Quote from: ForgottenF on April 23, 2024, 11:36:13 PMHistorically, guards were frequently equipped with halberds, bills and partisans (and sometimes very long two-handed swords). I think people underestimate just how difficult it is to get inside the reach of a polearm, especially one with cutting potential. The big advantage of a long weapon in single combat is its ability to change line of attack quickly. A smaller movement of the hands produces a larger movement at the tip of the weapon, so when your swordsman charges, he runs a serious risk of the billman taking a step back and cutting at his legs before his shorter weapon gets into reach. When used in both hands, a shorter polearm can also be choked up on to fight at what is basically sword-distance, and a big heavy weapon like a halberd is not going to be easy to effectively control with a sword blade. Sure, a pike is next to useless without a formation to back it up, but even a short spear (of the 7 to 8 foot length which is typical of one-handed spears across history) is surprisingly nimble in single combat.

EDIT: You also have to remember that guards are not necessarily gearing up for life or death single combat. A polearm could easily be a very useful tool for crowd control. When performing more "law enforcement" type activities like breaking up fights or making arrests, they'd probably expect to outnumber their opposition and for the felons to be more likely to surrender or run away rather than stand and fight. Real people are a lot less likely to fight the local authorities to the death over a minor infraction than RPG players are. Plus, if you want to put someone down without killing them, a spear haft is going to do the job better than a sword. 

Thanks for the videos! I'll check those out. Like you and pawsplay said about choking up, I never knew that was something they did. I always just assumed it would make the weapon too unwieldy to use. I know the Swiss used halberds in loose formations to deal with incoming cavalry by breaking into small groups to hack at horse's legs and pull off the rider, which sometimes meant utilizing the haft.

As for the guards, I just figured stuff like clubs and blunt objects, but using a spear for crowd control makes sense when you put it like that. I learn something new everyday.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on Today at 12:06:37 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 23, 2024, 04:37:01 PM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on April 23, 2024, 03:53:14 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 23, 2024, 03:11:48 PMActually, I think Tolkien's influence has trapped the fantasy genre in an uncreative rut where 99% of it is just Tolkien fanfiction with the serial numbers filled off. Dwarves, orcs, and elves inspired by Tolkien are everywhere in fantasy. Dark lords and heroic quests to save the world are a dime a dozen. A pseudo-medieval aesthetic inspired by Tolkien is the default.

As an old Studio C skit hilariously illustrated, the Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Harry Potter are the same story repackaged, despite having completely different aesthetics.

Ehhh, no, that recognition predates Studio C by a long time.  Joseph Campbell was talking about monomyth in the seventies.  It is, in fact, one reason why modern games and media mostly suck.  Because politics comes and goes, but the human condition never changes.  And the "progressives" want to assert that there is no human condition, nor is there anything within us other than the product of culture and politics.  And that is why they fail...

Campbell invented the monomyth structure by examining various myths and stitching together originally unrelated scenes into a vaguely coherent storytelling template, but it's not actually an accurate reflection of universal human psychology or storytelling (read the ATU fairy tale index for comparison). That's not to say that humans don't have universal psychological biases, we obviously do.

My criticism is unrelated to wokeness and is a pure criticism of writers becoming increasingly uncreative and just aping Tolkien. That's been a problem even before wokeness.

First, Campbell may have been the first to codify the concept, there has been a ton more scholarship that analyzes and explores the concept further.  So, despite the evidence-poor assertion of a couple of randos on the Internet (including the page you linked), Campbell's framework has been pretty useful overall.

Secondly, you've changed your argument on Tolkien several times in this thread.  First his tropes have trapped the writers that followed by establishing a pattern to be slavishly followed; then he's inventing evil overlord tropes that clearly predate him (Ming the Merciless?  There are many others...). Lucas was expressly and consciously  copying the serials of the 1930s and 40s, which predate LotR by decades.

Honestly, your whining about the lack of good writing in modern media due to Tolkien seems predicated on a cartoonishly simple generalization.  Somehow others must be copying Tolkien, and not copying who Tolkien copied.  As brilliant as he was, Tolkien was also heavily influenced by ideas that came before him, and those ideas were expressed in a lot of other media.  So perhaps they were all reacting to ideas that were much older?  Nah, they must just be copying him...

You're ascribing a lot more media literacy to modern authors than they actually possess. I don't know exactly when it happened, but the past few generations of writers have become increasingly ignorant of the histories of the genres. They don't read 1930s pulps, they read Tolkien and Lucas.

Quote from: Brad on Today at 11:28:46 AM"My very first experience wanting to play Dungeons & Dragons was back in the '80s," says the 55-year-old Williams, who grew up amid the tobacco fields of North Carolina, "and there were some of my male friends in a basement, and I wanted to play, and they were like: 'No, you can't play. This isn't for girls.' I'm really excited that that is no longer the case."

Why don't I believe a single fucking word of this?

Eh, it could have happened but a bit of plausibility makes for the best lie/propaganda after all.  We're probably talking about 8-12 year olds in the 80s so not the most mature subset of humanity regardless of which of the two genders we're talking about.  Regardless, it never would have happened AFTER the onset of puberty so basically for the vast majority of her 55 year life she would have been perfectly welcome in any group she came across.

Quote from: Corolinth on Today at 11:13:27 AMThe sci fi companion is slated to be larger than the previous companions, and will require commensurately longer development time. I'm highly skeptical that 65 pages represents "half" of the final book.

I still think it looks good so far and I will buy it when its done and ready for sale.

Quote from: Brad on Today at 11:28:46 AM"My very first experience wanting to play Dungeons & Dragons was back in the '80s," says the 55-year-old Williams, who grew up amid the tobacco fields of North Carolina, "and there were some of my male friends in a basement, and I wanted to play, and they were like: 'No, you can't play. This isn't for girls.' I'm really excited that that is no longer the case."

Why don't I believe a single fucking word of this?

I know!

1) Nobody ever said that to a girl who wanted to play, ever, in the entire history of the hobby.
2) D&D was for nerds back then and this woman wanted nothing to do with the game or anybody who played it.

"My very first experience wanting to play Dungeons & Dragons was back in the '80s," says the 55-year-old Williams, who grew up amid the tobacco fields of North Carolina, "and there were some of my male friends in a basement, and I wanted to play, and they were like: 'No, you can't play. This isn't for girls.' I'm really excited that that is no longer the case."

Why don't I believe a single fucking word of this?

Quote from: Slambo on April 23, 2024, 05:37:18 PMEven for elves it's not great cause any unnatural aging causes system shock.

Yeah, this is one of those things people who complain about AD&D miss because they never played using all the rules. Want to polymorph your buddy into dragon? Sure, just don't complain when he fails his system shock with a 9 CON...most people did NOT use those rules though, and wondered why MUs were vastly overpowered. They're not whatsoever if you USE ALL THE RULES. Haste fucking sucks in AD&D if you use aging, but it's just like people complaining about Monopoly taking 5 hours to play when it really takes about 20 minutes if you use all the rules. Players whined about haste and polymorph and turning to stone and level drain, so these elements got continually nerfed, so much so that they essentially made D&D a joke of a game. I remember running like hell from wights or medusa when playing AD&D, but when I was in a 5th edition game it was incomprehensible that the party would do anything other than grind it out.

And I reread what I wrote and it's somewhat disjointed nonsense. Oh well, I blame the day drinking.

Quote from: pawsplay on April 23, 2024, 11:36:57 AM

Quote from: yosemitemike on April 22, 2024, 07:15:49 AMWhen Williams was hired, a great deal was made of how she had gone from being the girl who was told that she couldn't play D&D to being the President of WotC in charge of D&D.  Shatter that glass ceiling!  Stunning and brave!  That will show the no one who said that girls couldn't play D&D back then.  There's a reason why people think she was hired at least partly because of the optics of hiring a woman.  I was rather more concerned about her comments about D&D being under-monetized at the time but the Stunning and Brave Woman thing was there and people noticed it.   

This is what they highlighted:

QuoteWilliams will assume her new office at Wizards, headquartered in Renton, Wash., on Feb. 21. She moves over from Microsoft, where she has been a GM and vice president in various areas within its Xbox division since 2018. Previously, Williams spent 11 years in Amazon's finance and fulfillment departments and more than 12 years at Richmond, Va.-based tobacco company Altria...

Cocks added that Williams has been hired for a "deep understanding of technology and e-commerce, along with cloud and console-based gaming." Fields, similarly, offers "unmatched production experience and a demonstrated ability to accelerate the growth of brands in mobile gaming."

Through that lens, both Williams and Fields can be seen to represent continued investment by Wizards and Hasbro in growing its efforts in the video game space, both on mobile and console.

Girl power?

Maybe this will help clear things up for you.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brettknight/2022/10/11/could-dungeons--dragons-be-the-next-harry-potter-stranger-things-have-happened/

Quote"My very first experience wanting to play Dungeons & Dragons was back in the '80s," says the 55-year-old Williams, who grew up amid the tobacco fields of North Carolina, "and there were some of my male friends in a basement, and I wanted to play, and they were like: 'No, you can't play. This isn't for girls.' I'm really excited that that is no longer the case."

In fact, around 40% of D&D players are now female, according to a 2020 study Wizards of the Coast conducted with market research firm Newzoo. And surprisingly for a game that's about to turn 50, the players skew young.

Sounds pretty girl power/identity politicky to me.  Also, anyone who thinks that 40% of D&D players are female and skew young clearly has never played it online, in store, or at a convention in a game.  The only way you get to that conclusion is by only watching sessions that pre-select players specifically for those characteristics for the optics or by joining a group that self-segregates.  Are there both young and/or female players?  Absolutely.  Is the number increasing?  Probably (moreso because of things like Critical Role than anything Hasbro has been doing).  But 40% and/or skewing young in the general playerbase?  That's Kyle Brink levels of delusion...

The sci fi companion is slated to be larger than the previous companions, and will require commensurately longer development time. I'm highly skeptical that 65 pages represents "half" of the final book.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on April 23, 2024, 11:37:51 PMPundit always posts his thoughts as videos.

Why?

Quote from: Eirikrautha on April 23, 2024, 11:37:51 PMYour question is Irrelevant at best.

It's quite relevant to finding out why he posts videos instead of writing a post like a normal human being.