Mêlée
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For other meanings of the term, see melée (disambiguation).
Mêlée (from French, from Old French meslede, from Vulgar Latin misculāta "mixed", from Latin miscēre "to mix"; alternatively spelled melee) generally refers to disorganized close combat involving a group of fighters. A mêlée ensues when groups become locked together in combat with no regard to group tactics or fighting as an organized unit; each participant fights as an individual.
[edit] Common usage of the term mêlée
During the Middle Ages, tournaments often contained a mêlée consisting of knights fighting one another on foot or while mounted, either divided into two sides or fighting as a free-for-all. This was, in fact, the original form of tournaments and the most popular between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries—jousting being a later development, and one that did not completely displace the mêlée until many more centuries had passed. The original mêlée was engaged with normal weapons and fraught with as much danger as a normal battle. Rules slowly tempered the danger, but at all times the mêlée was more dangerous than the joust. At places, the Roman Catholic Church refused burial to those who had died in mêlées, as they had willfully engaged in sinful violence at the time of their deaths.
The term mêlée has been extended to refer to other forms of combat such as a naval or armor battle that is fought at abnormally close range with little central control once it starts. The Battle of Trafalgar became a mêlée when the British ships broke the French and Spanish line, precipitating a ship-to-ship battle. In this instance, the mêlée was planned; Admiral Nelson used the superior fighting qualities of his crews to offset the greater French and Spanish numbers.
Mêlée is occasionally used to describe disorganized groups of people and vehicles, such as mobs, mosh pits, and traffic jams.
Like many other foreign-derived terms used in common English, the word is typically written with the accents omitted, appearing as just "melee". This often leads to the mispronunciation of the term as "me-lee" instead of the correct "may-lay".
[edit] Use in gameplay
"Mêlée" has been adopted and popularized as a gaming term to encompass all hand-to-hand fighting for instance, gamers will refer to "mêlée attacks" as opposed to "ranged attacks".
The mêlée is the principal aspect of games of the real-time tactics computer game genre, which generally attempts the realistic re-creation of the tactical-operational (battlefield) operations of warfare, most often in antique, medieval or Napoleonic settings.
In first person shooter games, a mêlée attack will only hit its target when at extremely close range. It often uses no ammunition, and to create game balance, these attacks may be faster or more powerful than ranged weapons for which ammunition is required. Due to the difficulty of approaching and attacking an opponent at extremely close range when ranged attacks are available to players or enemies, a successful mêlée attack is often considered elegant or skillful, and the game may reward players who manage to successfully utilize such attacks.
Other game genres in which this term is used are RPG, action, and tactical games in which it is considered as any non-magic attack used at close range. The Games Workshop games series Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 are examples of these tactical battle games.
Particularly in role-playing games, players may refer to certain classes, (generally ones that engage in hand-to-hand combat) characters or jobs as "mêlées." These "mêlée classes" can often include monks, assassins, warriors, paladins, thieves, rogues, knights, and dragoons. In the particular case of White Wolf's World of Darkness (and Exalted) games, Melee is a separate ability which governs the use of swords, knives and other weapons.
Melee (with no accented characters) was the name of the Metagaming Concepts MicroGame board game that became the fantasy combat part of The Fantasy Trip role-playing game.
Melee (with no accented characters) is often used as a generic term to refer to any Live Combat Boffer-style LARPs.[citation needed]
Melee: Culture, Crafts and Combat is the name of the rule system published by Fury Concepts for the Kingdom of Praelia, which is a Non Profit Educational Sports Reenactment Society.
Super Smash Bros. Melee for the GameCube is the second video game in the Super Smash Bros. series released by Nintendo. In this game, as many as four players take on the roles of popular first-party and second-party Nintendo characters for a free-for-all battle with rules vaguely similar to sumo wrestling, where the last one in the arena wins.
