Rayza

The above game wasn't the one I was talking about earlier, though it is one that a lot of people enjoy.

Personally, I'm moving back along the 'yay! Hit people with stuff!' tracks of LARP. I've had it with pretension and trying to act cool, all that stuff. I just wanna hurt goblins!

Actually that's not true entirely...I think that a balance between 'acting' and 'playing' has yet to be struck. Equally, I think that plot too often becomes the entire game, and I think how the game unfolds need more careful thought as to how it relates to the players. Hopefully Singingblade will acheive this, but, I don't claim to have all the answers yet... I'll let you know If I find them...  

Hope that quote thingy worked... anyway

Screw all that 'fighting acceleration' bs, it's all myth. Yes Compound bows are easier to draw compared to the power they exert - this is basically because the strings are attached to two block-and-tackle assemblies at either end. But the stepping up of the power doesn't hapepen in 'stages or anything like that. The reason the power is greater when release is probably because the ends of the bow are attached to the pulleys, they effectively are yanking several parts of the string at once, so they're gathering the bowsting up quicker and harder.

Also, of course your length of draw is relevant in power. If you draw a bow a long way (but not over-draw) the arrow flies a long way. If you draw it a little bit, it falls on your foot. I know this through painful(ly embarrassing) experience.

Several non-compound bows were of composite design. The mongols, possibly the only people more successful at using bows than the Welsh, used a composite wood/leather/horn/random stuff shortbow to great effect. I love the way mongols traditionally hunt fowl. They lie on their backs and shoot straight up... Mad bastards...

Anyway, are we discussing why/how bows work, and who knows best, or whether archaic weapons can have a place in modern combat/random kill-y-stuff?

Personally I think they do. Lower signature for a start, as in lower sound/heat/chemical emissions.

Also stick two guys in their pants, in the jungle, and the guy who can make an atlatl, a shelter, a fire-spindle and a deadfall trap is the guy who's going to walk out.

And the atlatl is a great idea. before I had heard of it I'd have probably tried to make a bow with some crappy arrows to wound, and a big spear to finish the poor beasty off with... but making an effective atlatl is relatively simple.

Security tags would be great in a classic futuristic setting, but I'm heading into the dusty wastes of Neo-Feudal...Imagine a combination of Bushido, and the Hindu caste system and you are getting where I started with the idea. Not CP at all, I'm afraid! Still, it is a great idea, to work the tagging in in some way...though some fool is always going to choose a violence level that clashes with their costume...tsk!

On The comment about crossbows v longbows...Well, kinda true, but crossbows were never very popular in the UK, they were used mainly in France as far as I recall.

They were simply too difficult to reload, at power levels that were useful on the battlefield. Longbows had a higher rate of fire, and furthermore the armour penentration of bolts was poorer than arrows, because they're shorter, and less stable in flight. They had a greater tendency to skitter across the rounded sections of plate.

I'm not sure if this is because of the length or because with only two quarrels in the arrangement used on bolts, it doesn't impart spin. At least, I've never shot a spinning bolt, but arrows almost always do.

Having said that, I once failed to shoot a guy stood a stide away, (mis) using a fibreglass recurve bow, so shows what I know...

That's an interesting idea. Phycological violence I'm not bothered about; I mean, if I was running 'family oriented' games I'd worry, but the concepts themselves have brutal elements, to remove these would be daft. I'm trying to challenge people's ethical sesnsibilities a bit.

I love tagging objects, because then players can tell what to do and gain information, without tugging on ref's cuffs all the time. However tagging people I feel it's a shame to do, especially if people have made a lot of effort with costume. However, especially in the game I mentioned about, with semicontact, how about sash colours denoting the level a person wants to participate?

Cool.

And yet Welsh Longbows from tudor times have been unearthed and tested, and had draw weight of between 150-180 lbs. People weren't magically stronger in those days, but from the age of 5 welsh boys had to walk around with their arm stretched out for several hours each day. at age 10 they had to carry an oak staff at arm's length, same deal. started training to actually shoot the damn things at about 15

I don't mean to be funny, but surely modern living with all it's conveniences, must have some negative impact on human strength? OK, this may be offset by better nutrition etc, but better nutrition is of no benefit unless the body is put under pressures that cause it to develop. Remains show that the advent of farming created a far higher level of unfit individuals surviving to spread their genes, basically agriculture came along and suddenly we start finding remains with weaker bones, shorter limbs,, smaller ribcages, etc.

Very true: the problem is that as a ref you're always going to try and create good amosphere.Great, huh...until you get it. The problem is that when you really get to people, they stop thinking quite so carefully...

The last time I ran a Cyberpunk game, we took out all the lights, and had some ambient music from Quake playing over the PA. Everyone's starts to get nervy, because two gang members had just come in nearly crying with fear, and for their own safety had been sedated. No-one knew why hte power had gone, or what the noise was. Then one of the gangers made a run for it, and went down in a mist of (fake) blood. Immediately people went crazy, and those with fewer braincells went crazier. Before we knew what happened some idiot, leaping a barrier, had kicked a 3ft square sheet of perspex into some girl's face, and she had hit the deck.

This was in a non contact system.

the first game I went to someone was KO'd in a 'latex weapons' system.

I personally think it's par for the course. I'm presently trying to wok out a system with elective semicontact combat - basically there'll be several ways of running combat from turn based or mimed to semi contact, and the idea is, if you don't know what the other person is happy with, you initiate the safest form of combat. Players wishing to be registered as 'semicontact-safe' will have to spar for a while with the refs (that'll be me then!) to demonstrate that they can PLAY, NOT fight, in a safe, sensible and controlled way. It'll take out insurance waaay up, but there you go...I guess what I want people to do is Capoeira, not Muay Thai!  

Surprisingly well, actually. Modern armour is developed to deal effectively with a wepon that basically works through massive impact (OK you used to get pointy rounds, but they've been phased out since Vietnam) An arrow (except for the plate-piercing variety) probably cuts through in a slicy sort of way, and also doesn't travel fast enought to compress the bulletproof material into a dense, resistant mass. Certainly bodkin arrows would probably go straight through.

Against armoured glass they're even better. Where a bullet hits the glas and skips off, a weird effect occurs with crossbow bolts and presumably arrows too. The head hits the glass and rebounds, but the shaft continuest foward. This causes the shaft to flex very slightly, and the point then springs back out, striking the glass again. The point actually jack-hammers through the glass! All this occurs on a minute scale, and in an infinitestimably small space of time. I don't know if it would work with all bolts, for instance aluminium shafts wouldn't be springy enough, but fibreglass, wood, titanium...screw A-P rounds, this is quieter, and cheaper too!

Am I the only Cyberpunk who doesn't like Gibson?

I mean, I've persevered with several of his books, but they're all so pulp-y to me. The closest I got to liking one was The Difference Engine, and that's not even cyberpunk!

Does anyone else feel like me, or have I just slaughtered the sacred cow?

Not entirely sure but I think that the epee (where does that darn accent go?)/foil/rapier family bear resemblance to, and are possibly descended from a german attempt to make a sword purely for punching through their ridiculously heavy duty armour. Slashing weapons were no longer cutting the armoured-to-the-sparkly-codpiece mustard.

However, I can't remember what it was called.. it was very long with a sqare cross-section. I don't know if it actually worked.

Epee... god that weapon pissed me off. It was formalised afterthe rules of honour changed to allow first blood, so there's no right of way rules (if someone is threatening you, ordinarly you must remove that threat before commencing a counterattack). This also means that you can attack anywhere on the body ('cos everywhere bleeds, even if it's not fatal)

This results in:

POKE TOE POKE TOE, POKEY POKEY POKEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

being an acceptable tactic.

Titanium.

Flexible.. Strong. Durable.

Coming down in price due to recent extraction innovations...

Call the doctor, I think he might have a point there!!

In fact, drop the steel core, with titanium it's probably redundant.

I think a Japanese swordswith makes katanas with this stuff, or an alloy, come to think of it; my mate was showing me a site somewhere. I get back to you about that one.

Damascus, Toledo & Innsbrucke were famous for their blades - Innsbrucke is 'ice-brook' and the fact that they used glacial meltwater is given as the reason for their superior temper. Does anyone know the water sources for the other two towns? The colder the water, I suspect, the harder the temper (at least, when making things from silver-steel. For a softer temper, one uses oil...

And the difference between a 'parry' and a 'block' seems to be semantic, especially in conversation between people practising different styles. Anyway, samurai still get shot up when charging riflemen, so I guess that settles that.

My friends practise the style developed by Masashi;

75 duels, no losses can't all be wrong. I mean hell, he fought samurai using a stick and still won, and that was when he was old!

Swords are not so delicate. Sure you may blunt the edge with blocks, but hell, if you're blocking (or parrying) right, you won't be using the same area you cut with anyway...

Crystalline ones, maybe, but hell this is the future (albiet less and less so) - perhaps a supercooled fluid with some elastic properties?

Personally I don't think that sword technology is likely to advance much further than present - the last largescale use was during the Sino-Japanese war and I can't see it happening again. But it would be cool! And isn't that what roleplaying is about?

WoW! Those crazy Finns!!

I guess, when the  nights draw in and the pseudo-post-apocalyptic darkness falls, what is there to do except

MAKE HARDENED BOMB PROOF BUNKERS FOR LARPERS TO HAVE FUN IN!!

Hmm, an underground sports arena? That sounds like a prime SALUTE OF THE JUGGER opportunity!!

As far as I knew, the new dynasties were alomost exclusively from invading forces - the manchurians, mongols and tibetans for a start came from areas initially outside of China's control...well until someone kicked their asses. Weird, China acquires land by losing...twice!!

On the other hand, the red eybrow rebellion (squash!!) and the triads, (though still around) were stunningly unsuccessful at dislodging the Manchurian (Ming?) dynasty...in the end didn't Chairman Mao sort them out?

Oh, and Stephane's is right, even with Katanas of the finest quality a simple chopping action delivers a fairly shallow cut. Ideally one sweeps the blade along the target area, with most swords. Fencing style sabre has lots of choppy slapping with the blade, but then IT ISN'T A REAL SWORD! modern fencing styles (as well as LARP fighting) are really a kind of glorified tig.

And Psychophipps, I have no idea what you're talking about with regards to Kenjutsu. It seems to me to be based upon block/riposte maneuvers almost entirely. I'm not an expert on Kenjutsu (fencing and taichi jian are my sword fortés) {no pun intended} but my friends all practise Kenjutsu regularly and they block rather than dodge.

Flexible crystals? What, Like Mica?

And I thought metals had a crystalline structure?

Still silly thingsto carry around when you could have guns, but still; how about at a research facility where conditions are too sensitive to use guns, one round in the wrong place and

KABOOOM!!!

Isn't that why the navy use Sub-machine guns - because they don't put holes in things except people?

But somewhere even more sensitive, like a CHOO2 facility, with traces of flammable gas everywhere...

Hands up who's been in riots?

Ask ten people at random, in the streets of London, what they thought about the mayday riots.

I understand what you're saying, but not all street scum are going to be pleased with the rioters either, because it'll mean a month of random punishment beatings and security checks every 5 minutes after everything's calmed down.

How many poor and disenfranchised people are there in London that choose not to riot?

Losing has a higher cost for poorer people; if their hovel gets smashed up they lose more than if a few corps cars get set alight, as a percentage of their total 'wealth.'

Look at China. in the last 6000 years I don't think that there has been a single sucessful rebellion, despite almost constant

dissatisfaction. Why? Because most people are kept in a state of not knowing where the next meal is coming from.

There is a new Cyberpunk game starting somewhere, that I heard of through the people that ran Faded Empire. Not sure if they're actually running it or not, but if they are it goes highly recommended; these are the people that once hired a nuclear bunker to run a game! I imagine it's running somewhere in the midlands, but if you ant to know more, the best bet is to post a question in the forum of the Sinergy website (www.Sinergylarp.com, go to the message boards in the 'chat section) in the 'Unrelated posts' area. that's where info about other games generally goes down.

Nuclear bunker...sure puts the YMCA in perspective, huh Rain?  

This seems to be a kind of 'I want the rioters to win!' 'I want the police to win!' situation.

let's face it, the only people who might be a little pissed about heavyhanded police, who matter, are the corporate middle class, who are mucho unlikely to get any news footage that isn't heavily edited etc.

Therefore the police are gonna shoot any streeturchin stupid enough to poke his head out. They shoot them at the slightest provocation anyhow, why not at a protest. Imagine the headlines:

Police Shoot Up Vile Murderous Scum

big deal.

I suppose the Punknaught might tip the balance, but then the army gets called in, and kills everyone.

When was the last time rioters won in the western world? OK it was the year before last in Prague, all the police and politicians ran away and hid in these compounds.

The problem is, and I suspect will be, that rioters often don't have much of a plan, and simply aren't working on the same scale as the government. Even if the rioters came out on top after a day of skirmishes, what would happen? The army would come in, kill them all and everyone else would say YAY! because they don't know why the protestors are upset, they just want to go shopping again.

And I want the rioters to win!

It just aint gonna happen.

And shuriken are generally drugged or poisoned, so kill that way.

And also, I don't think bullets are actually all that great for killing people, y'know... I'm not sure about an armoured target, but I think a nice sharp sword would deliver a blow that does as mich tissue trauma as a close range shotgun blast. Jacketed rounds especially just go straight through.

Lead bullets that squash out in the body, on the other hand are a bit nastier because they cause a hydrostatic shockwave in the body that damages the internal organs. But generally I think it's shock that kills people regardless of the weapon you use.

UK law on knives bans any knife above three inches long unless an acceptable reason can be given (ie 'I'm a butcher, and I'm taking this knife to my shop') If the knife is kept in such a manner that it cannot be accessed quickly it is equally legal, I think. Some people I know carry knives taped into little hip bags, in case of accidents - they intend them for cutting seatbelts in emergencies etc.

Swords, on the other hand are legal to carry in the UK at the moment, as long as they are tied into a sheath in such a way that they cannot be drawn. If the blades are blunt like sporting fencing weapons, they must merelt be sheathed at all times when in public. However, if you are in public with a broadsword, sheathed, tied, sharp or blunt, the police can and mey choose to arrest you for provocation, because a lot of UK law is freely interpretable by the police.

There is a movement at the moment to ban all fixed blade knifes, so I guess we'll have to get our kitchen utensils by mail order or something

Ummm, there's definitely some blue...

From an agricultural biologist's point of view, I loved the way that dolls responded in an inpredictable way to 'fairification' - only now is genetic theory shifting to allow for the fact that the 'DNA codes for mRNA which uses tRNA to form protein strands' model is simply wrong - the DNA to tissue structure interaction has been found to be non-linear, and in fact is fundamentally chaotic.

And your friendly neighbourhood Frankenstein's at Monsanto are basing their risk assessments on a now outmoded and misleading theoretical model!

In Macaulay's books he portrayed GM as much more fiddly than the 'plonk this bit of code here and it does this' that theory up 'till now suggested - a kind of black art.

I think he likes Complexity Theory.

This is all the biologists/geneticists/zoologists cue to commence

bring it on...  

It has to be said that regardless of when it was written, Cyberpunk's flaw as a genre (am I gonna get flamed for this? ) is that it's JUST TOO GODDAM 80'S!!! The characterisation is often poor and characters shallowly aimed at commercial attractiveness. Not that this isn't kinda realistic, if event's had gone down that route, but well, they didn't - the point at which things could have gone all 'Running Man' on our asses has passed. As a result , cyberpunk as a genre is now fairly passé, and all a bit Buck ROgers really (and yes I love that too).

However out of the ashes of near-future dystopia stubles a new(ish?) author. Ladles and Gentlespoons (?) may I introduce Paul J Macauley! Yeee-ha!

Rather than going down the now redundant cyberware route, Macauley's writing (best exemplified in 'Fairyland' and 'The Invisible Country') draws of the relatively new, and ultimately more useful (and thus more likely to be applied) field of biotechnology. Despite the fact that he wrote these books before the whole GM thang blew up, he predicts uncannily the attitude that the 'alternative' lifestyle movement takes to this, and (probably inspired by the 90's rave/new-age scene) sets about creating a world that still succeeds in being horrifying is many respects, not least of all because it's full of Hippies...

Only kidding! Anyway, read Fairyland, a fascinating take on the 'genetically engineered slave race' concept. Well, it starts that way, and ends with something very different...

That'd be cool. Make sure they aren't just pics of people dressed up going at the camera.. We want a bit of  

Know what I mean?