[MA] Southern Kung Fu, the Common Folk and Tong Hatchetmen

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by aesir23

On thing I think you should consider is that Chinese martial arts before the 19th century probably focused on weapons much more than the modern ones.

Just so. Another way to phrase my question would have been 'what would armed versions of Chinese martial art styles look like'? It's easy enough to figure out that I should add various weapons to the list of skills, but it's more difficult to figure out what effects this ought to have on typical combat tactics and list of techiques for the modified style.

Originally Posted by aesir23

So a proto-wing chun may actually have more in common with Shortsword Fighting than with Wing Chun.

Possibly. On the other hand, Shortsword Fighting is a very distinct way of using a sword and Wing Chun appears to be another way. Ideally, I'd like using weapons with various styles to feel as different as many unarmed styles already do.

Examples are such signature tactics as Hung Gar Aggressive Parry* + Counterattack and Wing Chun 'chain punches'. How do I best model armed versions of them? Or do they only apply when unarmed, with weapons forcing a change in prefered tactics?

*I wish some armed version of this existed. I know that armed Parries against unarmed attacks are Aggressive by default, but surely there is a continuum of more and less commitment to meeting force with force when holding a weapon. Also, it ought to be possible to meet armed attacks with an armed Aggressive Parry, either to wound the hand or arm of an attacker with a short weapon or to knock a longer weapon out of line. So far, however, I haven't come up with a good design of a Technique for it.