We Might be Old-Schoolin' It.

It's no secret that we like our games new, miniature-focused, and/or just down-right bizzare. However, there was a spot in our gaming schedule that opened up, and Chuck is taking the plunge in running a game of Swords & Wizardry (S&W).

The only problem is, I've never built a character for a D&D clone before. We've played Call of Cthulhu, but that's really as old as it gets for our RPG skills. I downloaded the free version of the whitebox rule set (you can find it for yourself here). I found myself sending Chuck about 10 emails back and forth with diifferent questions simply about character creation.

I will say this for the rules - they are incredibly versatile for creating your own character. S&W takes a very minimalistic approach to characters and power. A +1 modifier to a roll makes a huge difference in this game. This means that a roll with no modifier is still pretty competent.

And then there's the fact that, while it's a fantasy game, it's really open to making it your own. Chuck's making pre-gens for most of the other guys to choose from, but of course I had to make my own, and that means I automatically wanted to know more about the fluff. Another email later and I pretty much had the entire world open to me with pretty much no established setting other than what we make of it.

I immediately went even older-school than a D&D clone and decided to go Tolkien all up in here. I wanted a high elf, but not a magic user. I ended up with Ecthelion (yes, I know, but I like the name), an old hermit of an elf who finally decided he's been in this world too long. He's donned his armor, bastard sword, dagger, and shortbow one last time for a tour around the world before he sails West forever.

Of course I'm going Tolkien, but I don't mind the fact that the other guys won't take that route. That's cool though - I have a feeling that if we keep playing, we'll build our own mish-mash fantasy setting to fit all of our interests.

Now I just need to figure out how these hit dice work...