Shadow of the Weird Wizard came out early this week.  It is a more upbeat and whimsical game based on Shadow of the Demon Lord.

In SorDL the plot was about invading monsters destroying the world, culminating when players hit level-10 and are ready to undertake the final mission to slay The Demon Lord, thus ending the campaign. 

In SotWW the plot is the Old Country to the east was taken over by an incredibly powerful wizard a thousand years ago who did all sorts of insane things.  Recently the wizard has died, leaving the land open to be looted.  In the New Country/west there has been a war, so refugees are fleeing back into the east.  Either way, the Old World/east isn't as safe as one would like.  That is where the players come in.  It is a much more open ended meta plot, so play as you want.

Overall the game rules look to be roughly similar to Demon Lord.  It's not exactly the same.  One big change is that the core rulebook doesn't have non-human races for you to play.  They're not gone, just relocated to supplemental books for up to 30 non-humans.  However, the humans of this game have a crazy amount of variety, mostly notable features like bad breath or being extra tall, to fantastical things like blue skin, or fangs. 

The basic concept is still the same.  You build your character as you level up.  1st level is just Fighter/cleric/magic-user/rogue.  At level three you can pick an expert class from about 12 choices, then level-7 you pick a master class from a list of 24 choices.  Level-10 is the last level you can achieve. 

You don't roll up stats, but pick a beginning set of them from a list.  Also, there are only four.  Constitution and Charisma don't exist.   Dexterity is also renamed to Agility.

My take on it is that if you own Demon Lord, there isn't anything here to make it worth it.  It's just a setting change.  That's about it. 

I watched an interview with the author about the game.  He mentioned why he removed races from the game, called ancestries.

In LotDL your race gives stat bonuses.  It was causing people to min-max the game by taking a race they didn't like just for the stats.

So, he made Legend of the Weird Wizard have only near-humans in the core book.  Blue people with pointy ears, short people who are albino, tall people with tiger stripes and thick body hair.  It's all cosmetic.  There are six tables of twenty cosmetic options each. 

I don't have the ancestry supplement book, so I don't know how actual dwarves, elves, etc work.  I just have the core book.  It

I followed the playtests at least a year, right after WotC OGL drama when I finaly said "no more D&D, even older editions" and started to look for generic fantasy replacements. Seing the different itterations of over time, I'm generaly happy with the end result.

Demon Lord has that "2edgy4you" vibe which isn't something some people or people new to the hobby would be too into. Also there is the argument of "if we are all going to die anyway, why play in this shithole world" which I understand. I'd rather have few critical moments in the campaign have the doom and gloom atmosphere and not have it all showed in from the start to end. World being more open ended means I can use it for both whimsical adventures with 13 year olds and more serious, longer campaigns. It was marketed as "family friendly alternative to DL" and it does that fine.

If you are perfectly happy with DL, there really is no real reason to switch over. But there are changes that I find it better over DL. Removal of Power as casting stat and making spells have preset daily use means you aren't punished for dabbing into magic later on. The 3/4/3 level spread of path selection is better than DL's 4/3/2 where your starting path defines what you are half of the game. Also more emphasis on expert/master path means characters will feel different between games and that is something keeps many people stick to playing one system for years.

GM book isn't out yet so there might be optional rules that make it closer to DL in certain parts. Like sanity+corruption system for people wanting that back. Moving non-humans out of core rulebook is a bit weird imo when your cover has a robot, minotaur and dragon adventurer. it might be to keep the core game more human-centric. But some rules in the book feel like they are better left for GM side as more detailed solution to "just roll your attribute with X boons/banes"

One thing I'm unhappy with is majority of the artwork. Many look really bland with the large one at the start of Magic section being the worst photoshop job on the book. I hope they get replaced with better stuff.