Ringmail: Medieval Battles

Presented for posterity and the benefit of the hobby - a love letter to 1971.

Ringmail
Rules for Fantasy and Medieval Engagements

While I had announced this project in 2021, it occurred to me in recent vintage that I have never given the Ringmail project its own post - it was always in a shared announcement and, whenever sharing the project, I would have to say, "Look down at the bottom" or "It's this Drive link directly." But from here, for those who are interested in a particular 1971 wargame which might have become a precursor for the world's first fantasy adventure role playing game, now it has a direct post, a specific link, and a life of its own: a retelling of the classic, with inputs from community and playtest to break through the jargon and difficult wording, and with inclusions from other games and from cultural conventions common to wargaming which would have been omitted by an author assuming a familiar audience.

Announcing it now, too, as it is complete - rules-wise. 

Still need to look for more artwork, still need to finish up the layout, and hey - wouldn't hurt to play a handful of games to make sure everything works together - but if you wanted to use this game in conjunction with old school role playing? If you wanted to play a quick, quirky yet elegant battle system? You can.

Delve on - readers... or maybe, generals?

Ode to '74

There has been a bit of hubbub - and thus, presumably, a bit of interest - in the social spheres through which I find myself floating in recent vintage regarding the original edition and its wargame roots. As such, I'm pressured a bit to share a pet project I'd been working on - one that I'd hoped would get me back to the table - that presents just that: an integration of 0e and Chainmail mechanics, presented together and seamless, as RAW as possible - allowing for clarifications that I'd run into at the table to date.

Player's Reference

Referee's Folio

The books are not finished. They are a jumble of rules, written legibly, but wrought with typos induced by the use of voice to text in the generation of descriptive paragraphs. However they are usable - and they present the spirit of the original rules in their entirety (including rules for griffon riders darting around dragons hundreds of feet in the air; including rules for catapult fire, mounted atop the aft-castle of naval war galleons; and for, of course, delving deeply into the mystic underneath below) as they would have been on original release.

But about WW&W? As returning readers will know, I had been working on my own twist of the original edition - Weapons, Wits, & Wizardry - which I had been working towards as an actual play last year. I will continue to work on WW&W - it is after all my own complete-genius heartbreaker - but in play, I found that my own preconceptions from future editions were polluting my judgements. I was integrating 1e elements, B/X elements, on the fly - I was instinctively incorporating mechanics from other games in the same genre to fit into niches while also experimenting with other resolution practices - e.g. "proficiency dice" - with wanton abandon.

This project was an attempt to, realizing the accidental inclusions (specifically stocking: stocking dungeon treasure is totally different in B/X than 0e!), understand the rules of their own accord, to enter into them with a clean slate, and to assimilate the spirit of the game - as it was in its first incarnation. Once I understood the foundation - only then would I be safe to build upon it and recapture the zeitgeist.

So here it is.

These are the rules I'm going to spin the Ash Coast game back up with - tweak, as needed - and ideally, re-release with art, readable layout, and a fancy license. I hope they help - if nothing else, showing off exactly how much was packed into those four booklets - three brown, one blue and spiral bound. 

And now the only question is... what do I call it?

Delve on, readers!