Arms Law

An Alternative Combat System
Iron Crown Enterprises (I.C.E.) was one of those early publishers of what I think of as First Generation roleplaying products. Arms Law appeared circa 1980 and is not a complete roleplaying game.  Arms Law is a combat system that can be plugged into the existing game system something like published houserules.
The white box combat systems, both the one based on using Chainmail and the alternative rather suggest that combat is one of those areas that is OK to "do it your own way". One of the referees I regularly gamed with in the early days liked to use MetaGaming's Melee rules for white box play. Along about 1980-81, I ran into a referee at college that was using the Arms Law system in his white box/AD&D game. I quickly secured the copy pictured above for my own use.
Arms Law is the product of a group of University of Virginia gamers who started their own company, I.C.E., to publish their gaming creations. Arms Law would be supplemented by Spell Law, Claw Law, Character Law and Campaign Law, which together would form their Rolemaster system, one of the most highly detailed and arguably "realistic" fantasy game systems ever published. I.C.E. also has published Middle Earth Role-Playing (MERP) under license (now expired). MERP uses rather simplified game systems similar to those of Rolemaster. The MERP sourcebooks are generally quite good, although they don't stick strictly to Tolkien. I still use them (not with MERP rules, however) on the infrequent occasions that I referee using Middle Earth as the setting. The maps are visually stunning and some of the best game aids I own.
Arms Law gave the referee a set of charts for individual weapons. The mechanic is percentile based and results in graphic wound descriptions as well as chopping away at hit points.  There are critical hit and fumble tables that can result in quite debilitating and colorful outcomes. The addition of Claw Law allowed for the same treatment of monsters that use tooth and claw rather than sword and spear.
I can recall the first time I sat at the game table when the referee was using the Arms Law combat system. I of course wanted the biggest two-handed sword available and was quite thrilled with the graphic description as read off the chart of the damage it inflicted when I landed a solid blow. As a referee, I don't recall actually using Arms Law unless it was part of a Rolemaster game as it tended to be a bit slower than standard white box combat. I did start verbalizing the effects of certain damaging blows in a manner similar to those graphic descriptions, however. So Arms Law became an influence on my white box game as I would describe, "you deliver a long, bleeding slash along your opponent's arm" rather than say "he takes two hits".