DD always cites Conan when this rules issue comes up, which isn't necessarily the most obvious of narrative models for the style of game he otherwise describes his group as having...
I personally think that it makes sense in game colour terms to have a fighting style be the 'normative' width of ability, rather than 'all possible forms of HTH', though as a system the game clearly works perfectly well either way. If one wants to play a game in which everyone has Conan's facility with different weapons, then it'd make intuitive sense simply to have very modest improvisation penalties. ("Double sword staff and chain? Let's call that a -2.") OTOH, if you wanted to make it more unique to a particular character, in a game in which less ready interconversion was the norm, one might have an ability like "master of all weapons" (or whatever), and use this (say) in a simple contest against the 'oddness' of a previously unfamiliar weapon in order to be able to use it with no penalty, or a reduced one, say. (Apologies to those that this seems over-mechanistic to, which on prior evidence will be about half the list...)
Cheers,
Alex.
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