rust

Location Selonia is a fictional volcanic island off the North African coast, it replaces our real world's Canary Islands. The island was originally settled by Berbers from North Africa and was la- ter discovered and ruled by the Phoenicians, the Romans, the Vandals and the Moors. How- ever, all of these foreign overlords only established military outposts and taxed the natives, they did not otherwise influence the native culture much. Selonia has a population of approximately 9,000 Selonese and 1,500 Moors and small Je- wish community with about 100 members. There are currently three major settlements on Selonia, the walled Moorish capital Medina Selonia and the two small market towns Adiba and Taguit. Most of the Selonese live in small hamlets and villages along the coast of the island. Phase One – War Robert de Plancy's force will land on Selonia while the island's ruler, Sheikh Aban, is on a campaign in Mauretania and the island is defended only by his young wife, Sheikhya Jinan, and the small Moorish garrison of Medina Selonia. A battle on the coast will be followed by the siege of Medina Selonia, where Sheikhya Jinan will soon be forced to surrender to the infidels. Robert de Plancy and his followers will use the next year to explore the island, prevent a re- bellion of the natives and establish an administration, with Robert as the Prince of Selonia, his friend Sir Isarn de Feraux as his steward in Adiba and Sir Athelstane of Clivesden as his steward in Taguit. At the end of the year the player characters will have fulfilled their promise to serve Sir Athel- stane and are now free to either become his household knights, to look for another liege, or to try to make their fortune in any other way that suits them. Anyway, the war is not yet over, because in the spring of the following year Sheikh Aban at- tempts to reconquer his realm. Again the infidels will win, they will kill Sheikh Aban and de- feat his army, but this victory will come at a price, because Robert de Plancy will also be kil- led in the battle.

Concept The Selonia campaign uses the Pendragon system. The most important change is the date of the campaign, which will be in 1197 AD. Thanks to the many anachronisms in the origi- nal Pendragon setting and the focus on the island Selonia this actually requires very few changes to the Pendragon system. The main difference is in the names, Arthur and his fol- lowers are replaced by the historical personalities of the 12th century. The first part of the campaign is structured, with a clear timeline and many fixed events in the background. After the campaign's second phase the campaign will become more of a sandbox campaign, the player characters now have a common history and also should ha- ve „learned the ropes“ and developed some ideas about their future plans and goals. Prologue The campaign starts in England, in the County of Derby. Earl William of Derby is married to an Occitanian noble, Marie de Plancy, the half sister of the adventurer Robert de Plancy. Robert asked Countess Marie for her support for his attempt to conquer Selonia from the Moors, Countess Marie asked Earl William, and Earl William grudgingly agreed to support Robert's expedition. He decided to send a little money and less troops, led by his nephew Sir Athelstane of Clivesden. Since Sir Athelstane needs a few more knights to accompany him and the Earl is unwilling to send his household knights on such an adventure, he will hastily knight a couple of squires, outfit them and ask them to serve Sir Athelstane for the duration of the expedition and a year and a day. Sir Athelstane and the new knights, the player characters, will lead a small unit of the Earl's men-at-arms from Derby to Perpinya in southern France, where Robert de Plancy assemb- les his expedition to Selonia, which will set sails in 1200 AD.

At the moment I think my approach to this problem will be to encourage the charac- ters to hire an interpreter/scholar who can translate for them and who can also teach them the basics of the language and culture during the Winter Phase, with the speed of their learning the new skills based upon their Energetic trait (e.g. 1/2 of the Ener- getic trait in a new skill per winter phase). This will of course only work for the two new skills Selonese Language and Selonese Culture, not for any of the other skills. This way it will still take the characters a couple of years to become able to interact with their subjects in a meaningful way without the help of an interpreter, but I think this approach is at least remotely plausible and does not break the system. And with the interpreter/scholar it adds a potentially interesting nonplayer character with his own motivations and more than a little subtle power ...

First, thank you both very much for your ideas. The setting is different from the normal Pendragon setting. While the player characters come from the only slightly changed original Pendragon setting, the focus is on the conquest of and the subsequent events on a distant (fictional) island in the Atlantic off the African coast with a Moorish culture - basically a kind of crusade setting, although not located in the Holy Land. The native population of the island uses a Berber language, the Moorish overlords use Arabic, and the ability to speak other languages will be extremely rare, only a scholar or perhaps a member of the island's small Jewish community could be expected to know another language. Since the player characters are likely to become the landed vassals of the island's new ruler, the language and culture of their subjects seems important enough to be considered by the game's rules.

In the setting I am currently working on the player characters will take part in the conquest of an island with a very much different language and culture. Unfortunately the current version of Pendragon does not have foreign langu- age and foreign culture skills, and so I am looking for a way to compensate for this. One option would be to introduce one (language + culture) or two (language and culture separately) new skills to be learned once the characters have ar- rived on the island, but I normally dislike "skill creep", because it tends to slow down the often already slow improvement of the characters' other skills. The other option would be to use the available skills with a malus whenever they are used in the context of the foreign language and culture and to re- duce this initially high malus over time. For example, the characters could initially use only 1/5 of their Orate skill whenever they use this skill towards members of the foreign culture, then 2/5 of the skill after a year, and so on. What do you think, skill or malus - or perhaps a third option ? Thank you for your ideas.

Yep, one can either use a very small number of generalized abstract values, or one risks to enter "Oakeshott territory" with different stats for each his- torical type of sword: The Oakeshott Sword Typology ... and these are only the most common medieval European ones ...

Still, the winner of the race is determined by comparing the runners, and if one does not beat the other guy(s) one loses, no matter how well one performs ...

Well, in a fight your moves have no meaning without the other guy's moves, in a debate your words have no meaning without the other guy's words, and so on - it takes two to tango, and the result of the contest is determined by the quality of the contributions of both.

Actually most shield were just held, not strapped on.

I am very much looking forward to the d1000 character hair colour table.

One of the movies' rare comparatively good examples of what blocking a heavy weapon with a shield looks like is this duel scene from "The 13th Warrior", which highlights the damage absorbed by the shield(s) instead of the fighter: 13th Warrior - Viking Duel - YouTube

The only real advantage I am aware of - except its greater size and there- fore ability to cover a greater area - is that a shield absorbs some of the da- mage of a hit by a heavy weapon, like for example an axe or a broadsword, while in the case of a main gauche or buckler the force of the impact would go straight to the wrist of the person holding it - just imagine the consequen- ces of an attempt to parry or block a battle axe with a dagger ...

The problem I have with this is that it might work for certain combat styles, but does not work at all for some others - the typical problem one tends to run into whenever one attempts to increase the granularity of a system. Example A would be rapier and main gauche or buckler. A rapier is a sword used almost exclusively for thrusting attacks, and it is not difficult at all to parry a rapier attack with a main gauche or buckler, all one has to achieve to avoid being hit is a combination of a minimal contact of the main gauche or buckler with the opponent's blade in order to de- flect it slightly and a simultaneous sideways movement of the body - a standard maneu- ver of almost all rapier styles, rapier and main gauche or buckler works just fine. Example B would be sabre and main gauche or buckler. A sabre is a sword used almost ex- clusively for slashing attacks, and it is indeed extremely difficult to parry a sabre attack with a main gauche or buckler, because deflecting the opponent's blade only slightly will not do, the necessary maneuver is actually more like a block than a parry - and a nasty way to get the wrist of one's off hand damaged or even broken in the case of a mistake, sabre and main gauche or buckler does not really work. In the end one would have to design different combat rules for different weapons and sty- les, the more so the more detailed one intends to simulate a real combat. There simply is no "one size fits all" if one aims for detail and realism - which is the main reason why I pre- fer BRP's somewhat abstract approach and low level of detail, it avoids a lot of problems which are almost impossible to solve.

Hmm ... you want to make a shield more useful because you consider this more realistic, but you accept dodge as a standard defense although this is extremely unrealistic ?

Preparations ... I usually begin with the adventure's basic theme. It is 1197 and Robert de Plancy, an Occitanian adventurer, wants to conquer the island of Selonia from the Moors. Then I decide how the player characters could become involved. They are the household knights of Earl Miles of Dervy, who is married to the half sister of Robert de Plancy, who begs her husband to support Robert's expedition with money and troops. Next I add a few other important nonplayer characters required by this background. Here we have Sir Athelstane, younger son of Earl Miles' sister, who will lead the few surplus knights the Earl is willing to contribute to Robert's expedition. We also have the Sheikh of Selonia, currently on campaign in North Africa, his young wife left behind on the island, and her brother, the marshal of the island's defenders (names to be added). All these characters get a few notes on their important motivations and skills, but rarely more than a sentence or so. The fine details are added as needed once the game has started. Sir Athelstane is brave and an excellent fighter, but he is also arrogant and rather stupid, likely to make very bad tactical decisions. Finally I need a first rough map of the island of Selonia. It will also get more details during the game. A modified map of one of the Canary Islands will do. That's it, now the players can generate their characters, and from here on the setting develops as a cooperative endeavour, with me reacting to the players' ideas and adding what they consider neces- sary for the activities of their characters.

The heraldic devices on knights' shields had several functions, including an at least somewhat cowardly one, to serve as an annoucement for the ransom of a captured instead of slain knight: "Look, I am the noble X from Y, and I - or my liege - will pay a certain ransom if you spare me." As a historical example, when the English killed most of their prisoners towards the end of the Battle of Agincourt, they spared the ones whose heraldic devices promi- sed a high ransom - and killed a brother of the rich Duke of Burgundy because he had used an armour without his house's heraldry on it.

Well, the Samurai preferred comparatively light armour and an offensive and highly mobile fighting style with mostly two handed weapons (bow, katana, naginata, etc.), any hand held shield would have been incompatible with this style. However, the Samurai armies did use large static shields to protect the front ranks against missile fire before the melee, and this was not at all considered cowardly.

You might find this website interesting, it is by far the best discussion of viking weapons and combat I have seen so far: Hurstwic: Viking Age Arms and Armor

As mentioned, BRP is a generic system, and there will always be the need to modify it more or less for any specific setting, and often for any specific si- tuation, too. This is slightly off topic, but a while ago I had a "shield rules problem" when a player remembered the famous Norman tactic during the Battle of Hastings, a missile attack with a combined force of archers and crossbowmen. While the archers used "indirect fire", with the arrows hitting the enemy formation from above, the crossbowmen used "direct fire", with the crossbow bolts hitting the enemy formation from the front. The poor victims could raise their shields to protect against the arrows or keep their shields in front of their bodies to pro- tect against the crossbow bolts, but they could not protect against arrows and crossbow bolts at the same time, so the attack caused chaos and their previously invincible shield wall broke down.

This is a bit much. I experienced the questionable pleasure to touch a live 220 volt line several times in my life, and while I would not be keen to repeat it, it did no damage at all and stunned me only for a couple of seconds. The one time I touched a live 400 volt line was considerably worse, but it also caused no damage, and after a minute or so I was again fit enough to curse and search for the device's safety switch. Edit.: Thinking about it, there is probably no good way to model the danger from this kind of "attack" well in a roleplaying game, because depending on the character's health it ei- ther does no damage at all or it leads to a condition where he immediately needs a me- dic (e.g. atrial fibrillation or worse).

In real world history it was the main reason. The first phase of a battle was to advance towards the enemy position in order to get into melee weapon range. Since few people could afford any kind of armour good enough to protect them from enemy missiles and a skilled archer or slinger could easily hit six targets within one minute, an army without shields was in serious risk to become decimated and demoralized even before the actual melee started.

Not in my opinion. Classic Fantasy is the one d100 game I can recommend to people who like that "old school dungeon feel" but got tired of the problems of D&D and its clones and are looking for what I consider a much better game for their preferred scenarios. In my view this makes Classic Fantasy a unique and very important member of the d100 family, and it therefore deserves all the support it can get. If Chaosium is unable to provide that support, I am very happy that the author is looking for ways to keep it available and even to expand and improve it. Frankly, this part of the sentence turns your post into obvious trolling.

Well, I have to admit that I do not like "old school" fantasy roleplaying and dungeon crawls at all, and therefore are no fan of Classic Fantasy's style, it is just not my taste. That said, it is doubtless an excellent product, and I very much hope that you will find a way to continue the line. I agree with others who mentioned it that Open Quest would probably be the best system for Classic Fantasy, it would give you a maximum of control as well as the flexibility to design the new Classic Fan- tasy the way you want it to be. I very much doubt that Legend or RuneQuest 6 would be a good choice, the "feel" of both is rather different from "old school".

In the martial arts sports one has only a limited choice of legitimate maneuvers, and as a black belt karateka you will certainly have seen every legitimate attack and defense, just as an experienced sports fencer is impossible to surprise with any legitimate attack or parry. However, real combat has no rules and no defini- tions of legitimate and forbidden maneuvers, everything goes, and an unknown opponent's maneuvers are completely unpredictable. To give an example, my fa- vourite fencing weapon was the rapier, and I soon learned that it was laughably easy to defeat even excellent sports fencers with rather simple maneuvers that ignored their sport's rules, because they had never learned to defend against them.

It takes two to Tango. To try something specific and see whether you succeed is a good approach for an attack on an object, but in a combat against another person one has to find out what is possible during the actual combat, because the opponent rarely co- operates well enough to permit any orginally intended maneuver.