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Old 11-14-2017, 10:23 AM   #21
Kromm
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Default Re: Question: Off-Hand Striking

Remember that sparring is its own world. You generally do it with people who know you and train with you on a semi-regular basis, and unless you engage in it at Evil Sensei's Dojo of Death ("20 students enter, one student leaves!"), you spar for an extended period and with at least some safety precautions. In that context, an opponent might learn – over the course of minutes or days or months – that you have an exploitable "off" side . . . which means you'll work on that Off-Hand Training perk because you'll have people reminding you to do so each time you spar.

If you're training to incapacitate random aggressors on the street or make the other guy die for his country, you're not going to worry about all that. You're going to worry about using what you're good at to prevail – preferably before it's an actual fight where your opponent can hit back, never mind get to know you. Then you'll use training time to learn how to bring that already-capable right hand or head stomp or whatever to bear with greater speed and power. You might still "earn a perk point," but as Dirty Fighting, Trademark Move, or Finishing Move (for all three on one page, see GURPS Action 3, p. 15).
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Old 11-14-2017, 10:27 AM   #22
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Default Re: Question: Off-Hand Striking

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Originally Posted by Tomsdad View Post
heh! well if nothing else you are living proof that the tweaks I mentioned above for OHT and handedness aren't that farfetched!
When boxing, I will throw left jabs, but most of my hooks and crosses are right (and certainly hit harder from the right) and I don't think that I even could throw a left upper-cut if I wanted to (the mechanics of it would confuse me).

I am mostly currently self teaching myself to use what is essentially a kusari-tonfa (because I now play an utterly ridiculous sport) and my right arm is now visibly larger than the left. I should probably do more general strength training...
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Old 11-14-2017, 10:51 AM   #23
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Default Re: Question: Off-Hand Striking

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Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
Remember that sparring is its own world. You generally do it with people who know you and train with you on a semi-regular basis, and unless you engage in it at Evil Sensei's Dojo of Death ("20 students enter, one student leaves!"), you spar for an extended period and with at least some safety precautions. In that context, an opponent might learn – over the course of minutes or days or months – that you have an exploitable "off" side . . . which means you'll work on that Off-Hand Training perk because you'll have people reminding you to do so each time you spar.

If you're training to incapacitate random aggressors on the street or make the other guy die for his country, you're not going to worry about all that. You're going to worry about using what you're good at to prevail – preferably before it's an actual fight where your opponent can hit back, never mind get to know you. Then you'll use training time to learn how to bring that already-capable right hand or head stomp or whatever to bear with greater speed and power. You might still "earn a perk point," but as Dirty Fighting, Trademark Move, or Finishing Move (for all three on one page, see GURPS Action 3, p. 15).
Well I certainly agree any fight that ends in one move preferably before your opponent realised they were in a fight, is a good fight!

I guess I'm not confident enough in my ability to rely on that outcome* ;-) !

Seriously though I take you points about sparring situations, and favoured tactics etc, etc (it's just I guess in boxing my favoured tactics is going to involve punching with both hands).



However as I said I do think individual experience is going to be key here


*and while I may not have had lots of real life experience of actual fights it's not exactly completely unknown territory for me!

Last edited by Tomsdad; 11-14-2017 at 11:42 PM.
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Old 11-14-2017, 11:06 AM   #24
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Default Re: Question: Off-Hand Striking

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Originally Posted by sir_pudding View Post
This probably also has to do with me being especially useless on the left, to the extent that whatever advantage I could get from switching I lose by fighting like a five year old. So I guess maybe I live in a world where the Martial Arts optional rule only applies to me. :(
Nah, this is probably the result of the variable handedness rule that I've only even seen in FGU's Aftermath. Making everybody -4 with their off-hand is a very early gameable simplification.

In the Real World I'm pretty sure that real people are on a spectrum of how good or bad they are with their off-hand. Some lefties have learned to be nearly ambidextrous while others are so bad with their rights they don't even try.

I'm a natural righty but my left eye is dominant (because my right is legally blind). I've learned to do most things with either hand depending on how important they are to line up with my good eye.
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Old 11-14-2017, 11:23 AM   #25
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Default Re: Question: Off-Hand Striking

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and while I may not have had lots of real life experience of actual fights it's not exactly completely unknown territory for me!
Whereas that's the only experience I've had.

I never started fights, but I defended myself using my only training: wrestling (plus a few standing joint locks drilled into me by an overzealous friend). For me, throwing punches seemed like a good way to bust a hand or cut myself on teeth and get an infection, and kicks looked like a great way to fall down. Instead, I manhandled, shoving or tripping assailants into solid obstacles, hanging on, and grinding or bashing their face against the surface afterward.

These experiences taught me that most people who take a swing aren't expecting you to grab that arm and use it to pull their face into a car mirror, while most people who throw a kick aren't ready to have the leg trapped and get taken for a drag through the dirt when I hang on and take off at a run. So I worried about doing stuff like that well, not becoming a good all-around fighter.

I was almost certainly a mediocre grappler and terrible striker during that part of my life. However, I was interested in not getting beaten up, not in winning timed or scored bouts. I could imagine a PC in a game taking the same stance on things and getting perks like Dirty Fighting and Trademark Move to add bonuses that balance a lack of general skill, rather than ones like Off-Hand Training that remove penalties for someone whose skill is already respectable!
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Old 11-14-2017, 11:40 AM   #26
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Default Re: Question: Off-Hand Striking

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Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
I'm a natural righty but my left eye is dominant (because my right is legally blind). I've learned to do most things with either hand depending on how important they are to line up with my good eye.
For years I thought my left eye was especially bad, because it was embarrassingly worse at the Schnelling test, and was always surprised that when I got eye tests it wasn't corrected. A few years ago I asked after the eye exam what was the deal with my left eye, and they told me that my left is 20/20, and I am not even supposed to be able to read the lines I can with my right (which is something close to 20/10 apparently).
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Old 11-14-2017, 12:01 PM   #27
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Default Re: Question: Off-Hand Striking

For my part, while I'd say I was taught to use my left as much as my right... but they weren't interchangeable. The times I use my left were heavily situational - left jabs to minimise my exposure, left hooks if they exposed that side. So maybe there was a penalty for using my left hand (I write left-handed, but use a sword more comfortably right-handed...), but it would be offset by the bonus for my left hand being in a better position to land a hit with.

So under 'normal' circumstances, using your off-hand might not deserve a penalty.

Whereas if you literally can't use your dominant hand (because grappled, crippled, or whatever reason), your off-hand doesn't get that benefit anymore, so the penalties would make more sense.
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Old 11-14-2017, 12:16 PM   #28
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Default Re: Question: Off-Hand Striking

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Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
...
I was almost certainly a mediocre grappler and terrible striker during that part of my life. However, I was interested in not getting beaten up, not in winning timed or scored bouts. I could imagine a PC in a game taking the same stance on things and getting perks like Dirty Fighting and Trademark Move to add bonuses that balance a lack of general skill, rather than ones like Off-Hand Training that remove penalties for someone whose skill is already respectable!
That does sound like a not obvious fact at least to those of us that have zero fighting skill. In gaming, we see our character with numerous strong features, but one "glaring" weakness. We want to do whatever we can to shore that up, rather than relying on all the strengths like a real person with limited time to learn every combination of combat under the sun.
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Old 11-14-2017, 12:27 PM   #29
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Default Re: Question: Off-Hand Striking

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That does sound like a not obvious fact at least to those of us that have zero fighting skill. In gaming, we see our character with numerous strong features, but one "glaring" weakness. We want to do whatever we can to shore that up, rather than relying on all the strengths like a real person with limited time to learn every combination of combat under the sun.
I think you're overgeneralizing a lot there. Gaming characters built to have one strength (often hugely overdeveloped) and wide swathes of weakness are...pretty well known phenomena.

Gaming characters whose approach to combat is to try to escape it as fast as possible with a semi-desperate gambit based on a narrow set of fighting skills does seem more unusual, though maybe you'd see that in low powered horror games. (Needing to frequently escape real-life fights strikes me as a low-powered horror scenario, even if no literal monsters are involved!)
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Old 11-14-2017, 12:52 PM   #30
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Default Re: Question: Off-Hand Striking

Somewhat, but hand to hand combat is generally considered one strength, so lack of ambidexterity feels like a glaring weakness to me. Especially with how cheap the perk or 5 points for the full advantage is.
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