"Medieval" fantasy with tech 2?

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

There is a technical difference between brass and bronze?

Brass is a copper and zinc alloy
Bronze is copper and tin (with trace of other metals) alloy

https://www.metalsupermarkets.com/di...-brass-bronze/

[Dalillama]

Originally Posted by Rupert

'Proper' zinc brass has been around for long enough to be TL2 quite easily, and the Romans used it for coins. Pure zinc is more like TL3, but you don't need to be able to make that to make brass. Of course this doesn't mean that it's common enough at TL2 that doorknobs are commonly made of it. OTOH, Bilbo was a fairly rich man, and it may well have appealed to him or one of his ancestors to have a doorknob made of a rare and moderately expensive metal.

The issue isn't th3 material, it's the presence of a doorknob i. the first place. That sort or opening mechanism only dates to the 19th century

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by roguebfl

Brass is a copper and zinc alloy
Bronze is copper and tin (with trace of other metals) alloy

https://www.metalsupermarkets.com/di...-brass-bronze/

Alloys of copper and tin have also been called brass historically (and vice versa), AFAICT.

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Alloys of copper and tin have also been called brass historically (and vice versa), AFAICT.

Not by anyone who knows what they are talking about.

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

How does brass armor compare to bronze?

The mechanical differences aren't significant enough for GURPS to bother with. Brass armour can use the same stats as bronze.

[Flyndaran]

With zinc being much more common that tin, I'd have thought ancient people would have made a lot more brass armor seeing as how they could make it.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

With zinc being much more common that tin, I'd have thought ancient people would have made a lot more brass armor seeing as how they could make it.

It's harder to refine than tin, so at TL2 you have to use methods of getting it out of the ore and into the alloy that don't allow as fine a control as you can get when using tin. Also, while it'd work for armour, for a number of other things (like weapons) brass isn't so great.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Dalillama

The issue isn't th3 material, it's the presence of a doorknob i. the first place. That sort or opening mechanism only dates to the 19th century

I don't think the doorknob at Bag End is the kind you turn to release a catch, but really just am immobile handle. It's in the middle if the door's face after all, so badly placed to be attached to any mechanism.

[warellis]

With Middle-Earth, isn't the Shire sort of a TL4 anachronism (without gunpowder and such) in a TL2 setting?

From what I remember about Middle-Earth, Tokien took pains to keep much of the setting period accurate to stuff found in the myths and sagas he enjoyed.

I mean yes, Gandalf can produce fireworks and the dwarves are able to build these neat moving toys but beyond little things like that, everything else like armor, weapons, general tools and so on are like 8th century European (with the exception of the industrial stuff that Saruman creates at Orthanc IIRC)?

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by warellis

With Middle-Earth, isn't the Shire sort of a TL4 anachronism (without gunpowder and such) in a TL2 setting?

From what I remember about Middle-Earth, Tokien took pains to keep much of the setting period accurate to stuff found in the myths and sagas he enjoyed.

I mean yes, Gandalf can produce fireworks and the dwarves are able to build these neat moving toys but beyond little things like that, everything else like armor, weapons, general tools and so on are like 8th century European (with the exception of the industrial stuff that Saruman creates at Orthanc IIRC)?

Yeah I agree (it's just a decorative brass door knob is not the the most glaring example of it IMO).

It's an interesting one because is if it's a bucolic idyll of TL4 life slapped into a TL2 setting well then because it's a bucolic idyll we don't see a lot of cutting edge TL4 stuff really.
I'm trying to think of what's the most advanced stuff I can remember in the shire. Water wheels, the map that is supposedly in setting? Maybe there's some organised animal husbandry going on that might qualify

Actually clocks, does Bag End have clocks?

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

With zinc being much more common that tin, I'd have thought ancient people would have made a lot more brass armor seeing as how they could make it.

By the time the Romans were making wide use of brass it seems reasonable for it to be cheaper than bronze. Perhaps 3x the cost of an equivalent ferrous item instead of 4x.