Wood and Silver or Iron and Gold? – Historical Inaccuracy in FRP, Part 1
This is the first half of a two-part guest article by Phil McGregor. To anyone who doesn’t know who he is, check the brief bio at the bottom of the article! The second part will appear on Thursday.
Wood or Iron?
One of the reasons I got into roleplaying games way back in the mid 1970’s (D&D 1e, original first printing!) was because I was already interested in historical boardgames (Avalon Hill, “Panzerblitz” and “Strategy & Tactics Magazine” – and that was because I had a major interest in History going way back to Primary School. Eventually, I went to University and did a double major in History and ended up a professional Historian of sorts (I teach High School History, Years 7-12, Australian, World/Modern and Ancient).
With such interests, personal and professional, it’s probably no wonder that I have always been interested in the way in which various roleplaying games have presented the inevitable historical elements – and even the most generic inevitably do, even if only by building on our societal (and often wrong) historical “knowledge” and also on the pseudo-historical assumptions of earlier roleplaying games, all the way back to that very first edition of “Dungeons and Dragons”. And, yes, there are, even in generic FRP games, historical assumptions.
Some of those we take for granted, as part of the overall fantasy milieu, include things such as the western European (largely English, but with French and German additions and other odds and sods) Feudal System, and all that that involves (Knighthood, Chivalry and more) as well as organised religion often based on Christian (or their middle/near eastern predecessors and relatives) hierarchical models – yes, even the supposedly Pagan ones!
To most people, this a perfectly acceptable “shorthand” for understanding the game background… even if, for those who know anything more than “popular knowledge” about ancient and medieval history, it is rarely accurate and mostly makes little or no sense. Not just the “Why do they have a noble named after a Roman military Rank (Count or Duke) in a world where there was never a Rome?” level, but also the “Why do they have a system designed to meet specific political, economic and geophysical conditions as they existed in Western Europe from about 800 AD through to the 1600’s applying to a world where none of those preconditions ever existed?”
But that’s the “Big Picture” – and it would take a lot of space here, or a lot of reading on your part, to come to grips with what the problems with these issues actually are… which is probably more than most casual gamers care to do (If you are interested, there is a suggested reading list appended at the end).
And, of course, there will be a lot of you who will feel “so what, it’s only a game”! Which is true enough – except for one thing I have noticed over the last 36+ years… the longer a gamer is involved in the hobby, and the longer a campaign (whatever rules or background it runs under), the more the participants become interested in the nuts and bolts… and the consistency of the whole thing. This is where the problems start to arise, as the foundation assumptions for most of the hobby’s assumed background – well, not to put too fine a point on it – don’t make much sense and lack any believability once you start looking at them with such an eye.
So, let’s get down to a couple of issues with pretty much all FRP games, certainly those that are largely based on Western European assumptions, get badly wrong, in a way that most long, even medium term, gamers will soon be scratching their heads over…
An inversion of reality
Going right back to the grandaddy of them all, the base assumption of D&D and pretty much all of its direct and indirect successors is that wood costs more than iron.
“Come again?”, you’re all saying, “I can’t remember wood or iron prices anywhere?” Well, think about the things made with wood and iron. Weapons. Light beginning to dawn somewhat?
In almost all western european influenced FRP games weapon costs are based on a mix of lethality (or perceived lethality, as the two aren’t always the same on a reading of history) and whether they are ranged weapons or not – and not their actual cost of manufacture!
So, for example, in Pathfinder (basically D&D 3.6), a Longsword (4 pounds of iron) costs 15gp and a Longbow (3 pounds of wood) costs 75gp. Think about it.
In any world even vaguely resembling reality, is it likely that ordinary wood will cost over six times as much per pound as ordinary iron?
Some of you might be saying, right around now, “But, But, It must use special wood!” And that’s right, it does. But, see, most of ancient and medieval Europe was covered with these things called, well, trees… from which you get wood. Even the somewhat special wood that bows are made from (and it doesn’t make all that much difference, bows made from ordinary wood were almost as good as bows made from the somewhat more select stuff).
Or, maybe, you’re saying, “But it must involve lots of labour intensive effort!”
Not really. We’re talking Longbows, which are what is called a Self Bow – a bow made from a single piece of wood. Sure, it has to be specially made by a moderately skilled craftsman – but it’s not a Composite Bow, which, even though it requires a lot more work, is still not as expensive to make as a sword.
That’s the reason that Bows were mostly the weapons of peasants and yeomen – they were cheap.
Swords? Anything made of iron? Or steel? Different kettle of fish. Entirely.
Production
It is estimated that the iron production of the whole Roman Empire, at its height, was around 20,000 tons per year. With the collapse of the Empire, Iron production in Europe plummeted as well – not to reach that 20kton figure again until around the 17th century… depending on how you count such things, around 1000 years! Why?
Sure, the collapse of the Western Empire led to immediate and massive economic dislocation – the western economy basically collapsed beyond almost subsistence level for quite a while. That was part of it.
The other part was that the Romans had basically mined out all of the known large deposits – down to the water table – and were at the stage where they were using slave powered water wheels to dewater lower shafts. This was simply uneconomical for the smaller successor states, and probably was uneconomical even for the Romans at the end as well. To get at the lower deposits required the invention of the steam engine – another 1200 years or so off.
That’s part of it. There simply wasn’t a lot of iron around to begin with, while there was a lot of wood. Economic forces work the same in an FRP world as they do in real life – or, at least, they do if you don’t want whiney players to start constant questioning of things! So, on that basis alone, iron is going to cost more than wood.
But there’s more. The technology of refining iron ore into iron was, well, marginal. The temperatures reachable in forges wasn’t enough to cause the iron to melt, so you ended up with a “bloom” of mixed iron and slag… and it took many, many, many, many man hours to heat and hammer and heat and hammer and heat and hammer the thing until you had worked out all the slag and were left with a slug of iron that you could then do something with.
Then, to form the armour or weapon or utensil desired took as much effort on top of all the above.
For example, we know that a suit of armour made for the Black Prince in Spain in the 14th century took around 2000 man hours to make… allowing for Sundays and Holy Days, that’s a good nine months.
Swords didn’t take as long as that, of course.
By now you can see the truth of my original point – there is no way in any FRP world even vaguely resembling reality that a chunk of wood is going to cost more than a chunk of iron!
So, why is it so? Well, there are some historical reasons and some game reasons.
A Noble Weapon
The historical reasons are quite simple. The barbarian tribes that largely destroyed and occupied the Western Empire were metal poor cultures, even compared to the Romans. Any metal was precious. Most warriors were equipped with spears – mostly wood, of course – and only the very most wealthy nobles and their retainers could hope to have a sword. The Romans largely, and largely effectively, embargoed a trade in weapons with these tribes and used gift swords as prestigious bribes to keep their fractious nobility, well, fractious … so they couldn’t combine and cause the Empire grief.
Swords were connected with prestige. They were a noble weapon. Even if the sad reality was (as the barbarians found out all too often, like the French at Crecy and Agincourt much later) that missile weapons could slaughter those sword wielding nobles way before they could get anywhere near their enemies…
Still, a Sword was a Noble’s weapon – and, in some places and at some times the powers that be attempted (largely futilely) to enforce sumptuary laws which, amongst other things, were supposed to limit the type of weapon that someone could own based on their social class rather than whether they could actually afford it or not. And, of course, as a result, a lot of pseudo-religious claptrap about the “noble” nature of swords and sword wielders (the Noble ones, at least) grew up over time… to be swallowed hook, line and sinker by FRP game designers ;-)
A Legacy Of Balance
The game reasons are also quite simple. The original designers of D&D based their rules on Chainmail, a set of miniatures wargaming rules – and miniatures wargaming works by trying to balance the effectiveness of the forces on both sides in a way that simply never happens in real life battles… mainly so that the skill (or otherwise) of the participants is the deciding factor in any battle rather than overwhelming force.
Prices of weapons in the original D&D were, therefore, taken from that sort of understanding. Missile weapons, in reality (think Crecy and Agincourt, for example, for blindingly obvious examples – but there are many others that also follow a similar pattern, but are less well known and do it less obviously), can provide a crushing level of superiority to the side that has the most or who use the ones they have the most effectively.
To the designer’s way of thinking, that had to hold over to D&D – so there had to be the same balance mechanism to ensure Fighters had some balancing mechanism between melee and missile.
Also, the ranges of most missile spells/miracles (and spells/miracles in general) is way less than the effective range of most Bows, and, indeed, a lot of other missile weapons – so if Mages and Clerics were to be survivable, well, there had to be that balance mechanism again.
Contemplating Correction
Are these reasons good enough? Indeed, are they even needed?
Well, to the way of thinking of the original designers, evidently so. And, as noted, pretty much everyone else has followed… often, I suspect, unthinkingly and with no understanding of what the issues are.
However, that doesn’t mean that it is necessary to continue to do so.
The obvious solution is to allow Mages/Clerics and the like access to spells that offer similar ranges to the missile weapons in the game – and, if that isn’t the case with the system in question already, make them actually have to target the spell successfully rather than merely casting it. That levels the playing field on one level.
The other thing is historical. Most archers, the ones in effective armies who deployed them effectively, fought as groups – they did not fire at individual targets amongst the enemy for the most part, they fired as a group against a mass of the enemy. That’s how they were largely trained. Individual marksmanship was not a priority.
Which is not to say that Archers were incapable of hitting individual targets – they were – but that they were generally not all that good at hitting them at ranges that were more than, say, the typical Mage could cast his Fireball spell at and hit something.
So, on the whole, the best solution would be to mirror the real world. Either increase the spell range to be more equal to the existing, too high, range for reasonably successful missile attacks – or reduce the range of missile weapons to be more in line with the typical spell range.
So, finally, you’ll be able to field Longswords that cost 75gp, for example, and Longbows that cost 15gp (or, more than likely, a lot less than 15gp!).
(Oh, by the way, this “game balance” issue with weapon pricing doesn’t just apply to Bows and Swords. There are a lot of weapons that are priced for this reason in FRPGs. If you look at them with a more properly jaundiced eye, now that you have an idea of what you are looking for, then you can probably take a good stab at figuring out which ones they might be.)
To Be Continued…
Suggested Reading
To get an overview of life in the Middle Ages:
Life in a Medieval Village, Life in a Medieval Castle, and Life in a Medieval City by Joseph and Francis Gies are, though dated and very much centered on England, a good start.
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Civilisation & Capitalism, 15th-18th Century by Fernand Braudel in three volumes (!) is more than you’ll probably ever want to know about, well, Civilisation and Capitalism!
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More focussed, and more easily digested, are (shameless commercial plug) the following, from Phalanx Games Design (me) –
by Phil McGregor which provides some of the underpinnings – the limits, if you will – that applied (and have to apply) to civilisations at various levels of technological development). Written specifically with GMs as worldbuilders in mind. Click on the link or cover illustration below to visit the product page at RPGNow.
by Phil McGregor which contains a more focussed examination of the real Middle Ages, at least for the British Isles and, to a lesser extent, France. Includes something approaching a realistic(ish) and detailed price list where you won’t find 75 gp Bows! Click on the link or cover illustration below to visit the product page at RPGNow.
Displaced: Lost in Time and Space and by Phil McGregor which, though focussed on one-way time or dimensional travel, has all sorts of useful nuts and bolts things about how things work that easily and valuably supplement FF&S and Orbis Mundi. Click on the link or cover illustration below to visit the product page at RPGNow.
Click to purchase from RPGNow |
About The Author
Phil McGregor is a moderately well known (if you’re old enough!) writer of Role Playing Game material who started wargaming in the early 1970’s, moved on to the very first edition (White Box) of Dungeons and Dragons when it came out in 1975 and was hooked!
Being in the right place at the right time, he managed to get a co-author gig with Ed Simbalist and Mark Ratner writing Space Opera (1980) as well as a couple of supplements/adventures for it, and for Chivalry & Sorcery while being published by Fantasy Games Unlimited.
Along the way he wrote the very first Rigger Black Book for FASA’s Shadowrun (1st Edition) and, in recent years, has published a number of RPG books on RPGNow under his own Phalanx Games Design imprint, including Farm, Forge and Steam, Road to Armageddon (for BTRC’s EABA), Orbis Mundi, Displaced and Audace ad Gloriam (2d6 based Exploration/Survival Gear Catalog for SF RPGs).
In real life he is a History teacher (Years 7-12) of over 30 years experience, currently teaching in a High School in the Northern Suburbs of Sydney, is semi–active in union politics for the NSW Teachers Federation, plays RPGs most Saturdays and Computer Games (mostly wargames) many other nights.
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July 18th, 2011 at 9:35 am
Whoa! Game balance alert!
I notice in the conclusions to part one, that you look towards balancing bows and other missile weapons with spells. Yet, the primary issue of balance described in the article is actually relating to the disparity between melee and missile weapons, not missle weapons and spells, where no sort of balancing factor is given.
You argue, correctly, that the high price for missile weapons is because of their increased gameplay effectiveness over melee weapons. Even if you reduce the range of missile weapons, they will still be superior to melee weapons because they are are capable of ranged attacks, and there would need to be some regard for game balance here.
The prevailance of swords, in particular, leads to the genre being known as sword and sorcery, and is also emulated in later pulp adventures, where melee and unarmed combatants can overcome those armed with firearms in close combat, even though this is not realistic. This is the heroic nature of the genre.
Realism is one thing – the King’s yeomanry were reknowned for being able to hit targets extreme distances away, and they trained against both massed groups in armed forces, and individual targets. They were cheap, sure. But maybe the issue is that price is being used as a balancing factor, and it shouldn’t be. Given the amount of wealth an average adventurer in such games can gather, price isn’t much of a balance at all, and there should be other balancing factors instead, that are more meaningful.
As it stands, this article provides compelling evidence for rebalancing missile weapons and spellcasting attacks, but not missile weapons and melee weapons, even though you seem to make the logical leap that by rebalancing one, you automatically rebalance the other. However, anybody with any experience of the system will know that melee attacks and spell attacks are far from balanced in the first place, so this logical leap is quite false, and therefore you would need stronger evidence to back up your reasoning for rebalancing melee and missile weapons.
Da’ Vane recently posted..Back to the Drawing Board?
July 18th, 2011 at 10:15 am
I’m sure balance and effectiveness were considerations in Chainmail “points values”, and it may well have become a consideration for D&D prices, especially in the later versions were balance has become more “important,” but the 1st ed. AD&D PHB gave a decent (maybe ad hoc) rationalization that all prices are inflated by gold-rich adventurers hauling huge amounts of coins out of the dungeons, muchl ike the real world gold rush in California which created ridiculously high prices for certain articles miners wanted.
So I don’t think it is entirely a lack of critical thought about prices, but rather an assumption that longbows would be in vastly greater demand than hand weapons. I imagined, BITD, that plate armor and swords were being sold for their ‘normal’ prices but most other things were inflated (after all, many adventurers can’t use plate armor or swords and those who can might prefer lighter armor for mobility and different melee weapons for other reasons (an axe can be used as a tool as well; blunt weapons are more in demand in a world with skeleton-men, etc.)
Regarding the use of words derived from Roman institutions and all that … well you could make up a new world of whole cloth, like MAR Barker’s Empire of the Petal Throne. But that’s not all that appealing to most players. People like fantasy worlds they have some frame of reference to, such as myth and fairytales. Without going into a lot of detail, I’ve tended to assume cultural references that are from “our world” are just translations from the fantasy world’s references. Much as the Romans identified Wotan with Mars, what we (players) call X is “really” some alien concept or term Y the characters know.
Regarding missile ranges … that seems to be a question many other people are willing to, and interested in, debating, but not me.
Mike Monaco recently posted..Dealiest Warrior jumps the shark
July 18th, 2011 at 10:33 am
@Mike: I think a big issue with the use of words isn’t so much about creating whole worlds out of whole cloth – it’s more to do with the fact that we, as players, know what works like Duke and Count mean, and we pretty much assume that even if the Roman Empire didn’t exist in said fantasy world, that the characters within are using whatever words they would have instead without us having to explicitly think about what these would be. After all, we all make so many assumptions about settings just so that we can play, such as the existence of a Common tongue, out of sheer convenience. On Earth, this is currently English, but how many of us have actually given much thought to what this actually means culturally, and how this has shaped our ideas and history, and how things would be different with a different common language? Or what things would be like without a Common tongue? These can make for interesting settings, but not everyone wants to do this for every game they play, and in most cases, these ideas still need to be translated to players in terms that we are familiar with – and how many people are willing to learn an entirely new language just for a roleplaying game?
Da’ Vane recently posted..Back to the Drawing Board?
July 18th, 2011 at 10:53 am
@ Da’Vane – There will be more on the subject of pricing and balancing in part II of the article, so some of that stronger evidence is still to come.
@Mike Monaco – I’m afraid that I have to agree with Phil regarding the legacies of the Chain Mail system, especially since I have seen interviews in various places with Dave Arneson and E Gary Gygax that essentially admitted the relationship. In an nutshell, there wasn’t much thought put into that side of things as most people in modern times would expect, having grown accustomed to designers considering game balance and other esoterica, and a LOT of building on the established state of the art. Back then, there WAS no state of the art to build on, no standards to be compared to. If you review a copy of those early rules – and there are sometimes still copies kicking around – they seem terribly simplistic and inadequately detailed.
A demand that is easily and cheaply satisfied does not justify price inflation on the scale Phil is talking about. It’s also worth pointing out that people in modern times enormously underestimate the scale of the forests that were around back then – as much as 70% of what is now farmland in Britain was dense forest during the medieval period (I have seen estimates claiming 90% but even I have trouble believing that number). There ARE no really comprehensive records prior to the Domesday Book (sometimes referred to as the Doomsday Book) other than isolated and frequently incomplete documents. It therefore falls to archeological examination to determine land usage at the time, and all the evidence so far suggests that far less land was cleared than is expected by a modern perspective.
And for clarification, I think Da’Vane’s reply to “@Mike” is also addressed to Mike Monaco’s comment!
July 18th, 2011 at 11:26 am
Too many Mikes! Eeek! I certainly hope there is stronger evidence in the second part for the balancing between melee and missile weapons beyond “because wood is cheaper than metal”.
Of course, from the little I know of archery and fletching, I think the biggest issue with missile weapon pricing is that the long bow is so expensive while the ammunition is so relatively cheap, where as if the evidence presented by Phil is anything, it would be the other way around. This is because the bow itself does no damage without arrows, and arrows themselves do use metal in their arrowheads, and they are consumed, so in a metal poor society, metal arrowheads may be very precious indeed, resulting in stone or bone arrowheads that are less damaging. This would easily reverse the balance issue for a more historical game – but for convenience, it detracts from the epic genre when people have to keep track of how many arrows and scavenge after each one to see if they can recover their arrows after battle because the metal arrowheads might be reusable.
Either way, I look forward to Part II of this article.
Da’ Vane recently posted..Back to the Drawing Board?
July 18th, 2011 at 12:08 pm
The cost of longbowmen in a wargames army may actually be higher to account for the high “cost” of training too (they could not very easily be replaced by novices, a longbow takes a great deal of specialized skill & strength, as I’m sure you know). In fact ‘balanced’ armies is kind of a later development than the classic era wargaming Gygax et al. were into.
Anyway I am thinking longbows were generally made from certain trees only (ash, yew) and not just part of the tree — there needed to be heartwood and softer outer wood, so we’re looking a specific slice from the trunk. Sure that does not justify being 5x as much as a sword but it should certainly be many, many times its value as firewood, right?
Come to think of it, though, a lot of stuff from Chainmail was passed on fairly uncritically to D&D/AD&D. I was not disagreeing with your general point (which I take to be: creating simplistic game balance at the cost of realism is not a good thing), just disagreeing with the notion that eveything in OD&D was completely irrational! (and no, I am not sure you meant to imply that either)
Mike Monaco recently posted..Dealiest Warrior jumps the shark
July 18th, 2011 at 12:29 pm
@Da’Vane – It’s my impression that 60% of people named “Mike” are into RPGs. I form this opinion from the time when there were 5 of us in my local gaming group (3 of us still game regularly!), plus the sheer number of people named Mike who are into RPGs amongst my twitter followers.
@Mike Monaco: Excellent point regarding the expense of training. However, even with the “specialised wood” you should easily be able to get 60-100 bows from a single tree – and there were a LOT of trees back then.
Again, to clarify: This is an article by Phil McGregor which I edited and posted with his permission. So it’s his point. I think that when you’re talking about a Wargame, some tweaking to game balance to try and produce a symmetric battle performance is not unreasonable, but the blind importing of rules from one type of game to another is a recipe for disaster. Da’Vane has commented many times on how much work (and fun) it was to convert the Legend Of Zelda computer games into an RPG format, so I think she would back me up on that summation.
But the rules were by no means hopeless; arguably, there was enough game balance there for them to become the foundation for the entire hobby that we see around us in modern times.
No, my point was simply that you have to take the era of production into account when analyzing game systems. Original D&D could get away with things that would never be tolerated today simply because no-one knew better, or had thought of a better way. Applying the standards and expectations of a modern game to such a founding RPG system is certain to end unfavourably for the game system in question.
The goal of OD&D, as I understand it, was simply to add and codify a roleplaying element that was being tacked onto the Chainmail rules – which essentially means that the latter was swallowed whole by the former, and that what worked in one could easily be considered detrimental to the other.
Arguably, part of what people are buying into in an RPG is the whole “King Arthur / Nobility” perspective and mythos, however unrealistic those legends might be, especially as reinterpreted for modern audiances (“The Sword In The Stone” etc). From that perspective – genre over realism – the pricing in D&D can be considered correct. But that’s a choice that should always be an informed decision – and that’s where Phil’s arguement comes in.
July 18th, 2011 at 3:18 pm
Awesome post and history lesson.
July 18th, 2011 at 4:35 pm
Indeed, I will vouch for not-Mike Monaco’s comments regarding game balance and blindly importing rules from one type of game to another. You have to take into consideration the needs of the game and why decisions are made. However, I think this is also important here too – many things from OD&D remain in D&D today not just because they are blind legacy artefacts or “sacred cows” but because they are factors which make the game fun, and are considered more important than historical accuracy.
Interestingly, with regards to the King Arthur mythos, is the fact that historically, “King Arthur” was most likely “King” Artur, an Anglo-Saxon warlord, during the Dark Ages. This puts it about 600 years before the Medieval period to which it is ascribed, including the Crusades and the Grail myth, which was later added. Indeed, King Arthur’s Knights hadn’t even invented the stirrup at this time, so the cavalry charge wasn’t a formidable battle tactic – this too was added later.
In essence, the character of King Arthur has been moved in time to make our idea of medieval history better to sell fantasy settings, when in fact he has been theorised to have been around as far back as the fall of the Roman Empire in Britain in around 50 AD, right up to the invasion of the Normans in the 11th century.
Da’ Vane recently posted..Back to the Drawing Board?
July 18th, 2011 at 4:41 pm
Two issues raised by different posters …
1) Da’Vane: Yes, at the end I don’t make a direct, specific, link between the real (or game) cost of bows and swords but, rather, between bows and spells.
That’s because the point is that Bows are grossly overpriced in FRP games because they make warriors more effective than Magic Users withe the assumed Spell ranges. Swords don’t have that same cachet.
The implication is that if you need to get close enough to use a Sword, you are vulnerable … very vulnerable … to the Mage and his Spells. Several times over, as those Spells are a “Bow equivalent” with range that you, with a melee weapon, simply do not have.
The two elements combined explain why the original designers seem to have chosen the quite unrealistic option of making a chunk of wood more expensive than a chunk of steel.
2) Mike Monaco: Demand as the driver for cost differences between Bows and Swords.
Yes, of course, demand has something to do with pricing. But only *something* as any marketing major can tell you!
I pointed out that metal costs less than wood, and, really, there was *so much* wood, and it was, relative to metal *so much easier to work* that even if every adult male and female in western Europe had wanted a Bow it simply wouldn’t have made the pricing difference that exists in most FRP games.
The actual pricing, as is relatively easily determined by examining original documents, is that Swords were always more expensive than Bows (and, note, that even includes Longbows, which I didn’t specifically mention) mainly because the cost of the materials and labour involved was always relatively more expensive, but also because of the prestige factor.
3) Da’Vane: Cost of Longbows. Well, I actually didn’t mention Longbows. I mentioned Bows. Longbows, however, despite all the marketing and historical mystique, weren’t all *that* much more effective than an “ordinary” Self Bow … the Longbow*men* were. And that was for a variety of training and historical factors.
Two misconceptions, though. The Longbow was still the weapon of the Peasantry, so the cost was obviously affordable, and easily so, for them. Swords were *not* the weapon of the Peasantry and, even allowing for sumptuary laws (which the English generally didn’t go in for), if it was affordable, they would have been required to carry it.
The actual bow was inexpensive. Sure, it used wood from special parts of a tree … all Self Bows do … but it wasn’t rare, by any means. Even the labour involved in turning it into a Bow wasn’t that involved or extensive compared to the many hundreds of hours turing ore into iron, and iron into steel and/or swords and armour.
The amount of metal in a clothyard arrow? Minimal. A whole quiver, 24 or so arrows, not even as much as a dagger, I’d guess.
As for having to fire them off. Well, one of the common after battle jobs that you’d do as an archer would be to go around pulling arrows out of things … trees, horses, nobles – those sort of things … a significant portion were immediately re-useable and the rest, well the arrow*heads* were salveageable and, of course, were the relatively more expensive part of the arrow.
In any case, the average peasant was only expected to turn up with Bow and a set quantity of arrows … usually a quiver or two (say no more than 24-50 arrows) … and the army (noble/king) provided any resupply needed. Either directly, from stocks carried by the army, or indirectly, by payments to the archers (yes, even in the feudal levy you were paid for expenses!).
However, I am not in any way telling anyone what they have to do in their own campaign world … I am not even telling them that “da rulez suck”, whatever their favourite rule system may be, I am merely pointing out that, historically and economically, the “way things are” doesn’t make a whole hell of a lot of sense.
What you do with that is entirely your decision!
Phil
July 18th, 2011 at 7:31 pm
>>Original D&D could get away with things that would never be tolerated today simply because no-one knew better, or had thought of a better way. Applying the standards and expectations of a modern game to such a founding RPG system is certain to end unfavourably for the game system in question.<>that historically, “King Arthur” was most likely “King” Artur, an Anglo-Saxon warlord, during the Dark Ages. … Indeed, King Arthur’s Knights hadn’t even invented the stirrup at this time, so the cavalry charge wasn’t a formidable battle tactic – this too was added later.<>In essence, the character of King Arthur has been moved in time to make our idea of medieval history better to sell fantasy settings,<<
??!?? Malory was selling RPGs? ;) Of course all the copyists and re-tellers updated the legend to fit their times.
Mike Monaco recently posted..Dealiest Warrior jumps the shark
July 19th, 2011 at 7:18 am
@Phil: You compare mages and warriors, and argue that bows make warriors more effective than mages and their spells. Have you ever played D&D? I know many players who would beg to differ on that assumption – spellcasters often trump warriors all the time, and it’s one of the biggest issues with the system, that many players complain about, and often end up leaving the system for. Of course, if you favour less magical systems, the balance might be different, but then that is the answer – a different balance.
My main concern, however, is the assumption that all warriors use bows, which is implicit in the above argument, and thus implicit in your conclusion. Yet, this is not implicit in your reasoning on why swords should be priced higher than bows at all. In fact, it serves to undermine the use of melee weapons completely in the setting.
You don’t just argue that the bow and the sword should cost the same, you argue that the bow should cost significantly less than the sword on the basis of historical prestige alone, regardless of actual game balance. I am not sure this is a wise move at all.
The issue of melee weapon vs. range weapon use isn’t a new issue. In any post-gunpowder genre where firearms become a standard part of the setting, melee weapons often fall out of use in combat situations, much as they did in warfare because of the increased use in firearms and the resulting redundancy in armour. This is often backed up in the mechanics of the game by certain changes to genre conventions.
Previous to this time, melee weapons still had a point on the battlefield. Archers might make pincusions out of most melee units, but cavalry tackled most archers, pikemen handled cavalry, and melee units handled pikemen. The idea of ancient warfare was to use the right unit for the right job, and swordsmen still had a job.
I already mentioned the fact that fantasy is commonly known as the “sword and sorcery” genre, sharing many conventions with pulp adventures, right? Including a certain disdain for historical accuracy in favour of epic heroism inspired by both medieval chivalry and classical mythology? In the former, the bow is a peasants weapon – no true hero would use it, they favour the sword, and can quite often run through a hail of arrows and bring the smackdown on their enemies with their swords even though realistically they would be dead before making the first ten steps. After all, King Harold died in battle from an arrow in the eye at the Battle of Hastings and he was a glorious warrior by all accounts, so you don’t want to be running into those things, yet that’s what heroes do. It’s part of the genre. There wouldn’t be a Drizz’t or an Aragorn if they died taking a few arrows. Most of the appeal of fantasy would be gone when that starts to happen.
I can understand an argument for bows being overpriced compared to swords, but an argument that swords to be priced higher than bows has no merit in a game while prices are being used as a balancing factor.
@M. Monaco: Check out the wikipedia article on King Arthur: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Arthur
This should give you some idea of just how far back the King Arthur legend goes, and some idea of when it was first told. Pretty epic propaganda right there – although back then, they called it “folklore”… :D
Da’ Vane recently posted..Back to the Drawing Board?
July 19th, 2011 at 7:26 am
Cavalry Charges without Stirrups – Or, Another Urban Myth.
Yep. We all know that, until the invention of stirrups, Cavalry charges were impossible.
Unfortunately, like a lot of “everyone knows” things about History, well, it doesn’t turn out to be the case.
Of course, even if we define it more closely as “Cavalry charges with couched lance (or similar) are impossible without stirrups” sadly, no, that doesn’t work, either.
The usual reason given for such definitive statements is a claim that the rider would simply be knocked off their horse if they tried it and actually hit something reasonably solid.
Unfortunately, as actual experiments showed, this turns out not to be the case.
Two reasons.
Firstly, if you make a cavalry charge with a lance head on, the “”push” is front to rear … a direction for which stirrups provide little or no grip or stability.
Secondly, well, have a look at a typical Roman (which was evidently developed from Greek model) saddle … four horns, one at each corner, evidently of bronze. When you sat in the saddle, the horns (and saddle) were evidently designed to have them clamp down over the thighs and around the hips to hold the rider firmly in the saddle against the aforementioned front to rear shock impact.
Thirdly, look at your typical Medieval saddle as used by Lance wielding Knights et al … look at the high parts at front and rear … which hold the rider in the saddle against those front to rear forces. Even there, the stirrups don’t offer anything.
What, then, are stirrups good for … well, evidently, if you want to attack someone from horseback using a Sword or similar, then you are most likely swiping at the side … and *there* the forces involved will, theoretically, involve side to side elements which, supposedly, will tend to push you off the horse unless you have stirrups to prevent it.
Except, sadly, academic re-enactors have found that, while stirrups *do* offer some additional stability in such instances, it is by no means impossible, or even particularly difficult, to undertake melee combat on horseback with a sword and without stirrups and still stay mounted!
So, actually, the Greeks and Romans did make cavalry charges with lance – though these were mostly wielded two handed rather than couched – and did so as effectively as later Medieval Knights did.
Don’t believe me? Read about Alexandrian Macedonian cavalry tactics at places like Gaugamela and Issus. Shock (i.e. lance based charges) Cavalry attacks.
The only reason the Romans didn’t go in for such much was because the Romans didn’t go in for *any* sort of Cavalry much, especially not the heavy armoured cavalry that is best suited for such charge with lance attacks … not because such attacks were impossible.
In fact, there is some reason to believe that, if Artorius, whomever he may have been, if he existed at all, was a Cavalry leader, used late Roman cavalry tactics, which included charges with lance.
Another Urban Myth bites the dust ;-)
Phil
July 19th, 2011 at 7:37 am
@DaVane — Thanks for the wikipedia link, but yes, I know that Arthurian legend goes back a lot further than Malory. It sounded from your comment that you were suggesting the whole knights thing was much later than that, and that it had something to do with marketing games.
@Phil: yup.
Don’t buy it myself but there is always the “Samartian hypothesis” too.
Mike Monaco recently posted..Telengard session 31: Some loose ends
July 19th, 2011 at 7:39 am
Have I ever played D&D?
Well, as the Bio says, yep. Since 1975. White Box/3 LBB edition. Followed by Blackmoor, Greyhawk, Eldritch Wizardry, Gods/Demigods and Heroes. Coupled, almost the instant of release, with Empire of the Petal Throne (TSR), which I managed to get in, literally, 3 days … must’ve hit every connection between Australia and Lake Geneva just right both coming and going … by Airmail, back in the days when even that wasn’t all that quick … and, of course, EPT was basically D&D in many ways.
Thence, some AD&D, but, mostly, by then, I had moved on to Chivalry & Sorcery (FGU) as it was more detailed and more realistic.
As for the rest, argue for historical inaccuracy and its fine with me! I was merely pointing out that it *is* historical inaccuracy (as well as making no economic or real world sense, too) … but whatever people do in their campaigns is their business. Seriously.
Needless to say, in any campaign I run, Swords *do* cost more than Bows. And a *lot* more. My players are probably about as happy with that as your players probably are with the opposite … so what difference does it make at that level?
Still. As I noted, my experience has been that the longer a player has been in the hobby the more actual whiny historical complaints they dredge up about any ahistorical elements of one’s campaign … but, yes, my player group may well be atypical (long time gamers, going way back to my vintage or the 80’s … and a lot were originally wargamers, so had historical interests anyway).
YMMV!!!
Phil
July 19th, 2011 at 7:41 am
@Mike Monaco – I’m unfamiliar with the “Samartian hypothesis” (or at least, i don’t recognise it for some reason) – can you elucidate or provide a link?
Mike recently posted..Objective-Oriented Experience Points
July 19th, 2011 at 7:47 am
Mike Monaco: Yep. I find the whole Sarmatian theory … less than convincing. The idea of a sub-Roman local noble who manages to keep together a warband of mounted retainers and co-ordinate similar forces from allied tribes, *that* is more believable, and most definitely not chivalric!
Problem is, as I keep telling my students about Ancient Egypt … there simply isn’t enough known, and a lot of what *is* known is, well, not worth spit … guesswork piled on wild theorisation based on what happened a long time ago in a galaxy far far away from anything to do with either Arthur or a specific period in Egyptian History (like “Pharaoh” not being used to describe the “Lord of the Two Lands” till the New Kingdom, yet all rulers of the Old and Middle Kingdoms being referred to by this title by Egyptologists, so called) …
And, really, we probably know less about the Arthurian Dark Ages than we do about Egypt!
Phil
July 19th, 2011 at 7:49 am
Mike:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_basis_for_King_Arthur#Sarmatian_hypothesis
Not at all convincing IMO.
YMMV
Phil
July 19th, 2011 at 7:50 am
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_basis_for_King_Arthur#Sarmatian_hypothesis
Mike Monaco recently posted..Telengard session 31: Some loose ends
July 19th, 2011 at 7:52 am
A recent movie about king Arthur (maybe called “Arhur” or “King Arthur”?) assumed this to be true, and it was entertaining, but could have used more extras in the battles.
Mike Monaco recently posted..Telengard session 31: Some loose ends
July 19th, 2011 at 7:58 am
The armour and weapons were a hotch potch of anachronism and the Picts were totally, ridiculously, bogus!
Being a historian makes it difficult to look at ancient or medieval hollyhistory movies with anything less than a very jaundiced eye.
Phil
July 19th, 2011 at 8:07 am
@Phil: The idea of the cavalry charge as a formidable battle tactic is a heavily armoured warhorse carrying a heavily armoured knight with a long lance. It’s an iconic image of medieval warfare that represents the Arthurian legend that simply isn’t appropriate, because the invention wasn’t around – it was lost during the Dark Ages. Part of the Companion Cavalry’s superiority was due to the added stability of the stirrup.
The biggest problem with Arthurian Legend is the fact that nobody is really sure if it really is actually historical at all, let alone when in history it took place, or where. This really throws all sorts of issues up in that regard, yet Arthurian Legend remains the core idealised imagery of what people think when it comes to Medieval fantasy, and it’s just a mess.
It is my experience that older gamers tend to be more historical, and are often a lot more whinier in that regard. Newer gamers tend to be more spoilt and gamist. Where as those in the middle, such as myself, tend to be more moderate and story based I guess, with influences from both – we’re both whiny and spoilt! I prefer genre accuracy rather than historical accuracy any day… :P
Da’ Vane recently posted..Back to the Drawing Board?
July 19th, 2011 at 9:11 am
The article was an interesting read, but I’m not convinced by the balancing arguement at all.
Seriously, have you ever known a PC who wanted a longbow and didn’t get one? Worst case scenario, by second level the PCs will have enough cash to get one immediately. So really, what balancing is actually happening at all with pricing.
I can see how it could be a factor for wargames. There would definitely be an impact in buying archery units vs. melee units for a game like that. But in your standard RPG? Nonsense.
I say that if you don’t like the pricing just change it all wholesale and don’t worry about issues of balance – they don’t exist in my opinion.
And to head off arguements of hiring lots of hirelings with bows now that they are so cheap – well, as a DM, I’d be happy to let one of my players try to control a militia of archers. The RP resulting from a private militia will easily balance that little problem.
“Your Grace, it appears an upstart lordling is gathering a militia near Sherwood Forest …”
July 19th, 2011 at 10:04 am
Thanks to Phil and Mike for the link.
@Gerald – it’s not important whether the balancing question is relevant to any specific campaign, IMO. There are two categories of campaign: those in which it matters (Phil’s) and thos ein which it doesn’t. But for everyone in the latter group, as I said earlier, it always better to diverge from historical precedent knowingly rather than through ignorance, and that for me is the value of Phil’s article.
Mike recently posted..Objective-Oriented Experience Points
July 19th, 2011 at 10:56 am
Indeed, not Mike Monaco. What was that quote you like to use so much?
“A fool breaks the rules out of ignorance. An amateur doesn’t break the rules. A rebel breaks the rules because they are rules. And an expert knows when and how to break the rules.”
The fact is that prices for things are already out of whack in any system, regardless of what you do, to the point that any genre simply doesn’t involve any sort of proper resource handling at all. It doesn’t matter what genre it is – heroes always have enough money to get by and save the day, no matter what. They leave enough goods on the battlefield to settle down and buy entire kingdoms if they really wanted to, when you look at their adventuring lifetimes, and the standard treasure hoard can set them up for lives. Many literary heroes are rich enough to begin with that it simply doesn’t even matter. Inflated prices are there to try and give PCs some sort of means to prevent PCs from buying everything they want because players don’t think like heroes, they think like players, which just creates more problems. This creates player demand and player desirability, resulting in an artificial bias this simply isn’t necessary. It’s a perception of perceived worth, and in D&D, bows are perceived to be worth 75 gp and swords are perceived to be worth 15 gp. The system backs this up, and gameplay backs this up. By contrast, magic is percieved to be worth a lot more than 75 gp (bows are comparable to 1st level spells only in worth, since 2nd level spells are worth 200 gp, much more than a bow).
Of course, from D&D 3.x onwards, the Fighter has lost it’s place as the king of combat, in favour of the Ranger or the Rogue, and this is in no small part because of the issue with ranged weapons and the affect of Dexterity as the uberstat since the adoption of the d20 system. This further impacts upon the idea that all warriors are going to use bows – normally warriors, that is fighters, are melee-ists. Combat characters favouring ranged weapons such as bows often fight themselves favouring the Ranger (or Rogue if they aren’t so concerned about the lack of BAB progress in favour of sneak attack damage). This is no doubt backed by the idea that the legendary Robin Hood would have been a Ranger/Rogue…
This pretty much puts this entire article back in the main arena of contention for 3.x debates of Fighter vs. Rogues (Strength vs. Dexterity, Swords vs. Bows, and so on). It’s exactly the same debate, and comes down to exactly what you think the focus of combat in fantasy RPGs should be – range or melee. Tends to reflect whether you prefer straight forward slugfests or shooting it out. Also, there’s often a tendency is just how complicated you like your combats to be, since ranged combat allows for a lot more tactical options, a lot more movement, and generally allows characters to do more, so adherents of such styles tend to believe characters should do more and believe more for generalist characters, while those who favour melee combat tend to prefer the idea of specialist characters who have a few select roles that they are good at, rather than trying to do everything. This is generally because meleeists such as Fighters serve as the basis for every other other class, and as such class design is basically “Fighter and…” which they resent.
Da’ Vane recently posted..Back to the Drawing Board?
July 19th, 2011 at 5:30 pm
Da’Vane: Stirrups and Companion Cavalry. Hmm. No. The Macedonian Companion Cavalry did NOT have stirrups. They weren’t invented until some 600-900 years after the Macedonian period, in China, and took another 600-700 years to reach Medieval Europe.
So, no, the Companion Cavalry’s massed charges with lance on not heavily armoured horses were not enabled by stirrups.
Note that the Romans used both charge with lance by Heavy Cavalry (heavy armoured riders on unarmoured or partly armoured – front only – horses) as well as by Heav*ier* Cavalry (heavy armoured riders on partly or fully armoured horses) as well. And, no, this was all going on around 600 years before the stirrup reached Europe.
As for the charge by late Medieval Knights with superheavy plate armour on fully armoured horses … that was a desperation measure in the face of the increasing dominance of gunpowder weapons on the battlefield.
Most of the classic Knight + Lance charges in medieval battles were by Mail or Mail and Plate armour on unarmoured or lightly armoured horses for the simple reason that they could, and did, make several charges over the course of a battle while the late medieval Superheavies could generally barely make one!
Phil
July 19th, 2011 at 5:37 pm
Gerald: Upstart Lordlings. Notice how much help the Sheriff of Nottingham got in hunting down Robin Hood.
The actual response of a real Medieval monarch would have been, “Er. So what?” … after all, that’s the whole point of the Feudal system, the Local Lordlings do that sort of thing.
Now, if he started an actual rebellion against the Crown, that’s a different matter entirely. But just gathering a militia? Or even a force of mercenaries?
Nope. Not worthy of comment.
Even if it was, Medieval Kings were generally so cashed strapped that they would have had to rely on the Feudal Levy to oppose it – and while, theoretically, the Lords would come out and support the King, there were real political dangers in attempting to use the levy … unwisely … and, if a local lordling is gathering a militia, again, the response of the Feudal Lords would likely be “But, if I support the King against *him* gathering a militia, that’s a threat to *my* right to gather a militia. Er, no thanks!”
Of course, in FRP games such issues of real world politics and, more importantly, the actual financial underpinnings of real world classical and medieval states simply don’t exist (that’s part of what the second part of the blog is about … so you likely will violently disagree ;-) with *it*, too ;-) …)
Phil
July 19th, 2011 at 5:42 pm
Da’Vane: Arthurian Legend as the basis for FRP games.
No, not really. Arthurian legend is only a part of the basis of FRP games … and a small one at that … the actual basis is the medieval (largely French) tradition of Courtly/Chivalric Romances, which are much wider in scope than mere Arthurianism … and, of course, the Arthurian *medieval* legends are more heavily influenced by the latter than they, themselves, influenced the latter.
The legend of Arthur comes first. The legend of a Chivalric Arthur comes from Chivalric Romances rather than Chivalric Romances coming from Chivalric Arthur.
Of course, there are academics who argue the opposite. I merely think that the ones I am citing are in the majority and have the better argument.
YMMV of course!
Phil
July 20th, 2011 at 4:17 am
@Phil: There’a a lot of YMMV in there, especially when it comes to selectively citing your sources based on the arguments your are making.
Personally, in terms of modern media, they draw on the entire gamult of Arthurian legend, history be damned. In doing so, they add even further to the mythology, expanding upon it with every iteration of the telling. This is how the mythology works.
As an historian, it is natural that you would seek to start with the history and cite that first, to the point of excluding all else, but I think the best argument is the one that states that Arthurian legend has no historical basis at all, but of all the historical ones presented, the dark ages one seems the most apt.
I would beg to differ about the basis of FRPGs as a whole – they are based on a range of influences, but the most prevalent happens to be the period of the Dark Ages and Celtic mythology, mixed in with the medieval period from France. It tends to be based around the period of English history from the departure of Rome right up until the Renaissance and the Age of Gunpowder. Europe, particularly Normandy, Gaul, and areas associated with the Germanic tribes are also featured heavily. This is because FRPGS are all extensively based on Tolkien as a model, and Tolkien based his work on this region, as cited here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Earth
Virtually all of the cultures associated with the region ended up invading England at some point during this period, and it was the conquest of the Normans that brought Chivalry to English shores from France, although Castles already existed in Wales from the Gaellic tribes of Ireland who build numerous hill forts, and thus already brought their own concept of chivalry and feudalism, along with what already existed in the country following the fall of the Roman Empire, although these weren’t exactly considered castles in many cases.
As for the stirrup – the idea is that it’s a technological improvement in mounted warfare and made things easier. It certainly made the idea much more formidable, allowed the rider to recover easier, and allowed them to transfer more power to their weaponry. It wasn’t impossible before, any more than it was impossible to eat food without cutlery, but using a spoon for soup sure beats trying to use your hands or tip the bowl, and likewise the stirrup made mounted warfare easier.
Still, as interesting as the historical material is, unless you can also argue these same factors in terms of game balance, it seems a weak flavour-based argument at most right now. All I am hearing is “let’s break it because that’s how it was in real life!” as your argument – which basically fails on several counts.
Looking at the GNS spectrum of the arguments you have made so far, I would hazard a guess that you are highly simulationist, and that you are looking for a game that simulates real life, and this is what you are looking for. Yet, even in terms of the simulationist part of the game, while there is some merit to your arguments, they aren’t exactly backed up by anything concrete in this article about how you would change them in a consistent manner. You jump from comparing swords and bows, as iron and wood, to bows and spells, as if this some how proves your argument when it doesn’t. They are two separate arguments and neither is really proven in any real manner.
The gamist aspect, with any idea of game balance is briefly touched upon, but tossed aside in favour of your simulationist bias. Yet, the main reasons why bows cost 75 gp are gamist reasons, and to correctly challenge them, you need to be able to argue against them using gamist arguments. You can’t just say “I’m not gamist, I’m simulationist – Let’s do it like this” and expect people to follow you. You need to give them a compelling reason to make the switch.
Finally, as for the narrativist aspect, this is completely ignored in your argument, even though it still has a great deal of merit, particularly when it comes to the prevalence and efficiency of swords and other melee weapons, which explains why they are so readily available despite being made of so much metal. The narrativist aspect deals with the genre conceits that define the mythos that the adventures, the tropes, the artwork, the gameplay, and everything comes from. We know being shot with a bow and arrow should kill someone most of the time – but we also know heroes run through hails of arrows to save the day, and that characters are okay as long as they have 1 hit point, and fall over when they go down to 0 hit points. It’s a genre conceit – they get roughed up, but they don’t die, no matter how unrealistic it is, because that’s what makes the genre fun. Nobody wants their PCs to die at the hands of a bunch of bow-wielding peasants, however realistic that may be.
Da’ Vane recently posted..Back to the Drawing Board?
July 21st, 2011 at 5:11 am
Da’Vane: So, I’d guess you have no interest in “reality” … and, it seems, are all about being faithful to fictional sources … and “game balance” to the exclusion of all else.
That seems to be the way that some players and GMs like things … I find it quite uninteresting for the simple reason that such constructs really don’t hold together if anyone questions them in the slightest … because they really have no basis in real world behaviour of a whole range of human related things.
I’ve never found such an approach even vaguely interesting, not in Game Systems nor in Game Worlds … but, hey, like I said, YMMV.
Obviously you’d not be the slightest interested in anything I’d be likely to run in the way of FRP (and probably other genre) Systems/Worlds because its too “real” … and I’d not be the slightest interested in yours for the opposite reason.
But we’ll neither of us have problems finding plenty of players!
That’s the great thing about the Hobby … it’s such a broad Church!
(And, no, I am not a “simulationist” … I don’t pettifoggingly model reality to the last jot and tittle, I merely like something that my players and I can see is based on reality and the real world and the way people and human systems actually behave in real life … which is quite different, IMO at least).
Phil
July 21st, 2011 at 6:40 am
@Phil: All aspects of the GNS model take place on a spectrum, so there’s certainly room for debate on how simulationist players are. There’s plenty of players and systems that do enjoy simulating things down to the last jot, just as there’s those who believe one dice roll will cover the outcome of the entire scene, if they even need that to model the chance factors of their game.
I, personally, believe that historical accuracy has a place, but it has to be balanced beside gameplay and fictional accuracy. Roleplaying games are games about stories – they are about telling stories and sharing the ideas of those stories. Some of those stories are going to be about heroic epics regardless of actual heroism, because we as a species need those stories too. History is, above all else, a series of stories that we pass from generation to generation. Stories are how we work, how we think, it is what makes us what we are, and roleplaying games are the training tool to allow us to learn about creating stories.
Like I said, if you can provide some game balance and genre-based arguments to round out your claims, then you would be on more solid ground. There are flaws in this argument, and you still haven’t addressed them – you have considered warriors as meaning both bowmen and swordsmen, in order to compare them to mages, although originally your argument was between the relative issues of the bow and the sword. You talk only in one aspect of the game – I’d like to see arguments from the other aspects as well, not just have them ignored because your find those aspects “uninteresting”.
Interestingly enough, fictional accuracy – narrativism, is based on how people tend to think things should behave, known as the common sense mentality. You know all those urban myths you busted – they belong in the fictional accuracy, and as interesting as it is to bust them and know the truth, many people actually don’t care and for the most cases simply don’t question them because of this. This is the way most people work, and it’s the way people expect things to work.
That’s why the Arthurian legend is so popular, and more popular than the actual history. The history itself was fairly boring, so much so that people want to imagine that the legend is the history. They want that to be the truth.
Ultimately – bows costing 75 gp and swords costing 15 gp? Never really thought about it – bows certainly aren’t five times as effective as swords. The whole idea of fantasy economics is basically beyond me – but an argument that swords should cost 75 gp and bows should cost 15 gp? I’m going to need a lot of evidence of that – not just historical accuracy. Swords aren’t five times more effective than bows either. You say swords are about prestige, but exactly how do you work that prestige into your games?
I wouldn’t say you’ve relegated swords into pointlessness, because prices stop being meaningful after the first adventure in most cases. As soon as you stop having to count the copper pieces, most mundane equipment becomes affordable with a few adventures, especially in the more current systems, which are all about the magical equipment these days anyway.
Da’ Vane recently posted..Back to the Drawing Board?
July 21st, 2011 at 7:32 am
It would be an interesting experiment – to run a standard D&D game with the rpices of Bows reduced and the prices of Swords increased to the point where they make characters sweat, and where every time you see “sword” on the treasure charts you read “bow” and vice-versa, just to see what effect it would have. Stay tuned for round two of this debate, as the second part of the series has just been published…
July 22nd, 2011 at 5:01 am
[…] has obviously been thinking quite a bit on the subject in the first part of his series “Wood and Silver or Iron and gold? – Historical Inaccuracy in FRP, Part 1.” Thought provoking stuff for sure. How will this line of thinking affect modern fantasy […]
August 6th, 2011 at 4:13 am
[…] Mastery that was written a few weeks ago regarding historical accuracy in Fantasy RPGs. The first part covered the discrepancy between the use of wood and iron while the second part covers the […]
September 26th, 2011 at 5:32 pm
Well In general I agree with this post, however a few things. The longbows that we have, particularly those from the Mary Rose are not simple bows, but recurve bows, these are still not as difficult to make as composite bows but do require a skilled bowyer and significantly more labor to make than a simple bow.
Bows were not that effective, not even the vaunted longbow, they had a brief ascendency mainly do to the idiocy of the french military leadership, but by 1425 the armourer had caught up again. Crecy and Agincourt aside, the English lost the Hundred Years war, and the French were still charging in heavy armour at the en of it. Both of those battles had exceptional circumstances and should not be thought of as representative of the effectiveness of longbows.
Swords should indeed be very expensive compared to other weapons, not only because of the iron in them but because they are relatively hard to make.
For realism I really lied the armour vs weapon to hit modifiers in the old 1st edition book.
January 10th, 2016 at 6:00 am
[…] has obviously been thinking quite a bit on the subject in the first part of his series “Wood and Silver or Iron and gold? – Historical Inaccuracy in FRP, Part 1.” Thought provoking stuff for sure. How will this line of thinking affect modern fantasy […]