Man in the Funny Hat
Hero
Most of the terminology in the poll needs explanation or definition.
This isn't any harder for this genre than it was for general fantasy.The negative, perhaps obviously, are the racism and misogyny that pervaded the genre in the 1930s through the 1980s. These need to be ass-kicked into touch and replaced with positive role models of ethnicity, sexuality, gender, ability and more.
Yeah, the poll options are a bit fuzzy. What I would look to see are more broad genre types, like the office comedy of Acquisitions Incorporated, the Magipunk of Ravnica, 20's pulp of Eberron, Greek Myth of Theros, or Horror of Ravenloft. So maybe something like the Surrealist fantasy of Silverlock or Through the Lookong Glass, the talking animal fantasy of Redwall or Narnia, honest to goodness fairy tale material, and such like.Most of the terminology in the poll needs explanation or definition.
Fair point. The one area of Sword & Sorcery that might require a deeper clean than more general fantasy is perhaps the legacy of the 1930s influencers (Howard and Lovecraft in particular) who were pretty racist and misogynist. Maybe it says more about the era than the genre?This isn't any harder for this genre than it was for general fantasy.
The mythos that formed the core of modern fantasy were as xenophobic as it comes (and it is quite hard to argue that Tolkein isn't thinking of things from a racial essentialism angle, either).Fair point. The one area of Sword & Sorcery that might require a deeper clean than more general fantasy is perhaps the legacy of the 1930s influencers (Howard and Lovecraft in particular) who were pretty racist and misogynist. Maybe it says more about the era than the genre?
1) No armor to speak of.
2) Daring combat maneuvers.
3) Positioning meaning much more.
4) Different fighting styles that represent entire schools of thought rather than a simple +2 to damage rolls.
5) Low-tier Firearms that are fun and engaging.
6) More ship-combat options.
7) LOTS of Social Mechanics so your character can be super witty and offer remarks as cutting as their sword, and so your reputation has a tangible weight on the narrative.
8) Lots of Physical Maneuverability and Environmental interactions. Chandeliers for swinging -and- dropping on your enemy's head.
9) Did I mention ship-combat? Not just -on- a ship with 3d movement up into the rigging or over the railing of the forecastle, but also ship-to-ship.
10) Environmental Combat Effects. The heroes are fighting single opponents in deadly battles while surrounded by a chaotic barfight which they sometimes interact with.
11) Mechanics for daring escapes that just straight up end the possibility of a chase sequence, like cutting a bell-tower rope you're holding onto in order to get yanked up safely to the tower-peak while the bell destroys the stairwell.
Just so much more...
I think the most important one is really that heavy armour being best needs to take a long walk off a short pier. You'll also need some narrative stuff to avoid things turning into a farce - i.e. fate points or whatever to allow PCs to lightly assert fiction, or at least do stuff like give rolls minimum values and the like. And some sort of system to encourage, rather than discourage, stunts and so on in combat. Right now, the fewer risks you take, the better. That's like, the opposite of swashbuckling.
Whilst I think you may be treating some of the other issues a little lightly (Inspiration doesn't cut it, I speak from experience, you need something sturdier, and I think better social guidelines), this is absolutely spot-on and often overlooked!In my eyes, the greatest difficulty against evoking a swashbuckling feel, relates to the ability scores themselves.
I have for very many years found it frustrating to split up all of the athletic stunts − mobility, running, jumping, falling, tumbling, climbing, balancing, etcetera − into two separate ability scores, both Strength and Dexterity. This BAD-ness of needing to invest in Both-Abilities-Dependencies, and its corresponding opportunity cost, undermines and erodes the feel of a stunt-action campaign.
I think that is actually the right solution. What you're suggesting just makes STR into DEX, and I thinks it's both more justifiable by the fiction (as many things which require strength also require dexterity - very little Athletics or Acrobatics does genuinely only requires one or the other. I do think the "Treat it like a Finesse weapon" strategy is best - as you say, go with Athletics, and use STR or DEX, whichever is higher, and treat them as intermingled to some extent.I get it, some will suggest, just have one skill called, Athletics, and sometimes one uses Strength for it, and sometimes one uses Dexterity for it. However, in this case, I precisely view this BAD-ness as the problem that needs fixing in the first place.