Medieval re-enactment as martial arts styles

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Dangerious P. Cats

I'm working on a campaign where the players are historical reenactors going to various events and doing reenactors things (the campaign will be a bit tung in cheek). For the campaign I was thinking about starting up various forms of medieval re-enactment combat as martial arts styles and thought I should ask the forum hivemind for suggestions.

The SCA guys definitely recognize a variety of styles for their kind of club and shield fighting alone. You might want to incorporate "style quirks": many groups don't practice defending the shin against cuts (because they ban attacks below the thigh) or the face against thrusts (because they wear open helmets so ban attacks to the face). Boffer fighters would lack familiarity with sharp or blunt steel weapons.

Originally Posted by Anthony

Sorry, techniques. In any case, most of the time you're talking about 1-2 points max spent across a couple sport skills. Yes, there are people who spend years working on being better, but the vast majority don't, and there probably isn't a sufficient critical mass to create a high skill sustained sport culture.

If course, you could say the same for many groups who use weapons professionally. Outside of organizations which enforce regular training and practice, it is often people who practice a fighting sport who get really good at fighting.