I ran a bit of a Halberts and Helmets Hexcrawl tonight and my head’s still spinning.
Today I was talking to @Munkao of A Thousand Thousand Islands who said that Mastodon feels a bit like Livejournal. Hah! Many, many years ago I also had a Livejournal account. I don’t remember what I wrote on it. Not much, I suspect. Anyway, he was posting a picture of a girl with a knife and I started talking because I am working on Knives.
It was good to have a bit of a back and forth because it brings things back into focus. Is it “done” or am I still working on it? I think I’m still working on it because I want it to be more than just the bare rules and a two or three tips on setting generation like Halberts. I have that. The generator I have generates non-player characters, it places monsters, undead, giants, dragons, mages, it assigns overlapping loyalties based on secret societies, theological preferences and political preferences, hints at the Swiss landscape with forests, swamps, a lake, rivers, valleys, mountains, passes.
And yet, it still misses so much. What about dwarves and mermaids, like in the opening of the Rhinegold? What about the relationships: love, marriage, greed, betrayal, revenge, honour? What about the heroic age with its demands on loyalty, it’s expectations of violence? I don’t think I want there to be rules for these things, but I’d like to write down a few principles that will engender such a game.
Actually, since I find this very hard to find in my games, this text is going to be a collection of aspirational essays, I guess. It’s about the things I want out of a game and how I think we could all get them, if we agreed on the goal and the methods. Sure, not everybody will like it, but if you like it, it’d be nice if we all knew how to play it.
So what is there in the great void between rules and writing short stories? It might be replays. I learned about replays listening to the two episodes of the Diceology podcast where MadJay Zero talks with Andy Kitkowski. Perhaps this is a good format for teaching how to play a system. Not a reference manual, but like an actual play in text.
https://www.diceology.com/blog/diceology-30/
https://www.diceology.com/blog/diceology-31/
It’s basically the story of the gaming group, in-game and out-of-game, and it’s a way to teach the game that isn’t limited to 0-1 pages of how the game is being played. I think Zorceror of Zo did the same and I was fascinated back then, too.
Recently I also wrote a Megadungeon pamphlet, in German: 2022-12-26 Das Megadungeon Pamphlet. It’s about how you play it, what to expect, and an extended play example that I had written for yet another site. See 2022-09-10 Rollenspiel der alten Schule for a copy. A lot of writing seems to work this way, now: I have large chunks of text from previous games, blog posts or fediverse posts that I can use to assemble half of a new text, then start writing. A wonderful way to kickstart the writing!
2022-12-26 Das Megadungeon Pamphlet
2022-09-10 Rollenspiel der alten Schule
So this is basically what I’m aiming for when I say it’s an aspirational text: It’s the kind of game I’d like to play, with a small bit of rules, and then essays and tables to back it up.
I already have the core rules I think. A bit of Traveller inspired 2d6. I have an idea of how I want this to be a game with a yearly cycle. I want family to be important. A bit like King Arthur Pendragon without The Great Campaign. A bit of that In A Wicked Age feeling.
@Munkao said that at a first glance it reminded him of Mythic Bastionland but “less chivalry and more grimey-fantasy”. Interesting! I hadn’t followed Bastionland so I followed up on that and found a playtest document. It did have that same energy! I didn’t have time for a proper look, but my first impression was that there were also significant differences. For one, there are those those body horror AI images. Wow, those are creepy. That is definitely not a vibe I’m going for. It also has a lot of items and mentions money a lot and that is something I think Knives and Halberts don’t have. They’re more like Fate in that aspect: if you have the skill, you most likely also have the tools unless you’re suffering some consequences from previous events.
I’m also not too interested in the chivalry and the shining armour. I’m more interested in what happens in the foreground of that famous image of the 1499 woodcut of the Battle of Dornach. Murder and mayhem with knives, swords, spears, halberds…
Less of this:
More of this:
Here’s a copperplate engraving that’s even larger:
I love this passage by Frank Westenfelder:
In Untersuchungen wurde nachgewiesen, dass Spieß und Armbrust aber auch Harnische bei den Schweizern äußerst unbeliebt waren. Sie waren schlecht im Nahkampf zu verwenden und behinderten bei der Verfolgung und beim Beutemachen. Es gab immer wieder Klagen der Tagsatzung (des Parlaments), dass viele Krieger ihre Harnische und Spieße zu Hause gelassen hatten. – Die Schweizer: Reisläufer aus den Alpen.
Die Schweizer: Reisläufer aus den Alpen.
“Research has shown that the pike and crossbow as well as the cuirass were quite unpopular among the Swiss. They were hard to use in close combat, and they were a hindrance when pursuing or plundering. Again and again, parliament complained that many warriors had left their cuirasses and pikes at home.”
Most of the mercenaries preferred the halberd. 😄
@jmettraux has great quotes about the lance, the halberd, the pike and armour in his post Lance Halberd Pike.
Related:
2022-02-10 No armour in Helmbarten!
Anyway. That’s the game I’m thinking about.
#RPG
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Now need to to think up a fantasy setting that only has polearms for cultural reasons. Put that table to use! Maybe just one decorative magic sword?
– bluetyson 2023-01-26 06:09 UTC
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Right now it seems that I’m taking that aside I saw zip past me on social media super seriously: Knives looks to be like it’s going to be less than 10 pages of rules that are player facing and the rest is going to be advice for people wanting to run a game (it’s probably system agnostic advice).
– Alex 2023-01-26 06:46 UTC
