Manoeuver Declarations during Combat

[Valamir]

Ingenious.  I have already addressed everything you just said in the post directly above yours.  The underestimating of your foe comes in because you don't know how many dice your foe has.

The underestimating of an attack comes in when you figure X dice will be enough to block his attack, but he rolls well and you roll poorly and your defense turns out to be inadequate.

[Jake Norwood]

Re: Brute force in the "dark ages"

There is absolutely no evidence prior to the victorian era that the dark ages were lacking in highly developed "sciences" of fighting, but there is considerable evidence to the contrary. The idea of two fully armored men slugging away at one another is completely fictional, and has been since the victorians and their romantic 18th century predecessors came up with the idea.

In addition to actual physcial evidence supporting the idea of well-thought out systems of what could be called scientific approaches to combat throughout the last 3,000 years without break, there's an issue of basic logical argument. It is absurd to assume that a continent that exhibited sophisticated forms of combat from the early greek period through the late roman period suddenly gave them up only to mystically re-discover them in 1296 AD. 800 years of not knowing the best way to kill a man with the tools that technology allowed, sandwiched between 2 of the most sophisticated? Impossible and unfounded.

What I'm saying is that a medieval melee did not have more to do with brute force, and that idea is entirely a product of poorly educated authors from the last 300 years. Was strength an issue? Absolutely, it always has been in physcial hand-to-hand combat. But not more so than now (in fact, weapons are equilizers. The modern UFC fighter relies on much more brute force than evidence would propose that our western ancestors did).


On a more productive note, the real issue here (I think) is whether or not the current declare-and-roll method is sound from both a playability perspective and a simulation of source material approach. I say that it is, and while I would present the ideas differently, I agree with the bulk of Valamir's points and responses.

Jake

[Ian.Plumb]

Hi,

For me, this is incorrect. The reason it is incorrect is because we're talking about different things.

An RPG combat system caters for all combat that takes place within the gaming framework. TRoS combat looks like it is designed to cater for combat between warriors. Based on this premise, what you've said here is correct to some degree (I'd still argue that combat between heavily armoured warriors has a larger degree of Brute Force involved in its resolution than than that of a rennaisance duel).

Is that the bulk of combat that takes place within the gaming environment though? I would argue that combat between those of military training is rarer than that between those without. And combat between those without seldom results in a death.

Perhaps TRoS will model the scenes of a bourgeois uprising, or a tavern brawl, or any other non-military combat. I look forward to seeing it in action.

It doesn't matter.  You are really predicting a problem that doesn't exist.  Its a rule that adds nothing to the outcome of the combat.  A rule that does nothing is not a very good rule.

I'm not suggesting these issues would be resolved by introducing secret rolls. At least twice now I've said that TRoS doesn't need secret rolls -- that they would undermine the design of the mechanics. Various sub-threads have moved on to discus broader TRoS mechanics issues.

1) Completely untrained peon with a CP of 4 goes up against a knight with a CP12.

To make this relevant to what I'm talking about, how does TRoS model the CP12 knight being overrun by six CP4 mallots? Does it do so with the same feeling of authenticity as it handles the duel?

2) Lets have 2 peons square off against each other.  Both have CP 4.  At this low a level they don't have any real access to maneuvers, and any player skill is going to be minimal because there simply aren't that many choices on what to throw...

Does TRoS model this combat with as much authenticity as it does the combat of the highly trained? Or does the lack of manoeuvres, the increased chance of fumbling, and the rarity of successes make it more slapstick than realistic? I don't know -- and I look forward to finding out.

Cheers,

[Ian.Plumb]

Hi,

Ingenious.  I have already addressed everything you just said in the post directly above yours.  The underestimating of your foe comes in because you don't know how many dice your foe has.

The underestimating of an attack comes in when you figure X dice will be enough to block his attack, but he rolls well and you roll poorly and your defense turns out to be inadequate.

Absolutely right. It is the result that indicates underestimation, as by definition with the rolls you made you needed more dice to get the job done.

Cheers,

[Jake Norwood]

...how does TRoS model the CP12 knight being overrun by six CP4 mallots? Does it do so with the same feeling of authenticity as it handles the duel?

Very, very well, I believe. This aspect of combat was very carefully playtested. With or without terrain rolls, it mirrors those experiences that I have seen, read about, and informally tried. Is there a specific break-point that you're worried about?

Does TRoS model this combat with as much authenticity as it does the combat of the highly trained? Or does the lack of manoeuvres, the increased chance of fumbling, and the rarity of successes make it more slapstick than realistic? I don't know -- and I look forward to finding out.

Well, first I'd like to say that two untrained fighters either ends up bloody as hell or slapstick. The blood comes in with charged emotions, which is when unskilled people are most likely to attack one another. The presense of such emotional energy is modeled via SAs in TROS. If a fight lacks these SA modifiers, then it is likely to be a rather clusmy affair--as is my experience in 3 years of teaching new folks how to fence and fight.

The core maneuvers--cut, thrust, parry--are available to all, thus a fight can still take place rather cleanly. Many players only use these manevuers as it is. Also, according to historical records, such fights usually ended up with both fighters tossing their weapons away to resort to bare hands--something that they're both more comfortable with (I would imagine, realistically, that every boy in the middle ages had enough experience in wrestling and fist-fighting to have a clue of what's going on. The sources support as much, but it's hardly conclusive).

Also, the chance of fumbling decreases with fewer dice--a quirk of the probability curves in TROS that I actually like. What this kind of fight will produce is people that hit each other a few times until one has a depleted CP and can be finished off without resitance, gaining a killing blow. This, too, matches what I know about unskilled people trying to kill each other hand-to-hand. Is there something specific here that concerns you where actual play is concerned?

Jake

[Ian.Plumb]

Hi,

What I'm saying is that a medieval melee did not have more to do with brute force, and that idea is entirely a product of poorly educated authors from the last 300 years. Was strength an issue? Absolutely, it always has been in physcial hand-to-hand combat.

Ah, so that's what the problem is! BF&I, for me, isn't the same as brute force and ignorance. I apologise for using a term that obviously has no specific vernacular connotation outside our area. BF&I -- the way we use it -- means physical strength.

I am intrigued though by what you're saying -- the thought that a rennaisance duelist requires as much strength when facing an unarmoured opponent as a medieval warrior requires facing an armoured opponent. That seems counter-intuitive, though I'm content to accept the research.

Cheers,

[Valamir]

1) Completely untrained peon with a CP of 4 goes up against a knight with a CP12.

To make this relevant to what I'm talking about, how does TRoS model the CP12 knight being overrun by six CP4 mallots? Does it do so with the same feeling of authenticity as it handles the duel?

I think so yes.  The knight is in a bit of trouble.  Base rule is he'd wind up splitting his pool of 12 against 6 opponents which if he tried to take them all on at once would be 4 dice to 2.  Pretty likely to get killed.

Instead he'd be advised to use Terrain Rules to maneuver.  This works by sacrificing dice out his CP for a roll that gives him the privelege of only fighting some of his attackers.  Not having the book handy I can't remember what the difficulty would be, but the knight would give up say 4 dice to face two opponents.  The other 4 opponents are considered to have been maneuvered out of position to attack that round.  This leaves the knight with 8 CP which makes it 4dice to 4 dice.  Still pretty risky.

2) Lets have 2 peons square off against each other.  Both have CP 4.  At this low a level they don't have any real access to maneuvers, and any player skill is going to be minimal because there simply aren't that many choices on what to throw...

Does TRoS model this combat with as much authenticity as it does the combat of the highly trained? Or does the lack of manoeuvres, the increased chance of fumbling, and the rarity of successes make it more slapstick than realistic? I don't know -- and I look forward to finding out.

Cheers,[/quote]

Its not slapstick.  Its just more limited in options.  You still have red and white dice to throw.  The attacker selects the number of dice to roll, the defender rolls.  Its just like normal.  With so few dice it hard to get very many successes in an attack, but its unlikely that the opponent will have any armor, so damage should still be felt.

I should point out though that 4CP is pretty extremely bad.  This is a below average reflex with absolutely 0 proficiency.  This sort of individual would be more likely to run than fight.

[Ian.Plumb]

Hi,

...how does TRoS model the CP12 knight being overrun by six CP4 mallots? Does it do so with the same feeling of authenticity as it handles the duel?

Very, very well, I believe. This aspect of combat was very carefully playtested. With or without terrain rolls, it mirrors those experiences that I have seen, read about, and informally tried. Is there a specific break-point that you're worried about?

Excellent! I look forward to seeing this in action. Outnumbering modifiers are the bane of many systems.

There is a specific scene in our material wherein this area of the system will be critical. In Lyon in the 14th century many "gates" were simply archways or places where the building had been built over the top of the roadway. There was no physical gate by that time, though there may have been in earlier times. During civil unrest chains were hung across the road and soldiers posted to the chains. Not many soldiers as there were few within the city. As such there was little barrier there, in a military sense. Instead, the barrier was psychological -- all knew that it was a significant crime to cross the chains when they were in place.

It will be fun to see how the scene pans out.

Does TRoS model this combat with as much authenticity as it does the combat of the highly trained? Or does the lack of manoeuvres, the increased chance of fumbling, and the rarity of successes make it more slapstick than realistic? I don't know -- and I look forward to finding out.

Also, according to historical records, such fights usually ended up with both fighters tossing their weapons away to resort to bare hands...

Absolutely. In Lyon's case it was a serious crime to draw steel in a fight and if someone died then the combatants were tried for murder, regardless of the circumstances (that is, self defense or whatever).

I'm sure TRoS will model fisticuffs well. There are several posts that describe CPs of 20+ and so my concern was the handling of pools of 3 or 4.

Cheers,

[Jake Norwood]

Ian-

Ah, so that's what the problem is! BF&I, for me, isn't the same as brute force and ignorance. I apologise for using a term that obviously has no specific vernacular connotation outside our area. BF&I -- the way we use it -- means physical strength.

I am intrigued though by what you're saying -- the thought that a rennaisance duelist requires as much strength when facing an unarmoured opponent as a medieval warrior requires facing an armoured opponent. That seems counter-intuitive, though I'm content to accept the research.

Physical strength, then, is an important issue, even in the Ren period. George Silver in 1590 said that if two untrained men duel at the rapier, then the better wrestler will win. If they are equal wrestlers, then the stronger man will win. Strength was equally important in earlier periods, but I would hesitate to say more so.

Of course it requires a good degree of physical conditioning to wear and fight in armor, and that's an important issue, too, but the size of the medieval man and the armor he left behind testifies that they were hardly he-men. I'm probably as strong as most of them ever were, thanks to superior training methods.

It's also important here to come down to a better understanding of what eras we're discussing. "Medieval" ends when? "Renaissance" when? I would say that 1467 is still patently medieval when we get into fighting, but historians say the ren. period begins in 1400 in some circles. So is the longsword and full plate armor a medieval or renaissance convention? The armors of the dark ages were mostly mail variants (if you're talking metals), and would not have been as constricting (nor as heavy, likely) as the later full plate.

Additionally, the techniques used for fighting armored opponents of all ages center on skillful methods of overcoming their armor--never is the topic of overpowering seriously discussed, until Burton, Egerton, and Castle in the 1800s! I blame them--as respected as they are in the field--for much of what plagues modern conceptions of early combat today.

The idea of the "Renaissance Duelist" is also a relatively new convention. Dueling was illegal everywhere in the Renaissance, so what you really had were ruffians and street fighters. "Swashbucklers." These guys were real rough-and-tumble types, and the accounts we have on streetfights from that era confirm that they were'nt below trying to kill a man with the wooden heel of a shoe--certainly not elegant, even though this is the supposed hight of a fencer's science, when in some places (esp. Spain) geometry was allready being used in absurd quantities to explain the dynamics of fencing with both cutting and thrusting weapons.

One last thing. In the Codex Wallerstein, a German manual from 1549 or before that details longsword, langesmesser, dagger, and wrestling (not the rapier or cut-and-thrust normally associated with the renaissance, so we'll consider this "medieval," since the techniques shows are at least a few hundred years old), the author writes:

"You should also know that you should fight a weak opponent with strength and an equal opponent...with reach, and should let a strong opponent attack first and fight him with agility."

And

"Although a weak fighter in a serious combat can be equal to a strong oppoent, if he has previously learned agility, reach, battle techniques, and killing techniques, in a friendly combat strength has alwas the advantage."

In friendly combat strenght always wins. When it gets serious, science wins. Similar statements can be found as early as the 1300s, and they don't appear to be new ideas. I hope that helps clarify what I'm saying.

Jake

[Camillus]

I am intrigued though by what you're saying -- the thought that a rennaisance duelist requires as much strength when facing an unarmoured opponent as a medieval warrior requires facing an armoured opponent. That seems counter-intuitive, though I'm content to accept the research.

Ian,

Generally speaking most arts depend on the careful application of force in precise places to achieve their effect. The skill is in manouvering so that you can launch an attack that your opponent cannot dodge or intercept. They very rarely go for the force on force approach because that guarantees victory for the bigger, stronger fighter and generally favours tactics that in turn are open to exploitation by a more skilled opponent. The same is true whether one is fighting with a rapier or a warhammer (which, by the way, weigh about the same).

One other thing that might make you scratch your head even more is that some Western Martial Artists will argue that fighters using styles descended from those of the "brute force and ignorance" knight (such as George Silver and the English school) would despatch a rapier wielding fighter in short order.

Cheers

[Caz]

Maybe the discussion of strength would be better divided between military/civilian combt than medieval/ren. combat.
   I've always found the time divisions dark ages, middle ages/medieval, renaissance to be pretty ignorant, but pretty useful at the same time for generalization.  
   But back to the strength thing.  A good rapierist in 1590 wouldn't need the strength of a man at arms in 1450 (though it's always useful if you've got it).  What's the psi to run someone through with a rapier?  Negligable.  What's the psi to cut a man down with a military blade while he's wearing a jack?  The more the better.  Ever done free play with foiled rapiers?  If you train in medieval methods, you probably won't be able to break  a sweat.  Tried to flourysh for 5 minutes in complete armour?  It definitely takes a lot of training and exercise.  Soldiers require strength, for civilian warriors, it's just a plus.

[Ian.Plumb]

Hi,

I am intrigued though by what you're saying -- the thought that a rennaisance duelist requires as much strength when facing an unarmoured opponent as a medieval warrior requires facing an armoured opponent. That seems counter-intuitive, though I'm content to accept the research.

Generally speaking most arts depend on the careful application of force in precise places to achieve their effect. The skill is in manouvering so that you can launch an attack that your opponent cannot dodge or intercept. They very rarely go for the force on force approach because that guarantees victory for the bigger, stronger fighter and generally favours tactics that in turn are open to exploitation by a more skilled opponent...

I agree completely. I was thinking more in terms of it taking more strength to cause a wound through armour with a longsword than it does to cause a wound on an unarmoured opponent with a rapier, rather than using strength to deliver the blow per se.

Cheers,

[Ian.Plumb]

Hi,

Ah, so that's what the problem is! BF&I, for me, isn't the same as brute force and ignorance. I apologise for using a term that obviously has no specific vernacular connotation outside our area. BF&I -- the way we use it -- means physical strength.

I am intrigued though by what you're saying -- the thought that a rennaisance duelist requires as much strength when facing an unarmoured opponent as a medieval warrior requires facing an armoured opponent. That seems counter-intuitive, though I'm content to accept the research.

Physical strength, then, is an important issue, even in the Ren period. George Silver in 1590 said that if two untrained men duel at the rapier, then the better wrestler will win. If they are equal wrestlers, then the stronger man will win. Strength was equally important in earlier periods, but I would hesitate to say more so.

Fair enough -- I'm completely won over. Many thanks for the illuminating comments everybody.

Cheers,

[Jake Norwood]

Ian-

I was thinking more in terms of it taking more strength to cause a wound through armour with a longsword than it does to cause a wound on an unarmoured opponent with a rapier, rather than using strength to deliver the blow per se.

I'm glad you brought this up. While it does take more strength to injure with a cut than a thrust (and therefore a longsword than a rapier), this is currently worked into the DR of TROS weapons. The second issue is the idea of "causing damage through armor." TROS allows this sort of thing to happen with very strong characters, but I dare say that that's unrealistic! I think that injuring a man in armor with a longsword cut would be horrifically difficult. The sword would break before the armor would--or at least that's what the research is showing. This is one area that I chose to go with playability and more modern conceptions of things instead of what was really going on. In all honesty, it's largely because at the time I didn't know any better. I am glad, however, that much beyond a lvl 1 wound is uncommon in TROS AFAIK, which sounds about right to me. It's the anti-armor weapons that I'd worry about--picks, axes, polearms.

Jake

ps Ian- I hope it doesn't feel like we're picking on you; I know I'm not.

[Ian.Plumb]

Hi,

Ian- I hope it doesn't feel like we're picking on you; I know I'm not.

Tee Hee. No need for concern on that score.

While the majority of the exercise so far has been to gauge how people are applying TRoS in their campaigns, part of the exercise is to gauge who is using TRoS and why. Translating TRoS into the Lyon campaign environment is going to be challenging from a mechanics perspective (Char Gen changes and all that environment stuff), but the major concern is whether a player of TRoS wants to play in an authentic 14th century Lyonnais campaign.

In 14th century Lyon, walking around the city with a weapon or in armour is an aberation that requires justification. More importantly, the character wouldn't think to do it -- the city is a peaceful place where the rule of law is strong. Certainly craftsmen who use knives carry knives -- not for protection, but because they need to in order to perform their profession. Murder is uncommon; shocking when it occurrs. While I think TRoS is going to work beautifully in our environment, is it the sort of environment that a TRoS player wants?

It is all very interesting and a little exciting!

Cheers,