Why I Love White Box

The Seemingly Endless Quest to Complete the Cyclopedia

I’m going to make a confession: I’ve never played original 1974 era Dungeons & Dragons - and I don’t want to. I’ve read it and the rules are confusing, poorly written, inconsistent, and make assumptions about what the reader knows. It’s not a bad product, but it is a product of its time and assumes that buyers and players are experienced war gamers with all the experience and baggage that comes with being so.

What I do love is gamer agency. I love players having freedom to go wherever they want, try anything that they can think of, and having a rules set and referee with the goal of facilitating that in a clean, easy fashion that’s inuitive and consistent. It’s foundational to a good roleplaying experience in my mind. That is why I fell in love with Swords & Wizardry WhiteBox, by Matt Finch and Marv Brieg.

When I first discovered S&W WhiteBox, it was like a bolt from the blue. A familiar, but rock solid chassis. But, much to my surprise, no one was playing it. Everyone was playing Swords & Wizardry Complete or (at the time) Labyrinth Lord. Why wasn’t anyone playing this magnificent game? Was it a dead game or an under-served market?

I decided to take a shot in the dark and write a few WhiteBox supplements. I figured if it was an under-served market, people would be glad to see the products and if it was unpopular, I was only out time and the cost of stock art. Much to my surprise, my WhiteBox supplements were quite successful within their own niche. Before I knew it, the White Box Omnibus was out there, followed by White Star: White Box Science Fiction Roleplaying and suddenly Matt Finch himself called me “The White Box Guy.” Humbling praise indeed. People really did love WhiteBox as much as I did.

But in hindsight, I saw my supplements were a bit crude, a bit inconsistent, and didn’t quite fall in line with S&W WhiteBox. As I explored more, I found that WhiteBox itself had a few inconsistencies. I initially conceived of the White Box Cyclopedia just a compilation of my previous material all in a single, easy to reference book. So, I started compiling.

Then, as I did, abandoned ideas resurfaced. New ideas sprang to mind. The stream of creativity became a torrent. I found that damn near every idea I had could work easily and cleanly in WhiteBox.

So, I started fitting it all together. I streamlined everything in the rules to work with a d20 and a d6. I combined all the supplementary material with the original rules of Swords & Wizardry WhiteBox to create a single, unified game. Let me tell you, they say the devil is in the details and after over three years, they’re downplaying the sentiment of that old chestnut.

Final page and word count of the draft

What I ended up with was a simple, streamlined vintage style roleplaying game that uses the Swords & Wizardry WhiteBox so many of us love to do everything I wanted. In addition to integrating most of my supplementary material, I added a ton of new content. Over a dozen heritages, over two dozen classes, new heritage-as-classes, new spells, new magic items, psychic talents, optional rules to fit into genres that more closely emulate classic literature that inspired the game, rules for establishing strongholds. And I did it all using just a d20 and a fist full of d6s with a character you could put on an index card.

With the draft of White Box Cyclopedia finished, I can’t tell you how proud I am of this product. Matt Finch himself even gave me the blessing to incorporate the original Swords & Wizardry WhiteBox rules (with some slight alterations to keep everything consistent) into the book so that it’s truly a stand alone game. Top it all off with the fact that Mr. Finch was kind enough to write a preface for the book itself. Talk about humbled!

White Box Cyclopedia isn’t a new game. It’s a classic game with almost 50 years of experience. And that’s a lot of XP. It is my sincere hope that with this book as your tool kit, you can have an approachable, deep, and most of all a fun game to play for another fifty years.

The book has been passed off to smarter folks than me for editing, layout, and art. Once everything’s set, we’ll likely be crowdfunding it soon after. So keep a weathered eye and have your d20 and fist full of d6s ready.

I want to keep my substack free, but if you like what you read here and are feeling generous, maybe throw a few bucks in my Ko-fi. It really does mean a lot.