Do you wince when you see a 15-lb "greatsword"? Do the "warhammer" pictures in D&D draw a groan? Are you ok with the idea of a dark lord with a fiery sword, but insist those spikes must mean -4 Reflex save vs Web? Or are you just curious about how a knight really could beat a dragon, especially if he had one of Pegasus' relatives to help? If so, this may be the thread for you.

If you also want your players to make dysentery checks on a three-months caravan journey, this thread may not be serious enough for you.

In short, this is a thread about the fun kind of realism. That is, "like reality, but with Orcs, Dragons, and variably subtle wizards, and without the boring/aggravating parts." Of course, everyone has there own ideas about where those lines are, but that's the beauty of discussion: We can always learn something.

And I'll start off with a ramble.

This is a posthumous picture of *"Lucas Cranach the Younger - Prince Elector Moritz of Saxony" with what we can probably make a good guess is his favourite weapon: A warhammer. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/Lucas_Cranach_the_Younger_-_Prince_Elector_Moritz_of_Saxony_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg Now, one of the things you might note is that he seems to be a fairly big guy. That armour does not have narrow shoulders, and as a **medieval noble, he would be expected to be in fighting trim, and to lead his troops into battle. Which means that suit would be made to fit him very well, or there's a notable chance he'd die and look ridiculous while doing so.

Now, the armour itself looks like it's trimmed with a red and gold paint. That probably was literally paint with gold in it. This isn't just frivolity; it's politics. As a medieval nobleman, a major part of his job was maintaining the dignity, sanctitiy, and international presence of his office and people. Politics ("poly, meaning many; ticks, meaning..." yeah, old joke). Yeah, the system was bad. Within the system, though, his own subjects might rebel if he didn't look the part of their leader. And even today, any international leader who went on TV in jeans and a t-shirt would probably get quite a lot of their nation's own citizens angry.

The painter themselves would not be some poor starving artist. Whoever painted it, very likely had Prince Moritz as their patron, which means said painter (he or ***she) would be wealthy, influential, and likely have !combat training. If you had a social status higher than "sert", you were expected to own and maintain arms and armour of your station. Even peasants were expected to at least train with the bow and staff.

Now, taking another look at that armour, the shoulder-plates are large, but the plating itself is not thick; looking probably no more than three millimetres. This is where the previous note on the painter likely having combat training becomes important; because they'd know how to paint armour, because they'd both seen many examples and very likely owned some form of it. At its thickest, on the very front of the briastplate, the armour would probably reach a whole 12 mm of thickness. Even Gothic plate, made to resist the !!muskets of the day, would not be more than 25 mm on the front, and half that on the back, and less most elsewhere.

The armour itself was likely tempered steel, as seen by the sheen. Tempered steel is pretty close to impervious to most medieval weapons; here we see a Youtube video of an untempered bascinet versus sword, axe, mace, and warhammer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l47Idc7anG4

Notably, even the warhammer falls to make more than a small hole. The main issue would be concussions, spine damage, brain damage, and a broken neck. However, one important note: With the sole exception of that poorly-made war-axe that broke, all of those weapons were the equivalent of side-arms. If you guessed that breaking and getting through armour is what greatswords, polearms, and crossbows were for, congratulations.

Also, a katana is a perfectly good cutting blade that's capable at thrusting, as well; made by a culture whose style of sword-duelling happened to not include cross-guards. It is neither the best nor the worst sword ever; it is simply a sword, and does what it does fairly well.

Now, tear my post apart, and post your own thoughts.

Sources: (Because you should always state sources)

The ARMA (The Association for Medieval and Renaissance martial Arts. Also maintains historical texts on combat arts, of which a precious few survive)

Wikipedia, English.

Youtube:

Scholagladatoria (!!!HEMA instructor. Seems to be good for expert opinion)

Skallagrim (HEMA practitioner/beginner. Has more of a practical view of things, and from the perspective of an enthusiast who's been practising for a few years)

LindyBiege (Archeologist, historian. Seems to have more of a scholarly bent that can miss practical details, IMO)

ThegnThrand (Seem to be amateurs focused on testing theory. Have not seen many videos. Their test of a medieval greatsword vs medieval briastplate was worth more than a thousand words of theory)

* I know nothing about this guy. His picture is on the English Wikipedia page I found on a search for "medieval warhammer".

** If you "learned" about the "Feudal System" in school, you can probably safely forget most of what you were taught without losing actual information.

*** If you also "learned" that women were mostly shut away and ignored during the medieval ages in school, you can generally forget much of that, too.

! So that stuff you may have "learned" in school about medieval knights...I'm sure you can guess.

!! Guns were around as early as 1400 AD.

!!! Historical European Martial Arts

Wow you are certainly enthusiastic! I personally try not to think about if things are historically accurate or not. That, to me, is just not fun.

I just enjoy my "fantasy" game.

Likewise, give me crazier and crazier fantasy! I find things being historically accurate rather boring. I want fantasy in my fantasy.

Wheras I think people often miss how fun some realism can make things. For example, realistic weapons look "better" to me; prettier, "cleaner"; a practical deadliness.

And knowing your character just shattered a stone into chunks not because they have *"Supreme Mountain Ox Cleaves Stone" technique, but because they are literally that strong and fast, is an awesome, fun feeling that's different from what you might otherwise find.

In addition, I find media that's intentionally unrealistic to be even more fun, because I have a baseline to compare to. It's media that's unintentionally unrealistic that bothers me; where it's not that they don't care about realism for that project, but where they clearly don't know.

tl;dr - Knowing about real-world computers makes CSI more funny. Knowing about real-world computers makes the Matrix even more fun, because I can speculate.

...Maybe I should have used that as an intro.

Edit:

Where did I say I didn't?

...Oh, never mind. Everyone's jumping on the assumption bandwagon. Did you even read to the part where I want "...Orcs, Dragons, and wizards?"

* Not that I'm picking on the Exalted RPG; it's just the best RPG example of this trope I know of.

That's cool, we all have our preferences and tastes. I think a lot of it depends on the setting. In most "fantasy" settings, I would expect weapons to be more exaggerated and/or ornate. In a setting from our own world I would expect weapons to be very true to history. Like, I would love an open world RPG type game set in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, complete with accurate weapons and armor.

Mhm, everyone has their own preference while I personally love my high fantasy where everything is exaggerated I enjoy settings like Age of Decadence since it's basically low fantasy mixed with a post apocalyptic setting and things are far more down to earth and it's weapons and armor fall more into the realistic side of fantasy.

But my favorite settings will always be the high fantasy ones.

Man, I would love an Asian mythology inspired open world rpg...

Well, that's one of the things about high magic settings. The gems and gold tracery enact and maintain the spells on the armour and weapons.

Well, that's the thing. If you're making weapons out of a metal "as hard as steel but half as heavy", you're going to have to make them larger and longer in order to get the same effect.

Any particular Asian mythology? I would love one based off of Chinese mythology.

Mostly Chinese, but I would love one with a mix of all the cultures! Just anything else that's not medieval European! But that's a whole nother topic!

Lol, I hear you! The other day we were discussing revisiting Jade Empire. Might have to do that for sure now.

When I use a musket, I damn well better be loading it for 30 seconds between shots! No, If I wanted frustratingly realistic... I'd go into a real war zone.

I play fantasy video games to get a way from real life. I do not want a fantasy game to be a medieval combat simulator. And neither do I want it to be a real-life survival simulator game. When I play a fantasy roleplaying game I want to escape. I want to immerse myself in fantastic worlds. I want to wear armor I would never see in real life and use a sword or bow I could never swing or shoot in real life.

However, I do want the armor and weapons to be consistent with the tone of the game world. Stylistically, I think armor and weapons should feel as though they belong in the world they inhabit. As implausible as they sometimes look, I think World of Warcraft armor and weapons look right because they feel as though they are a part of the world around them.

I'm more uptight about some things than others! Particularly swords: although I'm no martial arts expert, I'm still interested in them and have a small collection. Certainly enough to know that the arbitrary units of encumbrance in TES cannot be assumed to be a realistic weight in pounds, but I've seen a number of people absolutely insist that they are and that I clearly have no idea what I'm talking about when I say that a typical sword is 2-3 lbs and not the 30-40 lbs they're claiming. Apart from the latter being physically impossible anyway, both in construction and wielding. But no, all I get is that mine aren't proper swords, as modern replicas they're only a tenth the weight because proper mediaeval steel was presumably much denser. And then there's katanas, if only European swordsmiths knew the magic of folding steel 11,000 times they too could have made a sword that would cut straight through any armour, even a tank (except a King Tiger, anything made with that much German awesome is indestructible and could take on anything we make today, if only the mystical engineering skills of its creation hadn't been lost in the mists of time. Or something.)

Please read the second line in the first post. I believe it may address your concerns.

Warcraft is a world in which NotGreek Titans build worlds because , and then you get invaded by demon-corrupted orcs, but you counter with your flying, lightning-hammer wielding gryphon-riders, Dwarven suicide bombers, 1920's warships and, most effectively, by slowly turning the entire enemy army into sheep from beyond their threat range. Or clicking on a sheep a bunch when it nears an enemy.

Clearly, this reality has somewhat different laws of physics.

I lol'ed in RL.

Having to deal with my tapeworm in Fallout 4 was bad enough. That world is full of things trying to crawl up your ass. Althought hat game has other problems, like how I load 5 bullets into the winchester every time I press the reload button, regardless of how many bullets are actually still in the magazine. We're probably just lucky they didn't call it a clip. The revolvers as well, even on ones that should be double action, the player cocks the hammer manually every time he fires it, and spins the chamber every time he evens DRAWS the weapon, making them incredibly slow to use.

On the subject of Warhammers, I think the http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/elderscrolls/images/e/e1/Amber_Warhammer.png/revision/latest?cb=20120612152539 from Oblivion is surprisingly the most realistically proportioned one I've seen in a fantasy game.

If I was concerned with reality I would not have spent my time in Fallout New Vegas dressed in a vexillarius helmet and naughty nightwear.

I was trying for a Where the Wild Things Are vibe.

All I needed was a tail!

Why did I never think of doing that? D:

Does anyone else cringe at the site of boob armor? One of the first things I modded out of Skyrim when it was made available.

No.




Except for the one in Skyrim that has three boobs.

I appreciate a melding of fantasy and realism, but I try not to let it bother me. Artists are usually not the most historically informed bunch. Nor the most science inclined. Oftentimes they have visceral reactions against historical and scientific accuracy because it can be viewed as censorship.


Personally, I'd like the world to just make sense within its own context. Gigantic swords? Give a cursory explanation for how people can wield them. Special magical augmentation or whatever. Set those who can do so outside the norm to make their presence more noteworthy. That's what I'd like to see. I still wouldn't use the damn things, because I prefer realistic looking weapons and armor, but I can appreciate the ridiculous provided there is a reason for them being there.

3 boobs?! Which one is that?

I loved this sub sim called Silent Hunter 3. There was this guy writing a blog about playing it 100% real time. You have to understand, you get your orders in base to patrol a certain area, it might take a real u-boat 10 day to reach the patrol zone! He spent 10 days, real time, getting there. Most of the time looking at an empty sea. I used 2500x time compression and fretted it still took too long.

.....that's mostly related to the topic right?....

Glass armour. Okay, strictly speaking it's not a Triumph triple mutant cup, but y'know. It doesn't look quite right.