Some Sherwood Odds and Ends
My Delight
I bought Sherwood by R.Rook Studio about a month ago, and the only thing that got it off my mind was Pax Unplugged. I had intended to blog about Sherwood, and run it at Pax, but that proved to be difficult for me. When I first started reading the game which is a tight 32 page A5 booklet I was amazed, and decided I would need to create a character and make some rolls to properly absorb the mechanisms.
My typical process is to make Billiam Bannock in a game when I need to get a handle on a system, but the goofiness of the name didn't resonant this time so The Notorious Pirate William Bannock was born. Then I looked at a map of England trying to find a likely town for William to high from and decided on Hartlepool. A bit of research revealed that Hartlepool existed in the games somewhat nebulous time frame (maybe all English towns have existed for 1200 years or more, they all seem to have). William Bannock would briefly be William of Hart-le-pool. A bit more research yielded the information that after the Norman Invasion among other things Robert de Brus was made (among many other things) Lord of Hartness, the area surrounding Hart-le-pool. In 1306 Robert the Bruce became King of Scotland and the title was revoked, at around the same time The Palatine County of Durham was created under the control of The Bishop of Durham, coooooooool. So William instead became William Hartness, an heir dispossessed by the King at the connivance of the greedy Abbot Hugh de Puiset who was then made Bishop of Durham (real person, was really Bishop of Durham). All very, very satisfying.
The Notorious Pirate William Hartness He/Him
Aristocrat, Jack-of-all-trades
Endurance: 7
Luck: 6
Willpower: 6
Wits: 12
Skills: Etiquette 1, Riding 1, Streetwise 1, Thievery 1, Sailing 2, Carousing 1, Melee 1
My Madness
Then I started to think about when I might be able to run this gem of a game, and it seemed that just making an outlaw band of pregens to pal around with William would be pretty simple, but where would they be based? Sherwood leans into Royal Forestry Law, so there I go on another research deep dive. Turns out that Durham didn't have any Royal Forests, and the ones nearby in Northumberland and North Yorkshire maybe didn't have much in the way of actual forest? Royal Forests were essentially game preserves created to limit harvesting and grazing of places that supported animals fun to kill, and provide some extra income to the crown. How am I going to run a game about Robin Hood-esque forest bandits without any forest?!?
So, I shifted from Durham to Cumbria which contains the excellent Inglewood Forest along with a lot of other provocative locations. I made some more characters: Aelfric the Hermit, a sorcerer and scholar who upon the discovery of his affair was denounced by his lover Aubrey Fitzsymons of witchcraft; Mathilda who ran from an unwanted betrothal and travels as the Cavalier Matthew de Trouville, Royse of Falstone who became a young outlaw when her arcane talent for illusion was discovered. Great! Fantastic! Now I just need a map...
Figuring out a map for ~13th century Inglewood and surrounding area is fucking hard. I still haven't finished. I'm close, but I ran out of time to actually get the damn game prepped for Pax because I was entirely too focused on things that only kind of matter. So this December I'm going to finish the map and do the rest of the prep (and probably replace poor William with someone who fits the rest of the crew better), maybe I'll blog about it some more.
My Suggestions
I do have 3 complaints about the game, and maybe Richard will address them if he has the opportunity to write a second edition.
- Include some friggin maps of forests and counties like Nottingham, Cumbria, and South Yorkshire! They're not by any means necessary to run this game, but there's so many real places with cool history to include that it would be nice to have spatial context. They don't have to or perhaps shouldn't be accurate, just present so alternate reality me doesn't drive himself completely crazy.
- A nice list of period appropriate names. I've made one and included it at the end of the post, maybe it'll be useful to you.
- Replace the Cart Driving skill with either Carter or Teamster. This is a tiny quibble, and I would rule that Cart Driving applies to a lot of things at my table, but making it explicitly broader would be appreciated.
Female
- Aldith
- Aldreda
- Amice
- Dionysia / Diot
- Edith / Eda
- Eleanor
- Etheldreda / Ethelfleda
- Isabel / Ibb
- Haoueis / Hawise
- Joyce / Jocasa
- Katherine / Cateline
- Kinborough
- Jehanne
- Melisende
- Mary / Malle
- Martha / Matty
- Margaret / Meggy
- Mathilde / Mahaut / Maude
- Muriel
- Rohesia / Rose / Royse
Male
- Adam / Addy
- Aelfric / Elric
- Bartholomew / Bate
- David / Daw
- Elias / Elis
- Eustace / Stace / Stacey
- Henry / Harry
- Hildebert / Ilbert
- Hugh / Hudd
- John / Hann / Hankin / Jan
- Jordan / Judd
- Lawrence / Law
- Maurice / Morris
- Nicholas / Col
- Oliver / Noll
- Patrick / Pate
- Randolf / Randel
- Richard / Dick / Dicun
- Robert / Hob
- William / Wilkin
My Final Thoughts
This wasn't intended to be a review, which is good because it certainly wouldn't be a functional one, and I haven't even played it yet! I hope it doesn't come off too whingey. The upshot is there are very few games I've read that pack as much quality into as little space, and you should buy it! You can get a physical copy from +1EXP where Richard works, or a digital copy from his itch page.
Here's a blog post about doing a better job of getting your historical game off the ground than I did, you should read it, it's better than this post.
Finally, here's some maps that'll eventually be synthesized into a gameable one.
