The following rulesets have served as inspiration, or may serve as an inspiration for referees:
Some educational watching, with focus on either medieval reenactment or HEMA.
This game began as a thought experiment: re-design RPGs from the ground up, consistent with the principals of old-school gaming, but while pretending the original creators of the first RPGs did not exist.
The goal is a parallel-universe RPG free of stylistic idiosyncracies that have stuck around for decades due to early impetus.
Rather than starting with modern RPGs and re-evaluating each element individually, the cleaner method is to go back to wargames and re-work them into a new RPG, unbeholden to the design choices that occurred in our own universe.
Some original design choices are just obvious adaptations of wargame rules to a single soldier, and so are retained.
Other original design choices are not obvious, even if they are now familiar. Many began as impromptu rulings. Though they grew and developed and became standard, they would likely have never happened the same way twice.
Brigandine aims to explore some other way the choices might have gone, in this parallel universe.
It is helpful to think of a fictional designer of Brigandine, living in the early 70s of the parallel universe, who has only played wargames. This fictional designer is not familiar with modern RPG conventions, such as:
The fictional designer is simply starting with medieval wargame rules and adapting them to scenarios for individual soldiers. As an example, it would be obvious today to speak about "hit points," but that isn't a word in the original rules. The language originally used for this concept is "defends as __ men," and even this needed explanation for the original players. The later vocabulary does not exist and so is not used, except where it is an obvious extension of game terms.
The original scenario the fictional designer has planned occurs at the end of a months-long seige set in one of the English chevauchees of the 100 Years War. A possible secret entrance to the beseiged castle has been discovered. It is a stone tunnel emptying into a river, and believed to connect to the water source for the castle. The players control members of a small squadron of soldiers chosen to sneak into the tunnel, and if they reach inside to fight their way to open the main gate for the beseiging force.
The medieval wargame rules include a fantasy supplement, so the fictional designer is going to sneak in some fantastical elements deep inside the tunnels. These will, initially, be an enormous surprise. Up until this point, the players will have only played out battles like Agincourt or Napolean at Waterloo. A mere goblin will be terrifying.
The majority of the rules in Brigandine focus on mundane concerns about weapon lengths, what to do as a spearman fighting a closing swordsman, where to store the rations. The scenarios should initially be about things related to common wars against other humans, over things as silly as border stones or tax collection.
The low-fantasy backdrop is the perfect way to reintroduce the terror of the fantastical.
Wargamers in the 20th century treated the hobby with academic rigor, and historical accuracy to real combat was a major concern. Many were students or professors of history, and saw wargaming as an extension of their academic work. The introduction of any fantastic elements, at all, was an innovative and controversial step when it first occured.
The first known attempt at a fantasy wargame occured at a gaming convention, where Leonard Patt set a scenario to replay the War of the Rings. The rules invented for this scenario laid the first foundation for the fantasy supplement, and thereby fantasy wargaming.
The fictional developer of Brigandine tries to maintain the academic rigor of older wargames, while including fantastic elements. He is interested in historical accuracy, though his idea of historical includes being faithful to legendary and folkloric material from the middle ages. This is a median position between strict historical accuracy, or the fantasty-kitchen-sink of modern RPGs.
Brigandine tries to remain as neutral as possible about inspirational ficton.
It is impossible to imagine anyone coming up with Vancian magic as a game mechanic, without having read the works of Jack Vance. Therefore which fiction is used as an inspiration will have definite consequence on the rules that develop.
These are the fantastical sources that seem like they would be obvious:
Some other inspirations are mentioned directly in the fantasy supplement. However, these seem to derive from the tastes of the original players and are not obvious inspirations. Many of them are hard to even find in print.
The Lord of the Rings is included in this list only because it experienced a resurgence in popularity around the time the first games began. Historically, a game trying to emulate the War of the Rings is what led to the very first fantasy adaptation.
Referees are encouraged to add in as many fantastical elements from any inspirational reading that will improve the enjoyment of the game with friends. These are just the ones the fictional developer is comfortable using.
Below is an explanation for the rules used in Brigandine.
The soldiers of wargames are one-hit-point wonders. They get at best a single attack each, and die the first time hit. In a wargame there are hundreds of soldiers, so the loss of just one is not too great. But with just a handful of soldiers, or even a single soldier, it is unsatisfying to lose characters so quickly.
It is an obvious development that the soldiers should be made more powerful.
The most important attributes in skirmish combat, going off the tables, are number attacking, type attacking, the type defending, and the number of soldiers in the unit being attacked.
It is common to use a rule that a single figurine represents 20 or more soldiers (the 1:20 scale). This avoids setting out the tens of thousands of figurines otherwise needed. This means that a single figurine attacks as 20 soldiers, and requires 20 hits to be defeated. The obvious extension of this is to consider that single figurine to represent a single soldier (a 1:1 scale), but that the single soldier still has the fighting power of several men.
The fantasy supplement explicitly introduces this idea, describing some fantastical creatures to "defend as six men," explaining this means the creature must take six cumulative hits to be destroyed.
The fantasy supplement also introduces some characters as requiring simultaneous hits to be defeated. This idea was not developed in modern RPGs, but is another rule adaptation to help characters become more death-proof.
The number of men firing (#firing) is an extension of a similiar idea to the missile fire table. There does exist a table within wargame rules for single archer fire, but this could not efectively capture scaling with archer skill. Referees are obviously free to use the single archer fire table if they prefer.
There are several morale systems present in medieval wargames: after each melee, after suffering major losses in the unit, and before a cavalry charge. The rules for after each melee are very crunchy and would slow down combat. The other two are fairly simple, requiring only 2d6 to meet or beat a target number. The cavalry charge rules are most like our modern understanding of morale checks, being done in the face of a terrifying enemy. It is this latter that will make the most sense for use when encountering horrific monsters belowground.
Characters are given a movement score, but then several fiddly rules about half movements combined with actions. To make this simpler, only the half-movement is listed, and there are two half-movement phases in combat. It would make sense to re-name the ½mv to just mv and give two of them, and would probably be implemented in a second edition.
Wargame rules really only cover combat situations. But combat is not the only challenge in a game like Brigandine. In fact, the soldiers are very squishy, so combat is best avoided unless critically necessary. Some additional stats are needed to serve in more generic situations.
The core stats of modern RPGs settled on a specific list of six, and a specific range of scores. The exact six stats, and their uses, developed gradually. It is clear some of them exist almost entirely to be the class stats for a character class (such as wisdom). Determining stats by 3d6 was meant to create a bell-curve distribution, as most human abilities fall on a bell curve. At the time these stats were first invented, the word "dice" meant d6, and that is why 3d6 was chosen.
The stat rules have remained a constant, even across rulesets. Yet in most games (excepting roll-under games) it is not the stat itself that matters, but an associated bonus. The stat and the bonus have a non-obvious relation (roughly correlating to standard deviations). A rule to "add your strength" does not mean to add the strength stat itself, but to add the strength bonus. It would make sense if a game developed so that the stat itself were the number of direct importance.
In the parallel universe of Brigandine, non-platonic dice are either more common, or else non-dice methods of random number generation are more common. Perhaps these wargamers are more accustomed to drawing chits from a bag, or they have special adjustable spinners, or maybe these dice became popular due to some odd gambling game requiring them. Whatever the reason, the fictional designer was not limited to d6 dice, nor even the platonic dice. (I concede the use of the dice chain does not fully comport with the parallel timeline idea. I just liked it.)
These considerations lead to stats as dice, generated 4d2, giving a range 4-8 with a median of 6. The d6 remains the default die to roll, with platonic or non-platonic dice for variations from the default.
Wargame rules describe multiple types of soldiers. Many of these have special characteristics, based on historical tactics.
In most lists of soldiers for wargames, neither priests, wizards, nor thieves make any kind of appearance. These three classes owe their existence to popular entertainment at the time of the first RPGs
Instead, Brigandine focuses on the martial classes, and tries to fill some niches
The idea of a single soldier per player goes largely unquestioned today. The earliest games did not practice this convention. It developed out of play. While it would probably develop again -- as players will always have a favorite -- Brigandine captures an earlier point in the RPG timeline.
At this point, there is no expectation for all characters to be comparably powerful within a niche. Some soldier types are simply better than others, and this is reflected in the point-buys for these soldiers. Play equality is provided by limiting the point totals, as expected in a wargame. Players could choose to have many weaker soldiers, or fewer stronger soldiers, or to mix types for a balanced army.
The knight is an extension of heavy cavalry types, and includes some of the historical details for knights from the rules. This is clearly the most powerful martial figure, and can progress to even greater military prowess.
The infantryman is an extension of regular infantry types (regular as opposed to barbarian), who are trained in combat and can use many types of weapon. The primary weapon for an infantryman is a polearm, though they can also use sidearms such as swords or maces.
The English longbowman comes from descriptions of archer types in wargames, mixed with legends of the English longbows at Agincourt and in the 100 years war. This longbowmn is specifically an English longbowman, regardless of where on the Continent the adventurers find themselves; how he got there is up to the players to figure out.
The artillerist is mainly inspired by the arquibusier, but includes influence from the trained crew who operate other artillery. The artillerist is intended to fill some of the thief's niche, as the original tunnels are expected to have locked doors and traps.
The scouts are light infantry or archers, who are serving the purpose of sneaking ahead in the tunnels to signal the other players foreward.
The peasants are also light infantry, with some of the historical details for peasant levies included. These soldiers are meant to maintain the unit formation aspect of wargames, which is why they are so cheap.
The referee is encouraged to adapt other soldier types to character classes, or adapt the same soldiers slightly differently.
Combat tries to follow the combat procedures of the medieval wargame rules. This includes skirmish melee, man-to-man melee, rules for jousting, and Fantasy Combat from the fantasy supplement. The numbers and procedures were adjusted to reflect either difference in game mechanics, or greater historical realism.
The idea of weapon class being directly tied to weapon length/speed was dropped, to make it easier to fit monstrous weapons into the combat procedure. The length/speed stat of a weapon is renamed its "rank," and "class" made to be more broad so not every single weapon needs to be delineated in the to-hit matrix. Many weapon types are listed separately, as in the medieval wargame rules, in case the more fine-grain details are desired.
Within a wargame, there is no reason to assign any number to armor at all, as the number has no numerical relation to any combat procedure. It is clear "armor class" started as a literal, visual description of the painted figurine. The figurine is wearing chainmail; the figurine is wearing leather; the figurine is wearing brigandine (the namesake of these rules), which looks like leather covered in studs. That's what "class" meant.
The idea of armor "class" as a number, and in particularly as the number needed to hit on a d20, might seem like an obvious concept, but is actually an odd development away from tables. All early wargames relied on non-linear tables to determine to-hit odds, which cannot be simulated by a dice roll alone.
Descending armor class is an artifact of early RPGs, but is not a feature of wargame rules. Armor class was not originally a number at all, except as a shorthand label for a column of the man-to-man attack matrix. As originally presented, these columns were numbered left-to-right so that armor class was originally "ascending." How the numbering of armor class ended up reversed in early RPGs remains a mystery.
When descending armor was finally reversed back, and descending THAC0s replaced with increasing attack bonuses, the same rule for to-hit odds was generalized to everything as a core mechanic. While this mechanic seems both central and obvious to RPGs (so much so a d20 has become the symbol of the hobby), it was a path-dependent development going from chaotic tables, to linear tables, to THAC0, to ascending armor class, to a core mechanic. If linear attack matrices never arose, neither would have the modern d20 rules.
Individual weapon damage dice were a later development. After the man-to-man tables were linearized, it became the only way to distinguish weapons. However, this is nowhere obvious from wargames, which usually treat the attack roll and the "damage" roll as the same thing (higher attack rolls kill more soldiers). Brigandine handles greater weapon damage through attk type (L,M,H and C,F), which grants higher chances and more opportunities for a hit.
Fantasy Combat is maintained. In the parallel timeline, this is the only mechanic yet developed that accounts for attacks on dragons or undead. It does not comport with our modern feelings, but it is what the fictional designer of Brigandine has to work with. It does capture more realistically the fantastical power of monsters. It is not any warrior who may slay a dragon. Only the noblest and bravest of knights may even attempt.
In some early versions of RPGs the idea of Fantasy Combat as the only means to fight some monsters was adapted into monsters which could only be damaged with magic swords or silvered weapons. These monsters were otherwise struck according to normal to-hit rules. This development seems a natural method to simplify combat rules, but it has not occurred yet.
The monsters are developed straight-forwardly from the fantasy supplement. They have the same stats as the players' soldiers, because they follow the same combat rules as the players' soldiers.
A wizard in medieval wargame rules is essentially a human canon. Therefore combat magic is handled as artillery, and magic follows the same rules as artillery. This opens the ability to strategically strike a magician mid-spell, preventing the spell from firing, and necessitating wizards remain away from the fray, guarded by soldiers.
The magic system developed here is aiming for a few qualities. Firstly, magic should be limited, and a wizard should be able to exhaust his power. Secondly, some spells are more powerful, and casting should represent a greater cost to the wizard. Thirdly, spells should vary in power without being divided into restrictive spell levels, so that players can acquire whatever spells they wish.
Some options considered were a spell-point system, a dice pool system, and several variations of the usage die mechanic adopted. The usage die system avoids spell slots, doesn't encumber players with tracking mana, doesn't require tracking piles of dice, while allowing for both freedom in spells learned and gradation in magical power.
Vancian magic is a hallowed part of early RPG gaming. It remained the standard for decades, and modern gaming rules still maintain much of its simple structure. Yet it is also the least obvious way to handle magic in an RPG, and extremely limiting to the player. In early variant RPG rules, it was often the first mechanic chucked out, in favor of spell-point systems or spell dice pools.
In true Vancian magic a spell is alive, and the caster must force the spell into his mind. The magic all the while is trying to escape. For this reason a caster can only hold a few spells inside his mind at a time. When a spell is cast, it is the wizard releasing his hold on the spell, allowing it to flee. This is why in Vancian magic spells must be prepared first, why the prepared spell must be specific, why they cannot be swapped around, and why you cannot expend a prepared spell in exchange for some other magical ability.
While true Vancian magic is narratively rich and compelling, it is also tied strongly to the Dying Earth series of stories by Jack Vance. If the fictional designer of Brigandine had never heard of Jack Vance, then Vancian magic would never have been developed.
It is important to distinguish true Vancian magic from the modern spell-slot systems.
In modern spell-slot systems, the slots have level and are interchangeable. Spells can be swapped in or out of spell slots, or spells put in higher or lower slots. Spell slots can be expended for other powers. A spell-slot system is just a very coarse-grained mana system.
Vancian magic is an elegant system, and highly revered by old-school gamers. If your referee prefers Vancian magic, then by all means use it instead.
Simply reading the description of a wizard's spell-casting from the medieval wargame rules, a wizard has four magical abilities:
How counterspells fit in with enumerated spells is also vague. Counterspells are described in the section of enumerated spells. Is there a limit to the number of counterspells that may be cast? Does it cost a spell casting?
A reasonable interpretation would be:This spell-casting system would be surprisingly modern, with unleveled exchangeable spell-slots and at-will cantrips.
There are plenty of other reasonable interpretations of the "number of spells". More in line with Vancian magic, it could be the wizard can cast each enumerated spell exactly once each battle. It could also mean there is a limit to spells known, but the wizard can cast known spells every artillery phase. It could also mean there is a limit to the number of castings, but the wizard knows all spells on the list or otherwise.
If this seems overly powerful, it is important to note in the original supplement light infantry cost 1 point, elves cost 4 points, heroes cost 20 points, and wizards cost 100 points. This makes the wizard a one-man army. This is far beyond the character point-buy in Brigandine, so the wizards considered here have been drastically scaled back in power, suitable to 12 points.
Though the cleric class pre-dates the official publication of RPG rules, it also has no precedent in medieval wargames.
The closest is a late edition of the WRG Ancients rules, which includes religious figures as an optional soldier type. However, these religious figures only serve the role of a morale booster, similar to carrying a banner. The effect is purely due to fear of the deities the priests represent.
The fantasy supplements to the Ancients rules mention Christian saints, Christian warrior saints, and Moslem saints. These have some effects on morale, and some miraculous effects at dispelling magic. These examples are suggestive of the standard cleric.
The original RPG cleric was more properly a vampire hunter based on Van Helsing, specifically the Van Helsing character from the Hammer horror films. The class was not based on any real religious figure of legend, nor to the prevalence of adventuring priests in any books predating RPGs. The existence of the cleric class is only because the original group in the original game were chasing a powerful vampire. It otherwise doesn't make sense to introduce a priest as a dungeon-delving class.
A cleric's turn undead ability derives directly from the Fantasy Combat tables. Two dice are rolled, and the undead are either driven back (turned) or destroyed based on the die roll. It could also be seen as an inversion of the morale rules.
Brigandine treats the priest as a priest. He is a man who has received holy orders, and is principally tasked with religious instruction and guidance. His abilities are decidedly non-martial, though he is not useless. At level 1 he can attack evil creatures in fantasy combat, though these are the only creatues he may ever attack.
Though canonized with the "standard four," the thief class was a late arrival to RPGs, originating as a homebrew class published as a user submission to an RPG magazine. The original was based on the stories of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, and was more like a magic-user whose only spell was to open a locked door.
Prior to the thief as a class, all player characters were expected to search for treasure, disarm traps, pick locks, sneak past enemies, and do other thiefy-things. Once the thief became part of the game, he absorbed all of these elements of play, becoming the only class expected to handle locked doors or traps, or the only class able to hide from an enemy.
For this reason, the use of a thief class is controversial in OSR circles, with many prefering to remove it entirely.
The optional thief class implemented here is mostly to appease insistent players. It doesn't make sense within the context.
These rules do not use nor make reference to any sort of game license, nor to any reference documents for other role-playing games. These rules do not use any material governed by such licenses.
While other game rules have served as a general inspiration, these rules do not use any copyrighted material, nor any patented material, from other gaming system. The algorithms for generating results from dice are mathematical and not subject to copyright. Nevertheless, the algorithms used by Brigandine differ artistically and numerically from other systems.
No artistic presentation from any system has been copied. Only generic terms, which are common to any discussion of medieval warfare or legends, or terms common to tabletop wargames or role-playing games, are used.
Chainmail is a property and registered trademark of Wizards of the Coast, Inc. Its mention as an inspiration is believed to be within nominative fair use. It does not imply any compatibility, endorsement, nor business agreement with the trademark owner.
Dungeon Crawl Classics is a property and registered trademark of Goodman Games, and also a really great RPG that I highly recommend. There is no implication of compatibility, endorsement from Goodman Games, nor business agreement with Goodman Games.
I consider Brigandine copyrighted. Obviously I can't copyright the game rules, only the paragraphs of descrption. If you base something on these rules or make something using these rules, please provide attribution, even if only as an inspiration.