The Culture: People Are Wrong About Chainmail (Still)

Recently, retards on Twitter (including some OGs) Did The Dumb on Chainmail and OD&D. There's been videos cut about this.

Which is all about this Twitter thread, archived by Jon Mollison here. An intro:

The prevailing belief is that the ACS included in OD&D replaces Chainmail

What is missed is that the “normal” combat system in Chainmail is its Mass Combat, while the derived systems are given clear titles like “Man to Man”.

Chainmail begins by launching into its “normal” / core combat system, which is what we tend to qualify as “mass combat”. While it never receives a name, we can recognize it by certain cues, such as referring to 1:20 or 1:10 figure scale combats.

The normal / core combat system in Chainmail is the most thorough when it comes to rules. Turn Sequence, Movement, Ranged Combat rules, Morale, etc, these are given thorough, multi-page definitions in the “default” system which is simply referred to as “Chainmail”.

When we get to Man-to-Man Combat, we are told “all preceding rules apply”, and that these use a 1:1 figure scale, and that it is “for small battles”.

Missile Fire (ranged combat) gets only a single paragraph of revision. Ranks Firing, Firing Arc, Cover, etc, are all inherited.

And to cap this off, Raker had the Killshot.

"No wrong way to play" is the "Healthy at any size" mental illness for TTRPGs. pic.twitter.com/o8HZMgZRHi

— AlchemicRaker (@AlchemicRaker) November 5, 2025

READ. THE. FUCKING. MANUAL!

Basic comprehension, motherfucker. So many of of the ankle-biters lack it, and damn that includes some folks that ought to know better.

You can get Raker's clean-up job, The Old Lords, free in PDF at DriveThru and get Chainmail for free in PDF from the Internet Archive.