Life, the Universe, and Everything (con)

[Jake Norwood]

This weekend at BYU (my local University) there's a Sci-fi/Fantasy Symposium. It's where I ran the second-ever demo of TROS last year with great success. Anyway, our own Seth (Ashren Ha'Vale) is running a demo there in the open game room this year (yay Seth). In addition, I will be on the "sword expert panel" for a Q&A session at noon. If you're in town, then please come. I'll update y'all here, too.

Jake

[Jake Norwood]

Hey Seth-

Could you give us a re-cap of both the demo and the panel? Thanks...

Jake

[Ashren Va'Hale]

ask and you shall recieve:

The demo- this was brutal, since I knew a few guys would be there from last year with some characters already made I rolled up some premade guys with sa's and all. Turns out that I didnt really need them as everyone already had characters who showed up, so I ran a good little one shot that was a bit heavy on combat. It was rather amusing really as a few guys learned right quick that thinking is best before acting, the most experienced TROS player was actually the first to get wacked as he attempted to charge a crossbowman straight on from 15 yards, even an unaimed shot from a crossbow against an unarmored guy is downright lethal and well, first blood went to the bad guys.
Then we had some messy red red situations in which one PC got stabbed in the head three times with a rondel before finally kicking the bucket while another pc lost the upper half of his skull. Even mooks can be lethal in a red red situation when the pc only has luck as an SA that applies.

brutality was the aim, granted I assumed the pc's, being experienced, wouldnt be the first to fall.
To make up for this I decided to use the extra premade characters as misc. baddies to be played by the poor players who had their characters slaughtered. Thus when we had the baddies fight the pc's they were controlled by former PC's. This made things very entertaining for all of us and made my job easier. Laziness is as much the mother of invention as necessity I tell you.

As a funny side note there was one player who used the growth vagary to shrink himself down to 6 inches and escape through the prison bars he was trapped behind (entirely unneccesary it turns out since his door was unlocked..... but he didnt bother to check... I digress). Now he didnt ration his pool well and ran out of dice so he was stuck at 6 inches for the rest of the game. What worked well was the way I use growth effects size not mass, so basically his density increased dramatically, although 6 inches tall he was still quite heavy, so the strong character picks him up and uses him a shotput and beans a guard with him. Brutal damage with a st of 8 behind the little guy. the little guy then took advantage of his size to ditch his buddies and make a get away.

Anyhow, it was bloody and it was lethal and dang entertaining- classic TROS.

As a lesson to those who like to play games with big groups, it is very usefull to have a buddy who knows the combat system to help you run mass melees that way it goes fast and there is little dead time for anyone.

Now the seminar/panel was quite entertaining, the humble Mr. Norwood gave an entertaining recap of the basic uses of swords on armor and their parrelel development which was supplemented by several other individuals including an armor afficianado and an historical reinactor. Having a very limited knowlege of most of the subjects with the exception of some basic long-sword greatsword stuff I found it quite usefull. In TROS terms I begun to figure that I should alter some of my descriptions in sword on plate combat. Beyonde halfsword combat I got the impression that cutting plate was right up with me dating a supermodel on the impossibility scale thus I am considering reworking the damage inflicted by swords on plate as bashing not cutting even for very high level wounds. I imagine that bending plate all out of shape would be more probable than cleaving it based on what Jake and the other panelists mentioned.
The versatility of the buckler and the cutting ablity of curved weapons also fascinated me and I was wondering if the buckler DTN on the first print might be a bit high considering how widely used it appears to have been. Any thoughts Jake?
Finally, the discussion of chemically enhanced vikings and celts (AKA drunk/stoned) was particularly interesting. The berzerker and woad raiders seemed an interesting bit of flavor that would make an excellent adaptation for TROS if anyone is playing in or around stahl/mainlund.

Also, I left before the missile and siege panel began, did you cathc that jake? And I was wondering what mechanics you would use for woad using celts riding drunk oxen? I have to throw that at my players next game!

Well, I believe this is longer than you probably wanted, so I will end here and elaborate upon request.

[Jake Norwood]

Also, I left before the missile and siege panel began, did you cathc that jake? And I was wondering what mechanics you would use for woad using celts riding drunk oxen? I have to throw that at my players next game!

Weeellll...

I didn't, because I thought it was going to be crap, to tell you the truth. The Woad stuff, while very entertaining, reeked of 3rd-hand mostly made-up knowledge. Great material for an RPG? Yes. Likely source of said material...an RPG.

The panel was fun, though, and I'm glad that I was there.

Jake

[Ashren Va'Hale]

that was my opinion as well about that... although I have heard from several sources that it was quite like lsd in many effects.

btw, dave went to the swordsmanship panel and said it was crap in panel form. it seems that most european swords were misidentified (bastard sword called an arming sword etc...) appearantly it was rather painfully bad. the misconception on the greatsword being very heavy and used like a club was perpetuated yet further and the same thing goes for the story about western M. Arts being vastly under developed compared to eastern arts and that it was primarily swinging wildly and slugging it out not technique.

BTW also, what was that bit about soaking their hair in pitch and lighting their beards on fire? THAT sounded like crap, not being an expert in medieval warfare, I am quite the pyro and I know that fire burns UP and beards are below things called noses and eyes which are not very fire resistant.... any thoughts jake? Am I missing something or was that panelist pulling that info from a place best not mentioned in public?

[Jake Norwood]

Swordsmanship panel? How did I not end up on that? Oh well...

Yeah, the fire thing is obviously crap. The thing is that some people like to make up stories and others like to believe and propogate them. Panelist #3 was one of them.

Jake

[Ashren Va'Hale]

wizards first rule: people are stupid. Thus they will believe a lie, either because they are afraid it might be true or wish it were true.

Oh the  things terry goodkinds wizards rules can be applied to.

[RN3G8 4E]

Was good to see you guys there Jake! Was sorry to see that it looked like the other guy was doing most of the talking... I was able to be in there for only a little because there were several panels I wanted to listen in on that hour...  I just wished I could have stayed longer for Riddle of Steel demo but I was doing a panel early the next morning... :(

That woad/drunk oxen thing sounded... dubious, but funny as hell. Hair-on-fire, naked Scots, drunk AND high, riding down on you on massive cattle. Hmmm... Doesn't sound very realistic.

Of course truth is always stranger than fiction (cuz fiction has to be believable) but I'd like to give my ancestors the benefit of the doubt here.