same Power rating every time. Also, it does present an interesting solution to the need for variable damage output using only d6s and without too much range from the bottom to the top. I don't know if I would have the guts to do this in a design of my own, but I see what it's offering.

Relatedly, this method of damage calculation means everybody's always rolling 2d6 for damage, and SW2.5 takes advantage of this. Your chance of a critical hit is based on the dice result of your damage roll rather than your attack roll, scoring a crit when you roll your weapon's crit threshold or higher. Lots of weapons put this threshold around 10-11, but the Fencer can reduce this by 1 (at the cost of halving your STR score for the purpose of weapon and armor requirements, which means less power in the first place and also less defense). Also: crits can explode. When you crit, you record your rolled damage, and roll again. If that's a crit too, just keep going.

Three Combat Systems

So, you know how in D&D (and similar games), there's differing opinions on tactical combat versus abstracted combat? There's grid-based model, battlefield zone models, here-there-elsewhere models, all kinds of stuff. They all have advantages and disadvantages, and often it's a major decision point for which game(s) someone is willing to play.

Well, Sword World just sidesteps the issue by having three different combat systems with different levels of complexity and depth. The idea is that you bounce around between them, depending on which one serves the needs of a given fight. You can use the "advanced" mode (full tactical grid) when you have a big, complicated fight with interesting terrain and want to have a really robust experience. But if you want a quicker fight, you can use the "simplified" mode, where you just abstract the battlefield into three zones (the melee "frontline" and two ranged "rearguards") and leave it at that. The stats on weapons and spells (range, area, etc) are designed to accommodate both modes.

There's also a third mode that splits the difference between simple/advanced, but I honestly don't see the point of it. Maybe I'm missing something and I would get it if I actually played it? Who knows. But hey, it exists!

Okay Okay I'll Wrap It Up

There's plenty more interesting points of comparison to talk about (like how dwarves are fireproof and elves are perfect swimmers, or how there seems to be an assumption that adventures are short and serialized instead of campaign-length megaplots), but this is getting pretty long already. Anyway, the point is, Sword World is solidly in the adventure fantasy genre without being a "D&D clone," and this makes examination of its design choices absolutely fascinating for fantasy fans who live and breathe the inescapable dominance of D&D. If design comparisons are at all interesting to you (and if you got this far into my blog post, I assume they are) then I highly recommend that you go have a look at SW2.5 for yourself. And by all means, hit me up with your observations! I'd love to hear about them!