Sword And Magic

I'm reading and really enjoying the not-so-recently-released Kard és Mágia aka Sword And Magic Fantasy Roleplaying Game by Gabor Lux, and I have to say that it's a shame he didn't translated all his work, although as a non-native english speaker I truly understand the reason why he didn't. The cool thing about S&M is that, differently from other enlightened d20 versions I've read over the web, it's a pretty fucking solid set of rules, one that you can really dig and turn into a long lasting campaign without having to over-simplify everything or heavily house-rule it. During these days of Old School Revolution, it upsets the hell out of me to see systems where the only thing they dig from the d20 System is the ascending armor class. I mean, I don't give a fuck of tables to find out the hell I need To Hit: descending armor class is NOT what disturbs me about the older iterations of D & D. Instead, what eventually bothers me about the Original/Basic/Advanced editions of the game is that they have different mechanics for each damn action. Roll or Save, d20 above; Ability check, d20 below; Surprise, d6/d10; Find Secret Doors, d6 if you're Elf, d? otherwise; and so on. I'm not saying Swords & Wizardry or LotFP are not good games – I like them very much indeed. I'm saying that I just don't get the reason why one should dig ascending armor system and leave anything else the same: this sounds more random ruling than simplification to me. And don't get me wrong: I love AD&D, I play it any time I can, and probably always will. The point is, I was really missing something like Sword And Magic. It's even better than Castles & Crusades to me, for it's even simpler and free as the air you breathe (i.e. fuck you RPG industry, you're not having my scalp!)

I'm on a period in which I really want to dig my Yaqqothl and Doomed Wasteland notes out again, and I think making some conversions of my original material under S&M could really be the way. I'm pretty excited, especially since the total lack of pre-made monsters and magic items should force me to create new ones, which is always a pleasant pastime.