Awesome medieval melee combat in RPGs

Director Roman Polanski brought Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” to the big screen in 1971. And the final fight sequence of men in plate armor with swords, axes, and daggers is still one of the best ever caught on film.

It shows the grit and ingenuity of two men combating for survival and struggling for every advantage. They desperately throw anything their hands can grasp, kick, trip, gouge, and claw. There is no fighting dirty. It is just fighting. Death is imminent.

“Fair is foul, and foul is fair.”
~ the Witches, Act 1, Scene 1 of ‘Macbeth’

Clad in heavy armor and using every muscle to kill the other, exhaustion comes quickly. You can only imagine how the melees must have slowed after the first hour of an armored slog in the mud with maces, spears, and daggers on a real medieval battlefield.

Then it dawned on me that no RPG ruleset I have ever read or will read in the future will begin to approach what a fight like this must have really been like. The mud, sweat, urine, feces, and blood were all real. And that’s okay. After all, we’re just playing a game.

Recall the words of Shakespeare’s usurping Scot:

“Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? ~ Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 2 of ‘Macbeth’

Here is the clip:

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