[Bryn-gwlad] Chivalric Tiny Tourney--July 17

[Eric W. Brown]

>  Back to the original point- I don't see the rules
>Uther's put forth to limit our foot work that much.   
>Like any art, the limitations of the medium can
>inspire the creation of more beautiful things.

I can see your point but here's mine... 

My preferred styles in order are...

sword and shield, 
sword and inverted spear aka "Madu" (or cruciform bastard sword or
Viking axe etc), 
<thinking about putting sword and buckler here, but I need to fight it
more>, 
6' greatsword, 
7.5' polearm, 
9'spear... 
then 
6' polearm, 
6'spear, 
and then 
single sword, bastard sword, etc...

Following the spirit of the rules and leaving out "basically madu"
styles like Cruciform bastard sword, inverted spear, and Viking axe as
off hand weapons, I've got to go pretty deep into that list before there
is a weapon style that fighting in a 10 foot circle yields more than 1/2
step of movement to the edge, which is why I say it feels too much like
fighting the barrier, or doing box drill without a shield.

It seems to me that, As a rule the "lots of armor" folk tend to love
that stuff. Me not so much, It just seems like a good way to get
injured.

I'm not saying I'd refuse to fight that way as a round in a tourney, but
if that's all there is going to be next Tuesday, I can go light up my
forge, or
Cast some brass, fix my armor, fire up a computer game, work on my
prototype "nicer looking" plastic gauntlets, Take my family out to
dinner, or one of the hundred other things I never have enough time to
do for fun.

No offense is intended to Uther, to anyone else involved, sometimes
something you expect to despise turn out to be the best thing ever, so
trying different stuff is good. (That's what happened to me with boat
battles thought it was the dumbest thing ever... Turned out to be more
fun than you'd believe), so Go for it, and have fun with it. But I've
been there done that...

Maybe I should have just said "sorry can't make it" and left it at that,
but I thought I might be useful to explain why I was uninterested in
it... Instead of pretending something else came up or something...


If that means instead, as Pendaran would say, I just "Volunteered" to
run the next Tiny Tourney, I can live with that, just tell me when.

That said, Thanks for the Cool info about where /how barrier fighting
started... what manuscripts seem to show, etc...I LOVE that kind of
stuff!

Also thanks for what appears to be a general consensus that while
fighting "on the barrier" can be fun, it was never supposed to be
"required" which was my real issue with it. Next time someone tells me
differently I'll reference this discussion.

My $.02

Cal-