Day 23 of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge and I’m using an OSR clone called Swords and Wizardry from Frog God Games. Specifically this is the “Complete Rulebook” version. I had picked it up on DriveThruRPG back in 2020 and I’ve been keeping it ready when I needed an OSR game for the challenge. I’ve got quite a few OSR clones and I like comparing them against each other. So let’s see how the character creation process works for this system.
There are a 144 pages in the PDF that I own. The character sheet is one-page long which looks kinda kewl. The character creation starts on page 7 with the generating of the attribute scores. I’m instructed to roll 3d6 in order. It is mentioned that the Referee may allow the player to move the scores around if this is a long term game or if you have something in mind. I’m going to let the dice decide what this character is. And with a high Intelligence (15) I’m making a magic user.
The next step is to pick a race for the character. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my last two characters for Underhaven and D.A.M.N.I.T. were Dwarves. So I’m going to select an Elf. No attribute adjustments in S&W, but there are some advantages that I wrote down in my notes.
Next comes the character’s alignment. The choices are Chaos, Law or Neutrality. I think this guy is going to be Lawful. Why, because he’s not a bad guy that’s why.
Rolling 3d6x10 for the starting gold to buy equipment is next resulted in 120 GP. I picked up the standard fair that I thought this yet-to-be-named character would need. No armor made the AC easy to calculate, and since it had both descending and ascending AC options, I chose ascending.
We’ve come to the end of the chapter on character creation, but I know I need to pick his spells. Apparently he only memorizes the spells allowed per day (one at 1st level), but can have up to eight spells in his spellbook. But I have to roll under the “Understand Spells” score from my 15 INT. And since I don’t have a name yet, the Elf Random Name Generator came up with Ivasaar Perleth.
Afterthoughts:
There wasn’t really a checklist for the character creation. It was just “now pick this from these descriptions” and move to the next chapter. I was use to this older format having played BECMI a while ago, so it didn’t bother me. But I could see how it would be confusing to players not familiar with OSR styles.
What I didn’t like was the 0.2gp costs listed on some of the equipment. Just tell me what it is in silver pieces, etc.
Some interesting tidbits in this OSR clone. I wouldn’t turn down a game, but as for running one, I’ve already got some others in mind.
Additional Notes:
I want to thank all of the participants and commenters on the #CharacterCreationChallenge channel on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. I’ve loved seeing your entries and interacting with you.
I don’t know why this game wasn’t showing up on DriveThruRPG. My copy was still in my library, but the book itself wasn’t showing up under the vendor’s page.
Coming Up Next:
EverReach
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