Q: What do you think about prepping and running Swords & Sorcery adventures?
Unlike “science fiction” or “fantasy” or “alternate history,” for which you can make pretty solid definitions, “sword & sorcery” is kind of an ill-defined term. If we go with the original definition (“fantasy fiction that feels like the stuff Robert E. Howard wrote” — no, seriously, that’s literally how Michael Moorcock and Fritz Leiber coined it), the first thing on my list would be:
Don’t use Dungeons & Dragons.
Or, if you do, ban all the spellcasting classes. Or maybe only allow PCs to have two or three levels in a spellcasting class.
Because if you look at Howardian fantasy — Conan, Solomon Kane, Kull, and so forth — the sword is the good guy and the sorcery is almost invariably the bad guy: It’s the strange unknown lurking just beyond the eye line of civilization. (Or, alternatively, crushing civilization under a sanity-rending tyranny.)
(Moorcock’s Elric and Karl Edward Wagner’s Kane are both sorcerers, but they’re also deconstructing the genre by making the bad guy the protagonist.)
THE WORLD OF SWORD & SORCERY
But how do you make a story or adventure feel like sword & sorcery, as opposed to epic fantasy or paranormal romance or whatever genre you want to assign a typical D&D campaign to?
Ultimately, my advice — and I think all advice when it comes to sword & sorcery — will be tempered by my own idiosyncratic and imprecise “feel” for what “sword & sorcery” means. But here’s a few thoughts:
- The “civilized” portion of the world is, on some fundamental level, barbaric. There is no glittering, chivalric ideal; no ethics-enforcing Empire (except possibly far, far, away). If city-life seems sophisticated, it’s merely a veil behind which the “sophisticates” indulge heinous pleasures.
- “Civilization” is pressed right up against uncivilized enigmas, which are heightened through the fantastical and the magical. This happens as soon as you walk out of the city gates. It also happens when you journey into the black abyss of the wilderness beyond civilization’s borders. But it can even happen inside the city: “Tower of the Elephant” and “Rogues in the House,” for example, are both Conan stories in which a single building within “civilization” is revealed to contain barbaric horrors.
Civilization is, thus, the dark mirror of barbarity. It attempts to seal that darkness outside its cities, but its cities nonetheless give birth to it.
To perhaps get a clearer sense of this, consider Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle or F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Obviously neither of these are sword & sorcery fiction, but they view civilization and high society through a similar lens: As a veneer covering a festering boil of sublime cruelty and murderous amorality.
On the flipside, the things that civilization describes as “barbarian” — Conan’s Cimmerians, Fafhrd’s Snow Clans, Belit’s pirates, Tarzan — are where nobility and chivalry are actually found. The mythic root of these stories is Robin Hood, whose idyllic society of Merry Men living in the barbarism of Sherwood Forest achieves the ideals of chivalry and nobility which are falsely claimed by the corrupt powers of “civilization.”
ADVENTURE & CHARACTER
We now know both the heroes of swords & sorcery and the source of conflict for our stories and adventures, but I think there’s a final component missing that truly gives a good swords & sorcery tale its unique “feel.”
This is sometimes described as sword & sorcery stories having “low stakes,” but I don’t think that’s quite right. A lot of the archetypal S&S heroes — Conan, Elric, Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser, etc. — all end up in reality-defining conflicts. So it’s not as simple as “Frodo saves the world and Conan doesn’t.”
I think what it boils down to is the primary motivation for a swords & sorcery hero: Survival.
This may be very literal (any number of S&S stories begin with the main character marooned or abandoned or left for dead), but often also manifests at one step removed: The desire for treasure and coin.
(And this, of course, ties into the broader themes of the world: The corruption of civilization strips the common people of wealth and power, creating a permanent lower class desperate just to survive. And the dark enigmas of the world are a constant source of deadly danger.)
Importantly, however, this base need for survival is always displaced by a selfless heroism: When given the choice between securing his treasure and rescuing the maiden, Conan will always rescue the maiden. Robin Hood doesn’t simply steal from the rich, he gives to the poor. (Which is, of course, why both we and Maid Marian love him.)
Where civilization fails to protect the innocent (and is, in fact, often the ones victimizing them), it is the “outsider” that civilization teaches you to fear that will ultimately sacrifice to help those in need.
For similar heroes in other genres, consider Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark or the vampire hunters in John Steakley’s Vampire$.
This is great, and something I’ve been building with my players. I did run immediately into the issue of D&D’s magical focus. If not D&D…what system(s) would you recommend that do a good job with Swords and Sorcery?
I thought the (2e?) Lankhmar supplement did a good job of capturing the S&S feel using (heavily modified) D&D. Again, they implemented most of your advice above, with the magic of arcane (non-cleric) casters twisting its practitioners.
Do you have a recommendation for what system would be good for a S&S game?
“When given the choice between securing his treasure and rescuing the maiden, Conan will always rescue the maiden.”
To be honest, that doesn’t necessarily indicate any heroism on Conan’s part. He may just think sex is a better reward than money…
I would recommend Sword of Cepheus as an excellent TTRPG for the sword and sorcery style of play. It’s a 2d6 system that as you create your character you build a backstory and the magic system is unique.
Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea is a great example of Swords & Sorcery applied to a game system much like old D&D.
@shamgar
For OSR, Crypts & Things (OD&D) or Hyperborea (AD&D)
For 5e/3e/Pathfinder, World of Xoth
For more social/investigative, Swords of the Serpentine (Gumshoe)
Note that World of Xoth prioritizes genre fidelity over modern sensibilities. Don’t even think about it if your table uses x-cards and were offended by Hadozee.
It occurs to me that “punks” fulfill the same role of “outsiders with a heart of gold” in modern and cyberpunk stories. Huh. Is “cyberpunk” just sword and sorcery with the magic swapped for technology?
@shamgar
Check out Barbarians of Lemuria, Sword of Cepheus, and Barbaric! or Kal-Arath.
@shamgar
Check out Barbarians of Lemuria. It’s a fantastic system
Also, though the Conan RPG by Modiphius is no longer in print, their John Carter RPG is still available and would probably be pretty easy to adapt to a swords & sorcery setting.
@shamgar
Monte Cook’s “Iron Heroes” book for D&D 3E was an excellent take on this type of gaming. Unfortunately, I don’t believe he’s released anything similar for 5E. Still, it’s worth looking at if you can find it. It includes nine completely non-magical martial classes, and one “arcanist” class to represent all magic-users.
And of course, there is indeed a straight “Conan” RPG in the d20 system from the same era.
@shamgar
I suggest Barbarians of Lemuria. Sepcifically designed for S&S and the system is quite simple to learn.
Barbarians of Lemuria is also a good choice.
Barbarians of Lemuria
Swords of Meropis
and of course Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG
Interestingly, a few weeks ago, I listened to a podcast where the guest convincingly argued that the original Tolkien role-playing game was actually OD&D, given its inclusion of dwarves, elves, halflings, rangers, and similar elements. Just this week, I read a blog post that persuasively claimed Gygax only reluctantly included elves, dwarves, and halflings in D&D to capitalize on Tolkien’s popularity in the early 70s. The blog suggested that Gygax’s true passion, as reflected in Appendix N, was for swords and sorcery. Thus, if you limit players to human characters, D&D reveals itself as a swords and sorcery game at heart.
On the other hand, Justin argues that D&D, as written, does not fully capture the core elements of the swords and sorcery genre. I believe D&D has always been a blend of various fantasy sub-genres, creating its unique identity. To make D&D feel more like literature rather than a cosplay convention, you need to restrict players in terms of their character options and motivations. While this approach may not be very popular right now, I think it results in much better games.
A usual element to my mind is that the magicians are villains, not protagonists; it’s very much swords AGAINST sorcery (which is identified with the most decadent civilization). Leiber’s Mouser is a former apprentice adept, and Moorcock’s Elric (in turn inspiration for Fox’s Kyrik) and Wagner’s Kane are significantly playing against the trope, but all are much more reliant on the blade than on spells.
D&D and its derivatives are more focused on magic as a tool for the protagonists than perhaps even Jack Vance’s tales of the Dying Earth, a feature in which the game design is so bound up that it tends to force things into its own mold rather than that of Howard’s archetype. We end up playing D&D with a bit of S&S seasoning sprinkled on top, not so thoroughly evoking the classic pre-D&D genre.
Barbarians of Lemuria might be a good bet for something more distinctively S&S, and Barbaric! (with which I’m not so well acquainted) might suit a more “beer and pretzels”
style, perhaps influenced more by Thundarr and other Saturday morning cartoons. The Atlantis game that Bard Games published before Talislanta also comes to mind, and I gather there’s a more recent edition of that.
My own favorite, though, is Paul Elliot’s “sword and sandal” themed Zenobia. You can get the PDF (and some supplements) for free at the Zozer Games website, and an expanded edition in print on demand from Lulu.
Character generation is very quick, the combat system is engaging without being complex, and fairly compact mechanics cover a lot of situations likely to arise in traveling around the ancient Mediterranean.
I find it easy to add stuff making my own fantasy world, so I’m not tied to the alternate-history Desert Kingdoms setting. I think most people who are up to being referees should likewise not find it too hard to do that (or to adapt something else, perhaps from another game line).
Some others one might consider:
ZeFRS (‘retro-clone’ of TSR’s licensed Conan game)
Stormbringer or Elric! from Chaosium
Harnmaster from Columbia Games
Mythras from the Design Mechanism
(Mythras, basically a former edition of RuneQuest sans Glorantha, comes with a lot of material on magic that might be superfluous in this context, but might still be good value if the rest suits you.)
I’d say some of these thoughts would do well when looked at in comparison to Cyberpunk. The real punk aspects of many things may devolve back to Robin Hood. Cyberpunk characters should choose to aid others over going for the money because that contrasts the heroes from the soulless Corporate villainism so often displayed in the original stories.
If you pay attention Dark Sun is a good conversion of older D&D to S&S. Things like adding 10th level spells for NPC’s only, Defiler class, etc… makes Dark Sun as perhaps the closest DnD will get to S&S. It might never come back to represent its roots but it certainly tried to mine that vein in the day.
Wizerds of the coast is not interested in sword & sorcery because they say is ‘outdated ‘. Even though I myself am black I see nno reason why they cant have old school dnd even though the group was always divers and the art was to inspire you of typical fantasy land sobviously set in Western Europ even though gess what that is where most Americans come from.
IIRC, TSR published a Lankhmar setting book for 2e that did a great job modifying D&D for S&S with magic that corrupted its wielders and a focus on thieves and fighters.
A lot of good suggestions here.
I enjoyed that the first collection of Fafhrd & Grey Mouser stories is called “Swords & Deviltry,” a name that seems like it could easily lend itself to a game system or genre on its own. It really pushes the point of anything outside the purely physical being evil.
I love the Modiphious Conan 2d20 game for Sword and Sorcery. The ways in which characters can be heroic and the ease of running it (for me) make it one of my favorites.
@shamgar
another dedicated S&S rpg could be Black Sword Hack
just like Barbarians of Lemuria it is published by a French company, but doesn’t seem to suffer from translation issues
No one has yet mentioned Swords of the Serpentine, the GUMSHOE-powered S&S RPG from Pelgrane Press. I have the book and am just getting into it.
@Redwood Rhiadra:
“To be honest, that doesn’t necessarily indicate any heroism on Conan’s part. He may just think sex is a better reward than money…”
Fortunately, even back in the 1930s, Howard was able to see what’s problematic there. The Vale of Lost Women is, to put it mildly, deeply flawed (presumably that’s why Howard never got it published during his lifetime), but it does address this. In short, Conan offers to free a woman from slavery in exchange for sex, but at the end of the story, he not only reveals that he was going to help her anyway, he admits that even claiming he’d coerce such a thing was terrible.
P.S.: It’s not really related, but while I’m on the subject, I’ll save people the trouble of reading one of the only Howard stories I’d advise them to avoid and share the one other good thing in Vale – Conan’s view on literally Lovecraftian beings:
“A devil from the Outer Dark,” he grunted. “Oh, they’re nothing uncommon. They lurk as thick as fleas outside the belt of light which surrounds this world. I’ve heard the wise men of Zamora talk of them. Some find their way to Earth, but when they do, they have to take on earthly form and flesh of some sort. A man like myself, with a sword, is a match for any amount of fangs and talons, infernal or terrestrial. Come, my men await me beyond the ridge of the valley.”
That line makes me laugh every time I think of it. “What, Cthulhu? No big deal.”
An obscure indie title compared to the heavy hitters cited here, Blood of Pangea by Olde House Rules is a nice little ruleset that understands the genre well.
I like the definition!
Red Mists: Swords Against Sorcery would be my favoured ruleset, there are no PC spellcasters and it feels like pulp sword and sorcery
The “honorable barbarians” trope goes all the way back to the David origin stories from 1 Samuel, to be honest. David and his Mighty Men are on the run for their lives and yet have noble, heroic adventures that do more good for the people than King Saul.
Dragonbane is another. It’s a BRP based game using a d20 like Pendragon. The light default setting puts PCs in the roles of treasure hunters.
“To make D&D feel more like literature rather than a cosplay convention, you need to restrict players in terms of their character options and motivations. While this approach may not be very popular right now, I think it results in much better games.”
I agree with both your assertions, and would like to borrow the cosplay convention analogy to use again elsewhere as its very appropriate while also saying “yeah its fun, but it doesn’t really give us a setting”.
I agree with all the recommendations for Barbarians of Lemuria (especially the Legendary edition, with its simpler rules for Lifeblood). I love how the “skill system” is handled via previous careers.
Another great option is Jaws of the Six Serpents by Tim Gray and Silver Branch Games. Jaws runs on the PDQ system, which makes for a much more narrative game. Think Fate, but with a simple D6 resolution and a freeform magic system.
Those two would be my top suggestions for a Swords & Sorcery TTRPG. It all depends on if you want more of a traditional RPG experience (Barbarians of Lemuria: Legendary Edition), or something more narrative (Jaws of the Six Serpents).