En Garde!

About this board game

En Garde! is a pencil-and-paper role-playing game for 2–20 players, with a typical play time of 90 minutes. Originally released in 1975, it presents a semi-historical world inspired by the dramatic adventure films of Errol Flynn and the vibrant, bawdy days of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The game began as a fencing system, with background material added to create situations for duels. Over time, that setting became the heart of the experience. Players pursue social status as a goal that can matter more than money, navigating a world of ambitious characters, influential relationships, and dangerous encounters.

In En Garde!, players can cultivate friends in high places, use other people to advance their position, humiliate enemies, trounce the Cardinal’s Guard, abuse lackeys, seek the hand of a fair damsel, and try to gain the ear of the King. The setting evokes figures and archetypes associated with classic swashbuckling adventure, including Cyrano, Roxanne, Porthos, Athos, Aramis, D’Artagnan, and others.

• Player count: 2–20
• Play time: 90 minutes
• Format: Pencil-and-paper RPG-style game
• Game structure: Charts and tables provide the adventure framework without requiring a referee

Rather than relying on a game master to organize every event, the adventure structure is built into the charts and tables. This gives En Garde! the detail associated with role-playing games of its era while keeping it playable by any number of players within the listed range.

A second edition published by GDW in 1977 incorporated the errata sheet and made non-substantive changes. SFC Press later printed a third edition in the United Kingdom in 1988; it was reformatted and illustrated but remained essentially the same as the second edition.