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.

The Swashbuckling Advantage Redux

Last year, I posted "The Swashbuckling Advantage" in Applied Phantasticality. Here it is again with additional thoughts appended:

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Via a circuitous route (looking up the Yaquinto war game Swashbuckler on boardgamegeek.com, seeing a photograph of a diorama inspired by the game, visiting the Web site of the diorama builder, and being referred to the Web site of Eureka Miniatures), I discovered a remarkable miniature war game called ...And One for All by Greg Hallam (available here as a free download and with illustrated examples of play). Its focus is the combat of swashbuckling movies both in style and substance. By "substance" I mean the gameplay itself is as freewheeling as the swashbuckling antics the game simulates. Anything you can think of doing in terms of interacting with your environment is permissible and actually improves your odds in combat. Neither time nor movement rates are measured in this game. The more actions you take, the better you fare, but the sooner you risk losing the initiative and relinquishing your turn. It might be the best interpretation of the genre ever designed.

I can't wait to try playing the game in the way it was intended, but I would naturally like to use it for other situations: Wild West brawls, for instance. In fact, this would work well with brawls in Boot Hill, spy action in Top Secret, martial arts in your favorite martial arts game, duels on Tékumel (Empire of the Petal Throne et al), or even the rough and bloody informal conflict in Dungeons & Dragons. In fact, I'd say it's especially appropriate for D&D, where combat is far more regimented and low level player characters are scarcely able to hit anything. Even if it isn't optimal where spellcasting and ranged weapons are present, it would be a great boon for resolving mêlée combat more quickly and with more interesting results. It also emphasizes player skill, which is generally considered a desirable quality for a game to have as far as the Old School Renaissance is concerned.

One minor modification would need to be made if it were to be used in conjunction with D&D. Each character would need to be assigned a Rating from one to four. I would suggest the following change to rule 3B:

4       High level characters; high HD monsters
3       Medium level characters; medium HD monsters
2       Low level characters; low HD monsters
1       0 level characters; less than 1 HD monsters

Whether I adapt ...And One for All for use in my role-playing games or not, I intend to play it as a traditional miniature war game, too. I might also play it with LEGO Minifigures and a LEGO diorama. (Why not?)

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To use ...And One for All with Fudge, consider this change to rule 3B:

4       Characters with Great or Superb combat skills
3       Characters with Good combat skills
2       Characters with Fair combat skills
1       Characters with Mediocre or worse combat skills

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.