Thoughts On A Fencing Mechanic

[Vulpinoid]

But when one of them had little or no skill, or threw their skill out of the windo because fo fear they would not be playing by the same technical rules and would often just steam in and charge at their oppoenent and run them threw and do serious damage.

I've actually seen this at work, sort of.

I have a good friend who used to participate in formal fencing tournaments. Once a tournament, he'd hold his blade to one side and rush headlong at his opponent, screaming a battlecry. Almost invariably, his opponent would often step back, off the mat, and forfeit the point. He'd never do this more than once per tournament, and he'd only do it on people he hadn't fenced before.

He wasn't breaking the rules, he was just using a different tactical skill to gain an edge.

I saw the same type of thing happen at a kenjutsu tournament, and the swordsman performing the screaming run was cut down quickly. Their intended victim was expecting some kind of intimidation tactic (as these are common among certain kenjutsu schools) and was prepared.

V

[Hereward The Wake]

And if I ain't misinterpreting your post, the same can apply to fencing. Especially in the sense of the Italian style, which is one of the reasons I've gotten more into the Spanish theory because it's a little more based on actual combat than sport swordsmanship.

Well you might be.. .hehe Hope was writing about the transitional school mainly now French in the 1700s, Silver was wrting in the late 1500s. None of these systems calimed to be abything but for real combat. Silver was a little more supportive of the Spanish school, but not much he still felt it was flawed. The problem was not whether something was for killing but in what situation and how. restrictive styles and expectations of whatan oppoenet would do would get you killed was what these guys and others were arguing against, and were equally opposed by the opposite methods

So I'm hoping that in my game, skills will take effect when an opponent over-extends themselves and a skilled swordsman can leverage advantage from that. Against an untrained and desperate opponent who goes hell-for-leather, those opportunites will come up more frequently (but failing to act on them successfully could have a lethal result), while against another trained fencer those situations will be less common.

But this was the problem, a less skilful fencer might over extend themselves but one with no skill probably wouldn't, they would charge in and get inside your defence  beacue they weren't fencing, that was the problem. Equally someone who fought with a style using cut and thrust would cause problems if they were using a small sword, say, because the associated rules and techniques of the fencer would not have a solution. Remember that rapier and smallswowrd fencing was basically a formalised way of fighting for a certain class in a certain context, duelling, it was not designed a self defence or battle field combat. Thats not to say that they were blended by individuals or schools, my Hope example is a well known fencer making a street fighting style for the smallsword, by throwing out most of the accepted fencing of the time.

But again, that'll have to be addressed with the skill system that's in too early a draft to post or test, mostly for the reason that I want the core rules a bit more polished before expanding.

Understood

I have a pretty neat damage/injury system that I've used in another game I wrote years ago, and with minimal tweaking it should transplant straight into this game, so every duel will be quite potentially risky.

Sounds interesting, I'm always interested in "realistic" injury systems to go along with "realistic" combat, somthing I'm always looking at myself.
Best
JW

[Gurnard]

Sorry I haven't posted back in a few days, I've been a bit busy at work and a little stuck on what extra options/techniques to write into the base rules (as things every swordsman can do) and what to make selected 'skills' of.

Hereward, I'll post a full version of my damage mechanic later, but the essence of it is using damage type and location as integral, rather than a tacked-on part of the rules that is often ignored for simplicity's sake in many games.

It works on a single damage chart with Type (piercing/cutting/impact) as one axis and Location (head/upper-torso/lower-torso/limb) on the other. In each cross-referenced cell is a little table that tells the result of the number of the damage roll. And the scaling of numbers to tangible results is different between damage types. For instance, a puncture to the upper torso of 10 or more would be instant death, while an impact to the upper torso would need 21 or more to kill instantly (because you'd have to completely crush the rib cage into the heart and lungs) and 15-20 to do serious injury. Heavy mass-based weapons like a warhammer do a lot more damage numerically, but sharp weapons with smaller numbers roll on a juicier table.

The reason for the different number scaling is because most armour doesn't necessarily deflect kinetic energy, but disperses it over a larger area, so something like chainmail would have the effect of changing piercing damage to impact, and suddenly that potentially-lethal D10 sword is now going to bruise or break a rib at most (with little gameplay effect). But that level of detail is still just with one die roll on the same one table.

You might have noticed by now that packing lots of realism into a very simple rule system is my whole design philosophy.

Sorry this post has been a bit of a diversion, but I'll be back soon when I make another breakthrough on the footwork/swordwork skill/technique dilemna.