Shadowrun vs Swords & Wizardry
Compare Shadowrun and Swords & Wizardry side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Shadowrun | Swords & Wizardry | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Cyberpunk, Fantasy | Fantasy |
| Play Style | Crunchy, Tactical, Combat-Heavy, Heist, Character Building, Faction Play, Lore-Heavy, Skill-Based, Mission-Based, Urban Fantasy | Classic Fantasy, Dungeon Crawl, Deadly, Vancian Casting, Ascending AC, Descending AC, Domain Management, Theater of the Mind |
| Core Mechanic | Roll a pool of d6s equal to attribute + skill, counting 5s and 6s as hits. Meet or exceed a threshold to succeed. Situational advantages generate Edge points rather than modifying dice pools directly; Edge is spent on tactical effects like rerolling dice, adding successes, or imposing penalties on opponents. | Roll a d20 to hit, comparing the result to the target's Armor Class using either ascending bonuses or the original descending-AC math. A single saving throw number, adjusted by class, resolves every save against poison, magic, breath, and the rest. |
| Dice | d6 dice pool | d20 |
| Complexity | Very High | Low |
| Accessibility | Medium | High |
| Runnability | Medium | High |
| License | No open license | All Rights Reserved |
| Cost | $$$ | Free (SRD) / $$ |
| Publisher | Catalyst Game Labs | Mythmere Games |
| Year | 2019 | 2023 |
| Best For | Groups who want cyberpunk-fantasy heists with deep mechanical subsystems for hacking, magic, and combat. | Players who want a clean, flexible retroclone of original-style fantasy for old-school dungeon crawling and sandbox campaigns that grow into domain play. |
| Highlights | Unique cyberpunk-fantasy setting blending megacorporate intrigue with magic and metahuman races. Dedicated subsystems for Matrix hacking, magic, rigging, and astral space. Edge system replaces many situational modifiers with a spendable tactical resource. Decades of published lore spanning in-world history from 2011 to the 2080s. | Every character uses a single saving throw number modified by class, replacing the five-category save table of the games it emulates. Combat supports both ascending and descending Armor Class with parallel to-hit rules, so groups can use modern or original-style math from one book. Name-level characters can clear and hold wilderness to found strongholds, with random-castle and freehold rules turning late play into domain management. |
| Considerations | Matrix hacking runs as a parallel subsystem that can leave non-decker players waiting. Multiple supplemental rulebooks needed for full coverage of magic, Matrix, and rigging. Published books have documented editing and layout issues. | Character death comes fast at low levels, where first-level hit points are often low enough for a single hit to be lethal. Spellcasters prepare a fixed list of spells in advance and expend each on casting, with no flexible at-will magic. Many situations are resolved by Referee ruling rather than codified procedure. |