Wizards & Warriors!

I'm personally familiar with the name from a cool TV show from the 80's I recently discovered watched. It is also the title of two video games. However from what I know, none of them are around anymore, or became very popular, so hopefully no one will mind me using the name for my own game.

I just (yesterday I think) blogged about how awesome Microlite20 is. In fact the reason I found Microlite20 is I've been trying to come up with a rules light d20 game myself. I took most of the posts down sadly, but I had talked before about make a rules light Pathfinder derivative. Sadly Swords & Wizardry is right: it's harder to strip away rules, than it is to add them on. That's when I decided to take another look at Microlite20.

It was great for what I wanted to do; it has just the essentials of the d20 system to play, with none of the extra crap. It didn't have everything I wanted, but that was easy enough to add back in. I started, originally, with going through the 3.5 SRD and adding in all the classes and races, keeping at most 2 to 3 abilities per class and race. I also added the skill system back in, folding a bunch of skills together (I think there is like 10 to 15 skills still). In fact I still have this project on my computer, and I'll be releasing it as soon as I finish formatting and slapping the OGL in the back of it (to make it legal).

After I finished that, I realized to make it playable I needed to copy and edit the feats (I actually like that part of 3E, it just needs to be simplified). I'm cutting out all of the map/grid focused feats, and any magic feats (spell casters are strong enough). I'll still need to copy out spells. That's when I started to think about an alternative.

I love the LBB's, and how they fit in those lovely digest books. In fact I love all of the half-sized books found in old school gaming (OD&D, Adruin, etc.). The one thing that really keeps D&D books from being small is the spell section. I suppose in 3rd Edition, the Character Creation and Combat Rules do take up a lot of space, but look at old school D&D. Most of the old player books are just spell books.

Now there is nothing wrong with Vancian magic, or spell lists. I love it, and when I'm in the mood for some Gygaxian D&D, it's great. However I recall playing BRP (Basic Role Playing) with my friends when we first got into role playing. I didn't quite like BRP's magic system, so I came up with my own. Most of the spells focused around elemental attacks (Wind Strike, Firestorm, etc.), and there weren't a lot of them. Players had to use them creatively to come up with solutions to their problems.

I remember the party got ambushed one time, and the enemy had locked the gate, and set fire to the town. The parties wizards used Wind Strike to break down the door. I know that's not terribly creative, but it's just a small example. Remember this time of imagination and creativity, and wanting a simpler spell system anyway, I set about devising my "Spell Dice" system I just blogged about.

This got me thinking about Non-Gygaxian D&D. In better words: using the D&D rules to play other than D&D styled fantasy games. I love Dungeons & Dragons, and I really enjoy "Gygaxian-Fantasy", and if I want to play that I have tons of games that fill that niche (AD&D, OD&D, Adventures Dark & Deep, Swords & Wizardry, etc.). I started to question what my kind of fantasy would like? What had it looked like before I was introduced to D&D?

With my new spell system devised, and armed with Microlite20's small, but powerful rule set, I set to making a game from scratch (more or less). I didn't care what D&D's "Fighter" or "Magic-User" looked like, what would mine look like? I now have "Wizards & Warriors". I have a full game outlined already (using Microlite20, that's not hard at all).

It's fully d20 compatible, which was one of my small goals. I want to focus on what's fun, and after playing and reading through so many RPGs, D&D is just plain fun. People like rolling d20's, getting bonuses, killing weird monsters, and getting gold. Don't mess with what works. With Wizards & Warriors I'll still get to use all of those fantastic monsters found in all of my various bestiaries.

D&D also handles "special" combat maneuvers/modifiers/classes better than most other games. Which is kind of what my new game is about. You have a few spell casting classes, that get to play with that nifty spell dice system. Other than that it's mostly kits for the fighter. You trade a few restrictions to get some unique combat ability or characteristic. I've included an overly simplified Thief/Rogue to fill that niche, but other than that it's just a variety of fighters (Barbarian, Cavalier, Martial Artist, etc.).

Really that's whats fun about D&D, at least the D&D I like. It's killing stuff and getting treasure (I think I might have mentioned that once or twice...). "Role-playing" in old-school games come from problem-solving, player choices, and interacting with the "world", not the rules. I'll probably tack on some codified rules for crafting later (because I love crafting), but other than a some basic d6 checks for activities, everything else should be handled via describing your character's actions, and Referee adjudication.

So far Wizards & Warriors is much like the millions of variant players handbooks that came out in the 2000's (Iron Heroes, Swashbuckling Adventures, Mutants & Masterminds, Call of Cthulhu d20, etc.), mostly character creation rules, with a few rules for handling common activities in the campaign.

Like I said, I have a full outline already, though I'm still deciding on a few class features. Each class as of now as 2 to 3 special abilities/features. A few of them improve over time, or get more use out of those features as they progress. If this ends up being a fun project, I plan on making a sort of "Advanced Companion" to add more features to some of the classes, and expand upon the ideas of the basic game. Right now it really feels like house ruled OD&D (though higher numbers), and I'm really happy with that.

I'm going to try and play it soon with some friends who might like it, and if all goes well, I'll format it, slap on the OGL, and share it with everyone.