How to Create a Swashbuckler in En Garde!

En Garde!, published by Game Designers' Workshop in 1975, "is a semi-historical game/simulation representing many of the situations of an Errol Flynn movie set in the Seventeenth or Eighteenth Centuries." We also learn in the introduction of this quasi-role-playing game that:

The game was originally devised as a fencing system, with background added to provide scenarios for the duels. After a time, it became apparent that the background was more fun than the duels, and En Garde, in its present form, was born.

More precisely, it's obvious from the rules that the game is really a simulation of The Three Musketeers.

This is my first character for En Garde!:

Strength: 12
Expertise: 9
Constitution: 11
Endurance: 132

Class: Nobleman (roll of 6 on Birth Table A)
Sibling Rank: Second Son (roll of 3 on Birth Table B)
Father's Position: Impoverished (roll of 1 on Birth Table C, Subtable: Nobleman)
Title of Father: Baron (roll of 2 on Birth Table D)
Initial Social Level: 7

This is a straighforward process. You roll 3d6 for Strength, Expertise, and Constitution. Endurance is Strength multiplied by Constitution. The rest is determined by rolling 1d6 on a few tables. Everything else is optional.

I'm not really sure how much of a role-playing game En Garde! is. The players have characters. They keep secret written orders of their activities (one activity per week). They duel, drink, gamble, join regiments, fight battles, have dalliances with mistresses, and try to increase their social standing, but it's all an abstraction. According to the section on "Birth," "The most important thing a player must know about his character is his initial social level." Two paragraphs later, the player is advised, "if desired, the character should be given a name." So, that gives you an idea of the amount of role-playing expected. None of the activities, as far as I can tell, are handled in any degree of detail more specific than writing a word or two on a piece of paper and rolling on some tables. I suppose it could be a conversational game, but perhaps not necessarily moreso than most board games or war games. I wonder if it could be successfully fused with a storytelling game, such as The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen.

Since I'm not required to give this character a name, I guess I won't.

This is a game I would play as an experiment, preferably with one or more experienced players. [Edit: Then again, sometimes it's fun when none of the players know what they're doing exactly.]

[For more articles in this series, visit How to Create a Swashbuckler.]