 | Medieval Murder Mystery at the Manor 5-7th February 2010 | | |||
The Rules
The game will start on Friday night and run until Sunday morning with no pauses.
If you need to pause the game for an essential reason, say ‘time-out’ and the event will stop.
The combat system
Each character can take between 4 and 8 hits depending on their armour. These are a total number of hits for the whole body. i.e. 4 hits for little or no armour, 6 is for a full mail shirt, 8 is for full plate.
When this number of hits is taken, characters are to yell and fall over. E.g. if a player has 4 hits and they can take 1 hit on each arm and leg before they have been knocked unconscious. If the character is not attended to by another player, the character dies in approximately five minutes.
Full-sized bows and crossbows do double damage. A particularly strong opponent might be doing double damage.
At the end of a combat, characters recover gradually from their wounds.
People can take four times this number of hits during the whole weekend before dying. Various encounters may assist players in regaining hits. Everyone keeps track of their own hits.
The aim of this hit system is to make the battles more realistic by giving people a limited number of hits in each encounter. However, fighters can take a reasonable number of hits over the whole weekend without being killed. Players keeping track of their own hits means there are few if any time outs.
Combat safety rules:
(1) There will be a weapons check on Friday night
(2) Head hits do not count and should be ignored. The ‘up and down’ nature of the site makes it very easy to hit the head. The potential consequences of a bash on the head while coming up a steep staircase are obvious!
(3) No steel gauntlets/ studded gloves because of the same reasons in rule (2).
(4) Once missiles are used, they should be retrieved after that combat has ended or moved off. E.g. there is no problem picking up missiles during a running skirmish as the battle ebbs and flows, but it is not sensible to pick up arrows from just in front of a shield wall! (All only people I have seen hurt by missiles have been people hit on the head while stooping to retrieve a missile off the ground).
(5) The front and edges of shields must be padded.
On the first night, beware the manor is surrounded on two sides by a dry moat i.e. a bank and then a sudden drop!
The stairs are more lethal coming down than going up. Take care going down.
There is no smoking inside of all buildings.
If you have not fought with padded weapons, please tell us on Friday night and we will arrange some basic weapons training as part of the game. Some very basic training will allow you to get ‘stuck in’ without hurting anyone (and will increase your chances of surviving your first combat).
