OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

Are there any experts on the martial histories of the West vs the East? Or can anyone de-essentialize these a little for me? In my research the history of 'Eastern' martial arts seems to be concentrated in Japan, Korea, China, and S.E. Asia. Likewise, Western martial arts are located in the fencing schools of Germany, Italy, and France, but there is also some history on French kickboxing, English boxing, and Portugese 'stick fighting'.

While Eastern martial arts have a history and consistent style and terminology that ranges across centuries, Western martial arts that have such consistent focus on style is concentrated in the German and Italian fencing schools, but none of these ranged for more than several decades; never even a century! French and English boxing are really nothing more than informal styles evolved from street fighting. The German and Italian schools may have focused on a weapon (two-handed sword, side sword, rapier) but none of them were tied explicitly to one weapon, and all trained in the use of several weapons or shields and armors, generally as a companion to their favored weapon.

Eastern martial arts seem to be tied explicitly to a single weapon or style, with a history for that style extending for hundreds and hundreds of years. I think this is why we today link the word "martial arts" to "Eastern martial arts". There is a specific style for each specific family of swords, a style for each specific polearm, and style for each specific weapon with its own name and terminology. This is something the West has never had.

So my question is, if I wanted to reduce East v West martial arts down to a form that could be represented in a game, what would the specific effects of learning naginatajutsu vs. learning in a German fencing school be? (consider that the West never even had something so specific as a consistent style tied to a specific polearm like the naginata).

any thoughts on this problem?

also, any thoughts on why so many specific styles were developed in the East but never in the West?

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

You are notably missing Greece, which Pankration is probably the basis of *all* martial arts (born by Spartan warriors and learned by Makedonyan oplytes, then expanded to all Asia with Alexander, to forge there the basis of Easter Martial arts in India which from there were brought -with of course enormous differences- to China... just a common theory anyway) ;)

Your question is interesting but I'm not getting if you're referring to simulate the diifferences through Dom3-mechanics or another random game...

About the specific styles - in Europe we got mostly warriors practicing martial arts: practice war-arts, put some focus on your favourite weapon but you must be an all-around fighter, no time for style in war. Exception: Theutonics, Templars which were also warrior monks.
Asia: warrior monks practicing martial arts as a way to achieve perfection for body and mind. Highly acrobatic and coordinated styles. Different weapons coming from several needs (all those weapons coming from the law that paesants couldn't bring swords so you have to conceal self-defense weapons as agricolture tools :) ).

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

sounds like a very West-o-centric theory to me. I'm pretty sure most Asian historians would disagree and claim that Eastern martial arts originated from some Chinese-Indian source.

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

"Probably" being the key word. :) It's just a common theory. Nobody can negate Spartans gave birth to the first (chronologically) martial art - way of rendering the warriors super-efficient - and that this style was passed to Alexander's troops which conquered Asia. If those influenced India and through that, China (Indian monks going to China to teach philosophy and martial arts, tied together) it is of course a dark point :)

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

I'd have a problem such a strong statement as "the Spartans gave birth to the first martial art", since as you pointed out these are dark points in history, and there is evidence of even the Native Americans developing open-handed styles of personal combat.

I'm more concerned with Middle Ages era of martial arts. It is at this point that we have specific styles developed for warfare (not just personal fulfillment or sport) in both East and West. Yet while the east developed a consistent style for each weapon or even multiple styles for one weapon, sometimes depending only on how you wore it on your belt, the West had a much more general focus; so while the east have specific terms for each style related to a weapon, the West has the more general term "fencing". Western styles are limited to the schools they came from, and typically when the teacher of a school died his style died with him. Eastern styles are focused on the weapon itself, and many schools would teach the same style with some variation. We just didn't see this in the west.

So my original question: how should the learning of of something like Kenjutsu vs the italian Dardi school be represented in a game system?

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

It's hard today to say what the martial arts were hundreds of years ago, what their relevance was. History is distorted and a count of "who won" does not tell what discipline the warriors practiced.

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

I don't understand the point of this question in game terms.

So I guess the answer is - it doesn't matter. However you want.

Edit: I know quite a lot about Chinese martial arts, but not their history. No idea if that will help you at all, but feel free to ask.

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

there are definately fixed european styles, though i think alot of them tend to be meant for team work whereas asian martial arts tend to focus on the individual. Not saying warriors didn't work together but the style was perhaps just as useful 1 on 1 as in a battleground situation.

fixed martial technique was definately used by the greek phalanx and roman legionnaires, though perhaps not as excentric as eastern martial arts there was a big sense of a central style, tending to focus on keeping the guy next to you alive (phalanx for instance covered half of themselves and half of the guy to their left with their sheild, this made a wall of overlapping sheilds leaving very few weaknesses)

for more easternish 1 on 1 styles there is the schools of european dueling swords (epee, rapier...etc), modern day fencing is derived from these styles, being a keen fencer myself i know there is a solid structure, there are set ways to parry,attack and even set ways on how to move you're feet - however evolving you're own style around the basics tends to be encouraged because it makes it hard for people to guess what you'll do next and how (a big virtue in a 1 on 1 duel)

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

I don't think this is necessarily the case, at least not for the entirety of history. There's a lot of anecdotal information indicating that talented fighters in the east would create their own schools which would last for roughtly their lifetime plus a decade or two and then be absorbed into other schools. For instance, the famous story about Sasaki Kojiro vs. Miyamoto Musashi. Kojiro founded his own school and even had a signature move, the "tsubame-gaeshi" but it didn't save him from being killed by Musashi. The school isn't around anymore, but the move survived.

So in the above case, I would consider training under Sasaki Kojiro to be the same as studying under George Silver except for one very vital difference; George Silver and many other European swordsmen wrote combat manuals which survive. I think the reason we believe the East had some kind of homogenous school of thought lasting thousands of years is because we don't have a written record to prove otherwise. But that doesn't mean things didn't change over time, it just means that when the process was finally put to paper, the independent schools had been absorbed.

The next important question is why do eastern fighters master a single weapon type while western fighters learn sword, dagger, buckler, etc.? Again, I think this is a misconception based on the fact that our contact with the east occurred during a relatively peaceful time in their history. For instance, significant western contact with Japan occurred just before Tokugawa Ieyasu had unified Japan. During the Edo period all these professionally trained warriors had no wars to fight. This led to a devotion towards perfecting their art rather than a practical application of arms. I think if you compared an 13th century samurai with an 18th century samurai, the 13th century warrior would have extensive knowledge of both the bow, the sword, and possibly other weapons such as the yari, hachiwara, naginata, etc.

By contrast, Europe did not have the social stratification that prevented samurai from being anything else. There was also a fairly constant level of warfare somewhere in Europe during the Middle Ages so martial skills were always innovating. And they wrote everything down so we have a record of it.

From a game design standpoint, I would not differentiate between west and east. And I apologize if the above is overly Japan-centric and massively oversimplified. ;)

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

I think the true reason that we only think of eastern martial arts is that most of the western martial arts have been slowly forgotten since the discovery of guns. What has survived are only the written fencing manuals but also these show hints of different styles for different weapons.

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categor...egional_origin

This is a pretty good starting point towards understanding the geographical diversification of martial arts. Under the European section, you'll find information about 'Stav', a Norwegian martial art based on runes, Kiridoli-an ancient Georgian martial art, Bataireacht--Irish stick-fighting, Gouren-a Franco-Brittanic martial wrestling form, and Svebor, a Serbian martial art used by knights.

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

Asian martial arts evolved from street fighting just as much as western arts. By this I mean that the fights might have been fought in streets, or a forest or in a field or at your front door against hostile people trying to kill or rob you, and winning was to be achieved by any means necessary.

I also don't know any Asian martial art that would be explicitly tied to a single weapon that don't have comparable western equivalents, e.g. kendo - sport fencing. Most martial arts seem to teach both unarmed techniques and usage of many different weapons, or only unarmed techniques, or only usage of a single weapon.


In Asia, martial arts have stayed important for far longer than in the West, and the martial culture has been stronger and more secretive. At least in China, many martial arts are only passed down a single family line and to close family friends, and furthermore, people have remembered who taught who before their time. These charts and family lines go back several hundred years when there's that much history, but people often deviate from what they were thought, or learned from several masters, or weren't tought everything so they improvised the rest.

As for the reason many people don't think the Western martial arts are important, well, the reason is there have already been many generations who thought the same. Majority of the Western martial arts have been forgotten.

See above. Secretive families, and perhaps also the fact that the arts get fancier names in the east. "East-London Fencing School Style" probably doesn't live that long...


They fought, so of course they had a way of fighting! It's not about the style so much as the methods of teaching it, and for the systems used for that. They might have lacked the systematic methods of teaching that would transform a personal fighting style into a martial art, but surely they had something which they taught to friends and family.

Terms are necessary for teaching the use of weapon. If weapons aren't used, the terms will be forgotten. See link to Silver's Paradoxes of Defence for some weird terms.

"Eastern styles are limited to the families they came from, and typically when the sons of the school didn't learn it the style died with the master. Western styles focused on the school itself, and many students would spread the teachings around with some variation." :re:

It goes both ways. :p


For anyone interested, I tried to learn about Western martial arts myself, few years back. Here are some useful links.

Paradoxes of Defence, George Silver, 1599
It gets interesting after the half-way point, when he starts telling why the (French) rapier is bad and polearms, including the British shortstaff, are good. It's interesting because he mentions so many ways to fight with the various weapons.

British Quarterstaff Association videos

A Brief History of the Quarterstaff

Irish stick fighting (shillelagh/bata)

Also, here's an Indian martial art. It's much less known than other Asian MAs, so I thought to post it here.
http://www.kalari.in/kalari_videos1.html


How the LEARNING should be represented? That's a very good question. I guess it hasn't been asked often enough, because this is how it is represented in most games:

"Okay, you hold the sword like this, with your hand on the grip, between handguard and the pommel. That's good, now, the main thing is, you stick it to your enemies. Let me show you..."

*Ding! You have mastered Iaido! You can now use swords, katanas, sabres and two-handed swords!*

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

I love you. :p That approach seemed so innovative, at the time.....

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

I think one of the most important differences between eastern and western martial arts is that many of the eastern martial arts-karate, kung-fu, and aikido in particular-focussed on bare-handed techniques. Europeans encountered these forms at a time when they had assumed gunpowder was the pinnacle of fighting, and the techniques-combined with the mysticism and romanticism of the East-appeared almost superhuman.

European techniques were overshadowed because they were so often combined with more primitive technologies-swords, daggers, horses, etc. So I think gunpowder and exoticism were the keys.

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

Yes. The learning is exactly what I'm interested in and the point of my original question and why so many comments here MISS the point. The glibness of your comment has actually highlighted this. It's easy enough to model in a game the getting so many points of "skill" in using a sword and saying "oh that's training from one school or style or another." It could be training from a German school, a Japanese Sensei, or your pirate captain; it doesn't really matter. The game system can't really account for these nuances and most of them are superflous anyway, and I think this is actually the logical conclusion of most comments in this thread. I've no argument there.

The issue is that the learning doesn't happen in a vacuum and from the individual, not the historical point of view, there are significant differences in learning to fight with a Yari by practicing Sojutsu and learning to fight with a spear by practicing in some military school for Oliver Cromwell. The personal experience and affects between what are only two possible ways of learning to fight with a spear is significantly different. Because in my game the character is hopefully going off to adventure to their personal fulfillment, rather than die in an English Revolution, the experience and _affects_ of learning to fight with a spear in a military school for Oliver Cromwell should be different than practicing Sojutsu with some Master. Simply "learning to fight with a spear" isn't sufficient nor accurate; no one learns anything in a vacuum apart from the accumulation of other experiences. My question is coming from the angle that there is more involved in learning to use a spear than just how to fight with that weapon. "To fight with that weapon" cannot exist in the mind apart from other structures of the mind. What was placed in the mind in Cromwell's military schools versus what was placed in the mind by some sensei teaching sojutsu?

What should those differences be? I don't want martial arts to be simply the ability to swing a sword. For one reason they are a significant portion of "being Human" in my game, and for another they are so much more than that in history and real life too. We can never model the phenomenon of a Martial Art without doing a martial art, so creatively modeling their effects in a game is well within reason. There's no reason that some 'magical' effect modeling in game for martial arts is any different from any other way we might model the phenomenon of practicing and performing a martial art. I'm just asking for some ideas on what these effects may be; and how might I, for example, model the difference in personal affect from learning to fight with a spear in an English military school under Cromwwell to learning to fight with a Yari through practicing Sojutsu from some personal Master during a peaceful period in Japan. Or if you wish to not make any necessary split between West and East, how is there a difference between the Cromwell military school and learning to use a spear for the purpose of simply using a spear from, say, a French teacher in time of peace?

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

Are you really asking a question here? From your last post I can only guess the question is:

"How is learning to use a spear in an English military academy different than learning to use a spear in France?"

We would have to know a little about the teachers to answer that question I think. Or are you looking for something else, the question getting lost in your very verbose posts?

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

Omnirizon, what other experiences come with learning a martial art? Does the significance of these experiences depend more on why someone learns a martial art or how they learn that martial art? Are you actually concerned with stylistic differences arising from instructional differences in the use of same weapon?

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

Well I tried to ask (paraphrased):
"What is difference between learning a Eurpean martial art in a military school and learning an Asian martial art from a Master in a Dojo?"

in this question I suggested that there must be SOME difference because Eastern styles have strong consistent terminology whereas Western styles do not and instead are typically associated with a certain military school.

However, in response I got mostly pounced on by people exclaiming that European martial arts were just as highly developed (in fact probably more so!) than those in Asia, but that the Europeans were more fluid and quickly absorbed new styles and techniques into an overarching style and blah blah blah blah Europeans do EVERYTHING better than Asians blah blah blah is why we don't have such a rich heritage of specific martial arts in Europe blah blah blah.


So to avoid running into what is an obvious but subtle sore point in the Western mindset, I attempted to repose the question. Instead of saying "learning spear in military school" vs "practicing sojutsu", I said "learning spear in english military school" vs. "learning spear as an art for sake of learning to use the spear with the ideal that it may lead to higher levels of self actualization, and doing it in Europe, perhaps in France." Of course this sounds absurd, and the reason why illustrates the reasoning for my original question. But people seemed unhappy/unwilling to indulge a question in this form, and instead wanted to offer up examples of how the West had their own in depth martial arts. So when I tried to appropriate this in a way that would pose "military school" against the colloquial "martial art" without involving the East, it sounds pretty stupid; however that's basically the logical conclusion of what people were suggesting to me.


If you're willing to accept a non-essentialized difference between the East and West, and offer up ways in which the Eastern pedagogy of martial arts is different from Western pedagogy of martial arts, then please share with me. I'm looking for ways to model it in a game system. It could be anything... I'm NOT saying one is better than the other, I don't believe they are. I just don't believe the "put a skill point in swords and you learn swords" is a good model; easy, but not good. Learning a weapon comes with a lot of other ideals attached. I'm not afraid to be creative here, what is mundane to us could be good fodder for special abilities in a game world, and might even better model for the mundane than a simple skill point.

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

Walt, I'm not necessarily concerned with stylistic differences because they would be irrelevant in an RPG. I'm more concerned with the character affect impact they might have. For example what ELSE does someone learn in a military school in the English countryside? How about in a German military school? How about from a Master teaching the Yari, or the Naganita(sp?).

My idea is that no one learns the use of a weapon in a vacuum, so a simple skill point and you get "one level of spears" isn't sufficient. Rather, the pedagogy of weaponcraft has always come with other ideals and skills. What are these? I'd like something that can be reduced down to something easy to manage, maybe a few examples drawn from WEst vs. East martial pedagogy; thus my original question. I feel that the West - East difference in martial pedagogy offers the richest difference for cultivating weapon skill system ideas for a game.

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

So, here is my understanding of your question:

Different styles of fighting are taught in drastically different ways, even with similar or identical weapons. You want to represent this in a way more interesting than French spear fighters have +1 attack and English spear fighters have +1 defense or that kind of oversimplification.

I would counter that it is difficult to break this style of gameplay, especially when I don't know anything else about your game (such as whether or not you want to have stats or skills, and, if you do, what kind you would have). If you don't want a "The Punch does 8 crush damage" dynamic I am interested what you would replace it with.

You might want to look at the game "School of Sword" (an online flash game you should be able to play for free, though not without visiting obnoxious flashing sites). It is based on three areas (above, right, left) in which the player may make attacks or blocks. It is based on predicting where your opponent will strike and taking advantage of the long downtimes after every move. The important part, from my perspective, is the emphasis on the what is actually done with each move rather than abstractions (of course, you can always go farther in that direction).

If your interest is the learning itself, you might want to wonder to what extent the PLAYER learns different styles as opposed to their CHARACTER. You probably also want to consider what the basic unit of THING LEARNED (is it a style, a move, or something else?). Another part which is important, especially for many of the martial styles that come from militaries (as opposed to martial styles that came out of street fighting) is the other skills taught with equal or greater importance, such as marching and survival skills.

I hope that sheds some light. I can't give any more specific help without knowing any more about your game.

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

This is some great info.

I was purposefully ambiguous about the game because I have no established system, just some basic scaffolding that I'm trying to get some ideas on how to work with. I have skills and stats, but I don't want classes. I've got stats somewhat mapped out, but I'm still in square one with deciding how to make skills work.


While most games have Humans as sort of the neutral, central race, mine does no such thing. Human's special ability is the exact thing we take for granted in everyday life, the ability to structure the world around us through our Mind. In fantasy, this can translate easily to the Sorcerer crafting spells that effect the world around him, but even in a more mundane way the warrior, through discipline, structures the world around herself. Knowing how to fight with a sword, how to march, how to survive in the wilderness, necessarily makes the world completely different to that Mind; this is the point of Kantian and Heideggerian metaphysics.

To give some contrast, and display how another race can operate without the ability to structure the world around them, consider another race of mine, the Machinists. They are completely textual and logical. Humans think through axioms, deductions, and presence. We can make connections in our mind which have no logical arc and which we can't prove, and yet act on them productively anyway and actually shape the world through them; this is in fact basically what science does. Imagine a race of beings which could only think through context and logic, nothing has any set meaning and truth occurs at the point of interpretation. They would be unable to proactively shape the world around them without first assimilating it textually. At that point they would be able to reassign truth to the world and manipulate it systematically. A race like this could never develop a martial art because nothing would have a meaning outside of its text; they could never envision style and form. Such a race would probably never have specialized fighting forms, and may be more like our "put a point in swords" cliche system of modeling skill. However, since they can't even envision the style of a sword, nor follow the disjunctive arcs that trace the from the goal of killing a person to using a sword to do it, they would have never developed a sword. It's questionable they could have survived at all, but through some deus ex machina the can always be placed in the game world in a survivable position.


For some basic ideas, i'm thinking that learning to use a weapon could come packaged with a few other skills, but I'd like to go beyond that. Perhaps practicing in a specific style or heritage causes a certain stat to raise at an accelerated level (although I had kind of hoped stats would remain constant). Or perhaps as the practice of the weapon goes up other skills are being raised too, depending upon which school is being practiced within at the time. Perhaps the "school" is something different from the "skills" and which school is being trained with raises those skills at some rate, but at a certain level that school becomes more difficult to advance with and the warrior may be benefited by learning from another school. Therefore, someone who wanted to be a "warrior's warrior" would train with several different schools and masters, while a character who needed a weapon for defense but wasn't a warrior could learn a few moves or even perhaps in one school without having their life dedicated to weaponcraft.

Also, I'm not averse to just giving some kind of "special ability" dependent on the specific martial art.

Given this ability to learn structural and axiomatic skills, you can see that Humans have a very distinctive advantage. They will need it given what the other races have though... However, all races will have this to some extent, I just think that we humans have just mastered it and should gain significant benefits with it.

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

Honestly, it seems like there are 2 problems, as far as giving directly helpful advice -

First, if you really want it realistic, then you will have to research the individual martial arts themselves, and then through anecdotal recordings of students of different philosophies, assign "personalities" to each art, and assign effects accordingly. However, I don't think anyone would fault you for just kind of making it up yourself, as long as you try to apply at least a superficial logic, ie- students of Tai Chi have enhanced Balance, and ability to Meditate. What does that mean though? That's the other problem.

And that is, it sounds like you want a non-traditional character design, which is definitely cool. But while cool, it means it's hard to just jump in and offer something well thought out, and hope that it applies to how you envisioned your system. It could be fun to assign factors like "Balance", that as they increase, give stealth bonuses to certain things such as Dodge, or a resistance to being knocked down. But do you want that info transparent, or hidden? We just don't know these things. I do agree with the different moves concept though. Perhaps one school of spear would get a critical strike bonus because they focus on powerful thrusts, while another school is more attentive to footwork, giving you enhanced mobility between strikes.

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

As far as secondary skills go, I guess I have a few ideas.

In some schools of Eastern martial arts, I understand calligraphy and possibly poetry were considered as important as weapon skills. They would surely be part of any training that was undergone. Maybe religious knowledge, literacy, meditation?

Cromwell's soldiers might well have known some basics of leatherworking - enough to make leather bottles and the like - and how to make fuse cord, as well as a degree of animal husbandry and other general military skills.

A student at a German school of fencing might also be learning heraldry, court manners and dance. If the school had a military bent, maybe he'd learn maths, a foreign language or two, logistics, military strategy and the basics of codes and ciphers. Probably a bunch of other things too.

It's hard to talk in depth about the eastern martial arts, because I don't know that much about them. In the case of the formal schools, they seem to have been pretty much a student's whole life while they were in training so it seems reasonable to assume that a wide range of life skills would have been taught.

In a fantasy RPG with noticeable amounts of magic, it's probably a safe bet that any training above that of basic line infantry would cover some details of magical theory and possibly even practise.

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

Can't say too much about the medieval stuff, but as far as the modern martial art sports go, I've practiced stuff from both east and west (kendo and fencing mostly, along with little boxing and capoeira). Anyway, the basics in all are the same, i.e. hit the other guy but don't get hit yourself. The major difference in my experience has been the way things are expressed.

At least the kendo practice had an emphasis on the group, most of the things were done as a part of a group and everyone knew their part/standing in the practice, whereas fencers appear really invidiualistic in comparison. There are teacher and students, but the tradition appears less rigid.

Apart from culture I really don't see much difference. The ideas are expressed in a more "spiritual" way in east, whereas the west favours mechanical expression. An example here is "kiai" versus "priority". In kendo, in order to score a hit, you must have proper posture, spirit and determination. In fencing, the priority one gets or loses is determined mechanically, but basically the end result is the same - attacker is the one doing the hurting, not the other guy.

In game terms, depends totally on your system. :)

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

I'm studying 3d-graphics for games, and I've given some thought to similar things. As I said earlier, it's a good question.

Here are some simple ways that can be used to differentiate martial arts from each other in RPG-type games with a strong main character. Some of these are inspired by ADOM, a roguelike game.


Mechanical differences in learning:

- Some skills are faster to learn than others.
- Visiting a techer may give you instant bonus, or you might get knowledge that only becomes useful after, say, 150 weapon hits, at which point you "understand" the teaching. This would be a nice way to incorporate kata-style practice in-game.
- Also, it may be easier to find teachers for some styles than others. If there's a school, you just have to be accepted, which may just be a matter of paying a fee. Being taught by an old master, whether he's a knight or a sage, may require you to run errands and do quests for him, perhaps before every lesson.
- Some part of the skill should be keyed to time. Increasing the level when a weapon skill has been used long enough often works well. What counts as a use could vary between martial arts. Another, much-used option is limiting the skills to your character's level: you only get so many points per level, and must divide them between the martial art skills. In the latter case, if there are lots of different martial arts styles, weapon skills and other skills should have separate points so that people wanting to play fighters will have skills other than fighting as well.


Mechanical differences in use, or more options to fight with:
- Skill bonuses to other skills. Teachers teach you what they know, and it's never just the martial art. Conversely, the associated skills could give minor bonuses to martial skill, and choosing martial arts with similar secondary themes could be interesting character design decision.
- You need both martial art skill and other skills to get the benefit. Say, knowing basics of Tai Chi doesn't do anything before you get level 3 Balance and level 3 Intuition, but at that point you get some special stance or something.
- Some skills give substantial benefits at lower levels, while others give better bonuses once you've trained them for a while. These can be bonuses to speed, accuracy, damage, defence, perhaps stats/armor/hp at high levels.
- Some skills give better benefits than others. Whips don't make efficient melee weapons, so they need that kind of incentive, and it's nice to get some benefit from being a Little John with a staff instead of a spear.
- Different tactics or stances with mechanical differences. Learning western fencing might give you a stance that alternates between defense bonus and fast, far-reaching lunge attacks. Learning Bagua might give you mobility bonus in your basic defensive-balanced-aggressive stances.
- Different magical effects tied to a martial art. Avatar cartoon is the best implementation I've seen of incorporating martial arts with clearly supernatural. Unfortunately, most of the fan-videos are crap, or only show the fancy big moves.


Different dialogue options that you only get if you are familiar with a certain philosophy or martial art. This could be fun! Examples:

* Here's the money! Just don't kill the girl!
* What do I care! Just kill her!
* [bluff] What do I care! Just kill her!
* [preacher] Kill her and your soul will be damned forever! (15% chance of Charm Person)
* [robinhood/swashbuckler] I don't think so! (55% chance to disarm)
* [robinhood/swashbuckler] Touch a hair on her head and I'll nail your ear to the wall! (75% chance of intimidation)
* [iaido] My sword is sheated! I'll bring you the money. (55% chance of surprise attack)

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

Yeah, agreed on Avatar, they've got really nice stuff, IIRC they have a Sifu as martial arts expert for the moves, you can recognize easily many moves and stances of Kung Fu Hung Gar and Tai Chi katas, and the implementation of the elemental powers is very creative and unobvious :)

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

I think a lot of the spiritual / artistic part of martial arts is exaggerated in popular culture.

That being said, I have come to one near spiritual conclusion concerning Jiu Jitsu...

The more patience I have and the more I focus on relaxing, the better chance I have of winning. Since I have come to that conclusion the effort I do exert is spent almost exclusively on getting safe and dominate positions. If my opponent is spending a lot of effort trying to out power me or perform submissions early without position, I know I am going to win.

When I first started grappling I could get gassed after a minute or two of rolling. Now I feel like I can go forever if I focus more on relaxing, going for position and tricking my opponent to shift their body weight a certain way by making them believe I want it to go the other.

I am not sure how that can be translated in dominions as an advantage of a grappling art, but unfortunately I don't study a striking or weapon art so that is all I have to offer. I hope that helps a little towards your comparison between martial arts.

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

As far as representing martial arts in a game-if the game we're talking about is Dom3, for example, you might consider that applying a specific martial art to a "basic unit" might give, for example: an additional fist attack (boxing, or striking martial arts), defensive points (aikido), protection (iron shirt), kick (kickboxing, savate, tae kwon do), movement (monkey style kung fu, capoera), claw attack (tiger style kung fu), extra hitpoints (drunken boxing), size (sumo), magic resistance (tai chi, dragon style kung fu), attack (dueling/fencing), stealth (ninjitsu), strength (pankration, Indian wrestling) or spiked armour (grappling forms).

Ofcourse, these are broad generalizations, but they would debatably relate, in some way, to those in-game abilities.

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

I've just done a light skim of research, and I think I have to agree (certainly for samurai).

I'd guess that actual warrior monks (there must have been some, somewhere) would have at least learnt the spiritual stuff in parallel with the 'punching people so hard their eyeballs squirt our of their ears' stuff.

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

Yeah I think a lot of the exaggeration started before WW2 when the Japanese were trying to instill national pride in their people. At least in the case of samurai.

That being said, maybe the people that hold Euro arts to the same level as Asian arts are not being ethnocentric and may be pretty close to the truth.

One thing is for certain though. With any martial art your getting a lot more out of it than learning to fight. And there is some good in every art.

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

In both the East (eg: Shaolin, Sohei) and the West (eg: the Knights Hospitaller/Teutonic Knights/Knights Templar), there were orders of monastic religious warriors.

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

Of very different forms. Shaolin monks, at least, had martial arts training for a very different reason than knightly orders did. The knightly orders went off and campaigned for religious reasons. It was because of this that they needed to learn how to fight. It wasn't their focus, and as a result wasn't as regimented and documented.

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

I'm not sure all the western orders mentioned were exactly great at the spirituality bit, though. Possibly not even literacy. To give them their dues, they weren't too bad at the monastic bit (mostly), and the Hospitallers do pretty well these days on the good deeds front.

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

Well, I'm pretty confident the Eastern orders were just human beings too. They may have had some cultural advantages in education, but they were certainly ambitious, and often enough went off and campaigned for their own goals.

Also, the Knights of Malta (Hospitallers) were, and remain, a very significant and well-educated medical body, as well as a military force.

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

There's a show on the History channel, called Human Weapon. The hosts go to many different places, learn the forms of masters, then fight them. Here's the link: http://www.history.com/minisite.do?c...&mini_id=54986

Enjoy. :D

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

There's an even better show of that kind, but the name escapes me at the moment. This one is pretty interesting though, while some datas are incorrect. ;)

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

There's a good one hosted by a French lady...I forget the name, but she goes around the world, studying martial arts and meeting with martial arts masters. It's a very good show.

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

Yes, but the one with the lady is more on the deep, artistic side. Absolutely interesting too of course. Human Weapon and the one I was referring too are more training-combat oriented.

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

Would you happen to know the name of this French lady, or even this interesting program you keep mentioning? :p

Pity DominionsFan isn't around any more. He left Dominions to focus on his martial arts training, trying to become a professional fighter. :eek:

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

I found it, it's called "Deadly Arts" Hosted by Josette Normandeau, on FitTV--It's very good, and Josette herself is quite charismatic and charming. She has black belts in Shotokan Karate and Aikido.

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

If there's still interest in this, I've started to map a skills system, impacted significantly by comments here and my own research.

since the act of learning is central to my system ( I think that's a more accurate and fulfilling skill model ), I have three types of learning: self taught, tutored/coached, schooled. Basically, what is available from each type is largely dependent on where you are and who you are. Self taught has the lowest returns, but the most flexibility. Tutors in a specific skill may be hard to find, and can only train an individual to a certain level. Schools have the largest returns in "skills" for investment of "skill points", but should require a large chunk (a large investment) of skill points to get anything. There are also a very limited number of schools and what they teach is just what they teach, and they may teach things that from a player's point of view aren't necessary; thus there is limited flexibility, but some min-maxing control. Further, only noble or artisian characters would be able to go to a school.

The prevalence of schools and tutors and what kind of schools and tutors there are will be the main difference between east and west. This can work out to be very significant though... in my world (and I think this reflects history pretty well) the west is feudal and in a constant state of internal warfare and show. in the east there are periods of civil strife followed by periods of internal peace, but always a constant external "barbarian" threat. Further the east is more centralized and not nearly as feudal. This of course is reproducing some Western stereotypes regarding the east, but damnit it works! I'm working out exactly how this will impact skill-set lineups and availability, but it should be pretty diverse.

Lastly, "skills" and experience are two different things. Most systems are a sort of 2d outlay having skills and stats, where experience is just sort of a magnitude of those things, or a flat bonus to them. I envision my system as a 3d system with stats, skills, and experience all being three different things that must be taken in account in relation to each other. So a character can spend a lot of "karma" on skills, but never temper their usage through experience (I can imagine an army grunt who knows everything there is to know about everything in the army, and all the training possible; but has no battlefield experience). Of course, the Shadowrun style of fluid character building blocks is inspiring this system to a degree. How my so-called 3d character building system can be implemented without becoming a de facto 2d one is yet to be seen. However I think by doing things through interaction (or multiplicatively, mathematically speaking) may be key; this will require some fine tuning.

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

part 1: West v. East martial arts

there are actually multiple types of weapons and martial arts; there are 'martial arts' like karate or whatever, and then there's martial arts of war. The arts of weapons of war are not significantly different in use between east and west, although the military tactics and strategy in which they are involved may be. weapons of war are the heavy military weapons such as halberds, long spears, and large swords. the colloquial "martial arts" are generally the martial usage of civilian implements, civilian versions of heavier military weaponry, unconventional and concealable weaponry, or ritualized usage of 'gentleman' and 'officer' weaponry. The reason these peculiar types of martial arts exist in the far east and not the west is perhaps due to
1) greater control of weaponry by the state,
2) combined with the celebration of the farmers and peasantry in the Eastern temples that led to the study of peasant weaponry and fighting techniques with
3) early reliance on conscription of peasant-soldiers trained in
4) nationalistic warfare methods.

this is contrasted with West where warfare was less between conscripted armies and more between nobles. focus of warfare was on capturing fortresses, seiges, 'shock' usage of knights and cavalry; rather than open fighting between armies. there was less usage of seasonally conscripted peasantry and more usage of small standing groups of elite warriors. further, any ritualization of warfare existed between these actual warrior-knights, who would use warrior techniques; contrasted with ritualized duels between generals of the eastern armies who were not trained warriors, but actually trained ritualized duelers. Further, in the West, ownership of weaponry was perhpas not controlled, or peasants had no interest in developing makeshift weaponry, or there was no one (such as temple monks) who would commit time to studying, developing, and preserving peasant weaponless or makeshift fighting styles (as opposed to committing time to studying some wanky religion).

so I think that's a pretty good summation, if somewhat essentialized, of eastern and western 'nations' in military and martial stuff. it provides a good ground for providing some instrumental environmental differences that a player can experience.

The new thread 'Making a game system part 3: the setting' will be out shortly.

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

I think that in the west it was more or less forbidden for peasantry to possess weapons that were more sophisticated than a club, too, or quite probably a real sword was just too expensive to possess. Those who could would be noblemen who'd be in a position to support being a knight or similar. Armoured knights were pretty much impossible to beat with most conventional weapons before the advent of gunpowder.

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

I think the problem with this debate is two fold. One is obvious bias/nationalism. But I think more importantly, if you're talking about actual combat effectiveness, you can't gauge it. After all, if one man is suited towards a certain style that another build isn't, would you say that style is superior? Consequently simply measuring up well if "so and so" fought with "so and so", you need to also figure in body weight, height, speed, etc. of those individuals as well. When you look at all martial arts as a combat formula, the idea of there being a superior style IMO is pointless. Even comparing two styles like karate and wing chun for example, would be futile in saying which is "stronger". Imagine now doing it for two different regions of styles! Keep in mind, even Jeet Kune Do had a vast amount of critics who basically claimed the main strength of Bruce Lee's style was that well ... it was Bruce Lee. The man could've taken pro wrestling and made it dangerous.

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

my intent is not to do this kind of gauging, i'm actually looking for WHY there are these certain kinds of martial arts in the East, and these certain kinds in the West. I'm actually putting the effectiveness on the personal level, like I think you are suggesting with your Bruce Lee point.

you'll notice my post is about why there is this difference. I'm not concerned with if this difference is modern artifice due to nationalism; I don't care one way or the other. I really just want a historically plausible and engaging narrative to weave into a game environment. Of course, the more historically plausible it is, the better; and I don't think difference is simply nationalistic artifice. I believe there really are/were socio-cultural reasons for why there is a rich history of 'martial arts' from the East but not from the West.

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

If you take history as written knowledge, doesn't the West have more texts describing martial arts maneuvers than the East?

Since we're talking about a game, you could make it so that in the west, teachers would have schools where they teach nobles and rich people, or train professional soldiers, while in the east some teachers would be monks in a monastery, others would be craftsmen of their village, etc.

EDIT: also, in case I haven't posted it yet...
some interpretations of Hans Czynners treatise on harness fencing from 1538
EDIT 2:
Wrestling blindfolded
This would be an awesome scene in a game (even without the blindfold). You finally get accepted as a student to a really expensive school, and all around you people are practising with swords, wrestling, trying out different stuff. Awesome!
Edit 3:
Actually, I just keep finding better and better stuff:
"throws" and counter-"throws":
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=iCS_tF...eature=related
pollaxe techniques and training:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=gTVC25...eature=related
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=PVBTRF...eature=related

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

I don't know how your doing this but each skill should have its own experiance chart. Start learn sword, gain enough experience and your sword would go up a level.

Self training this is going to take a long long time. But if you have a tutor it will be easier and your able to train up to what ever his level is. You want to be better then him, start some self training.

Now for schools of fighting. You would have prerequisites for learning them. First of all you need to join that school, or find a teacher to tutor you. Another prerequisite would be other skill levels.
Say you want to learn Franz Swordmanship(or what ever you want to call it) which is a dual fighting style of sword with dagger you might need level of Sword 3, Dagger 2 and Ettiquette 1. Before you can even start Franz Swordmanship. And because its a specialise fighting style it would have bonuses when using it.
And depending on the School it might teach you the prerequisite schools as well. Or perhaps you will need to go somewhere else to learn something.
Franz School teachs up to Sword 6, Franz Sword 3, Dagger 2. Meaning you would need to learn Ettiquette somewhere else before you can start on the Franz Sword skill.

You could even have other things restricting you like needing to sponsered by someone from that school. Or needing to beat someone or win a tournament before they will let you advance furthur in that school.

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

To Omnirizon:
An idea of system looks just great! To me it looks more like Harn than Shadowrun, though... ;) An idea Lavaere puts out (about schools) was put to use in AEG systems: 7thSea & Legend og the Five Rings and works very well within them.
To Ich:
"I think that in the west it was more or less forbidden for peasantry to possess weapons that were more sophisticated than a club, too, or quite probably a real sword was just too expensive to possess."
That's wrong. Good-quality swords were expensive, of course, but in Germany, for example, many categories of peasants were allowed to possess and carry swords (and there appeared at one time a kind of sword called dusak (sp?) with curved blade often made of wood (!) with edge of iron. it wasn't particularly sharp in any case, of course, but some Rennaisance fencing schools still practiced with it :) ). At border regions such as Balkans weapons were carried as a matter of course. Main weapons of peasants were various kinds of spears or polearms, of course - something quite deadly and which no Japanese ruler would allow his peasants to have (in China, situation was somewhat different - but then, so it was in different West countries).
By the way, I think some of the difference can be attributed to the fact that book learning was wider spread in the East, so actual treatises on fighting technics appeared earlier and in larger numbers - so more of them survived to later days (even so, most schools we know now are known only from relatively late period - we know that there were some kinds of martial arts at 13th century, for example, but not which technics they actually used - different modern schools have different accounts of them). And a spreading of fighting schools in the West was then checked by an advent of an idea of industrialized warfare in 17th-18th centuries: kung-fu may beat a pistol, but not fire by platoons of line infantry or Vobanic fortress warfare...

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

The most carried the knife, though... There are several different kinds and shapes of medieval knives, distinguished by areas as many of you guys surely know :)

Re: OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts
 

Yeah, and some of these knives weren't readily distinguishable from swords. :)