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Swords & Wizardry Character Sheets

I'm running Swords & Wizardry for my home game right now. It's been a lot of fun. One of the really neat things about the system is how amenable to cutsomization it is. Of course all pen and paper RPGs can be customized to a referee's preference but it's a rare thing to flip to the section on, say, initiative and see the rules offer four options for the rules. One draw back to this approach is the game aids, like the character shee and referee screens, make some assumptions about which options the referee is using. As such, I've had to make a few different custom game aids. I started with an equipment sheet and a master list of arms, armor, and equipment. This was a band-aid solution, however, and I've now made custom character and retainer sheets. In much the same way that the official game aids make assumptions about what options/rules the referee is going to use, my sheets also make some assumptions. They're formatted for ascending AC and include a de...
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Curious Changes Wrought by Wizardry: A Random Blogwagon Post

Alright, gonna try one of these blogwagon thingies. Participants are meant to determine various aspects of their blogpost by using random tables (a cute, thematic element, to be sure!) and I rolled a 1  – I need to post as soon as possible without proofing; a 7  – the post can be any length I want; and I drew a 2 of Spades meaning I must reference and link a post from Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque. Why randomness? First, some throat-clearing. I like randomness in my games, or at least the potential for randomness. It keeps me on my toes as a referee and makes it harder to steer a game session in a way I want it to go. It can make the stakes of a situation more interesting. For example, if eating a dragon heart always gave a player +1 to an attribute of their choice instead of having a random table with good, bad, and neutral consequences, then it would always  be correct for players to eat dragon hearts. And that's boring. Magic should be more random. I'm a pret...
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The Luminary: A New Class for Old-School Games

I've been playing a lot of Dragon Quest games recently. It's been a really fun time. The NES/Famicom versions of Dragon Quest I - III are certainly creaky in places, however, the wonderful character designs, superb music, and rock-solid gameplay has got me kinda addicted. I'm looking forward to playing through more of the series. The player avatar, or hero, in the Dragon Quest series fills a unique role in the party in Dragon Quest III onwards. The hero is fighter-type class supplemented with magic spells and, in later games and the SNES remakes of earlier titles, has unique sword abilities. The hero isn't as strong a melee damage dealer as warrior, nor as sturdy. They are outclassed in healing magic by priests, offensive magic by wizards, and are worse all-around mages than sages. Basically, the hero is a jack of all trades, master of none class with a few unique spells/sword abilities. This happens to be my favorite type of character to play.  Back when I started play...
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