Quote from: ForgottenF on April 22, 2024, 08:37:17 PMOooh... We're touching on a subject which is near and dear to my heart.
For my money, if you want a fairly realistic approach to the way ancient/medieval/early modern weapons and armor interact, the optimum way is to address three factors for weapons:
--Ability to circumvent armor: i.e., the ability to strike at gaps or weak points in armor.
--Concussive force: i.e., blunt force trauma,
--Penetrative capability: slashing and piercing.
The ability to circumvent armor by striking at weak points is critical, because it is the entire purpose of many weapons, such as the rondel dagger and most types of late medieval sword. Some historians assert that it is also the purpose of massed bow fire. As far as concussion and penetration goes, the balancing there is fairly obvious: A piercing sword like a rapier has good penetration, but almost no concussion, a cutting sword a bit more concussion and less penetration, an axe a fairly even mix of the two, and a mace pure concussion.
Armor would then optimally reflect the same three factors, with a rating for thoroughness of coverage, and concussion and penetration resistance stats. Mail for example, would have good penetration resistance, but minimal concussion resistance. Textile armor would have little of either, but perhaps better against concussion than penetration, and renaissance style full plate good levels for all.
This is the only system I can think of which represents the choices of weapon vs. armor as they were in history. E.g., if you expect opponents to be in head-to-toe mail, as you might if you were fighting 12th or 13th century knights, you really want a lance (which should have an extremely high penetration rate when couched from horseback) mace or hammer, but if those aren't an option, a battleaxe is a good second choice, which is exactly the trend in battlefield weapons during that time.
The additional wrinkle you could add in is a bonus to combat checks (attack if you're using D&D rules, but optimally both attack and defense), to represent the combination of reach and wieldiness. That further ups the realism of the decision making, since while an axe might be a more damaging weapon, a sword is much more nimble.
The point of doing all this for a game IMO, is to give your players a more interesting choice to make when choosing their loadout, and to allow you as DM to mix up the dynamic by changing the weapons and armor in play. Being forced by social circumstance to carry "civilian" weapons such as swords and knives makes much more difference when a sword and an axe no longer have the exact same utility.
Admittedly, the level of complexity this requires is possibly too much to be practical. I haven't tried to implement it in my own games, but where I can, I do aim for half-measures that move towards the same effect.
Quote from: NotFromAroundHere on Today at 01:11:09 AMQuote from: Eric Diaz on April 22, 2024, 12:02:01 PMGURPS was good at this, but too complex to the point of becoming unrealistic: a 10-second fight between two people has 20 or more sword blows, most being parried.There's nothing unrealistic in this, ten seconds are an eternity in a close combat fight. Same goes for the parries, the absolute majority of fighting styles emphasize defense for a reason; what's totally unrealistic, instead, is being hit (good hit, not a glancing blow) more than once or twice by a sword and not dying.
Quote from: ForgottenF on April 22, 2024, 08:49:42 PMThere's a difference between a storygame and an RPG set in a universe where literary tropes have actual power (see any of Sir Terry Pratchett's masterpieces).Quote from: Fheredin on April 22, 2024, 04:27:28 PMDark Souls would need a custom system to do it justice because the "Hollowing as a metaphor for the player quitting the game" metaphor is unique to Dark Souls. I actually can't think of a good way to embed this into a TTRPG, which makes me think the definitive version of Dark Souls will forever remain the video game, even if someone does manage to make a TTRPG out of it. It is a work of art which uses the video game medium as a choice.
I've put a bit of thought into this, albeit without coming up with a satisfying solution. Because of the way Hollowing affects NPCs and the general themes of the game, I think you can fairly interpret it that Hollowing sets in when you lose your sense of purpose. The difficulty then becomes coming up with a "purpose" mechanic. Just spit-balling, but one way might be to require players to assign a grand goal to their character, and deduct Humanity points when they suffer a significant setback. That unfortunately smacks a bit too much of story game mechanics and DM fiat, though. You could also introduce some kind of "Hollowing Save", based on a willpower-like stat, which occurs whenever they die. That'd be more workable and fair, but loses a lot of the thematic purpose of hollowing.
So yeah, you're probably right. It's a mechanic which serves videogames much better than any other medium.
Quote from: Opaopajr on Today at 02:10:17 AMMakes 5 minute Short Resting with that and Second Wind a bit overwhelming for my tastes, but keeps Fighters a continuous serious long-term threat. I prefer RAW book 1 hour SR, and let players decide, which they rarely take advantage of short-resters serious throughput advantage by party splitting.)I've found 20 minute short rests to be a reasonable compromise between the 4e short rest (5 min) and the 5e short rest (1 hour). It's long enough you can't just take it anywhere (even with active monsters looking for you, any reasonably sized dungeon will have some room or another you could hide in for 5 minutes without being found), but not so long that players feel like they're "missing out" by taking one.
Quote from: NotFromAroundHere on Today at 03:05:14 AMWhat's this ? But the opening post of this wonderful thread on reddit, of course.Note, the original post has now been deleted.
(quoted for posterity if this thing should disappear)QuoteOk, I like the Greek Gods, or at least thought I did. But I'm starting to think I need a sanitized version, since they are too problematic in their original form, even for the Black Dog line.
How can I rationalize that they are morally more progressive (in that no means no, among other things) for players at the table. They don't need to be something from a Disney Cartoon, but I want them to feel authentic and believable, while not being HORRIBLE.
Now, on a scale from 0 to brain dead clam, how many neurons did you have to lose to write something like that ? I'm literally speechless.