Theoretical Swashbuckling Celebrates 10th Anniversary

This year—starting this past January the 7th, to be precise—is the tenth anniversary of Theoretical Swashbuckling. If you are a reader, thank you for reading. If you have ever commented, thank you for commenting. If you have any questions or requests, please let me know. I know there have been a few requests over the years I have not yet fulfilled (such as a review of Swashbuckler, the game by Yaquinto Publications), but I will strive to fulfill them eventually. And if you are a registered follower of this blog, thank you for embarking on the voyage.

Somewhere in This Blog There Is a Deliferate Mistale*

My review of Princess of Thieves (2001) will be posted on 20 March 2024 at midnight Eastern Daylight Saving Time [here]. I accidentally posted a rough draft earlier today and removed it, but some blog rolls were still linking to it.

* A paraphrase from Dr. Fegg's Encyclopeadia [sic] of All World Knowledge by Terry Jones and Michael Palin.

Walking the Plank into 2023

Here are a few of the topics I would like to write about in Theoretical Swashbuckling in the year 2023:

• Robin Hood
• The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers directed by Richard Lester
• pirate-themed board games
• naval war games
• swashbuckling novels and short stories

And I will continue to post reviews of swashbuckling movies of all kinds throughout the year. Other messages may be stuffed into bottles and thrown to the sea as I deem necessary.

Lost, Misplaced, or Unwritten

The movie reviews I post here are a mix of newly written reviews and those I originally posted in one of my earliest blogs, Cuparia a.k.a. Cuplog, which was a Wordpress blog attached to my first domain, Cuparius.com (RIP). I was planning to repost my old movie reviews of The Three Musketeers (1973) and The Four Musketeers (1974), but I discovered I do not have them backed up, I cannot find them using the Wayback Machine, and now I'm not sure if I ever wrote anything on either of them. I know I thought about reviewing them, but is that as far as it went? If I can't unearth them, I'll just have to watch the movies again and then I can review them, back them up, and post them here, because sharing the genius of those movies is my duty to all fellow swashbucklers at heart. Truly, if you seek the ultimate swashbuckling movie experience, watch these two.

Incidentally, if you ever encounter reviews of these movies written by me somewhere on the Internet (or elsewhere?), please let me know in the comments so I can salvage them and share them here.

Reviews in Theoretical Swashbuckling

Just to set the record straight, the purpose of the reviews I post in Theoretical Swashbuckling is twofold: to give swashbuckling fans an idea of whether they would enjoy a particular movie, television show, or book as entertainment; and to offer possible sources of inspiration for those who play, run, or create various types of games (especially of the role-playing variety). Nothing more. Nothing less. It is not my intention to provide detailed analysis, "scholarly" criticism, or evaluations of fencing technique. I am concerned only with how enjoyable the subject of the review is and how useful it might be to one's gaming.

Carry on.

Theorizing the Nature of Swashbuckling in 2016

Theoretical Swashbuckling has been adrift on a calm sea with nary a breeze for lo these many months, but I think I spy in the Year of Our Lord Twenty-Hundred and Sixteen, a strong wind a blowin' to fill her sails. High adventure and rich spoils lie yonder!

Specifically, I have a number of things planned for 2016 of interest to swashbucklers. There will be more duels, there will be session reports of at least one role-playing game (All For Me Grog to be precise), and I will start posting reviews of swashbuckling movies (older reviews from Cuparius.com as well as new reviews). Reviews of other swashbuckling role-playing games in my collection may also appear, possibly as two-part articles. The first part would be an overview of the rules and character creation process; the second part would be an assessment of the game as it is actually played. The latter is a challenge, as I need to work near miracles just to schedule gaming sessions with my friends, but it is a goal of mine to play each of these games at least once and share my findings.

A Happy New Year to every last one of ye!

And do be gamin'.

Prospectus

Theoretical Swashbuckling is off to a leisurely start as befits the speed of travel in the Age of Sail, and I thought I would outline her course. All flavors of swashbuckling fall within the scope of this Web log, whether it is pirates, privateers, musketeers, merry men, merry women, highwaymen, highwaywomen, duelists, or swashbuckling heroes or heroines of any kind. Movies, documentaries, novels, plays, poems, histories, music, art, and games on the subject are all of interest to me. With regard to role-playing games, I am working on swashbuckling rules for my own version of Fudge and for an existing and/or yet to be published Old School Renaissance (i.e. quasi-D&D) game. I will be importing movie reviews from my discontinued Cuparius.com site (as well as writing more), and I plan to do a series of reviews of swashbuckling role-playing games. One of my highest priorities is to run at least one session of every swashbuckling role-playing game I own and report my findings whilst the memory is still fresh, which I think will lend my reviews extra value.

Let's hope this doesn't come back to haunt me like some kind of Black Spot.

Welcome to Theoretical Swashbuckling

This Web log is dedicated to the genre of swashbuckling, whether it applies to literature, art, film, or games (especially role-playing games, board games, and miniature war games). I shall not go too deeply into what you may expect, because I hope to be surprised myself, but I hope it will be of some use and interest to those who are swashbucklers at heart.