Re: Re: Close Combat

From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_...>
Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 00:35:34 +0100

On Sat, May 17, 2003 at 03:44:36PM -0700, David Dunham wrote:
> Somehow, Conan never seemed to be at a penalty when picking up a new
> weapon, and in the movies, it only seems to take a couple seconds of
> hefting a weapon to use it at full value. Arguably, HQ simulates
> heroic fiction less well than HW.

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.