[ANSTHRLD] Slot Machine?

[Tim McDaniel]

On Wed, 9 Jul 2003, Herndon, Darin <DHerndon at bswintl.com> wrote:
> "Slot machine heraldry" really applies to primary charges but I
> would be interested in comments on this list as to whether it also
> applies to secondaries and tertiaries

Yes.  The Rules for Submission say in RfS VIII.1.a:

    a.  Tincture and Charge Limit - Armory must use a limited number
    of tinctures and types of charges.

    As the number of tinctures involved in a device increases, the
    number of types of charge should decrease.  As the number of types
    increases, the number of tinctures should decrease.  In no case
    should the number of different tinctures or types of charges be so
    great as to eliminate the visual impact of any single design
    element.  As a rule of thumb, the total of the number of tinctures
    plus the number of types of charges in a design should not exceed
    eight.  As another guideline, three or more types of charges
    should not be used in the same group.

Note that the last sentence says "in the same group", not specifying
what kind of group it is (primary, secondary, tertiary, maintained,
peripheral, overall, or whatnot).

> For example, two boar's heads respectant and a boar spear.  The
> boar's heads are not identical as they do not face the same
> direction and the boar spear is something else entirely.

All that is checked is "type", as the rule says, not orientation,
tincture, number, or anything else.  The boar's heads are the same
type, so there's only two type of charge here (boar's head, spear) and
it's not considered slot machine.

Even if the charge has a different name, it's not considered slot
machine.  One too-common SCA motif is "in fess a roundel between an
increscent and a decrescent" (or perhaps better "in fess an
increscent, a roundel, and a decrescent", to show that they're the
same size).  That's not considered slot machine.

Daniel de Lincolia
-- 
Tim McDaniel (home); Reply-To: tmcd at panix.com; work is tmcd at us.ibm.com.