Cromagh Answers!

April 28, 2003

Dear Cromag:

Which type of video RPG you think is more manly? Console RPGs or computer RPGs?

Another thing that worries me is that there are far too many dainty-looking boys wielding swords the size of airplane propellers in console RPGs, and although they do something like 800 to 1000 hp of damage when they hit, I don't feel I'm doing much in the game. Have you ever fought against dainty-looking boys wielding swords the size of airplane propellers? And if you have, does it really hurt that much?

Edwin,
Puerto Rico

Dear Edwi:

Cromagh thinks his definition of "manly" and your definition of "manly" must be two different things. Video games? Oh, sure, video games are manly—right up there with "Hopscotch" and "Duck-Duck-Goose." So which is more manly? Well, which one leaves you needing a shower? (Cromagh means after only half an hour—not weekend-long marathons where you wash down fistfuls of dry Cocoa Puffs with big swigs of diet soda. That's not manly, either—just in case you're taking notes.)

But Cromagh has indeed noticed the "big sword, small hands" school of adventuring, too, and it troubles him. Cromagh can only wonder: What are these guys compensating for? Well, maybe that's a bit more obvious than Cromagh pretends—have you seen these guys? Ken dolls snicker at these guys. No wonder they carry big swords ...

How do they get these things in the first place, though? Are they sneaking up on sleeping fire giants, or do they just ponce into a blacksmith's shop and say, "My good man! I require a sword I can hide behind! It should also defy the laws of physics, in that it seems far larger than its scabbard could possibly accomodate! And there's an extra silver piece in it for you if it matches my eyes! Step lively, now!" Nah, unlikely. Cromagh knows what Cromagh would do if Cromagh were that blacksmith ... and it begins with pummeling the little pretty-boy senseless.

So, anyway, do those things really hurt. Yes. When wielded by someone of the appropriate size and strength, they hurt worse than being grappled by a horde of girallons. But anorexic little pretty-boys with shoulder pads and men's-underwear-model-sized areas don't nearly qualify as "appropriate size and strength." Okay, maybe they're strong enough--by some freak occurrence of muscle-mass and fantasy gravity—to actually swing the things. But that doesn't account for why they don't go flying right off their feet with every swing. How couldn't they?

Look at the physics of it. Sword the size of a man: weight, somewhere around 300 pounds, at a rough guess. (Cromagh has the Internet, sure, but nobody around here has invented scales yet.) Wielder the size of an anemic community theater art director: weight, somewhere around 130 pounds, tops. Ever tried to walk a really big dog—like a great dane or a dire dachsund—and the dog hasn't been broken to the leash yet? You can yell "Heel!" all you want, but if that dog sees a cat, you and your 130 pounds of pure art-directing muscle are every bit as effective as a girlishly-shrieking wind sock.

Same way with the big swords in small hands. You swing, and that 300 pounds of momentum bellies up to your 130 pounds of mass and says, "You my little puppy now." Whoosh! Chuk! SHRRIIIIIEEEEEEK! Then it's twenty minutes of waiting around while the pretty-boy tries to pry his sword out of the ground.

Cromagh doesn't even fight them any more. It's embarrassing! It's like beating up the cast of "The H.M.S Pinafore" for their lunch money! Cromagh just puts his own, non-compensationally-sized sword away and just smacks them with a rolled-up scroll. Then, when they're too tired from trying to pry the sword out of the ground, and too paper-cut from the edges of the scroll, Cromagh just grabs them by the back of their heads and rubs their noses up against the ridiculously-wide blades of their swords and says, "No! Bad pretty-boy! No big sword!" until they learn to stop doing it.

That usually gets the message across, Cromagh finds. Though, every so often, one of them manages to tag Cromagh with the giant sword. And then they hurt. Wow, do they hurt. Fortunately, Cromagh always carries a little pinch of salt when he gets into a fight with a big-sword, small-hands pretty-boy—because Cromagh finds that they're much less upset about eating their airplane-propellor swords if their airplane-propellor swords at least taste good.

Now put down the video game console and the mouse and go play some baseball or something. It's a nice day.

Cromagh

Cromagh and JD Wiker are the authors of Cromagh's Guide to Goblinoids, now available on RPGNow.com.

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