Joseph Paul

Wow, are you short stroking that 8' spear for some reason Atgxtg? With a 9' one I can get about 12' of throw using a left foot forward/right hand on the butt stance. Start the throw and step with the right foot forward and twist the body to keep things lined up.

Also through out this I have been confused about what situation people are presuming for the spearman. Sometimes it sounds like single combat and sometimes it sounds like a melee. If it is a melee and a spearman is forced to retreat by the vigourous charge of a swordsman the man on the spear guys left kills the swordsman by sticking him in his unshielded right side. Teamwork- it will kill you.

If it is single combat and the spearman has a problem retreating then he needs to use the haft to block the advance of the swordsman, preferably by shoving the haft hard against the shield and using the end to leverage under his swordarm and throw him. Failing that slash at the arm and control it with the haft. In desperation use the butt spike (if so equipped) to strike him in the face or chest.

Single combat spear and 1-handed spear vs sword and shield. Remember to smack the swordsman with your shield on his way in. Step out and regain the range.

Other things to do if you are a spearman. Train,train,train. Shoot for the non-shield side leg as that leg is brought forward. Stick the spear on the shield and screw with it. Learn how to punch the shield so that it moves, then strike where it is not. In melees concentrate on the guy 1-3 men to the let and right of the guy across from you. If one of them gets out of step snipe him.

I need to look at Silver's "Paradoxes of Defense" to see if he has anything to say about it.

Over all a good thread so far.

That turns out not to be quite as true as was once thought, though; look up "elastic cavity" (if I'm remembering the term correctly) if you want to see some discussion of this. Turns out that a lot of the cavitation is transient and doesn't mean as much as they thought.

That doesn't make your point entirely invalid, but I just wanted to note that ballistic gel is actually a bit deceptive here, as it doesn't show the difference between transient and permanent cavitation.

Particularly for pistols this is true. The temporary cavitation is formed by stretching the tissues of the body. With pistol ammo the forces are to low to turn a stretch into a tear or destruction of tissue as can happen with higher powered rifle ammo.

You know what Cthulu Rising reminded me of? Strange, but some of Andre Norton's stuff. Like the stories about scouting out new worlds. At any rate, something about it just looks right, and fun, as you say. Even with the Cthulu element.

Exploration could be very fun.

I suspect, however, that would be inadequate to satisfy Joseph.

But you don't have to satisfy me- you only have to satisfy enough people to keep Chaosium -and BRP- a going concern.

So Simlasa is detail always a bad thing? When does detail detract from the flavor? When is it stifling? If we have a fascist setting is it enough to say that it is a fascist setting? Is it to much to give details on how that society and government works? What should get detailed and what get glossed over and why?

As for fun what do you, personally, think the fun stuff is?

Well, the romans used their pilum for throwing so soften up their enemies from distance. After throwing the pilum, they draw the gladius and fought with it. (but I am sure they used the pilum from time to time in close combat too...)

Its interesting that the roman infantry as one of the most successful armies in history didnt use the spear or a lance. Instead they used gladius and spatha combined with shield as their main armament. (The cavallery and the cohors equitatae has been the exception to this. They used a medium spear - the hasta - in close combat from horseback)

The romans has been surely experts in fighting techniques (and tactics as well) so I think they knew why they did issue a sword and not a spear as main weapon to their legionaires.

Actually they did issue spears to the legions- in the time of the Republic. THe triarii, princepes, and hastati all had spears at various times. Why they quit in the time of the Empire would take some investigation.

Hey, I have a hundred posts and the door won't open for me! What's up?

Maybe what we need is a consensus about what a 'strong' setting is?

For me a strong setting is one that is detailed, well thought out, internally consistent, and that offers opportunities for adventure of both the legal and illegal kind.

It has to have scope too. Being confined to just one system in a SF game isn't my bag of tea although the Jovian Chronicles made a good stab at it.

If it is a Hard SF game then I want the stars to be right and for the technology to be at least plausible.

Thoughts?

Wiki, here I come!

Hi Soltakss! See ya there!

Once the Wiki is up and running, I think a page listing the various BRP-related acronyms and abbreviations etc we use could be helpful to the lay members and new converts. And indeed to an old fogey like me who didn't know what CDA was. ;-)

Seconded and would someone please tell me what CDA means?

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Well color me surprised! If it was actually for (the still dead) 2300AD and not T20 I might even give it a look.

Stefworthington wrote:

You're comment was regarding the setting, not the rules. The setting is still nearly identical.

My comment is in two parts: first surprise that it was being published and secondly the observation that for me personaly it isn’t worth it with T20 stats.

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Transhumanist ideals are not everything.

Stefworthington wrote:

i mentioned it because you implied we needed more and that there was a vaccum of such settings

I implied no such thing. I stated that with one setting effectively dead there should be no issues for a BRP product that was similar to it. I made no assertions about any abundance or dearth of hard SF settings.

.

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Interesting. It looks like Classic Traveller in that it wants to enable all manner of Sci-Fi tropes. I doubt its dedication to being Hard SF though.

Stefworthington wrote:

You've just contradicted yourself. Wants to 'enable all manner of sci-fi tropes'. How did you think that hard sci-fi might not be one of them?

‘Wants to’ is not the same thing as ‘succeeds at’. From what I can see of the rules it doesn’t support Hard SF all that well. I definitely get the feeling that it does not concern itself with the actual business of living and working in space. Further the rules are drawn from an iteration of the HERO system. They are much more concerned with game effects than actual science and engineering. Of course that impression comes from the lite version of the rules so I could be wrong which is why I stated that “I doubt its dedication” rather than flatly stating that it was not hard SF.

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This review completely pans High Frontiers. I don't get your point in adding it as if it is a bad hard SF game then there is room for a good hard SF game. Would that come with a cigarette to smoke after the session?

Stefworthington wrote:

I'm adding it as a 'hard sf' game. good or bad it illustrates my point that I laid out a couple of paragraphs above. I personally didint like transhuman space or high colonies and largely agree with the review. the point is, it's still an example of such a setting.

Well it would be germane if I had actually made any claim that there was a glut of Hard SF games which I did not. I figure it as a pretty weak argument against BRP doing a Hard SF setting. ‘Oh my! Some one else has already released a product that failed to meet the expectations of the Hard SF crowd. That means that we shouldn’t even try.’

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You mean the way that fantasy systems need a completely new Sword & Sorcery idea to be competitive? In actuality I do not see your point in condemning Hard SF as a background for a BRP Space setting. I certainly don't see that niche being exploited to the fullest it could be.

BTW RIngworld isn't going to happen. The license is locked up in the movie rights and that project isn't going anywhere.

Stefworthington wrote:

yes. they do. I wasn't condemning hard sf as a background (its the only SF I'll play) but if BRP is, as its guessed, to kick start Chaosiums rise back into fortune then I want them to get it right by having a setting that'll be unusual enough to last. Cthulhu is almost unique...thats why its lasted. If BRP was to have an SF setting then id prefer it to be hard sf. There are many examples of sf games that have bit the dust (cyberpunk).

Ringworld was a suggestion, not a call to arms. if I could wave a magic wand and have an unavailable lisence to use...it would be Blade Runner... or any of PKD's novels.

Well you have certainly come across as hostile and defeatist of BRP using a Hard SF setting since your earlier argument seems to be that since there already are Hard SF settings out there, some of which have failed, BRP needs to stay out of it and search for something ‘new’. As it is you have shown that Hard SF is a viable setting that people want to play. I would caution to beware of uniqueness. It cuts both ways; while it can be attractive it can also be a turn off for others by being too strange and new. Well written, detailed settings with strong story arcs are a better bet in my estimation.

My comment re Ringworld was a lament not a slam.

As a contributor to '2320AD' by QLI (I drew all the logos) I'd have to disagree.

http://www.travellerrpg.com/2320/

Also, there are a number of hard sci-fi games out there-

http://www.sjgames.com/transhuman/

http://www.lightspeed-rpg.com/

http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/reviews/rev_119.html

What BRP needs is a completely NEW sci-fi idea (or as new as you can get). Either something really different by someone talented or a new licence.. or an old one (Ringworld 2 anyone?)

If you ask whether I'm going to go to the trouble of searching for citation pointers, no I'm not.

Then I am afraid that I can't put much credence in your assertion if you are unwilling to support it with some sort of evidence.

And all of them fell progressively out of favor as use outside of horseback and formation fighting almost precisely as better choices of close in weapons became available.

Would you like to support that assertion? I would like to see examples of what you are talking about.

Most of the ones you see are in Asia, but there's remnents of it in a lot of the more utility-oriented blade forms such as the machete and the kukri.

I will have to disagree with you at this point as machetes and kukris are directly related to knives and swords. There is no axe form that gets longer, thinner and then trades a haft for a crossguard and pommel. Just because it has a forward balance point does not make it an axe.

"Just choke up on it" is overly blaise; doing so has some serious effects on wieldiness as I've seen when watching martial arts students train with them. Some of this can be overcome if one is trained to also use the haft effectively, but that's effectively a seperate skill (mostly staff work) than using the working end.

It is not 'blaise', it is my own and several other people's experience with spears. Also if you are not using the whole weapon you are not getting the most out of the weapon so I seriously doubt that it was ignored.

I don't doubt knights sometimes did so, but I have no evidence they were considered anything but a secondary weapon off horseback and outside of formations.

From Fighting for Fun? What Was at Stake in Formal Deeds of Arms in the 14th Century? by Steven Muhlberger

"Similar combats were being done on foot, usually with sharp weapons, spears, swords, daggers, or axes. Some jousts were major events staged by royalty, for instance at royal weddings; others required only the simplest preparations."

and in regard to a formal deed at Vannes in 1381-

"The original challenge by a Frenchman, de Pousanges, against an English ally, de Vertain, had involved each delivering to the other three blows with spears, three with swords, and three with axes."

http://www.aemma.org/misc/muhlberger.htm

The upshot is that spear on foot by knights and men-at-arms is common. English and French knights both took readily to using shortened lances when on foot in the HYW.

Hunting usage is an entirely different issue than war usage; among other things the reach issue becomes a very serious consideration there (especially with boar).

Not by this class of people it is not. Hunting together whether ahorse or afoot was a way of training for war.

What differences do you see and what is the 'reach issue' you claim exists?

Read what I wrote again: both are true because swords evolve from both knives _and axes_. There's enough interim forms to indicate that.

Where? (added because I have to have at least 10 characters to post. WTH?)

As a contributor to '2320AD' by QLI (I drew all the logos) I'd have to disagree.

http://www.travellerrpg.com/2320/

Well color me surprised! If it was actually for (the still dead) 2300AD and not T20 I might even give it a look.

Also, there are a number of hard sci-fi games out there-

http://www.sjgames.com/transhuman/

Transhumanist ideals are not everything.

Interesting. It looks like Classic Traveller in that it wants to enable all manner of Sci-Fi tropes. I doubt its dedication to being Hard SF though.

This review completely pans High Frontiers. I don't get your point in adding it as if it is a bad hard SF game then there is room for a good hard SF game. Would that come with a cigarette to smoke after the session?

What BRP needs is a completely NEW sci-fi idea (or as new as you can get). Either something really different by someone talented or a new licence.. or an old one (Ringworld 2 anyone?)

You mean the way that fantasy systems need a completely new Sword & Sorcery idea to be competitive? In actuality I do not see your point in condemning Hard SF as a background for a BRP Space setting. I certainly don't see that niche being exploited to the fullest it could be.

BTW RIngworld isn't going to happen. The license is locked up in the movie rights and that project isn't going anywhere.

My purchasing habits differ quite a bit from yours Simlasa. Intriguing background with a crap system attached? I would never part with money for it. In fact I end up buying systems just to see how they function. That determines if I continue to buy material for it. Great system with a setting that I am not interested in? Eh, I will pass on the setting. If the system and the setting are hard wired to one another I may pass on the system too.

I don't like Lovecraft for instance so I don't have any of the CoC material beyond a very old second(?) edition and a 5th that was on sale at Half Price Books.

Liked Moorcock's work but there were things in Stormbringer that I just couldn't stomach so I never did get much beyond the Companion and Demon Magic and I got those because I was looking for additional rules not settings as I had determined that I wasn't going to play SB.

I do have quite a bit of setting/adventure stuff for RQII/III, 2300AD and Twilight2K.

If the system can't meet my needs then I eschew the whole line. So catching me with the rules is of paramount importance. Second comes having a setting that I think is intriguing and fun.

On the one hand I don't want to see Cthulhu taint everything that Chaosium does with BRP. I was dissappointed to see the amount of Cthuloid references in Superworld years ago. I thought that some more original material and not a rehash of the Mythos would have helped that game win some more adherents.So Cthulhu Rising would have to be scrubbed clean of the Mythos for me to be interested. As for any similarity to 2300AD, I don't see what the problem would be. 2300AD is dead so filling its 'hard science colonial adventure in space' niche would probably be a good idea.

Knights, the elite warriors of Western Europe, fought each other with spears on foot in tourneys and used cut down lances when on foot in battle. Boar, bear and deer were taken with spear on foot. The spear can be a dandy offensive weapon and can be used at long and short ranges, just choke up on it. They are not handed out to just the militia.

Sorloc- Please take a look at the first post and tell me if that is what you mean?

You are joking, right?

Do you have a critique more insightful than that?

I suggested this, but apparently they only own first-use rights to most of their cover artwork, or at least for those older pieces.

D'oh! You mentioned that before.

Götterdämmerung 1st ed by Anders Jacobsson, Magnus Malmberg, Theodore Berqquist (2005) Riotminds A mystery game set in the 18th century, inspired by "The Brotherhood of Wolves", "Vidoqc" and "Sleepy Hollow". There are many secret societies, and dark forces never spoken about. The core game consists of two books: Lex Libris and Codex Persona. It uses a percentile skill-based system based on Chaosium's Basic Role-playing

This is from John H. Kims website.

Drohem what are you using for a d7 and a d9?

Does that calculation assume 6000 men fighting constantly for 30 minutes (150 melee rounds)? That would never happen in a RQ battle, no fight lasts for 150 MR. It would probably not happen in a real world battle either, as quite some time would be used moving and not fighting. So I think that calculation is flawed.

Sverre.

Doesn't matter to the Lords of Chance. Each blow is a fresh chance to fumble. Stretch it out over several hours for the movement but still have 150 MR of actual blows and you get the same results. Track 6000 of the Sun Dome Militia through 150 MR of battle collected over years and the results will be the same. That is the basis for the objection. It really is just the law of large numbers at work. A blow per MR x150 x 6000=900000 blows.

The Murphy's rules part of this is that killing yourself is felt to be a one in a million sort of thing and here it actually is! Which turns out to be a lot more often than people think meet..

Jason has informed us that BRPCore will have a 2% fumble mechanic. So only 54 men will lose their heads to their own hands!