Broadsword is a term incorrectly used to refer to a large group of
great swords,
war swords and
long swords. This term was most likely brought about in early-
Renaissance times when the
noblemen would carry much skinnier one sided swords meant only for show whereas the
warrior class would carry much broader fighting swords. This term was propagated by many
RPG's including
D&D. Even though broadsword is a widely accepted term nowadays and does describe the size of some sword blades, it is for all intents and purposes an incorrect term in respect to a sword class and should be avoided.
For any hobbyist RPG
programmers out there I suggest doing heavy research on
medieval life (if that's the time frame of the game, obviously) before copying from the mistakes of previous games. Anyway it's all interesting stuff and having an in-depth knowledge of the time should make the overall game much richer, but I'm gonna stop now cuz I'm going way off topic for this writeup. Just stop using the term broadsword to refer to a sword class! Heh.