At the Sign of the Salient Hurcheon

What’s it got in its pocketses

Posted on February 11, 2013 by hurcheon

Z-Man Games have three small boxes containing rules and armies for fighting battles between traditional enemies. So far these are “Rome vs Celts”, “Macedonians vs Persians” and “Orcs vs Elves”. I have all three, though I am still waiting for “Scots vs Scots”.

The system means that each army is compatible with the others, so I decided to fight Celts vs Elves and see how I got on. For the Elves I used the 80 point Army in the rulebook, the Celts I made up an army, but put in a Druid to give it a bit of a fantasy feel.

The armies are built of counters which have all the information on them. Each army takes up a space divided into six zones (front and rear, left, right and centre) and in the middle is the “Engagement zone” where melées take place. It’s all a bit abstract, there are no terrain rules, but it is quickly understood.

The counters have the point cost of that stand of troops, the number of wounds it can take, and the stacking limit (formation limit) it has when placed in a unit with others. You can mix troop types, but the stacking limit used has to be the lowest one in the unit.

If a stand has an icon on it, that indicates either a special ability or an inherent ability. An inherent ability is “on” all the time, a “special” ability requires an order to use. You get two sheets with an explanation of the abilities in the box. You also get some order/wound tokens, a ziploc back to keep them in and six normal, six-sided, dice.

If you click on a picture you will get a larger version of the photo.

Deployment

Each stack is a unit . A unit consists of one or more stands of a troop type. The round tokens are used to spend for orders or to mark wounds

The game is in turns. The player with initiative can move a unit for free to move it into a zone, then they have to spend an order, even if it is only to do nothing. After committing an order the play passes to the other player and each order is acted out until there are no orders tokens left, at which point the order tokens are recovered, the die is rolled again for initiative and the process starts again.

If a unit is hit, you can lose a troup stand or, if it has multiple wounds, you can place a wound token on it. Wound tokens are the flip-side of your order tokens though, so you have the choice of saving your stand or losing your ability to issue orders.

The opening of the battle.

White dice on the counter shows ranged combat ability, black dice show melée ability.

The Celts have won the initiative and a hero on their left has fired on the chariot on the right flank of the Elves. Any combat only rolls one die, unless there is a modifier e.g. charging into battle adds 1, and this hero gets to roll a second die when shooting.

He rolls a five and a four, and from the dice depicted, he hits on a 4, 5 and 6, so he causes two wounds, the chariot can only take two and is removed. Although the picture shows wound tokens they would not be used here, they remain in use for orders. In any case, you can always choose not to place a wound.

Melée is joined.

The Elvish archers have retaliated and killed the Hero. The horsemen attack but are intercepted

The Elvish archers have already had their turn, killing the Hero. Now the Celts order their horsemen to charge the archers, but the Elves order the stand of spearmen to intercept. The Elves could have had the archers shoot the charging cavalry, but at the cost of two new orders. To give an order to a unit that has already had an order, costs the same as the number of tokens they already have.

The Spearmen are wiped out, but the horsemen have to retire back to their own line.

Another volley

A unit that has taken an action can take another. The Elven archers on *their* right have a second order issued. Issuing further orders costs more than the first, and get more expensive.

The elves keep up the pressure on their right by another arrow volley but to no effect. The cost of new orders on a unit that has already taken an action increases the more you use them, so you have to take the chance about limiting your ability to respond later or even just to issue orders by continuing an attack.

The Arrow volley kills one of the opposing horsemen outright

The Celts take a risk

The Celts try to break through on the left

The javelinmen can either throw their javelins or attack in melee. With no rational though the impetuous Celts charge, and the Elves burn yet more orders to shoot back, this time with no effect.

Melée is engaged, though the archers can’t strike back, having no melée dice, and half the elves are slain.

The Elves strike back

The Elves attempt to divert the Celts from the losses they are suffering on their right

Before issuing orders, a unit of Mounted Archers is moved from the centre to the Elvish right. This is a free move.

The treeman is ordered to advance, and the Celts send their noble cavalry to intercept. The treeman inflicts grievous casualties, but the Cavalry stay up, and will get to strike back!

They do so, and will inflict three wounds back on the treeman.

All orders have been used up, and this round ends.

The second round begins

The Celts continue to try and break through on the left, using all forces at their disposal

The Elves won the initiative and used that to order the Treeman to continue the attack on the Noble Cavalry, destroying them.

The Celts sent their cavalry to engage the rest of the archers on the left, and, as they are already engaged, the archers cannot fire back.

The archers are wiped out.

Time to advance the centre

The Elves centre weakened in order to support their right, the Celts launch an attack there

The Warrior Queen is moved forward as the free move. (though idiot here forgot to move the counter) and a Celtic noble and his warband advance. If they fail then the queen is there to strengthen the line. The attack is damaged by an Elven hero, slaying one of the warbands using archery.

However the Noble and the rest of the troops cut the hero into little chunks of elfmeat.

The woodland creatures strike back

An mixed Elvish unit attacks the Celtic right, now consisting only of Gaestatae. They respond and use the last Celtic order to induce extra effect through fury

Trying to regain the initiative, and wary that the centre and right is weakened, the Elvish left launch an attack using a mixed bag of Mounted Guard, Spearmen and Woodland animals.

Their attack is pathetic though, and the Celtic player use their last order to boost the effect of the responding Gaestatae. leaving the attackers with a choice. Put a wound on the Mounted Guard and leave it operational, or let it fail. They choose that to keep the extra order.

Let the grey geese fly!

The next elvish move is to use archers against the Gaestatae, wiping them out utterly

The Elven archers on their left let loose, destroying the Gaestate and the Celtic right is unprotected!

However the Celts have a larger prescence on their left, and the centre is stacked in the Celts favour, so it is not over yet!

It is the end of the second battle round

The Queen rides forth

The Queen in her chariot moves quickly to the attacj

The Celts move the queen from the centre to the right, and bring it forward to the attack

The Celts use their free move to move the Warrior Queen from the centre front to the right front. As the Warrior Queen is a fast unit it can also be ordered to attack.

This foolhardy attack actually succeeds through awful die rolls by the defenders. The Elves should have destroyed the attack, but didn’t.

As it is, the Queen causes 3 wounds, plus one extra because of a special ability, so the elvish archers are destroyed.

End game

The Treemen attack again, and the warrior queen counterattacks (needing more orders to do so)

The treeman attacks but only causes one wound, the Queen’s strikeback is enough to kill the treeman.

The Celts use missile fire to destroy the last unit on the Elvish right and that leaves both flanks open.

Flank attacks do not allow the target to counter charge or to fire back, and the end has come.

Victory to the Celts!

Conclusions

This is a fun wee game with everything apart from the playing surface is there in the box. There are ideas I would like to steal for a figure game, particularly the order/wound system and the score on the dice to cause hits. I have seen pics, I assume by a demo team, of figures being used, but a more traditional game of this with figures would need a lot more tweaking.

I have another “grid” game (Lost Battles) and I quite like the idea that you fight for control of sections of the battlefield, in some ways it is no less artificial that other figure games.

I had sorted out the counters and forces I would be using the previous evening, and the game itself took 20 minutes from the initial initiative roll until the end. If you had the time, this would be a good game where each player plays both sides to see how balanced it all is.

I would like access to the points system, mostly because I would like to use it for pocket Lord of the Rings Battles. My other other regret is these games are hard to get in the UK, they need better distribution, assuming they are still an extant company.

There is nothing inherent in the game aiming it as solo play. I tried to play each side as best I can and I used dice rolls to chose between seemingly equally valid options, though in a couple of cases I gave the Celts a 1 in d6 of choosing the more insane option out of two or three, which is why the Javelinmen charged instead of threw javelins.

Posted in RPGs & Wargaming | Leave a comment

Why Braveheart is shockingly historically inaccurate. It is also a bad film

Posted on January 31, 2013 by hurcheon

Errors of fact in the film “Braveheart”.

(We had this on our old website. I’m reposting it as someone asked how accurate the film was)

Pointing out the errors in “Braveheart” might be seen as pointless, after all, should we expect anything more from Hollywood. Well the trouble is that the errors are so many and so grievous, and the legacy of Wallace and the Wars of Independence still have so much meaning to Scots today that I thought it worthwhile to realise just how shoddy and worthless a job Randall Wallace made of the story.

The real story itself is so exciting that I am surprised and a little saddened that such a bad job was done, but it was and I’ll try and redress it a bit.

Notes

After the death of Alexander III’s daughter, the Maid of Norway, there were 13 claimants to the Scots throne, of which two families had a decent claim. These formed the main factions in Scotland. The two factions were
- The Comyn family, who supported John Balliol a kinsman who was chosen by Edward I to be rightful King.
- The Bruces, who had been heir presumptive before Alexander had any heirs.
  - There are (at least) three Robert Bruces alive at the same time
  - Robert de Bruce, the “Old Competitor”. Robert Bruce (A):- Father to (B), Grandfather to (C)
  - Robert Bruce, who didn’t want to claim the kingship, Robert Bruce (B):- Son of (A), Father of (C)
  - Robert Bruce the King, Robert I, Robert Bruce (C):- , Grandson of (A), Son of (B)
John Balliol has the “distinction” in Scot’s history of never being referred to as King John, he is always John Balliol, “Toom Tabard” (Empty Shirt), not really a King

The following points and counterpoints are in the
basic order in which they are brought up within the film.

The film opens in 1280. Scotland is at war with itself and Edward of England after the death of the King of Scots when Edward proposes a truce to decide matters. Kilted Scotsman wander hither and yon.

Um, no. It is not until 1286 that Alexander III, King of Scots rides off a cliff to his death, leaving the Kingdom with no heir save Margaret, the Maid of Norway, his three year old granddaughter and daughter of the King of Norway. Alexander even had male heirs after 1280, though they died before Alexander’s own death.
The plaid and the kilt are not the dress of the Lowland Scot, and probably not of the Highlander at this time earlier. Male clothing would appear to be a long tunic with breeches, often short, under them.
Edward was not invited until 1290 to decide the decision as to which claimant had a better claim to the throne. He had done a similar job earlier in deciding the lordship over the island of Sicily and was seen as an honest broker and had signed treaties guaranteeing Scots independence. Of course Longshanks had other ideas.

William Wallace is shown as a kilted Highlander, the son of a crofter, a man of humble origins

Um, no. William Wallace’s father was a knight, probably named Malcolm. Sir Malcolm Wallace was a vassal of the Stewart family, with whom the Wallaces had been associated for over 100 years. Wallace’s mother was the daughter of Sir Reginald Craufurd of Loudon, Sheriff of Ayr. Far from humble origins.
Not only that, but the Wallace family were lowlanders, probably living in Elderslie in Renfrewshire, comparatively flat terrain and not the steep sided valley of the film.
Even the great Magnates of Scotland as shown as scrappy 15th Century Highlander in this, instead of the rich and powerful Celtic-Normans they were, as well equipped as the English nobles, or nearly.

Wallace’s father is killed in this year of 1280, and the young Wallace is taken in by his uncle Abenazar, sorry, Argyll. This uncle has Wallace taught Latin, French and his letters.

Wallace’s father was not killed until 1292. Before then Wallace had been educated at Paisley Abbey and in 1292 had been living near Dundee for a while, admittedly with his uncle. A load of boys seem to have been shipped there to have the rough edges knocked off them.
I have no idea where the name Argyll came from. Argyll as a territory was under control of John of Lorn, who supported the Comyn side of the inheritance debate.

Abenazar Argyll makes reference to “Outlawed tunes on outlawed Pipes”. He also mentions that the same thing happened for his father, William Wallace’s grandfather.

Neither the pipes nor the tunes were outlawed until after the 1745 rebellion. A little while away.
England and Scotland had been at peace within the possible lifetime of Wallace’s grandfather. The last battle on Scots soil against a foreigner was in 1263 at Largs when the forces of the Steward defeated the Norsemen of King Haakon.

Wedding of Edward Prince of Wales and Isabelle of France

Isabelle was born in 1292, so to have her as a fully grown woman before the battle of Stirling Bridge (1297) is ludicrous.
She was betrothed to Edward in 1303.
They actually married in 1308, three years after Wallace’s execution.

In Edward’s council of war Longshanks proposes to settle English nobles in Scotland and grant Scots nobles land in England. To entice the English nobles Edward plans to give them “Jus primae Noctis”, the right to sleep with any common woman on the night f her marriage.

The Norman nobility in Scotland, Wales, France and Ireland were already international. This was part of the problem in fact, since part of Edward’s claim over Scotland was that the Kings of Scotland held land in England owing him oaths of fealty as vassals for that land. Funnily enough when Philip le Bel of France tried the same argument on Edward for land Edward held as vassal of France that wasn’t the same thing. Somehow. One of the settlements in the eventual peace treaty between Scotland and England was to divest nobles of land held abroad.
Not only is the “Jus Primae Noctis”a myth, I don’t think anyone even suggested it as a bit of anti-English Propaganda during the wars. It strikes me that this is a nice atrocity that the makers of the film can get past the censors compared to one of the real horrors like Berwick where Longshanks slaughtered everybody.

Robert Bruce the Elder.

As stated earlier there were three Robert Bruces. (Not to be confused with a Robert Brux who was a servant of Edward I). Of the three only perhaps the youngest, the King ever had any kind of skin complaint.
It was the Grandfather who maintained the claim to the throne, the middle Bruce resigned it in favour of his son.
The Grandfather died in 1295, the Father in 1304. This makes eithers involvement in later event improbable to say the least.

Peaceful William Wallace who wanted to be a farmer

There was never any sign of this. When his father was killed Wallace was living near Dundee. Soon after wards in Dundee itself he picks a fight, or a fight is picked with him, with an English soldier whom he kills. He is then on the run for most of the rest of his life.
Oh. And even if he was, it wouldn’t be a Highland croft

Mirren the crofter’s daughter and her death.

Well she was called Marion Braidfute.
She was the daughter of Sir Hugh Braidfute and heiress of the Lamington Estates in Lanarkshire.
Rather than the short romance in the film it is possible that they were together long enough to have a daughter.
And rather than being the subject of a casual rape, she was the subject of the attentions of the English Sheriff of Lanark, Heselrig, who thought to marry her to his son, so he arranged to have Wallace put out of the way. Marion aided Wallace’s escape and was killed for that.
And there is a claim that she never existed, grafted onto the Blind Harry version in 1570, to tie in the Ballies of Lamington to the Wallace legend

Wallace and the Nunchuks

When William wallace enters the village “unarmed” he pulls out a pair of nuchakus from behind his neck.
- Not a cavalry flail
- Not a threshing flail (too big)
But honest to goodness nunchakus, both sides even and everything. I know that study is showing more complex trade routes to the orient than was once thought, but NO!

Cowardly English nobles and Wooden Castles.

Much as I hate to say it Longshanks seems to have picked his subordinates reasonably well, and it is unlikely that most would have been happy to be slaughtered like a sheep.
Scotland was well supplied with Stone Castles. One of the things Robert the Bruce (C) did was destroy them so they could not be held against him in the future.

Edward’s council of war, discussing the threat from Wallace.

Of course the year before John Balliol had been at war with the English, at the same time as Wallace Bruce revolted in the south and Andrew Murray started a revolt in the north.

Wallace the Woad-wearing short-arse

You can argue the point about the height of Wallace, though the sources all give him a good height rather than the diminutive stature of Mr. Gibson but no, there is no evidence of anyone painting their faces. Not a one.

The Battle of Stirling Bridge.

This is Wallace’s first stand up battle, and is not referred to by name nor does it look much like the Bridge. This was never a proposed capitulation by the nobles which Wallace rescued with a quick arms delivery and a new tactic.

This was a tactic developed by Wallace and Andrew Murray in advance.
The English army was crossing a narrow bridge which led into a section of boggy hemmed in by a loop of the River Forth.
The English did not get time to deploy when the Scots charged.
The battle as shown in the film is complete mince. If the Scots had tried bottom waving antics in the face of Welsh Archers then the same result as Falkirk would have happened.

Lochlann and Mornay

Lochlann and Mornay: These two standard nobles for the fight scenes are not historical but if they were, the name Mornay seems mildly insulting to Andrew Murray who was nothing like the trimmer Mornay is in the film.

Wallace knighted, the Balliol Clan and the Wallace’s support

This may actually have been done by Robert the Bruce.
The Balliol Clan: The Balliol and the Comyns were definately not a Celtic Clan. They were a Norman French family, whose name comes from the French town of Bailleul-en-Vimeu. John Balliol’s mother, Devorgilla, gifted the funds that established Balliol College in Oxford.
And as to the Wallace’s family long being supporters of the “Balliol Clan”. Wallace fought in the name of King John Balliol, but his family owed fealty to the hereditary High Stewards of Scotland, the Stewarts, and Wallace’s brother Malcolm was in service with Robert the Bruce.

Wallace as Guardian.

There is no mention of the letters written by Wallace to former trading partners such as the Hansa stating, in basic terms, that Scotland is open for business again. The full text of one of these Letters was discovered in Hamburg a while back by a Dr. Lappenburg.

Andrew Murray and William Wallace, Commanders of the Army of Scotland and the community of the same kingdom:
To the prudent and discreet men and well beloved friends, the Mayors and Commonwealths of Lubeck and Hamburg, greeting and perpetual increase of sincere friendship.
To us it has been intimated by trustworthy Merchants of the said Kingdom of Scotland that as a mark of your regard, you have been favourable to, counselling and assisting in all matters and transactions relating to us and said merchants, though such good offices may not have been preceded by our desserts, and on that account we are more bound to tender you our thanks and a suitable return.
This we have willingly engaged ourselves to perform towards you, requesting that, in so far as you cause your Merchants to be informed, they will now have safe access to all the ports of the Kingdom of Scotland with their merchandise, as Scotland, thanks be to God has by war been recovered from the power of the English. Farewell. Given at Haddington, in Scotland, this 11th day of October 1297.
PS. We have, moreover, to request that you would condescend to forward the interests of our Merchants, John Burnet and John Frere, in their business in like manner as you may wish us to act towards your Merchants in their transactions. Farewell.”

Wallace and Princess Isabelle and Charity

Didn’t happen. There was an attempt to capture the English Queen in York but that was in 1319 to put pressure on Edward II. Anyway, at the time she would have been, what, six years old.
And Wallace was not a savage, he was, for Scotland, a cultured type.
As to Isabelle handing out Charity in the King’s name. Edward I was a charitable sort, if the politics of the situation were suitable.

The Battle of Falkirk and afterwards

The Irish did not desert. The Welsh archers, who were feeling mutinous anyway, only came in when the tide seemed to be turning against the Scots
The Bruce did not fight on the English side. He was in Galloway at that time, he did fight on the side of the English King at some times, but this was not one of them.
Afterward Wallace did not wander alone like some “Teuchter Mad Max”. He had a band of followers including hjis brother He travelled abroad in the service of Scotland, visiting France and possibly Norway. He may have even fought on the French side against the English.

Wallace and Isabelle

Still didn’t happen. Sorry.

Betrayal of Wallace by Bruce’s Father and Wallace’s execution.

Well, both Bruce’s father and grandfather were dead by now
We know who betrayed Wallace, his name was Sir John de Menteith
Wallace was spread to the four corners of England, not Britain.

Bruce’s submission to Edward II at the Bannockburn

This is total nonsense. By this time the Bruce had been at war with the English solidly for 8 years. His presence at the Bannockburn was because the English garrison of Stirling Castle.had agreed to surrender to the Scots if not relieved by a certain date. The English were coming to relieve them so the Bruce fought them on a ground of his choosing.It was NOT a spur of the moment decision because of the Bruce was shamed into it by the looks of Wallace’s old troops and a grubby handkerchief.Even if it had been how could the Bruce have succeeded charging the English in exactly the same fight that the Wallace kept losing? No. The Bruce used his disciplined schiltrons and his light cavalry in exactly the right way to force the English into boggy terrain from which they had difficulty fighting.He earned his victory in blood and effort, proving himself the worthy heir of Wallace’s troops

Why is all this important?

Because William Wallace was not born with a title he has become, in more modern years, a working-class symbol. People have invested his times with battles that are being fought now, and with meanings that were not appropriate for the time. It might have been easier for the Wallace, a landless man though of landed family, to fight at times than the nobles who had lands to lose.

Also, although the contenders for the throne wanted to see Scotland free, they wanted it with their candidate in charge, and so the battle to stop their opponent was more important. Not noble, but human.Some nobles even joined the English because they were disgusted with the in-fighting in Scotland but it is still wrong to impute 20th/21st theories of class warfare onto the politics of the 13th and 14th Century.

Posted in History | Leave a comment

News from Lloegyr

Posted on January 19, 2013 by hurcheon

A bit over a year ago I started a second “Apocrypha”. Errata, extra rules and expansions to my hugely, umm, err, typed RPG C&S Essence. In that I decided that as one of the criticisms of the book was the the only setting offered was “low/gritty” fantasy, I would put in some High Fantasy.

I decided Arthurian. I mean. EVERYONE knows Arthur. And I said, I only recently noticed this again, that it would be “High Level”. That is a gloss, an overview, nothing too detail.

That sound you hear is only laughter in a technical sense, mostly it is sobbing of despair.

The work has more words written for it than the original C&S E. The biggest hassle was deciding what kind of Arthur to write about. The second, as noted previously on this blog, is the struggle to keep it HIGH and not low fantasy.

But where are we?

Well, the sections are pretty much there. I just realised I need something about Chivalry, but otherwise the structure is set. I was helped in that by switching to Scrivener, from Literature and Latte, as a writing tool which let me break the plain text into sections and shuffle bits around.

Now it’s all about hammering in the detail and game effects,

And mapping. Yes. Even if Steve gets a decent artist to do the maps, they’ll need something to work from, Almost tempted to see if I can get Campaign Cartographer 2 to work on this machine, or under Wine on a Linux laptop, but then I have a lie down and the insanity goes away. Time to make serious use of that tablet Jean got me a while back.

So. Here’s hoping a project that should have been complete in Dec 2011 is finished by Dec 2013 (or a damn sight earlier)

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The Hobbit – An unexpected runtime?

Posted on January 5, 2013 by hurcheon

Warning. There are spoilers in the text below

In my last post I commented on why I thought the film had to be longer than just one. because of the extra material needed to tie together both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, including taking characters and giving them some more development.

However the accusations of “padding” go on. That there is no need for or justification for the extra text. I am going to argue against that by pointing to the first person to “fiddle with” the story. There might be an argument made for filming The Hobbit as written, but that leaves it adrift from LoTR a story that “grew in the telling”.

Tolkien changed The Hobbit to fit, but he did more. He wrote text to fill in some of the gaps, not only in the general history, language, genealogies and calendars of Middle-Earth, but also why Gandalf helped the Dwarves and what would have happened if he had not. That is in the section on Durin’s Folk in Appendix A of Return of the King. I know there are editions that omit the Appendices, usually single-volume sets or translations, but the publication of Return of the King was delayed to get these in, which shows you the importance Tolkien placed on the information there.

In the “Unfinished Tales” , versions of “The Quest for Erebor” (TQfE), another way of presenting the information, were included in Part III, Chapter III, and I have seen one guy suggest that TQfE would be a better title for the films. Before I go into the important points Tolkien was trying to get across, I’ll quickly look at a few digressions the film has from the books.

Thror is at the Battle of Azanulbizar. He wasn’t. he was already slain by Azog. Thor’s death and the battle are described in the Durin’s Folk section of Appendix A, as is how Thorin came by the nickname Oakenshield.
Azog survives the Battle. In the story, Dain killed him
Thrain runs off during the Battle. No, he disappears later
Gandalf hasn’t been to Dol Guldur in the film of the Hobbit. In the book he had, and already suspected he knew who the Necromancer was. He met Thrain in the dungeons there and that is where he got the map and key. He did not know who Thrain was and only worked it out later on meeting Thorin, leading to the quest for Erebor

I’m not sure about the reasoning for the first three but I have a hypothesis for the fourth. TQfE is Gandalf telling a tale told to the Fellowship after Aragorn’s coronation, while still in Minas Tirith. It is all a tale told about the past, so a long timescale can work on such a narrative. There are echoes of this in Bilbo’s opening narration. I think this would work less well in a film, so it was changed, and now Radagast is discovering a return that was older in the book “history”.

So what was Tolkien trying to convey in the Appendix and the versions of TQfE?

Remember that Gandalf is fairly sure who the Necromancer is. He is sure that the Necromancer intends to attack Rivendell and Lothlorien, thus destroying the two centres of ancient Elvish lore and power. That would mean also recapturing Angmar and being able to threaten the lands West of the Misty Mountains, but now there was little force in the North capable of aiding the Elves. Dale and Erebor were shattered, though Thranduil’s Kingdom and the Dwarves of the Iron Hills remained.

he was troubled by the perilous state of the North; because he knew then already that Sauron was plotting war, and intended, as soon as he felt strong enough, to arrack Rivendell. But to resist any attempt from the East to regain the lands of Angmar and the northrn passes of the mountains there were now only the Dwarves of the Iron Hills”

Between the Elves and the Iron Hills was Smaug and with the dragon Sauron could devastate the north and the woods. Without the Elves Gondor and Rohan could be subjugated more easily, attacked from all sides by enemies.

In fact in TQfE, Gandalf says that were it not for his own motives (the defence of the West) he would not be aiding the Dwarves at all.

Gandalf’s plan therefore was to drive the Necromancer out. This had the effect of giving some safety to Rivendell and Lorien. Sauron retreated to Mordor. Gandalf thought Sauron would take longer than he did to re-establish himself. At that time also, according to TQfE,

‘I was very troubled at the time,’ he said, ‘for Saruman was hindering all my plans’

That leaves Smaug himself, still a threat in the North. With his death and the destruction of a large part of the orcs of the Misty Mountains, Dale and Erebor can reestablish themselves.

There is more information in TQfE, including the idea that not only is Bilbo stealthier than a Dwarf, but that he has “A scent that cannot be placed, at least not by Smaug, the enemy of the Dwarves”, but the ultimate relevance of this is in the Appendix to The Return of the King, after news of the deaths of the Kings of Dale and Erebor fighting against the Easterlings

Yet things might have gone far otherwise and far worse. When you think of the Battle of Pelennor, do not forget the battles in Dale and the valour of Durin’s Folk. Think of what might have been. Dragon-fire and savage swords in Eriador, night in Rivendell. There might be no Queen in Gondor. We might now hope to return from the victory here to ruin and ash. But that has been averted — because I met Thorin Oakenshield one evening on the edge of spring in Bree. A chance-meeting, as we say in Middle-earth.

This is why I think Peter Jackson is correct to link The Hobbit and LoTR. Had he done the Hobbit first, he could have filmed the charming children’s story we love, but Tolkien even changed that, to make it darker and to link with LoTR. He has his LoTR. now he has to make The Hobbit consistent.

If it accords with Tolkien’s desires, how is it wrong?

Posted in Book, Film & TV, Tolkien | 1 Comment

“The Hobbit” conundrum

Posted on December 14, 2012 by hurcheon

I wrote the start of this before I had seen the first film “The Hobbit : An Unexpected Journey”, on the topic some folk were raising about the multiplicity of the films of the short novel “The Hobbit”. I’ll leave aside the 3D or 48fps, so far I haven’t found an issue with that. So, why more than one film.

Now, I have yet to be convinced about THREE films, and I am aware that “King Kong” could have been a tighter film if some of the action sequences weren’t so grandiose, but I can see why “The Hobbit” can be more than one film, and it is a problem that the book now has too.

“The Hobbit” is a children’s story that is complete within itself. Filming that is probably a one film task. It has been a one film task before. But it has a sequel. That sequel puts more pressure on “The Hobbit”.

J. R. R. Tolkien actually did a bit of retconning (*) to “The Hobbit” after “The Lord of the Rings came out”. Gollum was originally truer to his word, betting this ring that he owned as a prize in the Riddle Game. Since he was unable to deliver, because he had lost it, he showed Bilbo out and they parted on good terms.

That doesn’t fit with the addicted victim of The One Ring that Gollum became, so that had to be changed.

Lord of the Rings covers it too. In the Council of Elrond, the whole history of the Ring is told, including the reason for and consequence of Gandalf’s side trip in “The Hobbit”. The film LoTR doesn’t cover much of this, it is unnecessary to that film because it is NOT a sequel to a Hobbit film. However by the time of LoTR, these events had assumed a great significance to the plot of the sequel. (**)

But now the film LoTR will have the work that they are sequels to to cope with, but you cannot change the LoTR films to put back in exposition that put the events of “The Hobbit” into their new perspective. If you film “The Hobbit” as is, then elements won’t gel with “The Lord of the Rings”. So the things that were explained in “LoTR” now have to take place within the context of “The Hobbit”.

In and of itself, “The Hobbit” is a children’s story. LoTR started off as that, but changed. The change in tone is noticeable particularly at the Barrowdowns, and gets darker thereafter.

LoTR is not story for young children, so having filmed it after, the Hobbit can either stand out like a sore thumb, or it can match, and we already Tolkien preferred to make it fit.

So if you, as the film maker, have decided to make it match, so you have to include things that foreshadow LoTR, including what Gandalf did on his side trip, which means you have to give that context. It can’t just have been “Right, nipping off to do a thing, oh look it’s finished”.

There is suspicion, doubt, realization, debate, what action to take, then performing those actions, dealing with setbacks and consequences.That, I reckon, pushes “The Hobbit” into two films without a sense of padding. There are other things that can be shown, the decisions that lead to certain actions that happen with the genesis of that action only briefly referred to, these can be put in their proper place and context.

Is it three films worth? I do not know, I have yet to be persuaded, but it is certainly more than one, and I think people who are looking askance at that will find themselves wrong.

Others may be just “knocking the popular thing” that we humans do so well, perhaps an understandable suspicion after the “Start Wars” prequels, but on that score I’ll decide when I see them all.

(*) Retroactive continuity, changing a work to fit a later work that contradicts it
(**) SPOILER ALERT – Highlight the text below if you want to read my thoughts on “The other things”

Firstly of course the ring changes to the “The One Ring”, that is a important, but doesn’t jusitfy extra time
The death of Smaug becomes more significant, because he cannot then become an ally of Sauron
The Battle of the Five Armies becomes more significant, because that breaks Orc power in the Misty Mountains, again removing forces that Sauron could have called on later
The biggie though is the Necomancer. Barely a name in “The Hobbit”, he is the Enemy of LoTR. He is driven out from Dol Guldur, though he may have been ready to leave anyway. Saruman counsels caution, and we know by LoTR why, but he is still trusted here. This part is required, and needs setting up and carrying through as discussed earlier

Posted in Book, Film & TV, Tolkien | 2 Comments

There is such a thing as society

Posted on December 2, 2012 by hurcheon

When Chivalry and Sorcery was first published, one of the innovations Ed and Wilf brought in was a viable society, in this case the Feudal Society of medieval Western Europe. They did this because the place of the characters compared to others is important. The stereotypical bunch of smash and grab artists that parties tend to be cannot function in the real world as they are.

An equivalent in our history might be the medieval mercenary companies that roamed between contracts, raping and plundering and generally being outlaws. An outlaw, though romanticised by Hollywood, is not a good thing, it means that the law affords you no protection, anyone can kill you without fear of retribution by the authorities.

If the players aspire to having their characters achieve power and influence, to become Lords and Ladies, to achieve rank, then without a society to place themselves in, then what is the point, and if you wish to place yourself in the food chain without taking the risks and paying the price as well as the rewards.

It also adds another layer to the game, playing politics, exerting influence, engaging in diplomacy and who knows, perhaps even marshalling your troops in war.

So, unless you are running a dog-eat-dog Mad Max style Libertarian wank fantasy, laws and hierachies that are found in real life, should be adapted to your game, and it will be better for it, providing an extra level of possible interaction.

Posted in Chivalry & Sorcery, RPG, Writing | Leave a comment

High Society

Posted on December 2, 2012 by hurcheon

Well, it’s been a while since the last post.

In that time I haven’t been wrestling with magic, no no. Instead I have been wrestling with societal organisation in post-Roman Britain.

C&S is a game where hierarchy and influence matter, so you need some way of comparing, and the family you are raised with affaects the chances you had in life.

However the society of the time is not as neatly stratified as we would like for a games system, so I distilled what I could, and in the end eliminated a whole layer that would be useful to me for the game, but I couldn’t justify or, more importantly, find terms for.

That was salutary. I held onto it longer than I should have, but in the end, doing so simplified things for me. Very strange. Maybe I can learn from that.

Another writing session will finish this. It would have been finished already save for the vagaries of Dropbox, which meant I had to recreate work. This will mean human character generation is done. I am not sure I wish to do non-human characters, the world is human, the world of Faerie is the adversary in many ways, but players are players.

Once that is done then the next major tasks are

Finishing the starter adventure
Polishing off Magic
Stats on NPCs
Checking for consistency
Sending it out for the next set of peer review (the bit I hate

Ach well

Posted in Chivalry & Sorcery, RPG, Writing | Leave a comment

From The Past – Squirrel Magic in GURPS

Posted on October 5, 2012 by hurcheon

Since I have been obsessing about magic in my RPG for the last couple of months, I thought I would resurrect this blast from the past. I think it was from about 1998, on the usenet group rec.games.frp.misc.

Someone voiced the opinion that GURPS was not truly universal. “Show me the GURPS basic set in an environment where magic consists of coaxing millions of invisible squirrels to do things for you”.

Note from the future. The basic argument is ridiculous anyway, because a generic system does not have to provide you with all settings there and then, that is infinite and impossible, it just has to be capable of modelling them consistently and playably for the game.

I asked if that the world where good uses invisible RED squirrels and evil uses GREYS. or is it the world where vice versa is the case. Apparently it is vice versa.

Alright, this is a patently silly argument but I knocked up a basis for such a college in about 5 minutes. Here is a slightly expanded idea that I hope shows there is no idea so ludicrous that GURPS can’t make it work for an RPG, so here goes, The College of Squirrel Command.

However lets play with it. In this world each spell consists of three stages
1) Summon
2) Direct
3) Dismiss

First you summon, then you direct and the third part is persuading them to go away.

Skills.

SUMMON INVISIBLE SQUIRRELS Mental H.
This spell summons the Mana of this world, personified by the invisible squirrels.

DIRECT invisible Squirrels Mental H.
This spell commands the Squirrels to do your bidding.

RESTRAIN Mental H
This spell ensures that the squirrels mass against your target and attempt to hold them down. Whilst one squirrel isn’t very strong, millions might just do it.

INVISIBILITY
The mage induces the Invisible Squirrels to cover his body and conceal him.

Unfortunately no mage ever uses this more than once, as the squirrels, being invisible, do not conceal him in the slightest, and those Squirrel bodies get HOT.

FIREBALL
This requires physical components to perform. The mage must provide his own Squirrel powered pump, a long hose and a tank of petroleum. While some of the Squirrels power the pump, the others run to the target and aim the nozzle of the hose at him, the one at the front should light the petroleum. This spell is fraught with difficulty as mistakes in timing can lead to squirrel roast or, even worse, an exploded Mage.

LIGHTNING BOLT
The Squirrels are commanded to rub against each other until a powerful static charge is created. At this point the Squirrels point at the target and the mighty bolt is unleashed. However even with a large quantity of Squirrels it is hard to achieve high damage with this.

FEAR
The squirrels drum their little paws on the stomach of the target, making him feel that he has “butterflies” in his stomach and that he must be afraid. The demoralised target runs away.

HEADACHE
A variation on the FEAR spell. The squirrels jump up and down on the head of the target causing pain, misery and tension.

FLIGHT
The squirrels pick up the Mage and run along the ground carrying him. To others it looks like he is flying, although very low, and impresses them and THAT’s what’s important.

Posted in none yet, RPG, Writing | 1 Comment

Abracadabra-Alakazam

Posted on October 1, 2012 by hurcheon

Well. Although slightly diverted by needs of work and family, I did delve into the world of medieval magic. The bottom line is, and it’s a terrible one for role-players, the medieval folk don’t seem to have separated magic out into neat little packages and disciplines like we do in gaming.

I know, how inconsiderate of them!

The closest I got is that when you look at things like the Kabballah, there is a different structure and purpose to the Graeco-Roman magic that seems to have formed the most of practical Western Magic. That is a mix of prayers, chants and material effects, including herbal medicine, designed to get the correct response. The Kabballah is a method to try and understand the principle of creation and is more a philosophy than a system of practical magic.

So, what do I take from this. Simple. Explain my findings. Explain that accuracy is not guaranteed and that I am writing for a game, not a practical manual of evocation, invocation or even theurgy. In other words, have magicians that are fun to play

Posted in Chivalry & Sorcery, none yet, RPG | Leave a comment

It never ends!

Posted on September 15, 2012 by hurcheon

Diving back into things I decide that I need to provide magic using types that suit the Arthurian mythos. For a start that seems to suggest to me that I differentiate between the normal human magic using types and those of Faerie, including humans that are part Faerie, like Merlin and Morgana.

Of course this means stepping back and changing one of the fundamental decisions when writing C&S Essence. Historically C&S has had many magic using modes, of differing utility (Alchemists, at higher levels, are not player character types) but I decide that I would have just one, generic magic user. My idea was, does it matter how you get there, the effect is what matters, besides C&S Essence was originally 4 sides of paper after all. Even when expanded, I kept the one magic class, but added the Shaman priest-mage from my Darken campaign for C&S E.

My worry is this. At the back of my head is idea that magic users do magic, garnering spells and rituals from whereever, and that the division of “types” is an artificial ones by gamers who need to impose some kind of order and “balance” onto the universe. The description of what the person is might then depend on the observer makes of the activities of the mage.

If I go back to “modes of magic” is this just an artificial structure for sake of a game, or does it make sense for the game world. I have, so far, gone down the route of modes of magic, but I am not so sure I won’t change my mind and return to the earlier ideas.

A while back I was trying to write a Fantasy adaptation for the Crusader wargames rules. My original idea was to create a generic set of fantasy rules, but I found that unsurmountable. So I decided to write a specific set, and then I could use the experience for that to expand it to a generic set. That was for my benefit, I asked around for assistance but met with disinterest and a little hostility from the members of the group. I did get comtacted by the rules author, who I think was just reassuring himself I wasn’t just rewriting Warhammer and dragging his game into something he didn’t want. Since I wasn’t, that was that. Crusader have their fantasy rules in progress, but not mine.

However, the thing I took from that is, you can pursue a direction that seems to work, write it, practice it, playtest it, and, even though it seems to work, it can still be wrong. So. I have decided to pursue the idea of importing full C&S “modes of magic” into my Essence rules. If it doesn’t work, then take a step back and try something else.

Whatever happens, experience is teaching me that no writing is a waste, you never know when you can use the idea somewhere else.