Allowable Martial arts

[Ninja-Bear]

With the discussion of the new Hero System Martial Arts book, alot of ideas have been tossed around. And among them in a general sense is; what do you consider a martial art ? So I thought I'd open up an informal poll as to what you consider or allow as a martial art. Note I'm not claiming one decision is better than another ! Personally, I went from it has to be a style in order to count to, hey I can see the wall crawler could have it to represent his reflexes. So what is your opinion ? Also curious, how specific do you make the styles?

[Panpiper]

Re: Allowable Martial arts

 

Let's see, I started with a Karate style when I was 5 years old, but classes were on Saturday mornings which interfered with Saturday morning cartoons, so I only stayed with it for a few months, just enough perhaps to whet my appetite for later. Around 12 I got into boxing and found that my body had a natural understanding of torque, even my left jabs hit hard. At thirteen I got back into Karate in a serious way and then within a year found myself involved in the Shango Dance Circus. The Shango was a loose affiliation of dancers, clown, mimists and martial artists who all mixed and matched their talents and training to create a non stop circus performance famous for it's flamboyant fight scenes. There I learned everything and anything that looked good on stage, and to this day I have no idea what 'style' half of it came from. I studied with them till they broke up just shy of my 18th birthday.

 

I took a break for a couple of years then got back in formal classes studying White Crane. I stuck with that for a few years, then dabbled in Hung Ga for a bit of contrast. Finally my interest in martial arts matured and I moved into Tai-Chi in a fairly serious way for a good many more years. I taught a variation of Yang, but all the while secretly wishing I could find a teacher of Chen, and then only in the last few years, I finally did. I am now fifty years old and have a long familiarity with many martial arts.

 

(And I spent seven years training twice a week in the S.C.A. in single sword and polearms. Twice a week was unusual in the S.C.A. but I was the marshal and I organized practices for twice a week.)

 

It would be quite impossible for me to accurately depict my personal martial arts style by picking maneuvers off of the lists from the 6th Ed. rule books. It would also be quite incorrect for me to pick up multiple package deals from some future martial arts source book, as my style is not several other styles all heaped atop of one another. The only way I could possibly depict my personal style would be to scratch build it using a maneuver construction system. Nothing I do is standard to any traditional style martial art, but it is clearly a martial art. (Exception, I have an extremely powerful leg sweep which remains unchanged from the day I learned it back when I was 14. But I learned in in the Shango and have no idea what 'style' it comes from or even if it came from a traditional style at all. The Shango were an inventive bunch.)

 

I have studied and practiced dozens of martial arts 'techniques' as they would be defined by Hero. That does not mean however that my character sheet would list those dozens of techniques. In terms of what I would actually 'use', I have three different strikes, I have a block/grab, I have a block/strike, I have a joint lock 'hold', and a takedown. I do not have a particularly evolved way of getting out of jointlocks nor am I of much good in 'ground fighting', as virtually everything I've ever studied is striking. But this is not seven specific 'techniques' so much as seven different metaphors that describe approaches I might take to a situation.

 

But I am a simple case of 'creating' a specialized style set. My case is rather easy. How does one deal with someone like Richard Dimitri (a local example of a really good 'Reality Based Self Defense' teacher)? I would define him as having six levels in hand to hand and no techniques, except for a special inteligence drain attack for his 'shredder'. I would personally describe the style of Hsing-I as being a single 'defensive strike' attack bought with a couple of extra damage classes in martial arts. It is a very simple style that can be mastered in two years by a dedicated student with a good teacher. Many practitioners of other styles of Kung Fu learn Hsing-I in order to put internal power into the strikes of their other style. As a stand alone, buying a single maneuver with two damage classes would be a flagrant violation of the rules, but it is an accurate description of Hsing-I in my opinion.

 

So in short, I agree with the OP that a lot of leeway can be taken in the description of martial arts and what counts as a martial art. If a player has a well fleshed out character conception, far more than simply a list of stats and powers, then a GM aught well to allow that character a great deal of freedom in how they describe their character's abilities. For the sake of point balance, require them to stay within the rules of the maneuver construction system and reuire them to spend at least 20 points on maneuvers, but otherwise let them have at it.

[lemming]

Re: Allowable Martial arts

 

A Martial Art for a game is basically something that has a good description and not just a pile of combat efficiency special effects. Does it play well and can you have fun with it?

 

Unless your play group wants a hyper realistic Martial Arts game, then I'd just go with what's fun.

[Susano]

Re: Allowable Martial arts

 

A friend of mine once defined a martial art as any systematic series of movements result in a combat effect (or something akin to that). So, technically, loading and firing a gun was a martial art. Personally, I consider a Hero System martial art to be combat effectiveness. Thus, one could learn a formal martial art (such as karate, kung fu, tae kwon do, or any number of other dangerous words), or you could have a set of martial maneuvers defined as "skilled at fighting." So, to use your example, I'm willing to give Spider-Man a martial arts package defined as his "combat repertoire." Now as regards to specific styles, I'm open to a great deal of customization. Normally, I just use what's in UMA for most settings, but if I was running a high-flying wuxia game, I'd allow people to buy (say) kenjutsu and call it a sword-based form of kung fu or something akin to that.

[the fox]

Re: Allowable Martial arts

 

Now what one decision is better than another?

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: Allowable Martial arts

 

Now what one decision is better than another?

 

 

What I'm mean to avoid is saying that how ever you choose to use the martial art rules, that is the correct way. Like I mentioned previously, I order to use martial arts in game, it had to be a style. Nowadays, I can see its use to represent speed or reflexes or even density. I'm curious what people allow in their games. If you tell me that you allow only "real" martial arts, then fine. If you only allow hard styles, fine again. I just want to stop the nickpicking before hand. Does this help?

[Vondy]

Re: Allowable Martial arts

 

To be honest, I'm inconsistent.

 

Martial arts can be modeled numerous ways in the system: maneuver based, level based, talent based, power based. How I do it depends on what is apropos when the admixture of genre, setting, and play style is distilled. In general, I use maneuver based martial arts that fit the setting, disallow additional damage classes, and enforce the doubling-cap for damage classes*. This is because my games tend to reside on the adventurous to low-end cinematic end of the scale. I have, however, used genre appropriate talents, or even multipowers with power based moves, in the past. For some genres the latter options work better.

 

In terms of what arts someone can pick (either as a list of maneuvers or a special effect for a power construct): its completely setting dependent. I generally run games set in the real world and, as such, the martial arts for most of my games tend to be derived from real styles. But, where appropriate (like a game with ninja clans with unique moves and substyles) I won't shy away from making stuff up. It depends on how historical and pedantic I want the setting to be.

 

*Where appropriate I will allow damage increasing talents to ignore the cap.

[lemming]

Re: Allowable Martial arts

 

What I'm mean to avoid is saying that how ever you choose to use the martial art rules' date=' that is the correct way. Like I mentioned previously, I order to use martial arts in game, it had to be a style. Nowadays, I can see its use to represent speed or reflexes or even density. I'm curious what people allow in [i']their [/i]games. If you tell me that you allow only "real" martial arts, then fine. If you only allow hard styles, fine again. I just want to stop the nickpicking before hand. Does this help?

 

Stopping nitpicking is completely group based. There's no hard rule for what's going to cause conniptions.

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: Allowable Martial arts

 

Stopping nitpicking is completely group based. There's no hard rule for what's going to cause conniptions.

 

True, but I can try just the same. PS: Stop Nitpicking 8-

[Sean Waters]

Re: Allowable Martial arts

 

Muirhead Bone?*

 

I think, perhaps in the way you mean, I'd have to say, annoyingly, 'depends on the game'. In my games it wouldn't be stuff like 'American (or any nationality) Football' even if you could use the logical structure of Hero martial arts to realise that. To be honest it wouldn't even be a fraction of the ones Hero presents: there is such a thing as too much choice: humans are pretty bad at comprehending more than about 6 things at once. So something like kung fu (obviously), judo, karate, boxing, aikido, wrestling and something involving swords, kendo, probably.

 

Then you have nunjitsu, you know, for the villains.

 

That's it, really. Oh - how could I have forgotten Ecky Thump?

 

 

 

Not actually my favourite war artist, but what a fantastic name

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: Allowable Martial arts

 

Then you have nunjitsu, you know, for the villains.

 

 

And with nunjitsu, you have to watch out for their wooden rulers of Damnation!

[Vondy]

Re: Allowable Martial arts

 

They can also fly with the right headgear on their habit.