Death and Resurrection in Gaming

I threw down my enemy, an he fell from the high place and broke the mountain-side where he smote in his ruin. Then darkness took me, and I strayed out of thought and time, and I wandered far on roads that I will not tell. 

Naked I was sent back - for a brief time, until my task is done.

- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings - Gandalf describing his death and resurrection.

 Now that very day two of them were going to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus, and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred. And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself drew near and walked with them, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him.

- New American Bible, Revised Translation, Luke 24:13-16

If I were smart and planned my blog a week in advance this idea would have come to me way earlier. When I was reading Swords & Wizardry yesterday, in between prepping for reading at Easter mass this morning, I came across this:

Raise Dead
Spell Level: Cleric, 5th Level
Range: Close/Touch (Referee’s discretion)
Duration: Immediate
Raise Dead allows the Cleric to raise a corpse from the dead, provided it has not been dead too long. The normal time limit is 5 days, but for every caster level higher than 8th, the time limit extends another 5 days. Characters with low Constitution might not survive the ordeal, and even for those with strong Constitution a period of at least a week is required before they can function normally. This spell functions only on “human-like” races, that is, ones that can be used for player characters.

Fiction, mythology, and religion are full of examples of people rising from the dead. Obviously it is Easter in western Christian churches, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus (whether this is fiction, mythology, or religion is up to the individual reader). Orpheus of the ancient Greek religion ventured into Hades in an attempt to bring his wife Eurydice back from death. Buffy Summers of Buffy the Vampire Slayer died (twice), the second time for an extended period of time. And of course Gandalf the Grey of Lord of the Rings died in battle with the Balrog of Moria, only to return as Gandalf the White.


Done right, a resurrection story can be a fascinating thing. Done poorly it can be cheap. Sometimes comic books don't even bother to explain why a previously dead hero or villain has returned. But the examples above I believe all make for an inspiring tale.

Gandalf and Jesus both returned somehow transformed and were difficult to recognize. Neither stayed for very long after their return.

Orpheus received permission to retrieve his wife from the underworld under the condition he not look back. Of course he did. And his wife returned to Hades.

Buffy Summers returned to life confused, finding herself in a horrible place compared to the heaven she had been in. She did not want to return.

I think all of these give more interesting consequences than the week of recovery time from the Raise Dead spell (and no recovery at all is required once you bump it up to 7th level). The Dungeon Crawl Classics game advises making attaining the resurrection of a companion a major quest, possibly involving a deal with Death himself (something I seem to recall they inserted into an adventure). And it is difficult to imagine the hierarchy of any faith being pleased with a cleric who brings a heretical mage or hedonistic rogue back to life.

There is only one god and his name is Death. And there is only one thing we say to Death: “Not today." 

- George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

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RPG Review: Swords & Wizardry Complete Edition

April 17th is scheduled to be "Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day". I've signed up this blog to participate in that. While I believe my blog has made mention of Swords & Wizardry on numerous occasions I've never actually done a review. It seemed a good idea to remedy that prior to doing an "appreciation post".

Swords & Wizardry is one of the earlier Dungeons & Dragons retroclones, designed to emulate the flavor of the "pre-AD&D" incarnation of Dungeons & Dragons. My memory may be a bit fuzzy, but I'm pretty certain it came out early in the days of D&D 3.5 as people realized the d20 System Reference Document and the Open Game Content of that could be used to reverse engineer older versions of D&D. I believe at that time the original edition of D&D was available as a PDF download from RPGNow, though it may have been made available at a later point. The original D&D books and supplements were pulled from RPGNow and similar sites in 2009 along with all the other Wizards of the Coast content. Since that time some content has returned but not those rules or supplements.

While I'd heard of the original version of D&D when I started gaming in the 80s I never actually encountered it until well after 2000. I believe one of the things that sparked my interest in it was the website Philotomy's OD&D Musings (which no longer seems to exist). In this site Philotomy Jurament discussed the original D&D game and how he viewed its simplicity, often a mark against it, as a strength. He discussed how the dungeon of original D&D was more akin to a "mythic underworld" that was actively out to get intruders, with doors that tended to get stuck closed and would often shut on their own unless secured with spikes.

Swords & Wizardry was the first retroclone to attempt to recreate this original edition of D&D. It has three versions, the first two of which have gone through several iterations.

• Core - The original version of Swords & Wizardry. Designed to emulate the original D&D experience from the original boxed set coupled with Supplement I: Greyhawk (which introduced variable weapon damage, variable hit dice for character classes, halflings, and the thief class, though it was several iterations of the S&W Core rules until the thief officially appeared).
• Whitebox - Designed to emulate the original D&D game without any supplements, though it does allow slight variation in weapon damage. It has three classes: the fighting man (i.e. fighter), cleric, and magic-user and three races: human, elf, and dwarf.
• Complete - Designed to emulate the original D&D game that eventually morphed into AD&D, collating material from all the supplements as well as early issues of the magazines The Strategic Review and its successor, The Dragon. This version adds new classes (assassin, druid, monk, paladin, and ranger) and half-elf characters.

This review will cover primarily the Complete rules though much of it is applicable to earlier versions. Physically S&W, despite its "complete" description, is not a particularly thick tome, with just 140 numbered pages. The PDF version of it is outlined allowing for quick navigation when reading on a tablet or computer. It has an Erol Ottus cover and artwork reminiscent of D&D in the 1970s. 

Character Creation

The first main chapter covers character creation. Characters have the same six ability scores as most versions of D&D: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. Ability scores don't matter quite as much as they do in later versions of D&D - most of the time your biggest possible bonus or penalty is +1, though fighters (and only fighters) can get larger bonuses from Strength. Unlike the original D&D, you get bonuses to your experience points from high wisdom, charisma, as well as your character's "prime requisite" (most important ability score), a +5% bonus from each. This leads to a somewhat odd situation where some character classes benefit from double upped prime requisites.

For those used to more recent versions of D&D the classes are rather spartan. For example, fighters  are pretty much good at fighting with good hit points, reasonably fast advancement, and are the only class to get a full damage bonus from strength. Magic-users are at their old school single first level spell and 1d4 hit points. Thieves are, in this blogger's humble opinion, pretty much useless as written. Their primary problem is their abilities start off at very low percentages. However, this is very much in keeping with the source material. Magic-users may have been one-short sleep or magic missile casters back in the day but at least it worked. The poor thief had (and has) a pitiful chance at, well, being a thief. For those familiar with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons there is much to the classes that will seem familiar.

While I might sound a bit critical, this is a good reflection of how a lot of things were in early versions of D&D. And go to another GM/referee and you might get disagreement - "no, thieves and magic-users are fine as they are." The nice thing about a games like Original D&D or Swords & Wizardry is that these cames are super-easy to customize. I've seen variants of Swords & Wizardry with skill systems, with additions to each class, etc. (Not surprisingly these variants often use the Core or Whitebox rules as a starting point as they are more of a skeleton that new rules can easily be built upon.)

After the various classes comes the possible races. As mentioned earlier the races in this set are human, dwarf, elf, half-elf, and halfling. The races all have minor bonuses aside from humans. Humans are the only race with unlimited level advancement and the only race that can select a class outside the core four (cleric, fighting man, magic-user, and thief). 

We at this point receive a discussion of dual and multi classed en characters. A dual class character drops one class to advance in another (but keeps the abilities of the original). Multi classed characters advance in multiple classes at once. 

It is worth noting the book has several sidebars where it discusses how things worked in original D&D (though D&D isn't, and I believe, cannot be, referred to by name). They often discuss where the rules diverge, why, and how to change things to be more like the original game).  

Another area of divergence is in saving throws. The original game had five categories with different values for each. This game has one save value per class with bonuses to certain types of savinv throw. I rather like this system as it allows for easy tweaking - for example some games have used that as the beginning of a skill system. 

There's nothing too shocking about the equipment section. It is worth noting that there are two options for armor - the ascending Armor Class system, as found in D&D 3.0 and later (where the AC is the combat target number) and descending, as found in older versions of D&D. My own personal bias is that ascending Armor Class was one of the best, and most obviously needed, innovations of the 3.0 edition, but opinions obviously differ and presenting both options was probably the best option.

How To Play

The section discussing How To Play begins with rules covering experience, time, and saving throws. Characters gain experience by gaining treasure and defeating monsters, with a reminder that outsmarting monsters and getting their treasure is often a preferable option.

As mentioned, saving throws are given in the form of a single saving throw value per class/level, with each class having certain bonuses. Guidelines are given to replicate the saving throw categories of Original D&D.

The largest portion of this section is dedicated to combat. Combat rounds are of a minute length with a detailed combat system given as well as three separate alternate systems to replicate various early forms of D&D - and Original D&D had no real combat round sequence. As in other versions of D&D clerics are able to "turn" and "destroy" undead. Going into my editorial voice this is another thing I've always been uncomfortable with - at higher levels clerics are able to automatically turn or destroy undead - I've always preferred that there be at least some chance of failure in such things. Again this is a personal preference and my point in brining it up is that I don't believe anyone has ever run an Original D&D game without some house rules - in all honesty the original D&D rules were rather vague in spots, requiring the Dungeon Master to have house rules.

Magic

The section on magic provides details on how magic-users, clerics, and druids gain their spells and has a listing of spells followed by their descriptions.

For the Referee

The Referee's section deals with items such as monsters, treasure, special combat rules, and building adventures.

Building adventures is concerned with, well, building adventures. This is divided in to dungeon adventures and wilderness adventures. Earlier versions of Swords & Wizardry didn't have much detail on wilderness adventures so their inclusion is rather welcome.

We get some special combat rules for mass combat and sieges, events that become more likely as characters go up in level and become movers and shakers of their world. This isn't, as far as I know, representative of anything from Original D&D but unique to Swords & Wizardry - though Original D&D typically assumed access to the Chainmail miniatures rules.We've also got rules for ship combat and aerial combat.

The monster list is a good representation of monsters from old D&D, with some demons, goblins, dragons, and odd beasties. Their writeups are brief - a listing of stats followed by a paragraph or two of text. 

Treasure is always a welcome thing for an adventurer. Magic items in this game bear a resemblance to magic items in earlier versions of D&D, with items such as scrolls, potions, charged items like rods, staves and wands, magic weapons and armor and various miscellaneous magic items. And we've got our rules for intelligent swords, allowing your fighter to have a sword smarter than him or her.

Anything Missing?

Swords & Wizardry Complete is often described as Original D&D with all the supplements. I don't believe that's entirely accurate. There's some material which appeared in supplements that didn't make it into AD&D and much of this is also not in Swords & Wizardry. For example, there were psionic rules that appeared in the supplements that were quite different from what later appeared in Advanced D&D. I'd say this game probably represents the way that most people played D&D.

Conclusions

I've thrown out a lot of things about these rules that I've indicated I don't like. I think that's a sign that the game achieved its goals - there's a lot about AD&D 1st edition I didn't like and tweaked back in the day. But, at the same time, I really enjoyed early AD&D and had a blast playing it. I've fond memories of the moathouse near Hommlet, of battles against the Slavelords. And this game brings me the feeling that such a game could be run quite easily with this game.

I've had a number of games using D&D 3.0, 3.5, and 4e and had a lot of fun with them. But at the same time I had issues with each of them. I found that 3.x and 4e required a lot more prep time and dedication to balanced encounters than I had to give. And I found that encounters ran a bit slower than I'd've liked. 

I usually play games that have some sort of skill system. However, I had a brief Dungeon Crawl Classics game and I can testify that while there is a lot of good to be had from a skill list the lack of one is often far from crippling - without one there often is a tendency towards a lot more innovation. As I did this review I found myself thinking of various house rules and campaign ideas I'd like to ry out. And that's probably something in its favor. 

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Brown Box/Wee Warriors Cancer Fund Drive

If you've the funds and the inclination, Randall Stukey, author of Microlite 74 and the RetroRoleplaying Blog is having a fundraiser to help pay for the cost of his wife's cancer treatments. He's offering some pdf goodies he's generated as well as a lottery of some original D&D merchandise.

Details at http://blog.retroroleplaying.com/2013/02/brown-box-d-and-wee-warriors-goodies.html and http://blog.retroroleplaying.com/2013/03/brown-boxwee-warriors-cancer-fund-drive.html.

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Fiction Review: "Time and Again" by Jack Finney

I was looking for some good inspirational material to help me with a Call of Cthulhu adventure set in 1890s New York City. One book suggested to me was the late Jack Finney's Time and Again.

To be honest, I was altogether unfamiliar with Mr. Finney's work, though a quick bit of research revealed he had written the novel The Body Snatchers, the work upon which the various Invasion of the Body Snatchers films were based.

Time and Again tells the tale of Simon "Si" Morley, an artist employed in advertising who receives an unusual offer which turns out to be part of a government time travel project.. Si is from the early 1970s, the time when this book was published. I found it interesting that in addition to getting a glimpse of New York of the 1880s (more on that later), I also received a view of New York City of the early 1970s, a time period which saw me as an infant and toddler. It's interesting to see how things have changed in the 40+ years since then - casual office activity which would today be considered sexual harassment, tension between races, massive differences in technology.

Before going into the time travel of this novel it's worth looking at Si a little bit. He isn't quite happy with his advertising job and receives an offer out of the blue to participate in a government project, the details of which he isn't even allowed to know, though the pitchman is good at his job. Essentially only a certain type of person is able to participate in this project and as Si served in the military the government is able to preselect him based on their exams of him from when he served. Si reminds me quite a bit of Andre Norton's Simon Tregarth of Witch World, the protagonist of the first novel I reviewed in this blog. (And in writing this I noticed they share the same world.) Si Morley is far less a physical hero than Simon Tregarth but both of them are both most definitely "player character" types of characters, leaping at the chance for adventure, making quick decisions, and proving adaptable to strange situations. Si also has something of a gentleman's appreciation for ladies - he comments on a large number of attractive women whom he meets.

The project, as is obvious from the back cover of the book, involves time travel. How the time travel works isn't fully spelled out by the project's leader, Doctor Danziger. Going into some very minor spoiler territory and giving my impression of how it works, it seems to be a psychic form of time travel. It seems only certain types of people are able to use it. And the way they use it is finding various places in the world which haven't changed much and immersing themselves into living the life of a person from their time period. Through hypnosis (externally delivered or self-hypnosis) they are effectively able to transition to an earlier point in the timestream.

Si requests that he be allowed to visit New York City of 1882 to unravel the mystery of the suicide of his girlfriend Kate's foster father's father. In 1882 he received a letter which said:

If a discussion of Court House Carrara should prove of interest to you, please appear in City Hall Park at half past twelve on Thursday next.

When he killed himself years later he scrawled a confusing (and partially legible) suicide note upon this letter:

That the sending of this should cause the destruction by Fire of the entire World <illegible text follows> seems well-nigh incredible. Yet it is so, and the Fault and the Guilt <more illegible text> mine, and can never be denied or escaped. So, with this wretched souvenir of the Event before me, I now end the life that should have ended then.

Using the non-fictional Dakota building, an apartment building which existed both in 1882 and his present (and our present), Si makes several trips to the past. As the attempts prove successful the government which had been ignoring the project begins paying greater and greater attention.

One of the great strengths of this novel is how well Finney captures New York of the 1880s. It is a real place with real people, not caricatures. They have their lives, hopes, challenges, and dreams. They have their own way of living that is normal to them. And Finney allows us to truly experience this New York. The steam-driven elevated trains, the newfangled cameras, the horse-drawn buses, the Statue of Liberty's torch in Madison Square.

Si becomes more and more involved with the people of 1880, growing to care about them as individuals. And more and more disturbing things begin happening into the present. Finney reveals the true meaning of the mysterious suicide note in the novel's denouement and neatly resolves the various plot threads.


Time and Again is a great resource for people wanting to get a view of late-19th century New York City. Victorian Age London tends to get the lion's share of attention in that period but this novel shows that Gilded Age New York City could be just as fascinating. It also shows one of the more unusual time travel methods I have encountered.

I did a combined reading of this novel, using both Paul Hecht's unabridged audiobook narration as well as the paperback version of then novel. The paperback proved valuable as there are many drawings and pictures of New York of the past within, some of which are described by Si (making for some awkward moments in the audiobook narration, though Hecht does a very excellent job despite this challenge).

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RPG Review: Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea

A new contender for the RPG with the longest name seems to be Astonishing Swordsmen & Swordsmen of Hyperborea, published by North Wind Adventures. I'd faded a bit from keeping an eye on the D&D-like side of gaming for a while after my Dungeon Crawl Classics game fizzled - not that it wasn't a blast but we couldn't get a consistent quorum.

Like other games such as Swords & Wizardry, AS&SH clearly has as its starting point original edition D&D. However, unlike many of those games, this is not a slender tome. The boxed set is impressive, dominated by two thick spiral bound books, giving you nearly 500 pages of content.

Before I dive into the contents of the books let me give some overall impressions, something I'll return to later. AS&SH feels, to me, like an alternate path of D&D. If you were to take original edition D&D just before AD&D came out and dial up the Conan/Lankhmar influences while dialing down (to almost zero) the Tolkien influences, that's what I feel you have in this game. There are no non-human races in this game, though there are various types of humans such as Atlanteans, Kelts, Vikings, etc. The default setting is that of Hyperborea, something that you could easily use as is or use as a sort of "meta-setting". As far as style goes, it is definitely written in a style that I would say is similar to that of Gary Gygax. In my experience most attempts at doing so fall flat or feel like caricature. However, Talanian's prose, while evoking the feel of Gygax, is also clearly his own. If my impression is correct then it is not surprising as Mr. Talanian was the lead developer of the sadly aborted Castle Zagyg project at Troll Lord Games and presumably had some contact with Mr. Gygax. Of course it could all be in my head as well...

With that in mind let us take a look at the boxed set. I normally perform such a dive in considerable detail. However, given the length of this book I'm going to have to do this analysis in somewhat broad strokes, with the assumption the reader is somewhat familiar with D&D.

Overview

Volume I: Swordsmen & Sorcerers

The first of the two physical books consists of three volumes. The first of these, Swordsmen & Sorcerers is essentially concerned with character generation. 

We begin, as is typical, with the traditional 6 attributes and a variety of methods to generate them. As similar to later versions of D&D as it approached its first "Advanced" incarnation, each attribute has a variety of bonuses and penalties. For the physical stats this is used go give bonuses to various circumstances for combat, hit points, and saves, as well as to give probabilities for Tests of an Attribute and Extraordinary Feats of an Attribute. A "Test" is a chance in six to do some standard but heroic feats like forcing a stuck door, carrying a comrade, jumping a ten foot pit, swim for an hour, etc. It ranges from 1 in 6 to 5 in 6. The Extraordinary Feats are for more heroic tasks like bending bars, walking a tightrope, etc. This is rated as a percentage, from 0 to 32, with a +8 bonus for characters having that attribute as a prime attribute. The mental attributes are used for languages, bonus spells (for both types of "sorcerers" - Intelligence-based (Magicians) and Wisdom-based (Clerics)), etc. Charisma is used for the loyalty of henchmen, reaction checks, and adjustments to clerics turning undead.

As mentioned above, while there are no traditional D&D races there are a variety of types of humanity. This does not impact your stats but does determine things like physique and aging. 

Classes have some interesting wrinkles. You have your traditional four classes - fighter, magician, cleric, and thief. Their abilities are about what you'd expect from similar games. Fighters have access to weapon mastery. Magicians and clerics are both considered sorcerers. Clerics, unlike in most D&D incarnations (but as many interpret the rules of the original edition), while not having a spellbook, still need to learn the spells they can memorize. Thief abilities are represented by chances in 12.

Beyond the main four classes are a variety of subclasses. This allows some considerable customization, representing most of the archetypes found in pulp fantasy literature. You can have your thief who dabbles in sorcery, assassins, witches, bards, barbarians, etc. The use of subclasses is optional and the referee decides which, if any, will be used. 

Alignment is represented by five choices - your character can be Lawful Good, Lawful Evil, Chaotic Good, Chaotic Evil, or Neutral. This matches what was found in some versions of D&D.

Each class has a Fighting Ability, defining how well he or she is at physical combat at a given character level. Fighter classes advance one level in Fighting Ability for each character level. Some characters have Turning Ability (clerics) and Casting Ability (ability to use sorcery).

Like Swords & Wizardry there is one Saving Throw, based on character level, but each character excels at certain types of saves, getting a set bonus. Attributes can also modify some saving throws. 

Armor in AS&SH is like it is in most older D&D games, starting at 9 and descending. Heavier armor also is able to reduce damage modestly (1 or 2 hit points of damage reduction). Weapons use variable damages and all melee weapons have a Weapon Class, defining its relative length which is sometimes used to determine first strike i combat. Also many weapons have special characteristics vs. certain types of armor.

Volume II: Sorcery

The next section of the first book is devoted to sorcery. It discusses how a character starts with spells, how research can be done, using scrolls, the affect of armor on magicians, etc. All of this is quite similar to other versions of D&D. The spell list is as one would expect in D&D, with classics like fireball, raise dead, etc. It is worth noting that there is no ability to create magic items save scrolls and potions and no Permanence spell, This is in keeping with the setting of Hyperborea which is assumed to be well past its prime.

Volume III: Adventure & Combat

Like the previous volume, this is pretty much what it says on the tin. It is details of how to run things such as recruiting hirelings, light sources, task resolution systems, movement (including in the air and water), rules for combat, saving throws, castles, strongholds, warefare, etc. 

Much of this is as one would expect. Combat is nicely detailed, giving a variety of options for characters to use and lots of optional rules like critical hits, parrying, dodging, etc. I would say this is nearly as detailed as one would find in Advanced D&D 1st edition. 

Volume IV: Bestiary

Beginning the second physical book is our "monster manual". One difference from most D&D-type games is each creature, instead of having a listed Intelligence, has a listed Dexterity, a stat used to break initiative ties.

The list of monsters has a heavy emphasis of one might find in weird fantasy (including some definite Lovecraftian creatures), with intelligent humanoids kept to a minimum. Outside of humans and sub-humans, the big two humanoids are Dwarfs and Orcs. Both are changed from their traditional D&D roots. Dwarfs "begin life as foot-long, sickly yellow maggots... They are cunning eevil, greedy, and lecherous; equally they are tireless forgers and brilliant dweomercafters." (Dwarfs are among the few beings still able to make magic items.) Orcs, on the other hand, are the "unhallowed progeny of swine daemons and an abominable tribe of Picts". They are not nice people. 

Volume V: Treasure

This is what we're in it for, the goodies. The list of magic items is typical of what would find in many D&D settings, with quite a few twists. There are many laser-based magic items - if you've been wanting a lightsaber in D&D this is your chance. Unfortunately, they have limited charges and there's probably no one around who can recharge it. Well no one you'd want to meet. There's also that funky energy bow from the old D&D cartoon that we all wanted to have back in the 80s... 

The volume ends with a section on magic item creation. Effectively, beyond potions and scrolls, it is off limits to PCs. However, if one wants to visit snake-men, dwarfs, mi-go, elder things, fish-men, or the Great Race, you might have some luck, if you survive the experience.

Volume VI: Hyperborea Gazetteer

This is a world that has clearly "moved on", to borrow a phrase from Stephen King. Hyperborea is a lost continent, joined by Atlantis, Lemuria, and Mu. There had been connections to our world but they are few and far between now. A bloated red sun wheels around the horizon in a 13 year orbit, making seasons last for over three years. Winter is quite brutal, bringing shades of Westeros of A Song of Ice and Fire. 

Some thousand years ago the Green Death nearly wiped out humanity. The gazetteer explores the remnants of humanity, outposts of civilization (and barbarism). As we learn about the cultures and religions, we see much that is familiar, some from our own history, some from the worlds of H.P. Lovecraft. 

Accessories

Also within the box can be found a fold out map, dice, and a pad of character sheets.

Digital Format

For those who purchase the book digitally I'm pleased to say the PDFs are excellent. The images are very clear, they load quickly, contain an outline and links within. This makes navigating them a breeze.

Impressions

While not a small work, AS&SH is not what I would consider a "crunchy" game. You are not going to need spreadsheets to calculate your attack bonuses with multi-attack, two-weapon fighting, and power attack. I'd say it is a tad less crunchy than 1st edition Advanced D&D but is also much more consistent in its rules and presentation. (And far, far more organized than Original D&D, which, while full of flavor, is often rather vague and unorganized.)

The setting of AS&SH is an interesting factor. It permeates the entire book. It adds tons of character to it. It is a real swords & sorcery type setting. And at the same time you could easily ignore it or mine it for ideas. 

It has the benefit of familiarity - if you are familiar with AD&D, Swords & Wizardry, Labyrinth Lord, or similar games you could jump right into AS&SH. At the same time, it is its own game. It looks like it would work wonderfully well for a pulp fantasy type. As a huge fan of the Lankhmar series, I can see how one could easily build the protagonists with this. It also works great with traditional D&D tropes - the Green Death depopulated the land, leaving lots of ruins and treasure. A dungeon crawl is entirely reasonable in such a setting (and Conan, Fafhrd, and the Grey Mouser all had their own dungeon (or tower) crawling experiences.

There's a huge H.P. Lovecraft influence to be felt here and as far as I'm concerned that's a good thing. I'm currently running a Call of Cthulhu game but we might be interested in the occasional D&D type game and this could well wind up being an ideal system for that.

The boxed set is available for $50.00 (with just the first three volumes - the players' book - available for $20.00). The PDF is available for $10.00 from RPGNow.com - this is a steal in my opinion.

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