My idea in making the codex was that the rhythm of fighting, sparring with swords etc., was a lot of fun to me. I didn’t get any of that feeling from RPGs, there was always a huge disconnect, and I didn’t understand why. It was the same for computer games and almost all movies as well. Having a system be more lethal or “grim and gritty” is a nice factor of realism, but my real goal was to bring the fun of fighting to the game – I mean why not since you don’t actually die, it should be a nice way to enjoy it.

I figured, there are certain aspects to a real fight, reach and measure, balance and timing, movement, feinting, and all these interesting options you have from martial arts throws, disarms, reversals, ripostes. The interplay of these options are very engaging in a real fight, and they interact in martial arts systems and weapon characteristics which evolved alongside each other.

So the emphasis in the codex system is on bringing alive that fun factor, and I believed that by representing things as realistically as possible on the granular level, the balance you need for a game to work would actually be there naturally, which is indeed how it turned out I think.

J

As you say the realism factor isn’t important for everyone. I don’t think anyone really enjoys the attrition type rules though, with 10 rounds of taking turns to hit each other. Lethality is an important point as well. In real life combat is unpleasant and deadly – it’s one of the reasons things like diplomacy and social rules have evolved they way they have.

If I remember, and we have some time on the Friday night of SWASH, then perhaps a quite Lace and Steel bout could be arranged…