How realistic are MA style descriptions? How practical?

[Xplo]

Reading through the styles in Martial Arts, I notice a lot of them have notes like "Style A emphasizes Defensive Attacks and using Wait or Evaluate to feel out the enemy" and "Style Z practitioners fight aggressively, using Committed Attack or even All Out Attack to beat the opponent quickly".

All of this is great for flavor, don't get me wrong. It's one thing to assure the reader that two people fight differently and quite another to explain how in concrete terms. But do these descriptions accurately represent the various styles, or are they exaggerated, with realistic fighters normally opting for ordinary attacks and defenses and only emphasizing the character of the style when an opportunity presents itself? And if the styles are realistically described, has anyone noticed that variant tactics give the a significant advantage or disadvantage, or do the tradeoffs seem to balance out?

To put it another way, if we made Defense Guy, Offense Guy, Balanced Guy, and Sneaky Feint/Wait/Counterattack Guy fight a zillion battles in a gladitorial pit, assuming roughly equal skill levels, would the final scores be plausible, or would one or more styles clearly fail or dominate?

[Kromm]

The tactics come from real-life practice (on Peter's part) and observation, and from playtester input from verifiable students of the style. If you use them, you will find that they favor certain levels of skill and strength, and certain tactical situations. For instance, styles that tell you to go for broke with All-Out Attacks thrown as Deceptive Attacks are very good for high-skill fighters faced with one foe only. Those that favor Defensive Attacks and lots of retreats are good for less-skilled fighters and people taking on hordes. And those that use lots of Beats and grapples favor ST and one-on-ones again. This isn't surprising . . . styles evolve to suit specific needs, such as the gym, the ring, the battlefield, or the street, and for different people, such as amateur athletes, professional athletes, soldiers, or police. Few are universal. Thus, some will fail miserably if played as written against others that were intended for totally different users in unrelated situations.

What's key is that it costs 0 points to choose between All-Out Attack, Committed Attack, Attack, or Defensive Attack when striking; to always or never use Deceptive Attack, Telegraphic Attack, Rapid Strike, etc.; to make use of feints (and to prefer Ruses or Beats to other feints) or not; to step or hold ground; and so on. So a fighter can be roleplayed as "practical" and do whatever makes the most sense, as "traditional" and do what he was taught, or as something in between . . . and nothing breaks. Humans do have personalities, after all, and there are surely aggressive, strength-favoring masters of defensive, agile styles and tentative, circling masters of linear, aggressive styles.

That said, I'll add that the skills and techniques chosen for styles will work best if you favor the recommended tactics. You won't get much use out of, say, Aggressive Parry if you always All-Out Attack and thus never parry. And you'll find Acrobatics kind of a waste of points if you mostly just grapple and never engage in mobile, highly aerial combat.

[sjmdw45]

Well, gladiatorial combat carries its own bias toward one-on-one combat. A style suitable for fighting hordes of mooks would probably lose out.

Basically, I have no idea what style is "best" or even what that means. In multi-agent decision terminology, it seems clear to me that no style superdominates all others, which is close enough to "balanced" for my taste.

-Max

[Kromm]

The biggest distinction is probably "street, where dirty fighting and hordes of foes can be expected, and the ground has glass and used hypodermics (or, at low TLs, chamber-pot contents)" vs. "arena, where you fight one foe according to some set of rules." The latter styles can often get away with sacrifice tactics that go to the ground, and even with All-Out Attacks, and can afford to give up certain targets and defenses, because they aren't legal. You can spend just as many points on such a style as on the first kind, but you'll never be as effective in a street fight if you play by the rules. Lots of people do still play by the rules when they shouldn't. This is worth no points because it's entirely a roleplaying decision, although a kind GM could allow one of the martial arts-oriented Delusions we describe in Chapter 2.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Lots of people do still play by the rules when they shouldn't. This is worth no points because it's entirely a roleplaying decision, although a kind GM could allow one of the martial arts-oriented Delusions we describe in Chapter 2.

There's a (possibly apocryphal) story I read in Black Belt magazine where a judo practitioner was attacked by two men with knives. They went for him, and he did a body-scissors on one, slamming the back of his head into a car door and KOing him instantly. The other lunged for him, Judo did a takedown and locked him out, and the other guy screamed and banged on the ground.

Judo released him (as he's trained to do when someone gives up), whereupon he was stabbed four times and his competition martial arts career was over.

Doing something like this in an RPG requires roleplaying and purposefully limiting your choices (Combat Sport, floated to IQ or else release the hold...)

[Kaldrin]

So, basically it could be a role-playing guide of sorts for you to measure them against? Like if a PC who has been trained in defensive styles does nothing but AoA.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Kaldrin

So, basically it could be a role-playing guide of sorts for you to measure them against? Like if a PC who has been trained in defensive styles does nothing but AoA.

That is one way to look at the descriptions, although I do not want to imply any disparagement to the way Peter and Sean have presented the style descriptions. I helped write the Hwa Rang Do description, and I'm a style practitioner and teacher. Other styles got solid working over in the playtest.

So it's good advice, both in what's contained in each style, as well as how they approach conflicts.

[Lord Carnifex]

Originally Posted by Kaldrin

So, basically it could be a role-playing guide of sorts for you to measure them against? Like if a PC who has been trained in defensive styles does nothing but AoA.

That's one way to look at it. There's two ways that I approach those style descriptions:

1) As a guide to tactics to make the style distinct and different - what makes *this* character with Karate-18, Judo-14, Arm Lock 14 and Elbow Strike 17 different from other characters with the same skill sets? Giving credence to the style descriptions helps make a capoerista fight differently than a wushu stylist with similar skills and scores.

2) The style description also lets me choose the appropriate style to begin with, giving much more flavor than simply listing the skills and techniques would. It helps pick Aikido v.s. Jujutsu for a more laid back - defensive fighter, or a Te specialist who is determined to prove the old ways of the traditional martial arts over any new-fangled mixed combative arts nonsense (to the character's mind, anyway :-)