What a medieval battle looked like. (ie: Too much DR, must grapple to coup de grace)

[Unbutu]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hlIUrd7d1Q


Just wanted to share.


Do you know a gaming system that represent well those battles?

[kane280484]

Yeah, but it's Polish system so no use for you. Hard to imagine more boring combat then realistic one though ;)

[Unbutu]

I imagine ! I was not necessarly going to play it, just curious. Greyhoundgames told me the battles in Castles and crusades are very lethal, I don't know if it's that type of lethal (all or nothing)

[Trenloe]

Do you know a gaming system that represent well those battles?
The systems that I know about: Basic Role Playing (BRP) by Chaosium does this pretty well if you use hit locations and a couple of the other optional combat rules (fully detailed and integrated into the rules in the combat chapter of the rulebook) - essentially use BRP so that it resembles the older RuneQuest rules for combat (which BRP spawned from). GURPS would also do this pretty well.

EDIT: Level based systems don't give a great amount of realism (this has been discussed numerous times elsewhere), but give a playable system that encapsulates defensive experience and skills in the form of a steadily increasing hit-points (or similar) statistic.

BRP and GURPS can increase your "health" slightly (due to physical training mostly and magic), but as you get more experienced you have a greater chance of parrying or dodging blows, and/or if you're heavily armoured you can absorb a lot (if not all) of the damage of a blow. But, if a blow does get through (critical or special attack results can do this) then it's going to hurt - perhaps take a limb out of action, or (if it's a vital location) put the person completely out of action.

The main thing with these types of systems is that with skilled characters attacking each other the combats can last a long time - with a successful attack being successfully dodged/parried, and so on. Which, can be realistic - think of the long lasting sword fights between skilled swordsmen. But, it often doesn't make for a good cinematic RPG combat. It all depends what you're looking for in your RPG system.

[hawkwind]

I ddi a fair bit of combat re-enactment in my younger years, enough to know that a shield is a lot more useful than plus one to your armour class and and while runequest gets the a feel of combat right attack and parry, the maths is all wrong. Physical fitness and general endurance play all most as much importance as skill and team work trumps both. You can be the best swords man in the world with the best kit but 10 peasants working as a team will bring down. If you want an rpg that nods towards realism try Warhammer second edition or perhaps Rolemaster

[seycyrus]

In real life, one person versus multiples is a big disadvantage. GURPS portrays this well.

[dr_venture]

The main thing with these types of systems is that with skilled characters attacking each other the combats can last a long time - with a successful attack being successfully dodged/parried, and so on. Which, can be realistic - think of the long lasting sword fights between skilled swordsmen. But, it often doesn't make for a good cinematic RPG combat. It all depends what you're looking for in your RPG system.

Very well said. I really agonized about the whole realism thing for years as a younger gamer, to the point of constantly working on a hybrid system that combined all of the bits of games that I liked the most. In the end, after I really crunched out stuff that I liked, it was either more convoluted to play (i.e., less fun), or *seemed* more "realistic" until I was honest with myself and admitted that I was just making different tradeoffs to simulate reality that made more sense at the time, but in fact were no more defensible as "realistic" than just about any other RPG. Also, the closer I got to what I considered realism, the closer I got to a game such as Tren just described: a system where higher level combatants just swung at each other for long periods without connecting... which turned out to be rather boring to me.

In the end, I had to admit that a friend of mine, who had been advocating that his loooong running AD&D1e game was realistic enough for him, in that he just enjoyed it and didn't have to re-purchase or re-learn a new game system over the years, well, that he had been right all along: the best game system is the one that brings you the most happiness and satisfaction to play, no matter how (un)realistic.


Greyhoundgames told me the battles in Castles and crusades are very lethal

Huh... I guess? I don't really think C&C is a lot more lethal than other games, such as AD&D1e, 2e, etc. etc. There isn't as much rampant healing and "second winds" and surges and such like the newer versions of D&D, so it just requires a more conservative approach to playing. I think Rolemaster was faaar more lethal that any of those. I ran it back in the day, and my AD&D1e pals used to laugh at how many characters they had gone through and how graphically they had been dismembered, disemboweled, and otherwise dispatched. With some careful playing & teamwork, C&C is highly survivable -- in my approx 2 year campaign in FG, there have been several very close calls, but only one character death, and that, ironically, was due to the fact that I use a modified version of Rolemaster criticals in my game, and the poor sap just got whacked in the heart, instakill-style.

But I'm not a GM looking for excuses to slay characters... so it likely comes down more to GM style than anything.

[Tiqon]

It's a rally interesting video. thought if you have just a bit of interest in medieval combat, most of this is not new.

I saw the video earlier and actually thought to my self "If this was 20 years ago I would have dived into making rule changes, but now I just want to play.".

I think I have been, and still is, in the same boat as dr_venture. What you wrote describe very nicely how it's like for me too. When I was young, realism meant a lot. Now I just want to get that cinematic feeling you get from film, books and videogames. The players are the heroes after all. If a round of combat takes too long, attention from the players begins to disappear. I normally play Rolemaster, but tried Savage world once a few weeks ago. Savage world had that "Lets just play and be heroes!" feel I have been looking for. Now to convert my players... that is a battle I'm not sure I'm up to just yet. Also, I love Rolemaster :).