Western Spaghetti Samurai Frontier Feel to Fantasy Sword & Sorcery

[Alibear]

Re: Western Spaghetti Samurai Frontier Feel to Fantasy Sword & Sorcery

 

Another trope of westerns is the fast draw duel. With swords it'd only really work if the opponent wasn't wearing much armour so the first hit can be important either to stun, impair or kill.

[Markdoc]

Re: Western Spaghetti Samurai Frontier Feel to Fantasy Sword & Sorcery

 

I think that's because of the perception (not sure how accurate) that this area was the most lawless of the West. Outlaws seemed to believe that if they could just get across the border into Mexico that they were out of reach of American law. (Many people still believe that mistakenly' date=' unaware that Mexico routinely sends American criminals they find back to the US).[/quote']

 

Also, since most of the spaghetti westerns were filmed in Italy (hence the name) or southern Spain, having a "border" location explained why so many of the extras and even minor characters looked latino/mediterranean and spoke accented English. As an aside, it's always amused me that so many of the elements of quintessential "American movies" came from an Italian director working in Italy and Spain and the classic western themes mostly hark back to another Italian.

 

Speaking of which, if you want to add a spaghetti-western ambiance, and play music during games, pick up the Ennio Morricone collection. It has all those classic western themes. Recently, I introduced a major NPC who is now giving the players a hard time - I introduced him with the Morricone "Man with a harmonica" piece - and without me saying anything, the players treated him with wary politeness from the start. The music had said "badass approaching".

 

cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

Re: Western Spaghetti Samurai Frontier Feel to Fantasy Sword & Sorcery

 

Another trope of westerns is the fast draw duel. With swords it'd only really work if the opponent wasn't wearing much armour so the first hit can be important either to stun' date=' impair or kill.[/quote']

 

Or if you have heroes who are *really* good with swords. A strong hero with martial arts (or fighting tricks, if you prefer) and a few levels can crank up a 4d6 HKA, with an average of 14 BOD. Even wearing plate armour that's going to hurt. And formal duels, of course are typically one on one - nobody turns up for a duel in armour. I ran a samurai chanbara game for years - Mike played in the first version - and duels were always nerve-wracking (cue up the harmonica music!) because even with combat luck, the first blow was often incapacitating and could easily be fatal.

 

And in a low-magic game, there's no resurrection and limited healing.

 

cheers, Mark

[Alibear]

Re: Western Spaghetti Samurai Frontier Feel to Fantasy Sword & Sorcery

 

nobody turns up for a duel in armour

 

Pfft, some of my players would bathe in full battle armour if they thought they could get away with it.

[Alibear]

Re: Western Spaghetti Samurai Frontier Feel to Fantasy Sword & Sorcery

 

I have actually considered running the excellent Lonesome Dove book / mini series in a fantasy setting.

[Markdoc]

Re: Western Spaghetti Samurai Frontier Feel to Fantasy Sword & Sorcery

 

Pfft' date=' some of my players would bathe in full battle armour if they thought they could get away with it.[/quote']

 

Anyone who turned up for a duel in armour in my game would be mocked mercilessly as a coward by everyone who heard about it, would be spurned by his opponent and would be assumed to be too cowardly to fight - and thus to have lost the duel without a blade being drawn. The PCs in my games would never even consider it.

 

cheers, Mark

[lapsedgamer]

Re: Western Spaghetti Samurai Frontier Feel to Fantasy Sword & Sorcery

 

Or if you have heroes who are *really* good with swords. A strong hero with martial arts (or fighting tricks, if you prefer) and a few levels can crank up a 4d6 HKA, with an average of 14 BOD. Even wearing plate armour that's going to hurt. And formal duels, of course are typically one on one - nobody turns up for a duel in armour. I ran a samurai chanbara game for years - Mike played in the first version - and duels were always nerve-wracking (cue up the harmonica music!) because even with combat luck, the first blow was often incapacitating and could easily be fatal.

 

And in a low-magic game, there's no ressurrection and limited healing.

 

cheers, Mark

 

That's about right to my mind. I might allow for a lot of combat luck, swordfighting tricks, and super skills to make things interesting. For a long term game weher you want to keep the same players, there might be a need for some form of healing and resurrection magic. It just wouldn't be as common or easy to use as it is in D & D.

 

Anyone who turned up for a duel in armour in my game would be mocked mercilessly as a coward by everyone who heard about it, would be spurned by his opponent and would be assumed to be too cowardly to fight - and thus to have lost the duel without a blade being drawn. The PCs in my games would never even consider it.

 

cheers, Mark

 

Exactly right.

[kahuna's bro]

Re: Western Spaghetti Samurai Frontier Feel to Fantasy Sword & Sorcery

 

Anyone who turned up for a duel in armour in my game would be mocked mercilessly as a coward by everyone who heard about it, would be spurned by his opponent and would be assumed to be too cowardly to fight - and thus to have lost the duel without a blade being drawn. The PCs in my games would never even consider it.

 

cheers, Mark

 

even if he had no other clothes?

[Alibear]

Re: Western Spaghetti Samurai Frontier Feel to Fantasy Sword & Sorcery

 

Why would a person have no clothes? What the person wears when not in battle? if the person is rich enough to buy ridiculously expensive armour then he is rich enough to have clothes.

[Alibear]

Re: Western Spaghetti Samurai Frontier Feel to Fantasy Sword & Sorcery

 

I don't normally play duels like the 19th century Gentleman's Club with rules and decorum, extras and doctors on hand.

 

In my fantasy game, usually it's more like Clint Eastwood doing whatever he had to do to kill the other guy or guys who get in his way. You still have that few seconds/ minutes where they face off and weigh each other up and trade indsults before it explodes in violence and the GM calls "Phase 12!"

[Markdoc]

Re: Western Spaghetti Samurai Frontier Feel to Fantasy Sword & Sorcery

 

even if he had no other clothes?

 

In that case he would already be in jail for parading around in the nude - one can't wear armour without some kind of clothes underneath and one can't wear it all the time.

 

cheers, Mark

[Susano]

Re: Western Spaghetti Samurai Frontier Feel to Fantasy Sword & Sorcery

 

even if he had no other clothes?

 

Armor isn't clothes. And even if you own no clothes, you still wear something under your armor. In Japan, it would be a form of trousers and a long sleeved kimono-like garment. In Europe, trousers or tights and an arming jacket.

[Alibear]

Re: Western Spaghetti Samurai Frontier Feel to Fantasy Sword & Sorcery

 

You think you would get arrested for running around naked? I doubt all cultures were as pruddish as the one the Victorians left us.

[lapsedgamer]

Re: Western Spaghetti Samurai Frontier Feel to Fantasy Sword & Sorcery

 

In that case he would already be in jail for parading around in the nude - one can't wear armour without some kind of clothes underneath and one can't wear it all the time.

 

cheers, Mark

 

Armor isn't clothes. And even if you own no clothes' date=' you still wear something [u']under[/u] your armor. In Japan, it would be a form of trousers and a long sleeved kimono-like garment. In Europe, trousers or tights and an arming jacket.

 

Exactly. A lot of this is left over from D&D. The wargaming aspect of D&D provided you with Armor Class concept, which I never loved. Wearing a bunch of armor makes you harder to hit. This, in turn, led to a lot of rollplaying. In a wargame, you would never imagine placing your counter (character) onto the game board with its defense rating significantly lowered unless there was no choice, so no one wants to take off their armor, even when dramatic or common sense indicate that you should be without it.

 

I was just was guilty back in the day. Think about it, you had people wearing plate armor while spelunking or mountain climbing and it really didn't have any effect on those activities in most D&D games I was ever in. If you suggested that it might be foolish to attempt to ford a deep river in your plate armor, and then did the dramatic thing and had someone waiting in ambush on the other side or firing arrows at the heroes while they tried to cross, you were a killer DM. This is the default fantasy RPG mindset now to all but a few, and it's hard to break people of that way of thinking.

 

Hero makes this kind of thing easier because armor dos what it's supposed to do: It stops damage after you are hit. By using combat Luck and skill levels, you could make a character who is a respectable combatant without armor.

[Markdoc]

Re: Western Spaghetti Samurai Frontier Feel to Fantasy Sword & Sorcery

 

You think you would get arrested for running around naked? I doubt all cultures were as pruddish as the one the Victorians left us.

 

Depends on where you were obviously, but yes, in many (pre-victorian) cultures, parading around naked would get you thrown in jail - in the medieval period, pretty much anywhere from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, north of the Sahara would qualify. Recall that in parts of medieval Europe it was illegal for some classes of women to go out without a headscarf - let alone showing any flesh. In 15th century Denmark, Copenhagen's sumptuary laws not only specified why certain classes could (or could not) wear but also specified what people who live din certain parts of teh town must wear. Failure to comply could be punished by jail, by a severe beating with a heavy wooden pole or - in some cases - by branding on the face! Going around naked was definitely not a legal option, even if you disregard the risk of frostbite. Compared to medieval central european cultures, the Victorians come across as "refreshingly relaxed"

 

That said, I was mostly just poking fun at the idea that somebody would own armour but no clothes, which has already been done.

 

cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

Re: Western Spaghetti Samurai Frontier Feel to Fantasy Sword & Sorcery

 

I don't normally play duels like the 19th century Gentleman's Club with rules and decorum' date=' extras and doctors on hand.[/quote']

 

You don't have to - Viking duels were fought in front of witnesses, in Japan, a whole legal code, including "written permission to duel" sprang up around dueling, Chinese dueling was also a semi-formal affair, while in medieval germany and England, duels were fenced around with all kinds of tradition and in medieval spain it was an integral part of the culture, from Hidalgos down to any many with a sense of self-respect. Both Romans and Celts had formal duelling too.

 

To me, the word "duel" means more than simply a brawl, but it's a broader concept than "pistols at dawn". The kind of face-off you describe, though, could involve armour, but is just as likely to occur on a street outside an tavern - in which case people are unlikely, in most cultures to be wearing armour either.

 

cheers, Mark

[lapsedgamer]

Re: Western Spaghetti Samurai Frontier Feel to Fantasy Sword & Sorcery

 

"If your great umbrage would care to meet my high dudgeon at 12 paces, I would be happy to entertain you at dawn.” --Benedict Arnold

[Alibear]

Re: Western Spaghetti Samurai Frontier Feel to Fantasy Sword & Sorcery

 

But all that has nothing to do with 'dueling' we see in spaghetti wetserns which is a whole other kettle of fish and that's what I thought we were trying to emulate?

 

In a frontier town where people are murdered regularly in brawls, a place where carrying a weapon is the norm then it follows that those who think they might get into trouble would sometimes wear armour if available to them.

 

If the local law enforement is so toothless that you're battling gamblers and bandits in the street and you 'knew' you were about to get into a lethal confrontation I'd question why you wouldn't wear armour?

[Hierax]

Re: Western Spaghetti Samurai Frontier Feel to Fantasy Sword & Sorcery

 

Armor, eh? well...

 

The heart, Ramone. Don't forget the heart. Aim for the heart, or you'll never stop me.

[Markdoc]

Re: Western Spaghetti Samurai Frontier Feel to Fantasy Sword & Sorcery

 

But all that has nothing to do with 'dueling' we see in spaghetti wetserns which is a whole other kettle of fish and that's what I thought we were trying to emulate?

 

In a frontier town where people are murdered regularly in brawls, a place where carrying a weapon is the norm then it follows that those who think they might get into trouble would sometimes wear armour if available to them.

 

If the local law enforement is so toothless that you're battling gamblers and bandits in the street and you 'knew' you were about to get into a lethal confrontation I'd question why you wouldn't wear armour?

 

Yeah, I think we are talking about two different things. I was replying in answer to the word "duel" - meaning a fight set up by both sides in advance. Armour's not impossible there (medieval knights dueled in armour sometimes). If, on the other hand, you were expecting a fight, then I'd expect people (including PCs) to wear armour if they had it.

 

cheers, Mark

[Susano]

Re: Western Spaghetti Samurai Frontier Feel to Fantasy Sword & Sorcery

 

I'll point out that in Sukiyaki Western Django, where the bandits run the town, and are armed with guns and swords, people wear bits of armor. But in Yojimbo, no one does, because no one has any. So it depends on how easy it is to get, really. If it's a totally lawless place, then you'd expect anything to go... but on one is going to walk around in full plate... that's 60 lbs and way more than you'd want to have one for hours at a time.

 

I'll also point out that the law could be rather lenient about fights in the street (in Hollywood and the pulps... and even in reality). :He needed killin'" is a perfectly valid defense. As is "it was a fair fight."

[Alibear]

Re: Western Spaghetti Samurai Frontier Feel to Fantasy Sword & Sorcery

 

I think, certainly in Yojimbo that his whole 'schtick' is that he is faster and better than the people he fights ('cept perhaps the bad guy with the revolver - end bad guy) and that armour would slow him down and stifle his fast moving style. The scene where he rescues the girl killing half a dozen guys on his own, and he has to rough the house up to make it look like the work of a dozen guys, reinforces this point I think.

 

For us, how I read it anyway, he has a high DCV and doesn't want armour penalties.

[Susano]

Re: Western Spaghetti Samurai Frontier Feel to Fantasy Sword & Sorcery

 

I think, certainly in Yojimbo that his whole 'schtick' is that he is faster and better than the people he fights ('cept perhaps the bad guy with the revolver - end bad guy) and that armour would slow him down and stifle his fast moving style. The scene where he rescues the girl killing half a dozen guys on his own, and he has to rough the house up to make it look like the work of a dozen guys, reinforces this point I think.

 

For us, how I read it anyway, he has a high DCV and doesn't want armour penalties.

 

That's a metagame approach. He's a ronin in mid to late 1800s Japan. He can't wear armor and walk around, or else the border and checkpoint guards and city police will be all over him. In addition, as a ronin, he only has what he wears, and he can't be bothered and burdened with a armor box on his back.

[Alibear]

Re: Western Spaghetti Samurai Frontier Feel to Fantasy Sword & Sorcery

 

You think the diector of the movie wasn't using a metagame style approach to film making?

 

If the diector wanted him to have armour he would have written it into the script somehow. Did they wear armour in Seven Samurai? I seem to recall they did but that was a battle situation.

[lapsedgamer]

Re: Western Spaghetti Samurai Frontier Feel to Fantasy Sword & Sorcery

 

You think the diector of the movie wasn't using a metagame style approach to film making?

 

If the diector wanted him to have armour he would have written it into the script somehow. Did they wear armour in Seven Samurai? I seem to recall they did but that was a battle situation.

 

They did, and the reason they ended up with it was one of the great little moments in that script. The "innocent" villagers had been killing and robbing wayward samurai and keeping their possesions. Not at all the pat story you would have expected. Just a great movie.