Home » Ancient Posts » Microlite74 is “better” than Swords & Wizardry?    
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Michael S/Chgowiz

I’m pretty damn curious myself now too.

Randall

Tom said “Uh oh, now its old school vs old school! When will the madness end?!”

::Cue Billy Joel’s We didn’t Start the Fire.:: Old Schoolers didn’t agree on everything back in the 70s so why should we now? LOL.

Spike Page said "Which S&W was your group playing? Core Rules or White Box?"

Core Rules.

Chgowiz said “I have to ask, do you think it’s because you ran m74 a lot smoother/better because you built m74, you know m74 and it comes across?”

It's possible, but I run S&W just like it was OD&D and I've ran that for more years than M20 (let alone M74) has been in existence.

I also wondered if it was player suck up since I wrote M74. However, I'm not sure the players know this as I don't think I've ever mentioned it. They knew I was working on some supplemental rules, of course.

What's really weird is this was a playtest session — to the point I was rewriting some rules on the fly to try to get obviously not working rules to work better. How this could be seen as "more simple" than our S&W sessions is beyond me.

“My wife just told me that she doesn’t really know the rules – she says she wants to do stuff and I tell her how she has to make it happen (either dice roll or something of that nature) – she doesn’t really know the rule mechanics. That was an eye opener.”

I had a lot of players like that back in the 1970s and early 1980s. They never bought, let alone learned, the rules. They just said what their character was doing and I told them what happened, what they needed to roll, etc. Rules expertise really wasn’t needed.

These folks generally enjoyed the game — sometimes more than players who obsessed over the learning the rules.

I’ve emailed folks and asked if they can be a bit more articulate as to why M74 seemed better now that they’ve had a day or so to think about it.

Michael S/Chgowiz

I have to ask, do you think it’s because you ran m74 a lot smoother/better because you built m74, you know m74 and it comes across?

I ask because I know I run m74 and S/W a helluva lot smoother than I run OSRIC/1E – part of that is familiarity, part of that is just experience and preference for rules-light.

I switched my family campaign from m74 to S/W about 3 games ago. I just asked my wife which was simpler and I got a complex answer! *laugh*

My wife just told me that she doesn’t really know the rules – she says she wants to do stuff and I tell her how she has to make it happen (either dice roll or something of that nature) – she doesn’t really know the rule mechanics. That was an eye opener.

She also said that it seems like the m74 period of our campaign was “simpler” but I also wonder if that’s because I hadn’t made a lot of options available. She has deal with varying economics, she has a few more options for how to deal with combat and the like. I think I’ve ‘opened the floodgates’ so the world has become more complex at the same time I switched from m74 to S/W. She said she really couldn’t put her finger on why the m74 period of the campaign seemed simpler.

So I’m not sure I’m an accurate reading on why/which is simpler.

I don’t strongly prefer one over the other as a DM or player. I would easily run either – I’d probably run m74 for people who were more comfortable/familiar with d20 mechanics and S/W for the rest.

Now I’m going to have to consider the fact that my wife has been playing for 3 months and doesn’t know the rules and yet has enjoyed the game. That’s… crazy.

Spike Page

Which S&W was your group playing? Core Rules or White Box? From my experience with both S&W rules sets, Core is a wee bit more complex than WB. I've not tried MicroLite yet though.

And LOL @ Tom! Now we argue over whose school is the oldest, and how we had to walk to the old school uphill both ways in the snow in shoes made of cardboard. 😀

Anonymous

Haven’t had a chance to play either, unfortunately. Still looking for the opportunity! I will tell you that M74 is easier for me to read, since it comes off M20, which plays into my experiences and bias.

Xeveninti

I had never heard of this set of rules. Thanks for pointing it out.

Tom

Uh oh, now its old school vs old school! When will the madness end?!

😉

Personally, I feel ALL versions of DnD are FAR more alike then they are different! Blasphemy, I know…

game on