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Post by derv on Jul 2, 2020 19:34:32 GMT -6
Naval rules for this period make for interesting parallels. The Royal Navy rated their ships from 1-6 with 1st-3rd rates being "ships of the line". Lower is better and indicated more and typically larger guns on bigger ships. With the inclusion of ironclads you will often find several factors for determining the results of combat.
I posted a link to Wham and Lowry's Ironclad rules on here somewhere awhile back. In them you will find each ship is given a penetration factor based on the ships guns, a battering factor based on armor type (how much penetration is necessary to score damage), and an armor factor that is based on type and inches of material (how much damage a ship can take before being sunk). Higher scores are better for all of these. So, the penetration factor looks a lot like a weapon class. The battering factor looks a lot like an armor class, and the armor factor looks a lot like hit points. But it's a little more then rolling weapon class vs armor class to determine points of damage. The methods would not quite be that obvious by simply looking at a ships data card for the game.
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Post by captainjapan on Jul 2, 2020 20:59:41 GMT -6
That's irony for you. I only just got Featherstone's Naval War Games and I skipped right past to the Fletcher Pratt game. I don't guess I would have made the Arneson connection, by myself, at any rate. Thanks, increment, for posting the scans.
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Post by captainjapan on Jul 3, 2020 7:51:52 GMT -6
A few questions occur to me. The most obvious being, did those Arneson-drafted naval rules at all support his authorship claim to Dungeons & Dragons, in the royalties suit? Did it ever get that far? Was the Green derived armor scheme used concurrent with the armor saving throw Arneson described in the introduction to First Fantasy Campaign? Under those conditions (being that a progressively better saving throw is allowed to higher "level" characters, to avoid taking the damage) I would suspect beginning PC's to be armored as best they can afford and superheroes to be leather-clad or not-at-all, relying on their better saving throws to avoid hits. Finally, and although I am not surprised, in the Ironclads game (as is common in naval games), a loss of "hit points" results in a proportionate loss of attack capability (guns). Can you imagine a Dungeons & Dragons game in which a fighter, low on hit points, could no longer muster the strength to raise his sword? Yet, this game is also, presumably the inspiration for hit points. increment , how would you date these Arneson Ironclads rules, if you had to guess?
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Post by increment on Jul 3, 2020 11:43:15 GMT -6
A few questions occur to me. The most obvious being, did those Arneson-drafted naval rules at all support his authorship claim to Dungeons & Dragons, in the royalties suit? In the 1979 royalties suit? As far as I know, Arneson did not put forward the claim that armor class in D&D derived from ironclad naval wargame rules until after 2000; if someone knows of an earlier place where he does, I'd be interested to hear about it. And I don't think Dan's argument is necessarily intended to show that the Green/Arneson armor system evolved into the armor class system of D&D, but instead that it inspired a lost transitional system that was in use during the Blackmoor era, one that is sort of detached from how armor class is given in D&D (he reads J. Snider's handwritten numbers as binding them together, if I understand him). Moreover, the lawsuit was not exploring questions of system design history at this level of detail, it was really more about how contracts should be interpreted. Was the Green derived armor scheme used concurrent with the armor saving throw Arneson described in the introduction to First Fantasy Campaign? Under those conditions (being that a progressively better saving throw is allowed to higher "level" characters, to avoid taking the damage) I would suspect beginning PC's to be armored as best they can afford and superheroes to be leather-clad or not-at-all, relying on their better saving throws to avoid hits. Sorry if this was unclear, but my previous post was just explaining Dan's argument as far as I understand it, not endorsing it. Even if we grant that there might have been one or more lost transitional mechanisms for armor used in Blackmoor, and one or more of those could have used d6 resolution, I don't see the Green/Arneson rules as a more plausible candidate for the inspiration of such rules than, say, Phil Barker's medieval rules. Personally, I don't think we should understand Arneson's late remarks about the connection of naval wargames to armor class as much more than a general reminder that there were a lot of naval systems that used armor class and hit points prior to the 1970s. That much said, speculation on topics like this can shed light on historical corners where we wouldn't look otherwise, so it's not a bad thing to engage in. increment , how would you date these Arneson Ironclads rules, if you had to guess? They don't come with any date on them, so it's hard to say anything with certainty, but I would have thought they were developed for Arneson's 1974 ACW campaign.
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Post by captainjapan on Jul 3, 2020 21:32:53 GMT -6
increment said: No, I'm sorry. I'm addressing these questions all over the place. Further up this thread is THIS post with Arneson quotes pertaining to ironclads-based AC. As you say, increment , it seems that all the pertinent references occur in interviews and comments post-2000. aldarron is who I meant to address the FFC "armor save" comment to. BTW, increment , did you date the ACW campaign from a COTT write-up, or another source? aldarron , Was it ever your, or for that matter, Dave Arneson's position that the alternative combat system of Men & Magic was his invention? Is this a settled question?
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Post by increment on Jul 6, 2020 8:34:17 GMT -6
BTW, increment , did you date the ACW campaign from a COTT write-up, or another source? CoTT was on hiatus from the beginning of 1974 up to October, and when it resumed then, it scoped itself only to covering Arneson's new iteration of his Napoleonic simulation campaign, so I don't recall a mention of ACW there. In terms of fanzine notices, the only one that immediately comes to mind is his September 30, 1974 letter to GPGPN#13, which mentions his work toward civil war naval rules and playing with ironclads in particular.
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Post by aldarron on Jul 24, 2020 21:34:56 GMT -6
aldarron is who I meant to address the FFC "armor save" comment to. BTW, Captain, we don't have the level of granularity you are looking for. Also, an actual Armor save is in AiF but not in the FFC. The FFC grants a saving throw for no damage against a fighter who has been hit. It doesn't mention armor. So "if" hits were determined by a d6 roll against armor "thickness" and a hit is deemed successful then it is possible the saving throw mentioned could have been allowed. All I'm saying is that it could have worked, but we do not know. aldarron , Was it ever your, or for that matter, Dave Arneson's position that the alternative combat system of Men & Magic was his invention? Is this a settled question? No, to all. I've been really skeptical about claims that the ACS traces to Arneson. I thought it possible for a while after BTPBD came to light, but it never seemed quite right. It is possible that Arneson had something to do with the formula behind the ACS (20-AC etc.), but I would speculate that even then it came about in a conversation with Gygax rather than on his own. Arneson did not make the claim that the ACS was his creation, but Gygax did a couple times and I don't see any reason to doubt him.
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