"Renaissance Italy" Topic

I realize that a lot of things get in under Renaissance, from all over the world and for many it's a time bracket, but for me "Renaissance means almost exclusively warfare in Europe in Italy both before and after the "Invasion of the Barbarians in 1495." The Turks get in there too with Mohachs and Vienna, but for me, it's the warfare in Italy from the days of the Condottieri to the mid 16th century. The Tudors fit in, sort of, but that's on the path going out.

I guess the Renaissance also has to have a connection with the art and humanism of the age. I once made a game, actually two, both called Chiaroscuro. One is a game of role playing like AD&D in the Renaissance, and the other is a campgagn game to back up my "Tutti Trani una Sei" which is my Renaissance version of Oh God! Anything but a six. I just did a re-edit of them. No real changes, just come color work and fix a few spelling and grammar errors.

Wonderful period. Anyway, in the campaign game , armies, artists, rulers, churchmen, buildings, monuments were all more or less interchangeable, and the game relied on state building and self-fashioning as well as military force. This was also because of the enormously interesting and dramatic personalities of the period.

There is a Renaissance rule set for Armati that Chris Leach has been writing for Arty Conlife. We've been play testing recently. It's different from Armati 2, but has the same basic rules system.

Dear Wrgmr1

Already have my own rules which I wrote which I like very much. thanks

12 pages, times roman bold 3/4 inch margins. Everything in that, no charts, tables, modifiers, or complex stuff.

otto

Any chance you could send me a playtest copy?

James

James – I would have to ask Chris for permission. I will if I can.

Well, I have to admit that I also had to get used to the rather sloppy use the term "Reinassance" gets in the anglophil gaming an historical scene. The way the TYW and ECW and conflicts up to the second siege of Vienna get lumped under "Renaissance" need adaption – especially when many often the conflicts of the early 16th century fall under "medieval" for many. Try searching for books with publishers…

That said, the Reinassance was indeed a floating term, starting and ending earlier in Italy (many historians place its end to the Sacco di Roma 1527), followed by Restauration, while in northern Europe it shifts roughly a century backwards.

What I learned is that labels are arbitrary to some degree. Never trust that what you mean is what reaches your communication partner :-)

Ruleswise I have yet to find a set that matches the balance between enjoyable playability and covering all the developments that happened between the ordonnance of Burgund and the establishment of the Tercios in the mid 16th century.

Ruleswise I have yet to find a set that matches the balance between enjoyable playability and covering all the developments that happened between the ordonnance of Burgund and the establishment of the Tercios in the mid 16th century.

It is a very difficult period to model. I'm not sure one rule set will ever properly do the whole 'war game renaissance' period justice.

IMHO, I think the renaissance period does end about 1527; please, if we must lump the whole thing together, can we go back to calling it the 'pike and shot period' – which is what most generic 'renaissance' rules are aimed at.

To understand the Renaissance one must understand the almost universal interest of the European powers in Italy. This could be explained by a simple fact.

In 1495 the revenues of the Duke of Orvieto, a small despot in the Romagna was larger than that of the king of France. In an age where government, war, and life was becoming increasingly lubricated by money, Italy was where it was at. Italy becomes unimportant only in the 1550's after all of the Italian states are more or less partitioned between the Spanish or German Hapsburgs, but also because the "grease" of money is now coming to Spain in the treasure fleets from America. This has an enormous inflationary effect on Europe and dwarfs that available in Italy. Paradoxiclly the major benefit of the plate fleets, goes not to Spain, but to the Dutch, Flemmish, and Lombard bankers gunsmiths, shiprights, and manufacturers who soak it up as fast as old Phillip can pry it out of the Indians of the new world.

I don't really have a lot of angst about the labels. To me all these Timurids, Uzbeks, Turks, Kalmucks, and Upchucks are nothing more than ancients with cannon. That's Ok, I don't do them, people who want to put them in the Renaissance because of proximity of time-- that's fine.