Topic: Real-world explanation of RM combat

[dutch206]

There's a show coming soon to the National Geographic Channel called "Knights of Mayhem".  They are going to explain exactly what it feels like to try to fight someone while you are wearing 140 pounds of plate mail armor.  (They describe their sport as 'full-contact jousting')

You can get more info here:
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/knights-of-mayhem

[Cory Magel]

I've watched three episodes.  I'm kinda disappointed that National Geographic has resorted to "Reality TV" in the overly dramatic, let's get together some people that will start fights sense.

Brief review from my perspective: The interesting bits about the actual armor, jousting, horses, etc are just barely enough to keep me watching despite the utter juvenile drama and chest pounding testosterone displays.  Put an ape suit on the main character and just have him grunt a lot and you really wouldn't lose much content.  Ok, I'm being slightly unkind... but not very.

The one thing that both impresses me and makes me think they are daft at the same time is they are using full on hemlock poles (maybe 2" think at the point) not something like balsa wood or another super flimsy material.

[Marc R]

Most of the renfaire and society folks I know hate that show, says it gives them a bad rep. . .I guess people from Jersey likely feel the same way about "Jersey Shore".

[Ynglaur]

140lbs. of armor?  Sounds like they haven't done any serious research.  Jousting armor during the late Middle Ages was significantly heavier than normal "field" platemail, but 140lbs. seems a bit much.

[Cory Magel]

That's funny... as someone who has done ren faires in the past I didn't automatically associate these yahoo's with them other than the fact that that's where they were holding their competitions.  I can see the average person thinking these are medieval faire people.  Which is silly... most medieval faire people are nerds not dumb jocks.   (I kidd.. I kidd...)

[rdanhenry]

So, Cory, you're saying that faire folk really are dumb jocks?

[Cory Magel]

So, Cory, you're saying that faire folk really are dumb jocks?

No, the guys in Knights of Mayhem are the dumb jocks.  The ren faire people are the nerds.

We had this funny conversation at work one day.  A girl was asking myself and one other guy about RPG's.  She was saying how she thought they were bad for various reasons that we easily pointed out were hypocritical or just outright incorrect.  During the course of the conversation I said "Well, normal people think table top gamers are weird. Table top gamers thing LARPers are weird" - I then turned to my co-worker in the conversation and asked "Who do the LARPers think are weird?" to which he replied "Normal people."