OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts

[JimMorrison]

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.

[Omnirizon]

Originally Posted by Foodstamp

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?

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.

[Gregstrom]

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.

[atul]

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.

[Endoperez]

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)

[Tifone]

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

[Foodstamp]

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.

[Gregstrom]

Originally Posted by Foodstamp

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

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.

[HoneyBadger]

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.

[Foodstamp]

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.