The game boots up and runs fine, I have Windows 10. It does have about 1" and a half black bars on each side on the screen. None on the top and bottom, thankfully. I've tried simple fixes, changing resolutions, running in maximized window mode. So far no luck. My screen is 15.6"

This game was made in an era before wide screen monitors.
You have two choices, you can either play it as it was designed or you can stretch the screen. I have played Wizardry 8 on a widescreen monitor on full screen mode when the textures are stretched. It looks awful. When I play it on a screen it was designed for then it looks so much better. The same goes for this game.

Ok thanks. Probably play it as is then. Just curious how do you stretch the screen?

Im enjoying the game in any case. Rather than start a new topic, since you seem to know the game well, how exactly do you start a new game, rather than just making new characters? What I mean is, I made 6 characters for the first time, took them out for a spin outside of town for a while and saved and quit. I was thinking of making all new characters and when I re-start the game and go to the Inn, the same characters are at the Inn, but greyed out saying "out for adventure" But I dont want to make new characters that already have part of the quests completed from other characters, I wanted a whole new game start.

There is a button you are looking for called reset adventure. I believe it is in the options setting once you start a game.
I used a forum called the ironworks forum back in the day and it was the source of a great deal of information on the game.

http://www.ironworksforum.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?s=3ba562309f7160b6fdd52dd6c849ec17&f=14

From page 9 of the manual
Revert Game Option
Whenever you gather together a party of characters and enter the world (by clicking
on one of the Town Gates to leave town and start adventuring), the game
automatically records all information about the world and your characters as a safety
backup. If something goes terribly wrong and you do not have a saved game, such as if
your computer were to lose power in the middle of the game, you can go to the Town
Inn and click on the Revert Game button to restore this special safety backup. Your
characters and the game will be restored just as if you had saved the game prior to
leaving the Town. You may still save the game normally while adventuring in the
world, and you will still have the Revert Option available to you, which will always
restore the game to the last time you were in the Town.

Page 40 of the manual
Reset Adventures - under game options
This button clears all of the current adventures, including quests and guild ranking,
and resets the game as if you had never played, but leaves your characters untouched
with any experience and basic equipment they have gained. Any special quest items
will be removed. You can use this button if you want to earn some experience with a
group of heroes and then start playing again – making the start of the game far easier,
or if you finish the game and want to play it again with different characters. Even if
you Reset the Adventures, if you then restore a previous save game it will undo any
effect of the Reset Adventures. For this reason it is advised that you have at least one
save game prior to Resetting the Adventures, just in case you decide later you didn’t
mean to do it.

Oh ok, I caught the Revert option, but I didnt notice the Reset Adventures. A simple New Game, Load Game, and Delete Game is what I'm used to in most rpgs.