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Clawcaver's claim being made was that Arthur was a marginal figure in the early literature, and then became a more central figure over time. But I guesss I'm not allowed to refute that.

I believe there were some kings from earlier centuries with the name Arthur. The ame didn't just spring up around 600AD. Part of the difficulty with the name is that is could just as easily have been a title, either Celtic or Roman. Or both, or neither. There is simply nothing conclusive. And what Arthur lacks in a name, he makes up for in traits and backstory. He bears a striking similarity to Conarie More, Llew and several other heroes/deities. But that is typical. It is another telling of the heroes' journey. And that is the problem. There is very little to differentiate Arthur from other, similar heroes. At least not now. I believe that Arthu is a composite of several characters, both historical and otherwise.

But you cannot call the stories "early literature". Anymore that you can call the Star Trek revamp "early Trek." The fact reamins we are stuck with a version from a latter era. It's ot that Arthur went from being a marginal figure to a central one, but the reverse.

Tha'ts probably it. Isuspect you can't "muscle" a foil past a parry the way you can with a heavier blade.

No, not really. When I used to do it, I'd just swing for the head. There really isn't a "opening in the defense". A sword only covers a very small percentage of the body, and all bodies parts are always "open" for attack. Maybe what you say is true in fencing, with the greater swordplay, but it certainly doesn't hold true for medieval weapons. When we used to play around with swords, we banned head strikes because they were so easy (any we didin''t want to inflict any permanent injury). You get the worst field of view for your head, whereas you can see most of your arms, chest, and legs. The easiest part to hit tended to be the hands. We hit those even when we weren't trying.

That may well be.But the fact reamins that he did not mention Arthur. Maybe he omitted him out of spite, maybe for political reasons, and maybe he didn't know him by the name Arthur. Or maybe there wasn't any King Arthur, and the legend grew later. We don't know. What we do know is that Arthur is not mentioned Gildas. And as for the other tales having been rewritten, certainly. But the evidence suggests that the "small details" that were changed probably involve the inclusion of Arthur to a non-Arthurian tale. Medieval Bards probably updated the stories and when selecting a King and court for a backdrop decided that the then popular tales of King Arthur made his court a good choice. But, my point is that Clawcarver's post that Arthur was a secondary character in the early literature is wrong. Quite the opposite. Arthur only becomes a background figure in later literature. As time went on and non Arthurian tales were co-opted, and as new characters were added to the legends, Arthur became marginalized. In the early stuff he was the central figure.

Not really. All attacks are really aimed strikes. It's not like you swing your sword wondering where the blow is going to land. combatant's are always aiming at some spot. And the foes' uncooperativeness is really already factored into the normal attack and parry rolls. Hitting a location is reach much, much easier than it is in BRP. Either than or I'm a master swordsman and don't know it.

One method that I saw in Flashing Blades and wanted to swipe for BRP works as follows: Pick a target location, roll 2D20 for hit location and hit the location closest to the one selected. It is fast, easy, and pretty realistic.

Of which only Y Gododdin might quality as "early literature." The Mabinogion, at least the version that has been circulated, goes back only a few hundred years, and takes stroies from two 14th century books. So it is actually not that early at all. The earliest surviving collection of Welsh Triads dates back to the 13th century. Now while there probably were older versions of the tales in the Mabinogion and the Triads, they were almost certainly different than how they are today. The most probably reason for Arthur being a background figure in those tales is simply that he was retconned into per-exsisting, non-Arthurian tales), replacing some other figure. Now Geoffrey of Mommoth's works predates the Mabinogion and the current versions of the Triads by two centuries and Arthur is a central figure. As for Gildas, he doesn't mention Arthur at all. A somewhat curious omission as if there were a historical Arthur he would have been aware of it.

It could, but I for one wouldn't use that approach. What I don't like about that method is that someoene with an advantange MUST have disadvantages to pay for it. It eventually leads to players getting worried whenever the meet a NPC who is missing an arm or is blind, as they figure he is probably a major NPC and that he "bought" something good with "blindness".

I was thinking that having AD/DISAS come out of the skill point pool might work. Skills are built on a more equal footingthat stats. While I'll admit that Craft(Wood) probably isn't as useful in most campaign as Sword or Pistol, I think that is offset somewhat by the fact that players have freedom in how they spend their skill points.

And of the designers (somewhat). Most people are going to take advantage of any obvious edge in a situation, and ADS/DISADS systems tend to become something of a self preservation tactic. And it's not just with things that are advertsised as ADs A good example is White Wolf's Vampire RPG. Everybody takes the Celerity discipline, partly because it lets them get multiple actions, but mostly because all the NPCs have it, so the PCs need to take it to survive. I don't mind ADS/DISADS in general. They usually allow for much more character diversity than would otherwise be the case. It certainly beats the alternative (a world where no one is ever double jointed, or has eidetic memory, ever). But, like most other additions, it is a mixed blessing.

More the opposite. Arthur was the central figure in the early stories. He only faded to being a supporting character later on, when other heroes were linked to him. In the early tales it is the "Arthur show"

It matters when someone types "But the fluff and puff of chivalry doesn't hold up to the heroic culture of the time." Since there was no "time" or "heroic" culture, the rest of the statement is ridiculous. It's like complaining about a King Arthur movie being historically inaccurate. It's a mythical figure. Even if someone believes that there was a (or several) histrocial Arthur that inspired the legends, we are still dealing with legend. Although said properties tend to change depending on which source you decide to use. My point exactly. I'm not opposed to other interpretations of Arthur. I'm just saying that the Chivaric one is no more right or wrong than any of the others. Is it anachronistic, sure. It was so back when the medieval stories were written and people knew it. Exactly. It is entirely subjective, as there is no known Arthur to go back to. It's not like we have a biography. Sure, lots of different approaches are fine and all are just about as accurate as any other as we are dealing with a mythical figure. Yes. Exactly. But when someone says one "doesn't fit the times." he blurs the subjective with the objective. If this were a actual historical figure then claims that one view was a better fit would be valid. But since we are deal with myth and legend, then claims to "fitting the times" are humorous. Now claims that a particular view doesn't fit the legends would be something else. By not fitting the times implies that there were actual times to be fitted to. It is certainly an acceptable interpretation based upon what little factual evidence we have. As would several other theories. But that is what all the interpretations are, theories. Most of the historians I've read seem to think that the mythical Arthur is, a best, a composite figure, with other myths, legends and people (both legendary and historical) attached to him over time.

There was also a GURPS Camelot book, that covered not only the Chivalric version of Arthur but a pseudo historical Arthur as well.

You are free to disagree, but no one, inclduing the scholars you mentioned have been able to prove or identify Arthur. That there are peoms and stories about "Arthur" don't mean sqaut, since there were many chieftains mnamed Arthur, any or all of whom could have had stories written about them, emblelished, combined and so on. TO say that the Chivalric approach is "wrong for the times" would suggest that there is "right" approach. But since there isn't a actual definitive historical Arthur to identity with the myths, stories and legends, no interpretation can be considered "Wrong for the times." Heck, historians and scholars can't even agree to "when" those times were. 4th century, 5th, 6th? Don't get me wrong, I think that other approaches and interpretations of the legend are good gaming material, and would love to see more that just the "Knights & Armor" approach, but there is not enough know about the historical Arthur(s) to declare than one such view is wrong. Some of the most believable Arthurian stuff I've seen suggest that "Arthur" probably wasn't British.

Heroic culture of the time? What time? King Arthur is a mythical figure. The reason why chivalry is included is because most of the Arthurian tales were written during the age of chivalry, for knights and ladies. Now if you mean a dark ages or Romano-Celtic interpretation rather than a Chivalric one, that is certainly a good basis for a campaign, but "that it doesn't hold up to the heroic culture of the time" is nonsense. The heroic culture" of the time doesn't hold up to it's own literary ideals.

I suspect the reason why such a thing hasn't been released in the past is becuase Chaosium was the company that sold Pendragon, probably the definitive RPG for Arthruian gaming. But the idea is a good one.

LOL! Finally, a campaign where the singing skill gets used.

I think you hit upon one bottleneck. To submit an adventure some really has to have an idea of a setting to write it for. It doesn't really work out well to write up a generic adventure.

Fate/Fudge is catching up. Not surprising either, as it is somewhat trendy among the non D&D gamers.

The first thing I would probably do is reduce the train''s ACC. The told steam engine trains used to take awhile, typicall several minutes to build up a head of steam. Try diviiding the ACC by 5 for .4 instead of 2, (Maybe roundoff to 0.5). That way, unless the train is aleady moving at a high speed, the horses can overtake it. The second thing I would do would be to increase the speed of Horses to about Rated Speed 6, Move 60. Horses can make 35mph/56kph/Move 62. Not they can't maintain that speed as long as a train can or without consequences. If that fails, try waiting on an incline (trains have to slow down), or dynamite the tracks.

Scary since WoD is running neck and neck with D&D. If they knew tabout rpg.net then WoD might be in first place!

If you got a good DVD player and/or the right software, you can order a region 2 DVD from the UK and play it on you US DVD player. I've done that with some series. I used to order all my Doctor Who DVDs from Amazon UK when I was boycotting Warner Brothers.

Confusing. Aircraft: Jet Move 1084, Rated Speed 30 Jet Fighter MOve 1334, Rated Speed 33) Spacecraft: Rocket Move 33K, Rated Speed 70 Cargo Ship Move 42K, Rated Speed 90 Transport Move 50K, Rated Speed 92 Starfighter Move 65K, Rated Speed 100 It looks like the formal started was close to a sqaure root function, but with a decreasing exponent. The relationship holds for most vehicles. Once strage gap is the jump between the rocket and the cargo ship. A measly 9K increase in speed is worth +20 to rated, while going for 42K to 50K is only worth another 2! If the Cargo ship and Transport stats were typos and were 82 and 90 instead of 90 and 92,the decreasing exponent would hold up fairly well.