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, 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 | High | Very High |
| Runnability | Very High | 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 | The setting fuses megacorporate intrigue with magic and metahuman races, so a single team mixes street samurai, mages, and deckers. Distinct subsystems model Matrix hacking, spellcasting, drone rigging, and astral space, each carrying its own rules depth. The Edge economy converts situational advantages into a spendable resource for rerolls, extra hits, or penalties on opponents. | 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 on its own timescale and can leave non-decker players idle during a run. Character creation spreads across attributes, skills, magic or resonance, gear, and lifestyle, making the first build long. Dice pools grow large at high skill, so counting hits on a fistful of d6s slows resolution. | 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. |