Renaissance (and other historical Martial Arts)

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by macphersonrants

1. George Silvers style as distinct from that of the Masters of Defense.

They should look pretty similar; probably the same skills even if the real-world execution was slightly different. That might be a lot of work for little gain, unless one of the PCs is a student of Silver's or they encounter a lot of them. Otherwise, I'm not sure it's distinct enough.

Originally Posted by macphersonrants

2. Any of the individual German longsword styles. I think Joachim Meyer would be good. You could also build these into meta styles like the Masters of Defense one with a variety of weapons and techniques.

You could do a whole book of longsword styles, really. We did one, just like we did one kenjutsu style. It's a blanket representation, easily amenable to specific versions being broken out.

Originally Posted by macphersonrants

3. Some of the Elizabethan rapier masters might rate their own separate treatment.

Sure. Again, we represented an entire weapon's style with one style. Different instructors, different methods.

Originally Posted by macphersonrants

4. Perhaps some military styles to represent the average fighting skills of a a landsknecht or a Spanish tercio member.

The generic Longsword style works for a sword-armed landsknecht (specifically well for a doppelsoldner). Shortsword Fighting is a good backup weapon style; so is Dagger Fighting. For sword-and-shield armed tercio, the Sword-and-Shield style was used by the Spanish until the 16th century. The pike and arquebusiers would train differently, but pike doesn't lend itself to much of a style...it'll be a short list like the polearm styles often are.