Historical Accuracy

 Now this is a controversial topic for a blog that is dedicated to fantasy (and some sci-fi) roleplaying. What is the point of historical accuracy in RPG and should we even consider it?

I feel first I need to start with a bit of background for where this is coming from. I used to do a lot of living history of various periods, mostly medieval and Viking. I am friends with some of the finest practitioners of the historical displays, research and craft and have been very lucky to handle and used a lot of different types of weaponry and armour.

So this essay will discuss predominantly some of the issues with historical accuracy in arms and armour. 

A lot of what RPG combat is based on is supposition and from watching films... Sad to say, a lot of it is just plain rubbish. Swords worn on your back? Nope, you can't draw them easily. Two swords? Nope, it's a nightmare, believe me, I have tried (two short swords possibly). Being winched onto a horse in plate armour? Nope, a person in armour needs to be as agile and speedy as they can, it totally defeats the object if you can't move in it. I have seen men in very fine plate armour, run, roll on the ground and then stand up quickly and vault onto a horses back. All perfectly possible. 

The most common armour in the middle ages was cloth, it is comfortable, easy and cheap to make, plentiful and surprisingly very effective in battle. A padded jack can protect against blows and slashes, and with the addition of a mail shirt, very good against thrusts and stabs too. It's just not very sexy and does not look like armour.

A padded Jack

I would rather a padded jack or gambeson over plate any day of the week. They are warm in cold weather, and counter-intuitively not too hot in summer. They are very comfortable to wear and just darn practical. In RPG's they tend to be ignored sadly. They are ignored in favour of leather. You wear a leather jacket and get hit by a hammer and then try the same thing wearing a jack and tell me which does more.

I used to get so fed up in LARP that people would wear leather trousers, thin leather and expect it to be classed as armour, which it often would be. Leather clothing does NOTHING to protect you. I stopped allowing it to be classed as armour in the games I was running.

Mail is excellent, but on it's own is a bit pants. It's good at stopping glancing blows and poor thrusts, but hard blows and thrusts will do significant damage. Most heavily armoured people fought with hammers and maces, the intention being to smash the armour up so it made it harder to move, then get your opponent on the floor and then poke them with something sharp and thin into the visor, or armpit or groin. You hit someone squarely in the head with a warhammer, even if they are wearing a nice helmet, they are going down. 

This is the main point really of armour, it's to deflect the bad shots, and to help a bit with the good shots. This is one thing that the crit, the natural 20 is good at representing. A really good shot will kill regardless of the armour that is over the top, especially if you hit them in the head. An extra dice roll to determine location of the critical blow is a good way to decide this. 

I try to use common sense and a bit of historical knowledge when I am gaming, I don't want to destroy peoples fantasies, but there is an ultimate point of armour and that is to protect. Mail bikinis do nothing, they may look good but please don't try to claim it's armour!

My advice is, use a hammer, wear cloth armour and smack the crap out of everything that moves.  

We would really be interested to hear your thoughts on this and how you go about putting in a bit of history into your FRPG.

Old Git Rich 2020