One argument I have heard many, many times from people who don't like low fantasy, is that they don't want a boring game about some peasant who has fleas and dies of the plague anonymously at age 27. They want to be a hero, someone remarkable, someone who transcended the mundane. Most of all they don't want to be anything like reality, which for some of us is like the life of Dilbert. We don't want to play Dilbert in the Dungeon.
Well, if you prefer high fantasy that is ok, but as someone who enjoys history, I wanted to point out that there are rather quite a few remarkable real people from history who had adventures seldom matched in any Fantasy Novel, DnD game, or all the WoW games ever played, and they were a long way from Dilbert. In fact, many of the people on this list were IMOgreater warriors than Conan, wiser than King Arthur, and more ruthless and intrepid than Elric.
I wholeheartedly agree.
If someone from another world were to read stories of the real lives of some of the most unusual people from human history they would be forced to conclude that such tales were so fantastic as to be utterly unbelievable.
It is not the world in which outstanding men and women live, it is not magical powers, or bizarre cultures, it is that they carry within them an absolute fearlessness to be whatever they desire.
Few fictional characters will ever match real men and women for real greatness, or true heroism.
By the way, I like the historical approach you seem to be taking. I really do, since that is the method I favor, with my group gaming out of Constantinople circa 800 AD, as a milieu base of operations. I also like the emphasis on art and mythology - art, iconography, the Saints, historical personages and events, mythology, real world religion, cultures, etc. all playing a large role in my setting and the campaigns of my players (as far as our D&D game goes).
I have been unable to review every post in this thread, and so maybe I have missed something. And I look forward to reviewing this thread later in more detail.
One thing though that I was curious about.
The Codex Martialis, from what I can tell so far is seems a very interesting resource, and I think I'd probably enjoy reviewing it (along with some of your other links, like you postings on Durer), however, and I'm assuming you are playing D&D, or a modified semi-historical D&D hybrid like we do, but many, many combat situations in D&D, and in my game are not duel type situations, but are actually small team tactical engagements. Occasionally we even engage in large scale wargame skirmishes, say my player's (what today would be called Special Forces) Byzantine Team versus the Bulgars, the Vikings, the Goths, the Muslims, or the Persians.
I very much appreciate the ideas you are presenting, and I understand your purpose, but let me ask you a question, and I'm not in any way trying to bait you. But have you ever been in combat? (I do not mean fencing matches or personal duels, but in even small group combat situations?)
If you have then you know group combat, even small group endearments are a very different situation than personal duels. (I have nothing against personal duels. I have noticed however that they are rare in D&D.)
So, what I'm driving at is this, is your system applicable to non-personal, grouped combat situations? (Because in group combat people act differently than when they are engaged in personal combat, even personal combat duels to the death. Let me give an example. In a personal combat situation maneuver for positing is a very different situation that when maneuvering for position where you are potentially surrounded in close quarters with enemies flanking you as well as to the fore. A solid maneuver for repositioning in a duel would lead to exposure and quick death in close quarters group combat. That would be true if you are talking hand to hand weaponry, or engagement with more or less modern weaponry. As an instance of example, with hand to hand weapons in a duel one might miss and then face counter-attack, for which one could reasonably reset to receive a counter-thrust because your focus of attention is limited to a single opponent. In close quarters group combat a miss against your intended target might have multiple effects, it might go unnoticed by those around you, friend and foe, your miss might expose you to an unengaged enemy to your rear including a longbowman or crossbowman, your intended target miss might strike a nearby combatant, including an ally, it might smack into an unobserved obstacle and loosen your weapon from your grip or endanger your balance, it might draw the attention of an attacker who is seeking his next enemy to engage, you might charge - through the momentum of your miss - into another combatant you did not know was there until he was struck, and so forth and so on. Group combat is a very different procedure with very different effects and concerns from man-to-man, single issue duels.) I put up a thread of my own to deal with some of these general issues:
The Tactical Repertoire
(So I like your emphasis on realism in combat. And I'm going to be writing an essay on
Real World Historical Elements in the development of Milieu and Adventure Design.)
I know in D&D it is basically turn based really, with it seeming to break down group combat into a series of, generally speaking, man-to man encounters, with one party acting, then the other reacting, and so forth and so on, so game combat presents the tactical engagement illusion that this (a man-to-man duel) is what group combat is really like. But I'm just curious, is your system designed for the duel primarily, or for small teams combat, large scale combat, or does it, for lack of a better game and analogical term in comparison to real life, "scale differently according to circumstance?" Does it model group combat as group combat really is, or as closely as game mechanics may allow for such realities?
If so this would be of real interest to me as a simulation tool.
If it is just based upon the combat paradigm of the man-to-man duel then that is fine too, I'd probably still be interested in trying to understand how your system works. But if it really did simulate actual group combat situations better than the current system (I know it is only a game and made for the ease of most players, it is not in any real way designed to simulate actual combat aspects, or to in any way mimic the maneuvers or activities of a real battlespace) then I'd be interested in seeing that kind of thing.
Anyway I enjoyed the thread, what I've been able to review thus far, and I appreciate the angle you have taken in regards to history. I hope your product has taken into consideration combat potentialities in and around the Eastern Roman Empire, as well as Western Europe and Japan. If not I hope you will consider investigating that aspect of world combat as well.
In any case this is a very good thread.
I've enjoyed it so far, and wouldn't mind seeing more like it.
Good luck and Godspeed with your project.
I've got to hit the sack.
