Quote from: JeremyR;899889I seem to be in the minority, but I think it's a terrible system. There's a reason OD&D got dumped after 4 years. And the single saving throw just makes it even worse.

Must say, I was with you 100% on the single saving throw, until trying it in several game sessions. It really is a brilliant distillation of the concept of Saving Throw, extremely easy to use and as flexible as you want it (Magic-User? add a little bonus against magic/spells. Fighter? add a little bonus against poison, etc.). Though now I think of it almost as a "Luck" stat.

S&W has become my favorite D&D ruleset from which to build upon.

The single saving throw is my second-favorite recent innovation to D&D (The first being ascending AC).

Quote from: The Butcher;899961For curiosity's sake, what sort of game are you thinking of running?

Just a very basic exploration campaign. I have some younger people in my group who are interested the early TSR material. So I want to run them through a campaign that feels like the stuff I started on (and the Swords and Wizardry books seem like a nice way to introduce newer players to it).

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;899984Just a very basic exploration campaign. I have some younger people in my group who are interested the early TSR material. So I want to run them through a campaign that feels like the stuff I started on (and the Swords and Wizardry books seem like a nice way to introduce newer players to it).

Use the one you like best. In fact, if you are in any way sentimentally attached to any TSR edition, use it, or the clone that best resembles it. No offense meant towards game designers like yourself, but my experience suggests that GM enthusiasm beats game design most of the time

Going strictly by design I'd suggest Labyrinth Lord because it's got very explicit mechanics for exploration and very little crunch on the players' end. S&W is less explicit and more reliant on GM rulings. Since both are available for free, legal download online, I'd look at both.

The single saving throw was the one thing I really liked. So much so I put it in Arrows of Indra and in Dark Albion's Appendix P.

S&W inspired me to write Sabres & Witchery, Blood & Bullets and Ancient Mysteries & Lost Treasures using it as a base. My new Black Books: Tomes of the Outer Dark is based on S&W, and although it's moving further and further away from the base, it was S&W that got me into writing more OSR material (after initially writing a couple of rpgs with a starting base of Castles & Crusades).

Simon W, start some threads talking about your games!

Definitely heard good stuff about Sabres & Witchery.

Quote from: The Butcher;900073but my experience suggests that GM enthusiasm beats game design most of the time

Hell yeah! The best thing a game designer can do is inspire GM enthusiasm. I gotta give Palladium mucho credit on that front.

I've run (and played) in S&W Complete and quite enjoyed it...it was effectively the system that won me back into an OSR fold. However I recently snagged the White Box edition along with Brave Halflings S&W Companion and I think it's what I'd use next time.....the distillation to its most essential elements is hard to resist, even if the core conceit between Complete and White Box is not all that different. I've also been running a ton of White Star lately, which is basically somewhere in the middle, with the simplicity of White Box, but enough additional options to feel more "Complete." It's easily my favorite iteration of S&W now.

Like others, I have found the single-save mechanic to be amazing (and also the ascending AC option). Single-save did not seem very appealing to me until I experienced it in action, after which I realized the simple genius of the mechanic.

S&W: WhiteBox with the Ascending AC option is a beauty to behold. The best Retroclone out there, by far.

I really like S&W a lot. I am okay with the single save but they give the options for multiple. I'm actually a really big fan of the C&C Siege engine for those sorts of things but I tend to run systems RAW because it's easier on players. I haven't been able to lockdown a long term game where house ruling and customization would work.