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Old 09-24-2009, 04:25 PM   #21
Agemegos
 
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Default Re: So how exactly do people fight with scythes?

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Originally Posted by Rocket Man View Post
Exactly. I think the only thing "cinematic" about this is the old D&D suggestion that someone could fight with an unaltered scythe, like something out of a Grim Reaper portrait. In that instance, you definitely get the Terry Pratchett problem mentioned above.
Look at the link in Post #16, posted by DAlillama.
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Old 09-24-2009, 04:30 PM   #22
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Default Re: So how exactly do people fight with scythes?

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People ask "how do people fight with a scythe". I answer (in Post #9): "First step, you take it to the village blacksmith and get him to straighten the tang, then you fight with it like a fauchard". This answer is responsive, correct, and concise, and everyone ignores it.
We're ignoring it, because you're ignoring the original quesiton. The "taken to a blacksmith and blade rotated 90 degrees to be in line with the axis of the shaft" weapon is not "a scythe" as in an agricultural tool, it is "a scythe" as in "a polearm that was an agricultural tool until the blacksmith fixed it".

Everyone else in this discussion is talking about the original, unmodified, agricultural tool (emphasis on TOOL, not weaponized at all).
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Old 09-24-2009, 04:42 PM   #23
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Default Re: So how exactly do people fight with scythes?

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We're ignoring it, because you're ignoring the original quesiton. The "taken to a blacksmith and blade rotated 90 degrees to be in line with the axis of the shaft" weapon is not "a scythe" as in an agricultural tool, it is "a scythe" as in "a polearm that was an agricultural tool until the blacksmith fixed it".

Everyone else in this discussion is talking about the original, unmodified, agricultural tool (emphasis on TOOL, not weaponized at all).
And in a sense Brett answered the original question ("How would anyone fight with an unmodified agricultural schythe?") too. That is, the answer is easy to infer from his post: They wouldn't.


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Old 09-24-2009, 05:01 PM   #24
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Default Re: So how exactly do people fight with scythes?

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And in a sense Brett answered the original question ("How would anyone fight with an unmodified agricultural schythe?") too. That is, the answer is easy to infer from his post: They wouldn't.
But he didn't ASK "Did those particular guys fight with scythes", he asked "How would one fight with a scythe?"

Proving that many people didn't fight with unmodified agricultural scythes is rather irrelevant to the question, because he didn't ask about all the people who don't fight with unmodified agricultural scythes.

DAlillama found a manuscript with two guys fighting with what look to be basically unmodified scythes. I don't know if it's a "fight book" as in a practical combat style guide, or if the commentary is discussing the crazy things drunken peasents get up to, or whatever, but it still seems to be relatively on topic.
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Old 09-24-2009, 05:39 PM   #25
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Default Re: So how exactly do people fight with scythes?

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But he didn't ASK "Did those particular guys fight with scythes", he asked "How would one fight with a scythe?"

Proving that many people didn't fight with unmodified agricultural scythes is rather irrelevant to the question, because he didn't ask about all the people who don't fight with unmodified agricultural scythes.
If someone asked how to get to the Moon in a car, I'd consider "You can't" to be a highly relevant comment. But maybe that's just me.


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Old 09-24-2009, 05:40 PM   #26
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Default Re: So how exactly do people fight with scythes?

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Originally Posted by Bruno View Post
We're ignoring it, because you're ignoring the original quesiton. The "taken to a blacksmith and blade rotated 90 degrees to be in line with the axis of the shaft" weapon is not "a scythe" as in an agricultural tool, it is "a scythe" as in "a polearm that was an agricultural tool until the blacksmith fixed it".
Yes, and as such it is exactly the thing that people actually fought with and called it a "scythe" when they did so.

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Everyone else in this discussion is talking about the original, unmodified, agricultural tool (emphasis on TOOL, not weaponized at all).
The reason that they are doing so is that they (and the illustrators of later editions of D&D) are unaware of what the records mean which talk of people fighting with scythes.
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Old 09-24-2009, 06:04 PM   #27
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Default Re: So how exactly do people fight with scythes?

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The blades look more like scythe blades than plowshares to me.
And they look more like spears than swords.

Obviously, I was making a biblical references (beating swords into plowshares), and pointing out those aren't really scythes, as others have also pointed out.
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Old 09-24-2009, 06:09 PM   #28
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Default Re: So how exactly do people fight with scythes?

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The reason that they are doing so is that they (and the illustrators of later editions of D&D) are unaware of what the records mean which talk of people fighting with scythes.
I don't think so. That would imply that the earlier editions of D&D (or wherever this originated) had astonishing historical insights and included the "scythe" referring to a warscythe aka spear made out of a scythe, knowing that this was entirely historically accurate, and only later editions of D&D messed it up.

You could say the same thing about numerous absurd weapons used in cinematic games/shows, such as the ubiquitous anime "wire of death" ("Obviously a reference to razor wire that got lost in translation!"), or the Spiked Chain ("Originally the war flail until artists messed it up!") but I think a more likely interpretation of all the above is that they meant exactly what they said, and that a scythe is a scythe, and that the D&D creators had no idea about your Warscythe, and if they did, they would have statted that weapon out like a spear/polearm. If you find that absurd, welcome to the world of D&D, home of elves, goblins and magic.
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Old 09-24-2009, 07:15 PM   #29
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Default Re: So how exactly do people fight with scythes?

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I don't think so. That would imply that the earlier editions of D&D (or wherever this originated) had astonishing historical insights and included the "scythe" referring to a warscythe aka spear made out of a scythe, knowing that this was entirely historically accurate, and only later editions of D&D messed it up.
I guess I ought to be flattered that you imply that I have astonishing historical insight. But it isn't true. Earlier editions of D&D mentioned a scythe as a weapon because Gary Gyax was an historical wargamer and had read accounts of scythes being used in battles such as Sedgemoor. No astonishing historical insight was required.

Now Gygax may or may not have know that the scythes used in battles were straightened. He did tend to have a thesaurus vocabulary rather than a dictionary vocabulary--for example look at his abuse of "phylactery". But I give the man the benefit of the doubt with respect to scythes. There was no illustration of a scythe that I remember in AD&D first edition, so I give the illustrators of early editions of D&D the benefit of the doubt too. However, the illustration on p. 100 of the D&D 3.0 PHB clearly shows an un-straightened scythe, which I believe is an error.

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Old 09-24-2009, 07:21 PM   #30
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Default Re: So how exactly do people fight with scythes?

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Obviously, I was making a biblical references (beating swords into plowshares), and pointing out those aren't really scythes, as others have also pointed out.
You say that they obviously aren't scythes. But the people who used them and contemporary accounts call them scythes. You may not have known it until now, but that sort of thing is a scythe. "Scythe" is the word for that thing.

Furthermore "scythe" probably appears on the weapons tables of D&D and derivative games because of those things, because Gygax would have read about them while researching his historical wargames designs. In the context "role-playing in general", the illuminating answer to the question "how do you fight with a scythe" is "first, you get a smith to straighten it".
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