white box: differences between fmag and cyclopedia

‍ whitebox rpg

Table of contents

  1. Introduction
    1. Process
    2. What is this White Box? What are you even talking about?
  2. Attributes
    1. Generation
    2. Strength
    3. Intelligence
    4. Wisdom
    5. Prime attribute XP bonuses
  3. Classes
    1. Cleric
    2. Fighter
    3. Magic user
  4. Heritages/races
    1. Dwarf
    2. Elf
    3. Halfling
  5. Equipment
    1. Weapons & armour
  6. Playing the game
    1. Movement
    2. Binding wounds
    3. Morale checks
  7. Conclusion

Introduction 🔗

I am planning to run a game using the White Box Cyclopedia at an old school convention later this year. I backed the Kickstarter for it in 2025 and if you want an all-in-one book for running White Box style games with a lot of optional rules and background content, I highly recommend it. I may do a review at some point though am not that given to reviewing.

On the other hand there is also White Box: Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game, hereafter referred to as FMAG to save your bandwidth. This is a much shorter book and covers less ground, but shares almost all of the basic rules, with just a few small differences. It's also free.

I was thinking that I might suggest that people use FMAG to create characters or as reference, but to do that it would be best to know what the differences were. I couldn't find any information out there about that so given that it's been raining all morning why not make my own list?

Process 🔗

Cyclopedia includes a lot of parts not in FMAG. I haven't included anything that just don't exist in FMAG, like rules for knighthood or spell duels or the huge number of optional classes.

I've added a "verdict" at the end, where I say which one I prefer and would use. Spoiler: usually this falls on the side of the Cyclopedia.

I wasn't very interested in comparing spells or monsters so I didn't. Cyclopedia has a lot of spells which aren't in FMAG but I assume the basic ones are the same, and White Box monsters generally have very minimal stats so I would imagine not much difference there either.

Disclaimer: I may be wrong about these details or have missed things. While I don't have a comment system on this blog, if you see something wrong or missing or have opinions, please feel free to comment on the Mastodon post announcing this.

What is this White Box? What are you even talking about? 🔗

The original version of D&D came in a white box containing three little brown books, so games based on that version and no supplements after it are often called "white box" ones. Sometimes you will also see reference to "3LBB" - three little brown books. PDFs of the original books are available on DrivethruRPG if you want to take a look.

The first of these books was Men & Magic, containing rules for character creation and combat, and I have referred to it a few times in this article when looking for the source of a rule - though the fact that a rule is closest to Men & Magic doesn't mean much if anything to me.

Why would people base games on White Box rules? There are many motivations, but this is mine: sure, the 3LBBs are a confusing mess to be honest with a huge amount left to the DM to interpret and decide on, but that's the point - when cleaned up the system gives you basic functionality plus a huge space to experiment and improvise in.

They are also much simpler than later iterations of D&D - B/X for instance (on which OSE is based) actually has a lot of rules and procedures which give detail on exactly how things should be ruled in the game, which makes it clearer for new players but isn't what I am looking for. Even more so for AD&D.

If you didn't know the above then the below may not be very useful to you, but by all means check out FMAG or Cyclopedia via the links above - as I say FMAG is free but if you're interested in more extensive setting information and optional rules, I recommend Cyclopedia. Crucially all of the optional parts really are entirely optional so one never has to worry about whether saying "yeah I don't like this bit" is going to cause problems elsewhere. In fact that is true even for the technically non-optional parts.

So anyway, to the differences:

Attributes 🔗

Generation 🔗

Both list 3d6 down the line as standard, but FMAG has:

Once the player decides on a class, points from other attributes may be shifted around (on a 1 for 1 basis), but only into the "Prime Attribute" of that character class. Shifting points around may not lower another ability score below 9, however.

and Cyclopedia doesn't. There are confusing sections in Men & Magic that talk about some classes being able "use" points in some attributes on a 2- or 3-to-1 basis in their prime attributes. Those might be where this comes from? I imagine there is a lot of debate as to what on earth this is supposed to mean and that everyone in practice ignored or houseruled it.

Verdict: I don't like the FMAG version as it means that everyone can get a 15 in their prime attribute unless they rolled really badly, with the additional downside of flattening attributes out to just high-prime-low-everything-else and making them less interesting, so prefer the Cyclopedia method.

Strength 🔗

A character's Strength modifier is applied to all damage rolls made using a melee weapon (Cyclopedia)

vs

Fighters can use their Strength Bonus to modify their "to-hit" and damage results when using melee weapons. (FMAG)

In Cyclopedia it is still only Fighters who get a hit bonus from Strength. In practice if you have Str 15+ you are almost certain to play a Fighter in FMAG anyway, so would be unlikely to make a difference there. Cyclopedia has a larger number of "fighter-ish but not fighter" classes who can benefit from this bonus while still having their extra class features, but none have their prime attribute as Strength, so you're still likely to pick a Fighter unless you have another 15+.

Verdict: +1 damage is a fairly big deal in White Box. I prefer keeping Strength bonuses exclusive to Fighters, who don't get a lot, but overall this is pretty minor due to the likelihood of it ever mattering. (If you were using 4d6 drop lowest for stats though it would be more significant.)

Intelligence 🔗

A high Intelligence score gives a character an additional language for every point above 10 (FMAG)

vs

Characters with an Intelligence of 6 or less are not literate, while those with an Intelligence of 15 or higher may select one additional language that they can read and write beyond those automatically granted by their heritage. (Cyclopedia)

FMAG's version is as per Men & Magic.

Verdict: Leaving aside whether most characters would reasonably be literate anyway, I hate having to pick a whole load of languages at character creation, and I almost always have NPCs all speaking the same language when running games, in Vancian style - so I prefer Cyclopedia.

Wisdom 🔗

Clerics can use their Wisdom Bonus to improve "spell effectiveness" (i.e. target suffers a loss on his saving throw). (FMAG)

I can't find a reference to this in Cyclopedia.

Verdict: There's no equivalent to this in other systems in the game that I can think of, and it feels fiddly to just remember this one modifier that can penalise a save (though I'm sure a cleric player would remind you every time) so I prefer not having it i.e. the Cyclopedia version.

Prime attribute XP bonuses 🔗

FMAG sticks to the version in Men & Magic where you get +5% XP each from having Wis or Cha 15+, and another +5% from prime attribute 15+. Cyclopedia has +5% from high prime attribute, lists a +5% from high Wis as an optional rule, and doesn't list it at all for Charisma.

Verdict: XP bonuses have always felt like "double-dipping" to me - the attributes are already useful and should help you get XP - but they aren't that useful in play, and perhaps the primary benefit of them is meant to be to get extra XP. I can't decide on this; I'd just pick the version of the rule in the version of the game I wanted to use, for convenience.

Classes 🔗

Cleric 🔗

This is the same apart from that Cyclopedia has "banishing" vs "turning" undead. References to "turning undead" confused me greatly as a child before I ever read D&D - why would characters be able to become undead? - but I'd probably keep saying "turn" now.

Fighter 🔗

The same apart from the Strength bonus aspect talked about above.

Magic user 🔗

The same except I can't find a reference in FMAG as to how many and which spells a magic user starts with. This is specified in Cyclopedia, and there are more generous optional rules if you want people to start out a bit more capable.

Heritages/races 🔗

"Heritages" in Cyclopedia, "races" in FMAG.

Dwarf 🔗

Spotting traps/construction is a 4-in-6 chance when searching in FMAG, vs 3-in-6 in Cyclopedia. Both are still 2-in-6 when not searching.

Verdict: don't care

Elf 🔗

FMAG keeps to the idea from Men & Magic that elves can pick either Fighter or Magic-user as their class between adventures, though not within them. Cyclopedia doesn't have this - elves pick a class like everyone else.

FMAG also has a variant elf-as-class that blends fighter and magic user (similar to the elf in B/X) which Cyclopedia lists as the "elf blademage" heritage-as-class option. These are basically the same apart from Cyclopedia going into more detail about the specific abilities of the class.

Verdict: I've not tried running with the class-swapping elf and I don't know anyone who has so find it hard to judge, but I would err on the side of simplicity and use the Cyclopedia version, and not the blademage unless I was planning to go full heritage-as-class, which I'm not.

Halfling 🔗

No restrictions on weapons or armour in FMAG, whereas in Cyclopedia they can't use large weapons. Men & Magic doesn't list penalties for them.

Verdict: I think halflings need some sort of restriction to balance the +2 on ranged attacks, and it adds verisimilitude, so I prefer the Cyclopedia version.

Equipment 🔗

Weapons & armour 🔗

Morning stars are 1d6 in FMAG and 1d6+1 but two handed in Cyclopedia.

Daggers are 2lb weight in both. That's a hefty dagger.

The most important difference between the two is with ranged weapons. FMAG has bows being able to fire twice a round and heavy crossbows only once every two rounds; Cyclopedia doesn't, though you can't move and fire with a heavy crossbow in the same round.

FMAG also has +2 to hit at short range and +1 at medium, which is in Men & Magic. I can't find any reference to this in Cyclopedia, only that you can shoot up to twice the listed range with -2 to hit. (Ranges are the same.)

Verdict: I think the rate of fire part comes from Chainmail, but I don't care because bows are already over-rated in RPGs in my opinion (and crossbows under-rated) and thus I am in favour of Cyclopedia on that point. I also don't like having hit bonuses at less than long range, which seems both fiddly and unjustified, so Cyclopedia wins again.

Playing the game 🔗

Movement 🔗

The movement rates use the same values and bands, but you get +50lbs allowance for Str 15-17 in Cyclopedia, and +100lbs for Str 18.

In FMAG it's specified that you can make two of those moves a turn though, with combat movement being 1/3 of that per round, whereas in Cyclopedia it's always per round, which is about a minute in both.

Verdict: the issue of turn-based movement rates is a hoary old chestnut which I am not going to dig up1. I don't like the super slow turn based movement found in old D&D versions so I prefer Cyclopedia on that. Also if you must have one-minute rounds, which I dislike, then restricting the fastest characters to running 80' in a minute as per FMAG seems far too low, whereas Cyclopedia keeps it the same as out of combat (240').

Binding wounds 🔗

Gets you 1d6 HP in FMAG and no mention of needing a healing kit. In Cyclopedia it's 1d6-1 and you do need a healing kit, which is expended when you use it. Binding wounds is listed as an optional rule in FMAG and not in Cyclopedia.

Verdict: getting 1d6 HP back after each combat without resource limit as per FMAG feels like a lot, so overall Cyclopedia is more to my preference.

Morale checks 🔗

FMAG has a table for morale checks - enemies don't have individual morale scores in it - whereas Cyclopedia says to roll 2d6 <= enemy morale score or they flee, but then doesn't actually list any morale scores for monsters for some reason.

Verdict: I would use the table in FMAG for everyone, or just assign morale scores as I see fit, though mentioning something and then not including it at all is pretty "White Box".

Conclusion 🔗

There aren't really that many differences are there? I think "swapping attribute points" and "rate of fire for bows" differences are the most significant and would be something I'd emphasise when running Cyclopedia for someone who'd just read FMAG. Movement speed has a lot of difference but it's really not that great in either version and has been a problem throughout many old editions of D&D, so I would likely handwave it in most cases regardless.

Thumbnail image source for the record (public domain)

  1. mixing two metaphors is not enough, I must mix three ↩︎