An more visceral idea of the damage common D&D weapons do.

[arkansan]

The video linked below is of Skallagrim, a popular Historical European Martial Arts youtuber, using various weapons from his collection against a synthetic head designed to emulate as closely as possible a human skull and tissue. What got me thinking about this sort of thing was reading a book on warfare in Anglo-Saxon England, this book has a section covering what we can glean about personal combat from skeletal remains and the main lesson was that it was apparently truly horrific.

It was an interesting watch for me, and has me mulling over some ideas about the abstraction of combat in D&D.

link

[Starbeard]

That's a great video. It also made me think of archaeological studies I've read on analyses of ancient and medieval skeletons. I remember it striking me that the three most common types of wound traumas seem to be on the skull, legs and back, and eventually hands. That really puts things into perspective: the idea of Greeks walking into battle effectively naked except for helmets and shin greaves, and squished together so the enemy can't get around them, suddenly makes a lot more sense; and then, once the High Middle Ages rolled around, all that effort that went into experimenting with pommel guards and gauntlets.

It's one of those things that I've found bugs me about games that are structured around hit locations. Almost always they make the various hit locations based on how small they are, or maybe how vital they are, but never on how likely they are to be actual targets. So in the game the torso ends up being hit most of the time, while the hands, feet and head all end up being rare "critical" results. Really, though, when you're facing a guy with a big shield in one hand and a sword or spear in the other, the three places you're most likely to get a good hit on are the spots he can't cover: his head, feet, and weapon hand.

[Deleted]

If you are near a decent library, go look up the book on the excavations of the Battle of Visby.

[Deleted]

I think it's worth mentioning that most of the people who've historically written about the glory of war weren't warriors themselves: Walter Scott, author of "Ivanhoe", admittedly my single favorite novel in the English language, and somewhat of "The Lord of the Rings" of the 19th century as far as to literary importance, was too fat to ride a horse. Robert E. Howard, certainly one of the most important voices of fantasy literature of the 20th century, wrote about boxers, soldiers and, of course, larger-than-life barbarians without ever even getting into a serious form of fighting or military training by himself, from what I understand. Lastly, talking about modern-day writers who overly glorify violence and "soldier ethics", well, Frank Miller is the kind of guy that most average people could break like a twig.

That creates a culture, or rather than that, a semantic frame, that is profoundly unhealthy, and I am happy that especially D&D was never about that. From Tekumel, to Dragonlance, to Midkemia and to more modern treatments of D&D fiction: It's always about the adventure, but never about "Four Feathers"-style idiocy.

[arkansan]

Jan 20, 2019 19:42:23 GMT -6 @rafael said:

I think it's worth mentioning that most of the people who've historically written about the glory of war weren't warriors themselves: Walter Scott, author of "Ivanhoe", admittedly my single favorite novel in the English language, and somewhat of "The Lord of the Rings" of the 19th century as far as to literary importance, was too fat to ride a horse. Robert E. Howard, certainly one of the most important voices of fantasy literature of the 20th century, wrote about boxers, soldiers and, of course, larger-than-life barbarians without ever even getting into a serious form of fighting or military training by himself, from what I understand. Lastly, talking about modern-day writers who overly glorify violence and "soldier ethics", well, Frank Miller is the kind of guy that most average people could break like a twig.

That creates a culture, or rather than that, a semantic frame, that is profoundly unhealthy, and I am happy that especially D&D was never about that. From Tekumel, to Dragonlance, to Midkemia and to more modern treatments of D&D fiction: It's always about the adventure, but never about "Four Feathers"-style idiocy.

Howard had at least some claim to first hand experience with violence given that he himself was an amateur boxer. He wasn't of any particular note but as far as I can tell he did partake in at least a handful of amateur matches at the Neeb Ice House.

[Deleted]

Oh, indeed? - Interesting. I read a few of his boxer stories a couple of years ago, but I didn't know that. Not that this changes the fundamental outlook, I think, but it's interesting to go back at those stories, at some point, with this perspective in mind.