Wednesday Evening Pizza Megadungeon (old school D&D)

[rawlkeer]

I have never heard of Warlock Rules, not that's saying much but it would be neat to see. I enjoy looking at things from the beginnings of the game. I would love to go back to RC but it won't happen for another year or two at least.

[Green Eyed Monster]

On 12/12/2019 at 7:55 PM, rawlkeer said:

I have never heard of Warlock Rules, not that's saying much but it would be neat to see. I enjoy looking at things from the beginnings of the game. I would love to go back to RC but it won't happen for another year or two at least.

The group I played with in college [70s] , like most groups at the time used "house rules" where you used pick and choose to build a game agreeable to the group as a whole.

We used the Warlock Magic system, which was points and level based, and a Combat System with weapons and armour based on "actual experience" in SCA Combat and with specially constructed rattan weapons built for research purposes to more closely simulate an actual weapon.  We went so far as to experimenting with mace and chain [what some people call a morning star] where I built usable weapons based on a knotted length of rope with hose between the knots to simulate chain and a tennis ball with rubber knobbly bits attached to represent the head, attached to a rattan handle.

We found out that these things don't work the way Hollywood always tries to depict them but, correctly used, you could smash the hand holding a shield, or hit somebody on a part of the body behind a shield once you learned how to place the handle so the chain would wrap around the edge.  These were never legal for actual SCA Combat but gave us a great deal of insight into what is possible , and how much more dangerous, certain period weapons could be if used to their full potential.

In the area of armour, we found that a fighter in good physical condition and in properly fitting armour is quite agile in anything up to full field plate, which is the maximum practical for adventuring.  The same holds true for every other character class and the normal armour worn.  The weight of armour is distributed over the body in such a way that it only forms an actual impediment to top running speed and stamina.  There is some reduction in fine motor control but you generally aren't interested in being able to play piano or violin or do needlepoint while in full battle kit.

Note the emphasis on Properly Fitting Armour.  If armour doesn't fit well it can provide an impediment to mobility.  If it's correctly fitted, the joints work the way the bodies joints work and move smoothly, while giving a lot of protection to the body within.

A lot of times I would come out of a melee with certain pieces of armour, especially the long cuffs on my gauntlets, flatter than when I went in from having deflected glancing blows that I never even felt.  A couple of minutes work reshaping things by hand and everything would be ready for the next battle.

GEM

GEM

[rawlkeer]

wow, that sounds like a lot of intensive practice! I guess there really isn't a "perfect" system for role playing, and you always have to sacrifice varying degrees of accuracy and realism to make a game playable. Mentioning Hollywood, I have seen the Crossed Swords do a couple demos at dragoncon and they talked a bit about hollywood and movie "fighting". The way they did it was really funny and eye-opening, for me at least