On 3 Aug 2016 at 5:35, Richard Aiken wrote:

> Way back when I first started playing RPGs and D&D was basically all
> there was to play, a couple of players tried to have their PCs sleep
> in plate armor. They did so not because the GM liked sending in
> nighttime assassins, but because those players didn't want to face
> anything that *might* come upon our camp - like bandits (if we kept a
> fire going) or random monsters (if we didn't)  - in the dark in less
> than their full AC. Our GM allowed sleeping in plate but inflicted a
> -1 fatigue-based to-hit penalty, since the sleep that resulted wasn't
> very restful. On the other hand, he let you sleep in chainmail or
> leather armor without imposing that penalty. After a while, we learned
> to travel with enough hirelings to be able to set up a miniature
> version of a Roman legion camp (complete with light palisade and
> caltrops) and nobody ever had "bad sleep" issues again.

Fortunately, back when I was running D&D three out of the four folks
living in the house were SCA, and two of them were fighters. Oddly, I
was the one with the real hand-and-a-half sword.

So we were able to quickly demolish a lot of silly ideas. Making
someone put on armor and try to fight in it gives a whole new
perspective.

We happened to discover that the "archway" between living room and
dining room was ten feet wide. So we used *that* a couple of times to
demonstrate why you don't have more than three humans fighting side
by side in the stereotypical "10 foot wide corridor"

Yeah, you can get 5 guys shoulder to shoulder in that space. But they
can't swing any weapons!

It was amusing to watch them *try* though.
--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com