X-Old - Swift Swords.

By Kevin Flynn

With thanks to: David and Annette (what's a square root) Fernan, Chris and Nadine Edwards, John Harrower, Michael McDonald and many others.

Swift Swords is just a hobby, something I work on in my spare time. Its just another persons attempt to cope with never ending search for a "really nice system". I have included a lot of things that I have wanted to see in a role playing game. They may not appeal to you. If you try the system out I would love to hear from you (flynnkd@gmail.com).

Swift Swords is a fantasy role playing game, this means that the players act out the roles of characters within the environment created by the Games Master (GM). I have assumed within this text that you will already have some experience with roleplaying games, or will be playing with someone who does. Because of this I have not included a section on how to do it and what it is, these are plenty of sources around for that. Instead I have spoken in various areas about how I see this game running (my view only), what my ideas were behind how I have done things. I hope this makes sense.

The characters you portray will become alter egos to your real selves. Although it is expected that roleplaying will include an attempt to think and act like another person, it is more normal for people to just play themselves transsposed into another world. Either way is acceptable, as long as you have fun. The GM is encouraged to reward players who create outstanding roleplaying moments. Its easy to be yourself, and very hard to be otherwise.

For the same reason I try to avoid tightly defined states of good and evil. Players will be what they want to be, nice one time, generous another. Over a period of time the GM should be able to form an impression of the characters and decide for themselves how they act. Instead I have gone for Law and Chaos, these are more easily defined and thus easier to play with. Law and Chaos are ethical views in part and nearly everyone swings both ways at times. IN the end however good guys tend toward Law and bad guys toward Chaos. Chaos is NOT indepedence or freedom to do what you like, it is anarchy and a complete rejection of personal obligation to others. Chaotic people are unethical and immoral, unpredictable and unconcerned.

One of the most important aspects to a good role playing game is the environment. If you begin with a really interesting world environment for the players to exist in then they will be keen to play right from the start. I have bought whole roleplaying systems just because they have really fascinating environments, never to play them.

That environment can be small, like a ruined castle, or huge, such as an entire world. Normally the players only interact with a limited area of that environment at one time. To help people get started I will enclose a limited world environment, one that represents a section of a world - see Aquilonia.

Limited world environments are good places for adventuring as it allows the GM to enforce peculiar local characteristics whilst also leaving room for future expansion. Tolkien set his story in a limited world, making vague references to other areas not shown on his maps. Most modern fantasy writers tend to use this concept also.

The most important thing I can pass on to you, after 20+ years of playing games is this - HAVE FUN. Dont get bogged down in systems and rules. ENJOY YOURSELVES! If something happens that was unexpected then make something up spontaneously and find the correct answer later. During the game dont let things grind to a boring halt, keep playing. This is primarily the GMs job, and it is a fine skill to develop. Use the vast resources of fantasy literature to create an on going scene and just fudge your way through it. Tell your players this, and that you may alter things next time. As long as they know then they shouldnt complain.

DONT rely on die rolls ALL the time. Die rolls should be used to add risk, not randomness. If a player wants to do something, and you want him to do something, then dont roll for it, just say it worked.

Eg: the GM developes an entire scenario based on the players finding a small piece of parchment hidden in a concealed purse of a slain opponent. The players oblige by saying they search the corpse. If the GM insists on a roll to find the note then the players could all fail, random rolls are random after all. What do you do then? What if only one player searches? What if none of them do! It would be far easier to just announce that they find the note, {insert description of reason why}, and get on with things. Dont be a slave to the dice.

Change Log.

25/10/2008

Moved to Google site.

8/1/2008

· Created the ConcededSuccess.

· Created Fast Rolls

· Modified some table values to fit into the above rules. Lowered the STUN/SHOCK/TRAUMA base values (to 7).

1/1/2008

· Modifications to the FCR

· Started modifying other rules to fit with the FCR.

27/9/2007

· Where tables are duplicated and differ, always refer to the rulebook version. I have noticed some differences here and there.

22/8/2007

· Converted the entire web site to 2 word docx and pdf documents.

· Added Fast Combat system (FCR).

· Added Traps appendix.

6/10/2006

    • Added Hit Locations to Chapter 14.

14/3/2006

    • Introduced limits to dice rolls (see C10 Mods and C3).

1/3/2006

    • Adjusted the page format a little. The PDFs may be a little out of date now.
    • Tried to fix as many of the broken links as I could find.

1.12.2005

    • Im sure I have done things since the last date, anyway I have revamped the entire site, new menu system, new fonts etc. So there will probably be a lot of broken links. The PDF versions will also be a little out of date till I get a chance to refresh them.

02.06.2003

    • Re-did the Character Sheets. Quite a bit of fine tuning done to the rules.

02.05.2003

    • Including PDF formatted copies of each file, a link to these at the top of each page.

05.12.2002

    • Changed character creation methods.
    • Still working on Shaman rules, long way to go.
    • Included Wealth Level rules as an option

27.10.2002

    • Going over all rules and cleaning up, making sure everything is upto date with the latest changes.
    • Changed the Armour tables considerably.

27.9.2002

    • I have begun working on the shamans and spells.
    • I have begun including Feats along with Skills
    • Updated the explorer view and the ss centre page to reflect the developing structure.

10.1.2002

    • Been a while since I updated this page, whilst I have been doing other pages :). Changes are mostly to bring everything in line with the new combat and movement system. A lot of the spells have been changed, think I have gone through them twice now looking for problems and keep finding things.
    • Have added Shapechangers to the list of spells groups.
    • Have added Shamans and Shamanic Magic, but they are just ideas at his time and have very little content.

21.9.2000

    • Well I finally noticed that Netscape didnt work with a lot of my CSS and page formatting.. doh. Took me a while to find what was wrong, but partly because Netscape doesnt implement CSS properly, some minor bugs. So I have fixed a few of the pages and will do the rest shortly.
    • Made some major changes to the combat system, armour PENE values have been reversed so as to allow greater range in magic armours, which meant I had to redo the combat damage system to allow weapons to get thru magically high PENE values. This turned out to be a good thing actually and lead to a reconsideration of dice use. I had already started a change toward the new system in the Advanced initiative, so extending it to other areas made sense. This obviously means I will need to reconsider the whole game system somewhat, but what the hey, this is a game in development after all!
    • I have tried to remove some of the complicated combat options and put them in as Special results. which is what they should be. Things like Disarms, Knockbacks, Bashes etc now will fall under Special result options.
    • I will try to get the sample character generation page up soon, I have a very strong suspicion that it doesnt work properly at this time, and there are some big gaps in there... (

17/8/2000

    • A few changes here and there. Begun adding stuff to C20, some benefits and disadvantages, character creation additions.
    • Have begun to make some major changes to the way the combat chapter is organised, try to simplify various areas of melee, remove some redundant or overlapping areas. Basically attempting to bring everything down to one roll.

25/2/2000

    • Poisons added to chapter 5.
    • Creatures chapters begun, first creatures added.
    • Extra links included at the start of some chapters.
    • Modified the new Menu System
    • Began work on the Aquilonia world, some background - C16.

18/01/2000

    • New menu system installed, thanks to Mortens Javascript Tree Menu. Works okay in IE4, but may be some "features" in Netscape.

12/12/99 - Lotsa of stuff.

    • Updated nearly all chapters to some degree
    • Added some new skills.
    • Added limits to the number of skills you can have.
    • Tied up the Misc Combat page.
    • Added the Fast Combat page, but not much of value in it yet.
    • Fiddled with the Wound system, added a sample Grevious Damage Table.
    • Modified some of the weapons tables.

20/10/99 - Havent updated this sheet, but I have done a lot:

    • Completely changed the Movement system to a zone based one.
    • Changed the combat initiative system
    • Changed to time system, impacts spells a lot.
    • Changed a lot of the spells
    • Added bits and pieces elsewhere.
    • Started working on chapter 16.
    • Character sheet in DOC and PDF format available

1/2/99 - Upgraded the site for use on the www.AustWiz.com domain.