From: jacobus@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Bryan J. Maloney)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Weapons (Big & Small vs. Medium)
Date: 27 Jul 92 23:37:03 GMT
Organization: Purdue University Computing Center

In article <Bs06LG.Azp@news.cso.uiuc.edu> dv52151@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Axly) writes:
>some characters who use them exclusively. The problem with weapons in 
>FRP's is that these weapons didn't exist at the same time in history. No
>one is going to manufacture short swords when the other guy is making
>long swords. Swords became longer and longer as history went on. In most
>FRP's, all weapons of all times are available together. One way to fix
>that (and make your campaign more challenging) is to set the campaign
>at a time when shortswords were common, polearms were considered the
>heavy weapon of their time, and chain mail was a long way off. 





Okay, I can see this being set in a WORLD PARADIGM but in a TIME it would
be utterly absurd.  If weapons evolution has any parallel with Earth history,
such a "time" as Axly mentions would NEVER exist.  According to Oakeshott's
works on archaeology of weaponry (specialized in the Europa/Mediterranean/
Middle East Area from the stone age to the 1700's), "chain mail" (more
accurately called either mail OR chain--the combination is a Victorian
misnomer) is one of the OLDEST known forms of metal-based armor.  It was
VERY common among the Romans, and known to the Acheaeans as well.  Evidence
for it, as well as some type of jazeraint armor, exists in the Middle
East almost as far back as we have archaeological artifacts of armor.

As for "polearms were considered the heavy weapon of their time"--Until the
invention of gunpowder "polearms" were ALWAYS the heavy weapon of their time.
However, what Axly may be thinking of when he writes "polearms" is only
a miniscule slice of the amazing variety of staff-based weapons that have
existed.  (True "polearms" per se in the "can opener on a stick" sense
existed only after AD 1300 or so.  By AD 1500, they could cleave through
a greathelm, they had gained such length and weight to them.  Of course, they
were primarily useful as formation mass weapons, not one-on-one.)
Furthermore, "short swords" (being cutting swords of a blade length being
around 60cm to 70cm) were extant from the earliest bronze leaf-blades,
through the ENTIRE "Middle Ages" and only fell out of favor when the rapier
was invented.  

Sometimes these swords had one edge, sometimes they had two.  One thing
that united them was that they were the weapon of the common soldier.  The
nobility used something else, be it lance, bow, long/broadsword, what have
you.  Custom and/or law restricted non-nobles from using any very large
bladed weapon (i.e. "longswords").  This was flexible, but became more
and more rigid as the "Middle Ages" wore on.

Therefore, any High Medieval campaign would restrict non-nobles to using
either pole weapons (but only when on duty for a noble), clubs, staves, or
blades shorter than allowed to the nobles.  

The reasons for this are EXACTLY the same reasons that it is illegal for
a private US citizen to own a fully functional and loaded M1-Abrams tank.

I have just such a set of laws in my own fantasy campaign, and my players
happily live with it.  But I guess that's because the majority of them
like having some flavor in their games.    
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