Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="ledded" data-source="post: 1360879" data-attributes="member: 12744">Ok, first of all, I'd really like to say for the record that I'd really, really rather not see those words in the same sentence again... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> Seriously, though, I understand the dual nature of what people want in a gun book. Most gamers want a nice statblock, a good, brief description with a little background and a picture. Many others would like a longer history and stats for multiple systems. A good many folks want something in the middle. It's very hard to fit all of those in any one sourcebook; brevity does tend to breed errors at times, while having way too much info on individual weapons can make it hard to use the book.  Personally, I like it all, and I've got UMF, many of Dana's books, and a couple others I've found out there. I mix-and-match what I like, and take the more learned opinion where I find differences. But I like things to be fairly accurate and balanced, and not everyone is that worried about it; I also enjoy reading a lot of the history even if it doesnt have a huge game effect for the other guys in my group, and I try not to bore them with the super-nitty-gritty. I also understand Dana's frustration at times; he is a very learned and experienced individual on the subject of military arms, and has a very notable devotion to the accurate portrayal of such. I have a similar but less learned bent towards 'archaic weapons', particularly european, asian, and middle eastern melee weapons from the 12th to 18th centuries, and I sometimes get very frustrated to see horrible and glaring inaccuracies in the presentation of a sword, mace, hammer, etc in a gaming product, mainly because a little research would put the person on the more accurate path in the first place (and sorry, re-watching Conan 17 times doesnt count <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> ). While I'm no expert, I've trained with several of these weapons, briefly experienced several more, read over 30 books on the subject, own a few real ones, and have corresponded and/or briefly trained with several of the arguably best guys on the various subjects around today. I just dont get as vocal, or as twisted up, as Dana; apparently his experience and passion for realism on this subject far exceeds mine <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />. While he does get a bit sour at times because of this, I personally can't fault him too much because he's helped me out a good bit in a lot of other areas, particularly in stuff that isnt published anywhere (such as good artillery info), and he's always been johnny-on-the-spot with answers to any questions I've put to him, which further reinforces my belief in his love of the subject.  Exactly my point. Most folks don't, so I try not to get too twisted up about it until I see people basing real-world assumptions off of horribly inaccurate information from their gaming material.  Though if they did want that treatise, they would first find out there's no such thing as a longsword <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

Verification