Post by Finarvyn on Jun 16, 2008 15:34:00 GMT -6
As editor/poohbah of the WB variant of S&W I've spent lots of time over the past couple of days in deep ponderage of many issues. One of them is combat.
Here are a couple of threads I have started over the past few months:
Two Combat systems in Chainmail
[Actual play] Chainmail as OD&D combat
LBB Combat – Just noticed this
This becomes even more significant to me as I have the charge of editing a WB rules set. I want to do a good job on this and feel that combat is an important topic to look at in order to make the rules set work out correctly. There are two general paths that combat could follow, and I'm not entirely sold on either one.
1. The safe approach is simply to grab the “alternate” combat approach. Everybody has played some variant of it, and it helps make this rules set a lot like every other one out there. (Do we really want another rules set that’s just like all of the others? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?)
2. A more risky approach would be to piece together a “chainmail” combat system in some manner. The neat thing here is that it would make this rules set more unique and individual, and not just the “little brother” to Matt’s bigger set. (Again, I’ll be darned if I know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing having a “basic” and “advanced” version of the same general rules.)
The “alternate” approach might or might not abandon “fighting capability” rating but a “chainmail” approach would definitely keep it. If I went with a “chainmail” approach there are further questions to ask, such as d6 versus d20, how to handle armor class, whether different weapons would have different “to hit” numbers, and so on. There’s some question if Gary ever really used the “chainmail” system for combat, but darn it the rules are in there and some of us did use them on occasion. For that reason I hate to say “it’s an orphan, cut it loose” without at least some thought and discussion.
Also, as there have been many threads on the “chainmail” system as OD&D combat over the years on DF and K&K and even here, it’s obvious to me that there is some interest in this and so it shouldn’t just be rejected out of hand. I could go back and research by re-reading some of the threads on various boards and see how others interpreted "chainmail" combat. “Fighting capability” is one of those things that makes the WB rules different from any other edition ever produced.
I could just “make the call” on the whole thing, but I’d rather get some measure of feedback before I leap totally into it either way. I guess I don’t want to put a combat system in that everyone will look at and say “yeah, but it’s not WB so now I have to house-rule it again.” The entire purpose is to recreate something similar to the WB rules set and I guess even if the rules are in there, if nobody else played it that way one could arguel that those rules shouldn’t make the cut.
Comments, as always, are appreciated. :-)
Here are a couple of threads I have started over the past few months:
Two Combat systems in Chainmail
[Actual play] Chainmail as OD&D combat
LBB Combat – Just noticed this
This becomes even more significant to me as I have the charge of editing a WB rules set. I want to do a good job on this and feel that combat is an important topic to look at in order to make the rules set work out correctly. There are two general paths that combat could follow, and I'm not entirely sold on either one.
1. The safe approach is simply to grab the “alternate” combat approach. Everybody has played some variant of it, and it helps make this rules set a lot like every other one out there. (Do we really want another rules set that’s just like all of the others? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?)
2. A more risky approach would be to piece together a “chainmail” combat system in some manner. The neat thing here is that it would make this rules set more unique and individual, and not just the “little brother” to Matt’s bigger set. (Again, I’ll be darned if I know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing having a “basic” and “advanced” version of the same general rules.)
The “alternate” approach might or might not abandon “fighting capability” rating but a “chainmail” approach would definitely keep it. If I went with a “chainmail” approach there are further questions to ask, such as d6 versus d20, how to handle armor class, whether different weapons would have different “to hit” numbers, and so on. There’s some question if Gary ever really used the “chainmail” system for combat, but darn it the rules are in there and some of us did use them on occasion. For that reason I hate to say “it’s an orphan, cut it loose” without at least some thought and discussion.
Also, as there have been many threads on the “chainmail” system as OD&D combat over the years on DF and K&K and even here, it’s obvious to me that there is some interest in this and so it shouldn’t just be rejected out of hand. I could go back and research by re-reading some of the threads on various boards and see how others interpreted "chainmail" combat. “Fighting capability” is one of those things that makes the WB rules different from any other edition ever produced.
I could just “make the call” on the whole thing, but I’d rather get some measure of feedback before I leap totally into it either way. I guess I don’t want to put a combat system in that everyone will look at and say “yeah, but it’s not WB so now I have to house-rule it again.” The entire purpose is to recreate something similar to the WB rules set and I guess even if the rules are in there, if nobody else played it that way one could arguel that those rules shouldn’t make the cut.
Comments, as always, are appreciated. :-)
