I agree with Killervp, he took the words right out of my mouth !

@Leo – thanks very much.

@VP – La Gautier’s a piece of work, to be sure. He had to leave the city after Saint-Sauvan’s death – I need to update his character page and some Marseille encounters to reflect this – but I’m sure he’ll be back at some point in the future.

Black_Vulmea – thanks for the kind words on my campaign. I have always liked the look of your page and the logs are fantastic. I thought I fanned you back when I commented in December, but it is an oversight I have now corrected.

Fantastic page.

Leonidas300

Ok, so last new log almost 4 months old… I miss the reading material

Thanks very much, Job – most appreciated.

Thank you very much, Andrew – I really appreciate the comment. I’m glad someone else found all the horse breeds entertaining!

Thanks, abu – ’preciate it.

Thanks, everyone – I’ll be sure to let the players know that you’re still reading along with their adventures!

Very impressive work your logs, charater details and image quality are superb – I hope one of these days I can get my own portal page to look as good.

Thanks very much, Bannacor – much appreciated.

Thank you very much, Tolsimir – very much appreciated.

Thanks, Rasselas – most apprecaited.

I run Le Ballet as a ‘sandbox’ style game, and the wiki mirrors that to some extent; it’s meant to be explored much like the setting itself in-game.

Thanks again!

Grazie mille, Haematinon! Sei troppo gentile.

(I hope I got that right!)

Thanks very much, James – very much appreciated.

We’ve been on a break over the summer, and we’re going to resume the action this fall – I’m really looking forward to seeing where things go from here. Many wheels are turning . . .

Thanks again!

Merci beaucoup!

Simon -

Blocking: Yes, the target number is DEX/3, modified by the difference between the attacker’s fencing Expertise and the defender’s Brawling expertise. It hasn’t come up in our current game, but in a game many years ago a character whose sword broke defended himself with a silver platter when a fight broke out at a ball!

Fencing expertise: One of the places fencing styles really impact the game is anticipating what your opponent will do – if you’re facing off against a fencer trained in the Spanish style, for example, do you expect him to slash in order to gain his bonus, or do you expect him to thrust since he’ll be expecting you to expect him to slash? The bonuses for a fencing style may seem small, but they affect actual play significantly

The difference in styles also manifests itself in other ways as well. For example, if the characters are on horseback, offhand weapons become useless (unless a character wants to try to fight with the reins in his teeth!), so the French style loses most of its advantages. Custom swords in my campaign tend to be weighted for a particular style of fencing – frex, a sword used by a Spanish style swordsman is weighted toward the tip to give a + 1 to slash but not to thrust or lunge, so picking up a sword from a defeated opponent may not give you he advantage you’re hoping for.

I’d suggest giving it a try and see how it works in actual play before tinkering too much off the bat – that said, I’d love to see what you come up with!

On my list of things to-do for the wiki is adding the French baton (a short staff) and the cane to the Items pages – characters with the French style will have access to the cane and characters with Brawling to the baton. It’s a bit of an anachronism, as this style of fighting didn’t really become prevalent until the 18th century, but I love the scene in Le Bossu where Lagardère is fighting with the stick, so I decided to stretch the boundaries a little.

I hope this helps, Simon.

Magnifique !

My ‘table copy’ of the rules are my printed .pdfs as well, heavily annotated – I also have the .pdf open on my laptop, along with the wiki, while we play.

I like the fact that the entire ‘canon’ of FB – the core rules, the piracy supplement, the ‘adventure path’ and two books of short adventures – fits into a standard report folder.

If you get a chance to try out those house rules in actual play, please let me know how they work out for you.

Thanks very much, Simon – most appreciated.

Right now there are three players; we’ve been playing face-to-face, but we’re on a break until next month as one of the players travelled to Europe. Our plan is to play a couple more times, then switch to Skype when that same player returns home to Scandanavia for good.

Flashing Blades is an outstanding game; it’s still in print, purchaseable directly from FGU, and it’s also available on .pdf. If you like the genre, it’s worth picking up the core rules on .pdf – it’s a classic that’s held up well over the years.

Thanks again for the comment.

Thanks very much, Anthony – most appreciated.

Thanks very much, SC – I hope you’ll put together a wiki for your 7th Sea game.

I’m not ready to do a wiki yet, but maybe starting early is better than trying to upload a bunch at one time. I actually do have a question for you. I’ll email you that soon.

Your work here is outstanding. I was going down the trail of rules reworking for Flashing Blades with my brother and now you have us thinking even more. I only have a month until the first session of my campaign. You’ve given me TONS to think on, which is a good thing. Following you as well.

Good stuff! I look forward to following this from afar.

FYI, I just watch The Duellists for the first time last night. It’s set in Napoleonic France, and it has a more realistic and gritty dipiction of duelling than your standard swashbuckler, but it is an extremely good movie that really examines the motives of men who duel and the conundrums of Honor.

:) J

I followed your post-link in the “Show Off” thread here and I must say, I am both intrigued and impressed by your swashbuckling campaign here. I’m unfamiliar with “Flashing Blades” but the idea of campaigning in 17th century France sounds like allot of fun. I commend you on the exemplary job you’ve done so far on building this site. You have filled the site with tons of great information, and yet have managed to maintain ease of user interface: navigation through your site is both intuitive and visually stimulating. Bravo.

Cheers,

-Arsheesh

What an interesting idea for a campaign! Having spent a little bit of time studying Armizare, specifically Fiore De Liberi’s Flos Duellatorum, it would be great to actually enact scenes in that age. Too bad none of the roleplayers around me has the slightest inkling about stuff like this. Keep up the good work!

I just stumbled across “Le Ballet…” too. I agree completely – GREAT WORK! I was so impressed I joined Obsidian just so I can continue to follow your site.

I had been thinking of something similar to what you’ve done, and if you don’t mind, I may contact you in the future to share some thoughts and get your recommendations. Great work!