You Don't Need Permission to Hold a Sword

Designing Keep the Fire: Part II

In most LRP systems, weapons come with permissions attached. You can hold this. You can't hold that. You can use a sword, not a polearm. You can use a bow (more on those later), not a shield. You can wield a dagger, not two.

These are usually framed as weapon proficiencies or weapon skills, and they're often treated as essential balancing mechanics.

I've decided they need to go.

That doesn't mean everything becomes identical. It ties into several of the same motivations that led to removing armour:

• Do not punish players for their aesthetic choices/costuming budget.
• Enable diverse playstyles.

It doesn't mean safety's ignored - physreps will still need to meet standards. But iIf a player turns up with a beautiful polearm because it fits their character, and the system says "you didn't buy the right skill, you can't use that", then the game is effectively telling them: your concept is mechanically invalid.

I just don't find that interesting design. That's admin getting in the way of play.

Worse, the restrictions often make little to no sense. You can swing a sword all day (a weapon which requires a lot of training, and is a prestige weapon), but a spear is an expensive skill (despite anyone being able to make a pointy stick and figure out which end to stick in the enemy).

The usual justification is balance: different weapons need gating because they're more flexible, more powerful, or confer a mechanical advantage.

Most of the time when you see what they're doing in play though, they aren't creating interesting tactical or narrative choices - they just limit who gets to fit into certain visual archetypes.

So instead of asking "who can hold what?", I asked a different question.

What interesting things can you do, under what conditions?

In this model, anyone can hold any safe physrep. The balancing isn't mechanical permissions, it comes from:

• Physical constraints - one hand vs two hands, comfortable weapon length, reach.
• Embodied mechanics - you need a hand free for magic, items, etc.
• Deliberate style choices - what effects can you apply, not what can you carry

It's less "you can hold a halberd", and more "you can do X with a two-handed weapon", "you can do Y when fighting with a shield", or "you gain Z options if you keep a hand free".

As with removing armour, it's not claiming that weapon skills are bad design in general. They clearly work well enough for many systems. It's about recognising that they violate enough of my constraints, and bring little enough benefits, that I don't think they belong in this one.

Dropping them simplifies the system, reduces gatekeeping, supports player expression, and shifts builds towards what characters can do instead of what they're allowed to hold.

There's also few things more frustrating than having bought a shiny new toy, and realising you don't have the points to be able to use it.

Ultimately, this led to a couple of key mechanics which shape a lot of the rest of the system.

They're about active abilities, long-term abilities, and how much your character can do and they're covered next.

Constraints so far

• Keep cognitive load in combat to a minimum.
• Do not punish players for their aesthetic choices/costuming budget.
• Enable diverse playstyles.

This is part of the ongoing Designing Keep the Fire series. You can find all entries here.

Previous: Why I'm Scrapping Armour