Morning Star, an argument.

 Sometimes, there are thing, ingrained so deep, its hard to let go. My education into medieval weapons came originally from fantasy roleplay. Then later Historical texts, that were as often wrong. Today in the digital age, where we have access to 'all the information' we also have many holes, gaps and the youth get so strung up on 'things which are, are, and everything else is false'

Arguing about the Morning Star.

The Thing about this one, is, there is evidence for both sides. Is it a flail or is it a mace?

What I was raised on, the Ball with spikes is the star, the Flail head, being a cylinder, starred or spiked or plain, but never the less, at least a single chain link to allow flexible movement was the Flail. The Chain however didn't come into it til later, and due to the arc of the end point, being swung, somehow represented morning.

In reality

Medieval peasants brought the flail from the wheat fields to the battlefield. Its well understood and there are many depictions of its use both as a threshing tool, and then by combat manuals. Its more like a club attached to a polearm, but you can see the connection.

Then there is a blur. many articles use the words, may, might, could have, would have. But there does not appear to be clear precise context. Many references turned out to be forgeries. The blurred lines between someone attaching 'something' to the end of a chain, and calling it one thing or another, in different languages. German *seems* to be referring to the head of a mace with the specific spiked 'sun/star' version, where the French and English did not use this term for the mace variety, but for the less common flail variety. 

It also seems, there may have been some confusion, where the holy water sprinkler, was mistaken as a weapon, described on the battlefield, drawn onto parchment and then without having seen one, monks or scholars drew them into artworks, which were then copied by weapon crafters, due to the demands of their lords to at least have one of everything at hand if need be. 

In Dungeonworld

While I could go back into all my documents and relabel morning stars to starred flails, if there seemed to be enough need for it, It begged a question. Does this world and its linguistic path, have to follow our world? Sure, there might be some mild confusion at the game table, when a player requests a morning star, expecting a starred mace, and instead gets a chain weapon, but nuances of the world build is what makes a world interesting. 

As long as its not too many..  

Morning Stars, being the Ball of spikes, on the end of a blocky chain, are fashioned by clever blacksmiths to 'mourn' in the correct direction, and are reduced in their ability to flick back or follow through too far. The chain is blocky and has limited range. It can't easily hit the wielder, unless they are unproficient. [12]* d10B/+d6P, d6AD, 6AF, HP: 120(s) 80(c) 40(w) - only 12s can cause damage, if they miss, to the wielder

Starred Maces, being the Ball of spikes on the end of a club/mace, are fashioned by blacksmiths and weaponsmiths, due to the structure and design, its often too easy for the head of such to snap off, but far cheaper than the morning star. [10], d8/+d6, d6AD, 5AF, HP: 60(s) 40(w)

Morning Star Flails, being a ball of spikes on a common chain, being the lesser cousins, have no blocky form to the chain and as such, swing back into the weilder or overswing and knock the wielder off balance. [11]* d8B/+d6P, d6AD, 5AF, HP: 80(s/c) 40(w). All fail rolls (10,11,12) cause damage to the wielder

Flail, being a wooden club possibly with spikes, at the end of a longer mace/polearm. The weapon, like all flails, can get around shields, and the physics of the swing, causes extra damage, but unproficient wielders will likely be unbalanced. [10]* 2d6B/+d2P), d4AD, 3AF, HP: 50(h) 40(w) (12s cause unbalance)

[Initiative] *unproficient characters +50%

/+ if the Pierce damage goes above armour, add the B damage again to Pierce.

AD: Armour Damage
AF: Armour Factor of the Weapon
(s) star, (c) chain (w) wooden handle (h) head

Blades, Steel, Upkeep and Players

 An aspect of my game I've always wanted but couldn't quite keep, was upkeep. Its needed in roleplay to create a kind of 'constant cost' to dungeoneering. You need certain tools, weapons, equipment to continue your life as an adventurer, but most games don't include it.. why? and how did I solve it?

Upkeep your Weapons,  

I guess the first half of my life, I didn't understand the psychology of play, I have a feeling I knew what I wanted, but an inability to understand how to make it. 

Over time, I've discovered some key factors.

Fear of missing out, loss is more powerful than gain, tedious tasks are only interesting the first few times.

But lets first identify the problem.

If you are a 1st level character, with your wooden sword (minecraft) and you go out into the world, you're fighting low level goblins and slimes, and eventually you earn enough to afford a stone sword.. no, lets be more serious, you probably started with your grandfathers shortsword as he was a guard in some military, then you saved up to buy a nice sword, then later a longsword or broadsword, maybe eventually a magical sword so it can hurt the fae and spirits, then you quested for a specialty sharpened blade, at some point your blade was stolen, you tracked it down, gained it back, before finding out about an even more magical blade. 

That's over 15lvls 6 swords. 5 upgrades. a tad boring. 

Sure you have other things to acquire, talismans of luck, and sheilds of defence, armour of strength, so maybe your GM and you have sorted it out, you get 1 nice upgrade per lvl. 

Well, if your new to roleplay, great, thats a good solid beginning, well done, come back when you've gotten bored of 'easy' mode.

But how can hard mode exist? Reality is one way, usually the best way, but its Oh so boring (for some of us) to have to make spreadsheets of life, to ensure you get it all in there.

Tedious tasks are only interesting the first few times.

Having to upkeep your lantern oil, your torches, your food stocks, that's bad enough.. but sharpening your sword? and why?

Well, to start with your character might not actually have any training, so you should do it a few times to get proficient. So, if you don't have upkeep, then that's your starting point. After you reach level 20, you don't have to 'use' it anymore, you're proficient.

Proficiency means you don't have to actively choose to do something, you can claim your character is ALWAYS doing it.

Why bother? well, an unkempt sword is likely to lose its edge. Let players know, when they roll a 12, have them make upkeep checks. if they fail, the edge of the blade was so poor, it gets a -2 to the damage. players who have upkeep at 20+ can negate that disadvantage.

Players don't NEED to be doing the task, and GMs get a nice boost if they don't. It adds to the story, but doesn;t interrupt the downtime with tedium.

Fear of Missing Out

Once players have crossed the threshold, their upkeep is "known" why progress further? Well, level 2 upkeep allows players to 'sharpen' their blade. They may take the bonus "+1 to this combat, for a -d6 endurance". 

All combats reduce all weapons endurance by 1 (normally), so players already know they're going to eventually need to replace the weapon, so, whats a extra d6 of endurance for the +1 to that combat.

Players need to cross into lvl 2 upkeep to gain this skill, and will likely have to roll to check if it works. But they don't have to miss out. If they roll poorly, let them choose, the blade didn't get sharpened in time, but still took the endurance cost, or they can minus a further d6 to guarentee the +1.

Now, a weapons endurance score means something, thinner rapier weapons with their increase peirce scores, but lower endurance values means something.

Further more, we can understand why, in real life, carbon ratings of steel is important, holding its edge, and alloys of certain materials improve the shelf-life of a blade.

Finding an Iridium-Elementium-Steel alloy blade, with x200% endurance, and halving the sharpen cost isn't shrugged at. Weapons like this will last a character years.

Fear of Loss is more powerful than Desire of gain.

As a motivator, a quest for a slightly better sword is a good excuse to go defeat a hoard of bad-guys, but a means to empower your existing sword, or your skill at care for the sword will outrank it everytime.

Eventually players might balk at using their prized blade for the simplest of fights, and insist of saving it for the bigger quests. (giving them an opportunity to try out other weapon proficiencies).

Lvl 3 of the Upkeep, allows players the ability to improve on their sharpening techniques, and reducing the cost to do so. the application of a max-cap, halving the roll, or a direct -1 to the value, (or eventually all three) can result in a player maintaining a decent blade for 1000s of fights. given the standard sword starts at 160, with an average roll of 3, plus 1 per fight, the average sword will survive 40 fights before breaking.

Caveats

Now, I fully understand, this is highly unrealistic, real blades used in real history lasted years, yet, this is a game, and we're trying to represent plausible values to make the game interesting for plot.

Giving players and gamesmaster tool to be able to tell a good story, is what we're talking about. rather than Handwavium saying the blade broke 'because'. Under the hood of the simplified numbers, there are plausible means to explain it. a basic sword in the hands of a novice, will get bend, smashed, scraped and damaged several times before it gets close to 'breaking' yet, eventually it will OR the novice will learn to treat the blade better.

a standard sword, of 160HP, if 'used' by a character, for 160 fights, never cleaned, cared for, or sharpened will be at its 50/50 breaking point at 160 damage, and may break anywhere between 161 and 200 damage (rare but possible). So ~180 fights.

The same sword, cared for, cleaned after every fight, statistically will reach 120 damage after 240 fights. Then re-honing the blade at a blacksmiths forge, can bring the 'remaining' 40pts back so the blade has a 2n life, with a new 120HP max, repeated again when down to 30 remaining pts, back to 80, down to 20 for the next 40, and those fights, totals 520 fights closer to the realism we're trying to achieve, but less fun. 

Sharpen the blade, get the +1, use it for 40 fights, and go buy a new sword with all the new loot!

Oh Steel!

Pig Iron Swords, 12, d8+1, 60

Iron Swords, 11, d8, 80

Cast Iron Swords, 11, d8+1, 120

Steel Swords, 10, d8+1, 160

Folded Steel Swords, 9, d8+2, 180 (Mastery gives a +1 to each value, Endurance is measured in 20s)

Dull Modifier (0, -1, 0)

Unbalanced (+2, 0, 0)

Poor Quality ( +1 / -1 / -20)

High Quality (-1 / +1 / +20) 

Weapon, Armour and Equipment progression and upgrades

 There are two varieties of game that I cannot stand, they make no sense for an RPG, (yet maybe for a board game) and bog down play for both players and GMs. Lets deep dive into

Equipment, Weapons, Armour and your characters progression 

Abstracted Levelling

First, lets clarify, intentions were good, in some old computer games, when players start out at level 1, they need some kind of tiered system to upgrade weapons, before including too much magic. So many games added some kind of 'level' requirement to weapons, wooden dagger? lvl 1, iron dagger? lvl 3, steel dagger? lvl 5, mithril dagger? lvl 7.. etc

This made no 'real' sense, abstracting the 'better metals' behind a level wall, was purely a CRPG tactic to spread out the game, make it simple for players to understand, which item do I buy, steel or iron? Instead of some complex system for the play to go through to ensure they 'could' use the weapon at the right point in the game, they just abstracted it behind levels.

From a board game perspective, this makes more sense, because board games need to be more self contained. You have a restriction of parts cost, shipping costs for weight, shelf space and price point for the consumer. So items were simpler, often in only a plain, silver and gold standard.

Yet even that is slowly changing, as in the last few years (2014-2021) consumers are spending more on board games than ever, paying $400 for a box of cards where the materials to make the weapons have cards too, would have seemed unreasonable in 2008, and outrageous before then, but with over 100 games, all-in, priced at $250+, having a core game for the more elite game at $400 isn't too far of a stretch.

Roleplay games always had the advantage that the equipment list is merely what's written on your character sheet. No need for cards, art, specialty dice (i.e. per weapon) but they also, and often, had a skill set matching it.. 

Locked in Play

This one comes down to how you kind of need to choose what kind of character you're going to be from the start. Some archaic feature from Victorian education and the industrial age, that we have yet to shake off in society.

In real life, we haven't a clue how our lives will turn out in 40 years, what skills we will have gained, used, and be proficient at. Why would we think in the game world our characters are any different.

The idea that as a 'rogue' you've learned all the arts of the dagger, and you are a skilled dagger wielder, and that if you wanted to change weapons, you've be starting from scratch, and forgoing the chance at being a better dagger-smith..

To clarify, lets consider three characters, the Rogue, the Warrior and the multi-class rogue warrior.

at level 4, the rogue has taken 4 levels in dagger, giving a +4 to dagger usage.

at level 4, the Warrior has taken 4 levels in swords, giving them a +4 to sword usage.

The Multi Class has taken 2 level in dagger & sword each. giving a +2 to each.

At lower levels, the difference between a +2 and a +4 isn't game breaking, if its a d20 system, its barely 10% of hits, the advantage the multiclass has is, when a magical weapon comes in the quests treasure, he has 2 chances of getting something useful, instead of one.. IF the GM uses random treasure tables.. and if the GM doesn't, then the multi class is going to get a choice, maybe.

A few levels later, level 8, our pure rogue/warrior has a +8 in the specialty, while the multiclass a +4. this is now rather pronounced, 20% difference for a d20 system. 3 characters, all with similar skills, levels, progressions, but the multi-class character is half the skill of his counterparts.

As a result

Players are limited by, and locked into, specific 'classes' of skills, and items which level up, as they do. taking away players agency, choice and in many ways, fun.

But, how do we benefit players who choose to focus their skill, vs those that choose a broader range? yet not penalize characters?

DD12

Sure, I'm going to, once again explain how, once I saw such a problem, I solved it.

Instead of Abstract levelling;

Players can at 1st level choose any weapon, any style, any material, as long as they've saved up the cash requirements to buy it, the only 'restriction' is based on real life issues, such as weigh of the weapon, or complexity of use. 

as an example, a heavy axe, has an "initiative" cost of 15, this value counts also as a minimal DEX or STR requirement to use, and for each point difference, the character has a -1 to use, where DEX cost is a minus to attack, and STR cost is a minus to damage. Players can, through continued practice, improve their personal skill with the weapon, decrease the INITIATIVE of the weapon, to offset this 'cost' and or, increase their personal ATT or DAM for that weapon, and over time, as they improve their STR or DEX, or through acquisition of better 'heavy axes' with lower I cost, will result in them being even more powerful with the upgraded items. 

As to combat skills for multi class; 

Players have their stats broken up into layers, Their Attack stat at the base of things is their generic ability to attack, if its a melee attack, they add that bonus, then their sword / dagger skill will add to the result, and finally, they can specialise in a specific weapon.

As players progress their characters, they can boost the greater skill, at the cost of the lesser skill, resulting in the same final result, but with a broader range.

The Rogue, Warrior and lets call the multi-class guy a Pirate at 1st level, all have an attack of 10, a melee of 4 and their sword/dagger bonus at 1.

By 4th level, they have had the choice, but would similarly have gained 2 points in attack, 2 in melee, and likely 1 more in their chosen weapon, yet the Pirate, wanting to be as good in both weapons, may have only taken 1 in melee, to have an extra point in the 2nd weapon, again, like our d20 counterpart, maybe a 5-10% difference.

But, by 8th level, the major difference is, As the rogue gains levels, instead of getting more and more +1's, it would be in their advantage to specialise in their weapon, dropping the disadvantage roll, gaining an advantage attack, maybe a specialty bonus, the Warrior, might have gone for a sword & shield combat, unlocking some bonus maneuvers, while our pirate, trying to match the base combat scores, has not had the points to unlock any specialties.

The result being, All three characters have an attack of 14, a melee of 8 and their respective weapons at +4, giving them a very nice combat attack of 26, yet the pirate, having spent their extra 4 points in the 2nd weapon, the Rogue and Warrior have 4 specialized bonuses.

So, while they'll never be as good with any given weapon, the Pirate can unlock multi weapon specialty bonuses, using the sword as a dagger, or the dagger like a sword, distracting their opponent with a -2 defence.. or using some of their own clever specialties for dual weapons.

To be Clear

Players might see or hear this rule set and understand the system to be complex, but instead, its just a matter of doing minor calculation at the time of purchase, dropping their 'familiarity' stat bonus, writing their new stats on their charactersheet, and they are ready to go. players should not be calculating or changing any values, mid combat.