LordGhee

This thread, the armor and shield threads have me reading again, in fact Museum Replicas Limited catalog #74 arrived in the mail. Neat stuff and generally a great reference but over priced. Most items can be found at ½ to 1/3 the price. I will say this every thing of MRL that I have handled is what they advertise. Now one thing that must be said if you talk weapons you need to talk armor and technology. This is real important in a game. Example as plate armor is introduced in Europe (1435) swords get longer and thinner to get in the gaps. Two-handed swords and other weapons show up seeking to defeat this new armor. In Europe as new weapons or use of them (tactics) are introduced they spread quickly. Now changes in the ancient world seem not to move quickly to other cultures or states. Now Plate has been introduced before. The Greeks in 1500bc developed a bronze banded plate and by 800bc what is called classical full bronze plate (called Muscle plate). This coupled with the heavy bronze shield made the Greek infantry when it met the Persians in 480 bc unstoppable. What meaning is this to fantasy gaming. I do not know J. I have run 10 fantasy games in twenty years and they have generally been historically based at least in weapon development. Now I have been in games that there seemed to be no tech thought per say. These games have been some of the best. Each game master has his own style. Now I am getting together a list of swords and such to compare them and show how I used them in my games, which seem to work well. Note on European Plate. First suit built as a test in Mainz Germany each smith in town is given one piece to do. When the suit is assembled it cost so much 10,000 silver marks that the only thing they can think to do is give it to the King of Spain and Austrian Charles the IV who promptly orders 4 suit for himself. I assume at a greatly reduced price. Next year at a siege in Spain Charles rides up in his new plate suit to a group of Dukes who remark on what a great thing it is and promptly order suits for them selves. Now Mainz leads armor making for years. Now by 1480’s the condettori in Italy are all armed with plate and by 1540 when the united Spanish and Venice fleets fight at Lepento with the Turks every soldier (15,000) had Plate. The Turks really felt this was unfair since they were using reinforced chain. The bow vs. gun being anther issue. Just think the game master says to you. Smith the mayor and the town council are here. Mayor: young smith the council has decide that this new suit of armor, weapon or magic thing need to be taken to the richest most powerful king in the world. We have decided to send you since this will be a dangerous……J The adventure begins.

Dear Green Gaint, Just zen it. Now this dose not seem like any help but in a D and D game you would have a group that was mixed and would not blink. In the ten FH games I have run in and the 6 or so I have been in I learned that there are different styles of play. I used all the mod and encumbreance rules. I have played tanks, a plate armoured Dwarf to a MA ( The army of the Tree) and each party had different armour classes. If deeeerent armour is avb. then that is what will happen. What I also learn is the cultrue behind armour, if you are in someone elses land then the wearing of armour is consider an act of war or at least a breach of the peace. One needs a writ or to be part of a caravan gaurd ect. If the armour dude needs a challenge then have three peasent surround him and start pelting him with dirt dodging, then when blind tackal him down! Armour is worn because it is protection. Hope this helps Lord Ghee

In the first campian I ran back in 1st additons FH I found the shild rule lackey. The suloution was that you could use them passsive, active, or combat. If you used them as combat you need the skill to get the full value and you got the Dcv from all attacks. If you used them active the shield acted as a wall with endurance nned to hold it up and perception of the incoming attack to move it to the side to recived the attk. This is how a roman would use a shield, he held it up to cover the soulder down to the ankle. any attk from that hex side would hit the shiled in those location.. since this was a campain based in Richard the lionheart time a norman kite shield use d on a hosre to cover the left side of the knight except the head. Passsive is where the shild is set down or worn on the back for example. attacks that hit it treat it as a wall. after twenty years of gaming with a lot of renactors this has work very well. Lord Ghee

My GAWD man you have somthing, that press and retreat rule I like! I have run ten FH campains since the first book has been out and if you teach them to be dynamic by having your villians be dynamic the players will be. A good example is have the bad guys move to the heros unshielded side and of course the back for the bonus. example players have used. player one I move two his unshielded side. GM Lord ghee, he counters. Player one good now his shield is out of the way so the elf has a better shot on him. Percetion is also under used in games. players learn that in my game if you are engeged with an oppent you will be at negatives to see actions around you. so bowmen can get those 1/2 dcv shots in. Also players learn that if you in the secound rank with a long weapon held an action and wiated untill you percived the fact that the enemy is not percieving them and bang they get a bonus shot. this caused player to declare that they wher holding and looking around (1/2 action full per with +1). Generally in combat I applied a -3 mod to any shill trying to be done- (Magnum PI - Pick the lock, do not look at the dogs, I looked at the dogs- GM that a minus 3 ) including perception in combat. in general wacth a good movie fight then figure out how it was done in FH. Example Gene Kelly in the three Musketteers he was a moble dude. hope this helps alittle. Lord Ghee

Great Gaming Moments One: The Glory of the Activation roll. Or opps I didn’t do it again. One thing that I love about Champions is that because of greed, concept or necessity players in order to get a power or effect need to take a little thing like activation rolls. This thread is about those stories, about great moments in gaming which activations affected the play good or bad. The Game: El Paso Sentinels game around 1984 (game started 1982 and has in one form or anther been run ever sinceJ) The Gamemaster-LordGhee. The Players: Winter-Aura, JW-Sun and Moon, Tal- Lionsmane Scene: Our heroes having traveled back in time, are trying to stop the Nazis Leader Captain Deutschland,who heads the Nazis secret weapons program from using the future technology a villain from the future has giving him. We pick up the story as the Heroes have invaded his evil base and smash their way to the corridor outside the control center. Aura (flying energy projector): steps into the corridor, zaps one of the storm troops at the end of it. The surviving strom troops opens up sharing the joy of continuous automatic area weapons fire and small unit tactics. Aura terribly wounded stumbles back into the arms of Moon (Marital Artist) around the corner as Lionsmane (demi brick) closes up. Lionsmane: “what we got†Braaaaaaaattttttttt, Moon: “storm troops at end of corridor using machine pistols to hold us off. Lionsmane: I will distract them. Lionsmane charges around corner much to the others surprise. Braaaaattttt , Booom Moon carries Aura around corner where lion is on the way down (being a demi brick he was right that he would not take body but the stun was anther matter ) Aura spreads her energy blast, pushes and fries the Guards. Moon makes 3 mental notes: Aura is an eggshell armed with a hammer. 2 When she is mad Aura fries people (this is proven again and again over the years of the game) and three, most important to Moon’s immediate survival is that the Germans have Grenades. Moon and Aura after checking the fallen Loinsmane make their way to the corridor’s end and survey the heavy armored door. Scene: Captain Deutschland in the middle of the control center. Hmm, the Uber weapons must be protected. The allied heroes must not succeed. Crescendo of gunfire and grenade. The Captain draws his Urber Luger, selects Autofire, declares levels in ocv and holds his action. Aura: I can blow it but I will be out of it for a while. Moon readies herself. Moon: Blow it Aura extends both hands and a bright beam strikes the door shattering it in a loud boom. Moons leaps dodging into the room and notes 3 things. One if you leap and dodge you have used all of your phase. Two there is a super villain type in the center and he is holding a very Big Gun. Three you must declare your skill levels are switch to defense before you leap. The Captain points the Uber Luger at moon, right at her chest, a frightful looking gun with a long accuracy enhancing big bore (epically when you are looking down it ) barrel. Moon knew she had it, after the group battles all this way with character after character going down. The Nazis will get their wonder weapons the future is doomed The game master rolls the dice, and a 17, is rolled. Game master: Click. Moon (player with eyes closed) slowly realizes that she is not dead: Click, that was a click no boom. Gamemaster: no boom, click as in jammed. Moon’s fellow players cheer. Earth still has a chance. To be continued in s future great gaming moments thread. (Later the player stated that he knew moon was dead.) So what interesting things have happen in your games do to Activation rolls. :D