History, Mythology, Art and RPGs

[Galloglaich]

Originally Posted by Raven Crowking

Me too please?

ravencrowking at hotmail dot com.

Raven did you ever get your comp copy?

G.

[Galloglaich]

I wrote a new blog: "Introducing the coolest weapon you never heard of in any Role playing Game"

Here is a teaser



codexmartialis.com • View topic - The coolest weapon you never heard of in any RPG

[Hussar]

Great stuff and good reading.

[Aus_Snow]

Hey Galloglaich, if you're handing that PDF around, I'll gladly accept a copy. The email address is aus [underscore] snow [at] letterboxes [dot] org .

Thanks!

[Galloglaich]

Originally Posted by Aus_Snow

Hey Galloglaich, if you're handing that PDF around, I'll gladly accept a copy. The email address is aus [underscore] snow [at] letterboxes [dot] org .

Thanks!

Ok check your spamfilter I'm sending one now. You are the last lucky Enworlder, as the 'beta' phase of this is ending tonight with the next update going out today. Monday I'm raising the price and not sending any more comp copies out except for formal reviews.

Let me know what you think eithr here or at codexmartialis.com • Index page

Also make sure you set the flag for automatic updates so you get the update which is going to go out later today.

G.

[jdrakeh]

Thanks for this thread! While I don't think we'd agree on what constitutes verisimilitude or historical "realism" in games, I certainly prefer Low Fantasy inspired by historical personages and will find this thread quite useful

[Galloglaich]

Originally Posted by jdrakeh

Thanks for this thread! While I don't think we'd agree on what constitutes verisimilitude or historical "realism" in games, I certainly prefer Low Fantasy inspired by historical personages and will find this thread quite useful

Feel free to elaborate, I think verisimilitude and realism mean different things to different people, and I'm not fanatic about my own interpretation.

G.

[Galloglaich]

Originally Posted by mmadsen

As long as we're discussing Realistic Combat, I thought I'd link back to an earlier thread on the topic. One anecdote therefrom:

Take for example the case of the duel fought in 1613 between the Earl of Dorset and Lord Edward Bruce. According to the Earl's account, he received a rapier-thrust in the right nipple which passed 'level through my body, and almost to my back.' Seemingly unaffected, the Earl remained engaged in the combat for some time. The duel continued with Dorset going on to lose a finger while attempting to disarm his adversary manually. Locked in close quarters, the two struggling combatants ultimately ran out of breath. According to Dorset's account, they paused briefly to recover, and while catching their wind, considered proposals to release each other's blades. Failing to reach an agreement on exactly how this might be done, the seriously wounded Dorset finally managed to free his blade from his opponent's grasp and ultimately ran Lord Bruce through with two separate thrusts. Although Dorset had received what appears to have been a grievous wound that, in those days, ought to have been mortal, he not only remained active long enough to dispatch his adversary, but without the aid of antibiotics and emergency surgery, also managed to live another thirty-nine years.

That is a great anecdote. There are so many detailed descriptions of combat like that, reading them can really grant insight into A) how fights really happen and B) how to make cinematic fights which have that elusive verisimilitude. The Viking Sagas are superb sources for this, particularly the later family sagas which are very realistic (and I think more historical than most people give them credit for). Take this delightful little anecdote I just added to the Codex, from the Saga of Grettir the Strong.

The viking age, Grettirs saga...

There was a hill between them and Grettir, who had turned back along
the footpath. Now he had no others to reckon with in making the attack.
He drew his sword Jokulsnaut and tied a loop round the handle which he
passed over his wrist, because he thought that he could carry out his plans
better if his hand were free. He went along the path. When the bear saw a
man coming, he charged savagely, and struck at him with the paw that was
on the side away from the precipice. Grettir aimed a blow at him with his
sword and cut off his paw just above the claws. Then the creature tried to
strike him with his sound paw, but to do so he had to drop on the stump,
which was shorter than he expected, and over he fell into Grettir's
embraces. Grettir seized the beast by the ears and held him off so that he
could not bite. He always said that he considered this holding back the bear
the greatest feat of strength that he ever performed. The beast struggled
violently; the space was very narrow, and they both fell over the precipice.
The bear being the heavier came down first on the beach; Grettir fell on
the top of him, and the bear was badly mauled on the side that was down.
Grettir got his sword, ran it into the heart of the bear and killed him. Then
he went home, after fetching his cloak which was torn to pieces. He also
took with him the bit of the paw which he had cut off.

If you prefer battles with knights in full armor it's hard to beat this one on one combat from the 15th Century:

..The infidel threw his shield in front of him, and laying his spear on his
arm he ran swiftly at me, uttering a cry. I approached, having my spear at
the thigh, but as I drew near I couched my spear and thrust at his shield,
and although he struck at me with his spear in the flank and forearm, I was
able to give him such mighty thrust that horse and man fell to the ground.
But his spear hung in my armor and hindered me, and I had great difficulty
in loosing it and alighting from my horse. By this time he also was
dismounted. I had my sword in my hand; he likewise seized his sword, and
we advanced and gave each other a mighty blow. The infidel had excellent
armour, and though I struck him by the shield he received no injury. Nor did
his blows injure me. We then gripped each other and wrestled so long that
we fell to the ground side by side. But the infidel was a man of amazing
strength. He tore himself from my grasp, and we both raised our bodies until
we were kneeling side by side. I then thrust him from me with my left hand
in order to be able to strike at him with my sword, and this I was able to
do, for with the thrust his body was so far removed that I was able to cut
at his face, and although the blow was not wholly successful, I wounded
him so that he swayed and was half-blinded. I then struck him a direct blow
in the face and hurled him to the ground, and falling upon him I thrust my
sword through his throat, after which I rose to my feet, took his sword, and
returned to my horse. The two beasts were standing side by side. They had
been worked hard the whole day, and were quite quiet.

When the infidels saw I had conquered they drew off their forces. But the
Portuguese and Christians approached and cut off the infidel’s head, and
took his spear, and placed the head upon it, and removed his armour. It
was a costly suit, made in the heathen fashion, very strong and richly
ornamented...

...from the diary of the German knight Jorg von Ehingen, who fought with the Portuguese in 1467. Really gives you a good idea how effective armor actually was...

G.

[Raven Crowking]

Originally Posted by Galloglaich

Raven did you ever get your comp copy?

G.

I ran into a problem, but now have a new email and will try again today.

RC

[John Q. Mayhem]

This thread delivers. Very very good stuff here, and I really enjoyed those posts on art and weapons. Dha are, indeed, awesome

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Originally Posted by Galloglaich

Anyway, another major area where RPG's have veered away from an interesting reality is martial arts, specifically European martial arts which somewhat amazingly, tens of thousands of people who spend their weekends pretending to be knights and paladins, swashbucking pirates and "cunninge thieves" have never even heard of. Our characters wield swords and spears and quarter staves but most of us have absolutely no idea what a sword or a spear or a quarter staff was really like let alone how they were used.

The rediscovery of Historical European Martial Arts first began to slowly percolate into modern consciousness back in the 1990s, today it is a booming world-wide phenomenon. The sword-fighting techniques written down in books as far back as the 1300s are extremeley effective and are now pretty well understood, though we are still only scratching the surface.

Perhaps more surprisingly for many people, HEMA as it's now known has become a respected martial art, widely understood to be every bit as lethal as anything ever taught to a samurai.

Gary Gygax did some fairly good research on weapons back around the time he wrote the DmG but nobody back then really understood how sword fighting actually worked and the attempts to make up realistic combat were mostly focused on highly complex wound systems which slowed the game to a crawl. The closes thing most people ever saw to medieval combat was re-enactors at a Ren Faire or the SCA.... or a Monty Python movie. Most gamers turned away from what they thought was the reality of medieval combat and never looked back, after all, everybody knows only the samurai had any real technique in how they fought, right? Knights carried great clumsy ten pound "broadswords" they just hewed dents into each others armor with, right?

Well, no, thats wrong. HEMA is extremely sophisticated and effective and it's now pretty well understood. There are about 30 major HEMA groups worldwide now, and I don't even know how many schools, dozens I believe. A few RPG enthusiasts know about this, but most don't. So I think it's time I'd like to introduce DnD to the new reality..

To convey an idea of what is going on now, here are some videos depicting messer fighting techniques written down in books 500 years ago. A messer was kind of like a medieval machete... a very common weapon you probably aren't very familiar with since they never have them in movies or video games, or RPG's. The word actually means 'knife' but think of it as a kind of a light falchion, though some were quite large called "grossemessers" or "kriegmessers" and used with two-hands, something like a slightly butch katana.


You can see one depicted in this old woodcut, these men are in HEMA fencing guards.

Here is a photo of a real one from about 1520




And this is a similar weapon called a 'schwisersabel' used in Switzerland.


Anyway, these videeos deal with the smaller machete sized weapon. This one is clever because they show you some quotes from the book, followed by the original drawings, then live action of HEMA fighters demonstrating the technique depicted. It's all done nice and slow so you can see the technique.
*snip*

Those videos were very interesting. Thanks for digging them out!

[Galloglaich]

Originally Posted by Mustrum_Ridcully

Those videos were very interesting. Thanks for digging them out!

My pleasure. I practice HEMA myself so I knew most of the people from those vids, they weren't hard to find.

G.

[Raven Crowking]

Originally Posted by Galloglaich

Raven did you ever get your comp copy?

G.

I've gotten it, and I have given it a first read-through.

Some ideas are similar (in intent, if not in rendering) to what I did for my 3.5 houserules -- i.e., tactical combat that doesn't rely on a grid, making weapon choice more than decoration, etc.

I especially liked that you included notes about using the system with animals.

This does increase the complexity of combat somewhat, but in a good way (as opposed to, in a "grid" way, if you take my meaning! ). I'd be happy to write up a full review at some point, after trying out a few combats with the system.

Some notes:

1. You need another editting pass. I don't have my copy in front of me, but I noticed the word "is" ended up in the framing art on one page, the end of a sentence is lost to the ether on another, and there is no clear indication of what is OGC and what is Product Identity. I'd be happy to find the page numbers for you later, if you like.

2. The entire thing could be longer. Not because you need more "system", but because you could use more "bridging text".

3. From my quick read, it seems that the optional hp rules would make this system fast & furious, esp. in low-magic campaign worlds.

4. I am not a proponent of 4e, so I don't know how readily adaptable this system is to 4e, but I do know that it reads a heck of a lot better than the 4e combat system, IMHO.

Overall, first read makes it a pretty good document, and one that sparked my imagination. I could definitely see using this. In fact, if sales go well, I'd consider a monster document with CM info worked into the statblocks were I you.


RC

[Galloglaich]

I especially liked that you included notes about using the system with animals
This does increase the complexity of combat somewhat, but in a good way (as opposed to, in a "grid" way, if you take my meaning! ). I'd be happy to write up a full review at some point, after trying out a few combats with the system.

I’d love to get a review and look forward to hearing about your experiments

4. I am not a proponent of 4e, so I don't know how readily adaptable this system is to 4e, but I do know that it reads a heck of a lot better than the 4e combat system, IMHO.

This was never written to be adaptable to 4e, though a guy was talking about some ideas along those lines in another thread here on Enworld.

Overall, first read makes it a pretty good document, and one that sparked my imagination. I could definitely see using this. In fact, if sales go well, I'd consider a monster document with CM info worked into the statblocks were I you.RC

One good thing is that because of the helpful policy in 3.5 E of breaking down monster AC into Natural Armor, Dex, etc. in the stat blocks it’s fairly easy to convert monsters “on the fly” over to this system.

We could do several possible expansions, but as you say all that depends on sales, which governs how much time and effort I can put in to it. Right now I’ll just be happy to be able to pay my artist and my layout guy.

Meanwhile we will continue to tinker with many ideas on our forum regardless, just for fun

G.

[Raven Crowking]

Page 11: Word "is" in the border art.

Page 13: Left column sentence ends without being completed.

[Galloglaich]

New blog:

http://www.codexmartialis.com/viewto...&t=35&p=92#p92

[Galloglaich]

Just to show history can be fun... Here is a cool little video depicting a duel between two crossbowmen. Swift, instantly immersive, and historically grounded, down to the small details. Enjoy.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exrL4UEh8og"]YouTube - Rubedo[/ame]

[Galloglaich]

Here is a video depicting demonstrations of Gatka, a type of Sikh saber fencing. Similar to our western HEMA traditions and Japanese fencing traditions such as Kendo, the Sikhs keep their martial arts alive by training including contact sparring bouts (the sticks you see in the vid with the fuzzy orange hand-guards are their sparring weapons).

These three brothers were killed in a tragic drowning accident shortly after this video was made. Their fencing technique is beautiful to behold, all of the fencing techniques you see here go back 400 years and more, the Sikhs keep these traditions alive, it is an important part of their culture.

[ame="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=YHtqGaR31Z8"]YouTube - G.U.P.T Tribute to Gursikhs[/ame]

[Galloglaich]

First review is out. A staff review from DrivethroughRPG I wasn't even expecting (I haven't sent any copies for formaI reviews yet as i still have some problems with the Table of Contents and the Index I need to fix)

it's short but somewhat to my amazement, it's a quite good review I think.

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_reviews_info.php?products_id=58045&reviews _id=18793

[MichaelSomething]

I'm gonna take a wild guess and say that Galloglaich is a fan of the Human Weapon TV Series and the Commad and Colors Ancients boardgame!