Warriors & Warlocks

While I have been focusing on Swords & Wizardry (Fantasy being my favorite genre) lately, I have been known to try other rules sets out in the past. I once purchased several PDFs of Mutants & Masterminds (M&M from here on out) to play in a M&M Fantasy game that didn't work out. I even tried a teen game of M&M where my concept was a fifteen year old goth kid that would Nullify others, that he perceived as bad when he wore his goth attire and would Nullify everyone if he didn't have his jacket on (a black leather straight jacket FWIW). Much debate ensued on how many points this should cost. Needless to say I lost interest.

Then, a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon Greywulf's blog and read about how much he liked Warriors & Warlocks! Well I was intrigued, to say the least. So, last night I purchased it as a PDF for just over $16. I think what I will really like about it is that it will be in a genre I love, which is fantasy, and has some built in genre constraints, or tropes if you prefer. Unlike convention M&M where if you can imagine it, you can build it, Warriors & Warlocks (W&W from here on out) establishes itself in a sub-genre of fantasy, Swords & Sorcery. Which is even better. My main concern was that Magic would be a catch all Power that would be a subsystem in character creation to sneak in all the non-genre appropriate abilities. With W&W starting in a sub-genre that governs Magic more harshly, I can slowly add-to rather than restrict. Another feature I like is templates. There are Racial Templates and Professional Templates. Want an Elven Rouge, pay the price for the templates, verify that resulting scores do not exceed game limits, and move out smartly! I had thought about building templates, and in fact Joshua Dunlow had created several fantasy templates and done a lot of other work on M&M Fantasy prior to W&W coming out, over at The Atomic Think Tank (a M&M Forum) already.

I suppose I will finish reading the PDF and might submit a full review. At the moment my ADD is screaming at me to use W&W for Ukarea (TM) rather than S&W. Right now, I am forcing myself to say, "Maybe do it for both rules sets eventually, but stay focused on what you started with!" Tough sell ~ I love to tinker.

The only thing that is kind of disheartening is the fact that M&M 3ed is do to be released soon and I have no idea if W&W will be re-released for the new edition. Not to mention how much interest can be garnered on PbP boards for a M&M 2ed game when it is.

Wondering why I am doubly blessed; OCD & ADD
TB