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I only played Swordbearer a few times, but it made a great impression on me. Dragon magazine reviewed Swordbearer as being like having someone point to the "push" sign on a door after you've been pulling at it with all your strength. That is still an apt description, even now.
Many of the concepts in Swordbearer are novel or completely original. For example, Swordbearer uses no money. Characters had a Social Status (SS) rating. Items have a SS requirement; if your SS is enough, you are assumed to have the resources to pay for and manage the item. Otherwise, you can't afford it.
Another innovation is also related to equipment. There is no carrying capacity or endurance; every character can just carry ten items, regardless of type. It certainly makes inventory easier, though it is occasionally a bit unrealistic: "What do you mean I can't carry a candle in addition to my dagger, ring, hat, earrings, walking stick, backpack, magic gem and 3 pieces of leather armor?"
The skill system is also impressively original. It is percentile-based, and classless. There is a simple stat-based default system; your minimum in a skill is equal to an appropriate stat, such as Agility for the Climbing skill. Characters are specialized in (on average) two skill Spheres each, such as Fighting, Stealth, Country (wilderness) or Arts/Crafts. Skills are learned more quickly in these specializations, and characters can double up. Anyone could learn any skill, but some people were more specialized.
I never really used the magic system. It is based on two kinds of magic, though: Elemental and Spirit. Elemental magic is the slightly more mundane kind, with Fireballs and Bridges of Ice and that sort of thing. Spirit magic includes all the necromancy and deep sorcery.
Swordbearer magic uses a system of Nodes, sources of mana or magical energy. If you find and attune a Node, you can use it to power your spells. (Finding Nodes could easily be an adventure in itself.) Spirit nodes are usually only found in living creatures, and accessing them usually requires death -- an in-game reason that necromancers are evil. Complicated spells require multiple Nodes. There are no spell levels; anyone can cast any spell, provided they have the skill and knowledge required. But finding enough Nodes can be quite difficult, and "chaining" them together for complicated spells is difficult, so only a rare magician will be able to cast truly impressive spells. The overall spell system gives a lot of flavor, and really seems "magical".
The magic system isn't very versatile, though, as presented; had Swordbearer continued, it would've been nice to see a magic supplement with lots more spells and variant node rules. As it was, I used Spell Law (the magic supplement for what came to be called Rolemaster) as an addition, but it never felt like a good match.
Swordbearer includes a lot of player-possible races. Selkets (insect-creatures), Moonspiders (intelligent spiders with a technology based on silk), unicorns, minotaurs, Hellborn (demons in all but name) and the usual humans, halflings, orcs, kobolds, pixies, etc. It is tempting to put all of them into a game, but impractical. There is a small section on other monsters and animals (rhinoceroses, pegasi, great cats, etc.), but it isn't really long enough. It feels a bit like the section of the rules on PC races could've been used for more spells or more NPC monsters/encounters. Or for more of the excellent GM advice.
The advice on running a campaign is brilliant. There is a lot of good commentary on spear-carriers vs. main villains, good guidelines rules for generating NPC's on the fly and a very useful travel speed chart. The advice on how to create a game world is also quite good, and offers plenty of ideas for creating variant magic systems, weapons, etc. It gives a lot of very good insight into how a game world can be designed (bottom-up, top-down, etc.) and what kinds of things are needed -- which was very good advice indeed for a young GM like me. I would say that, barring possibly Campaign Law, this was about the best setting-creation advice available when Swordbearer came out.
The game was republished by FGU, and everyone who loved it knew that the halcyon days of Swordbearer were yet to come. Everyone would recognize it for the masterpiece it was. But no, it suffered as FGU's bastard child (Chivalry & Sorcery had always been their main fantasy RPG). FGU's demise can't have helped, either. And, I must note, the FGU edition is plagued with typos and typesetting errors. Not only did they not eliminate previous errors, they actually introduced several new ones. FGU eventually published an adventure supplement/campaign segment, Dwarven Halls. It is quite good, with some very good ideas scattered about, but wasn't enough to attract more players to the game.
I only ever played a few games of Swordbearer. For most gamers of the time, it was too exotic. Nowadays, though, mechanics similar to Swordbearer's are commonplace, and many gamers will probably look at Swordbearer's innovations as everyday occurances. It's too bad, because Swordbearer had a lot of promise. It could've shaken the world, but instead it went away peacefully.
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