Why learn a martial art?

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

If that drawback is supposed to be a huge deal that you can't get out of, it shouldn't be so easy to get out of it. I'm just proposing a way out of it that makes it possible for the same character to fight with 'no' style (which any character without a style familiarity can do) and to have knowledge of styles. I don't think 1 point is too little to pay for the privilege.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding. You could buy Style Familiarity without learning the style right now (a good example is that Masters of Defence stylists can learn Style Familiarity (Italian School) without learning that style. You can learn a style with the Self-Defense lens and have no Style Familiarity right now, although you must forgo the benefits of having that perk as well as its downside. You can create your own style, too, which pretty much no one else will be familiar with.

I'm just saying you shouldn't be able to take advantage of the upsides of a style (reduces penalties from DAs from other stylists, better access to perks, access to some perks not commonly available, social advantages, excuse to buy up techniques, etc.) and the advantage of not having one (no one gets a benefit against you). I just think buying, say, Goju-ryu and BJJ and then saying "I throw a non-style punch!" using the points you've claimed as an excuse for buying a Technique from Goji-ryu and counted for buying an extra style perk, to avoid the one downside to having a style.

In more detail, to make my point as clear as I can:

Joe has 20 points in the skills and techniques, etc. of Goju Ryu. He uses this to justify buying 3 perks - two style perks (1 per 10 points) and one general combat perk (1 per 20). Is it fair for him to then say, when he runs in Miyagi Chojun's great-grandson in a fight, "I use a non-Goju Ryu punch on him with Deceptive Attack, and he can't ignore -1 of that because it's not a punch from his style"? I think the answer is no, and that the easiest way to control that is to just say no. The harder way is to decide what points are from what learning, and I don't play games that meticulously detailed, but I suppose you could. I just don't see the upside (do you have a Goju Ryu unch at Karate-15 but an unschooled punch at Karate-13, because that's where you were before you joined the school? Maybe, but that seems like a headache.)

A perk to say my style is no-style isn't unbalanced from a cost perspective. I just can't wrap my head around how you learn that without, basically, not learning a style in the first place.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Did anyone actually suggest that?

I thought that was the end result of what T-Bone was asking about here. I'm saying "I think this is the end result of doing what is suggested" not "people suggested this end result." If I could call my strikes as being in-style or out-of-style, there is no benefit for in-style outside of a situation where throwing an in-style strike wins me some points in a competition or impresses someone. In a fight to the death, the out-of-style strike is always better because no one can ignore -1 in penalties from you. So I think the logical result is everyone chooses to do that in almost all cases. If that's going to happen, just ignore styles anyway.

That's why I answered T-Bone's question that way.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by DangerousThing

Her master didn't teach her the military martial arts because he really doesn't believe they're useful other than teaching soldiers to understand that pain can be ignored and that it's good excercise: after all why wrap a battle suit or a starship around you and then fight hand to hand?

The ability to ignore _pain_ might not be what is being taught.

Look at MCMAP. The Marine Corp doesn't teach a Style that includes familiarity with TA: Stamp Kick/ Face because the situation comes up all the time. It's a part of teaching people to ignore Reluctant Killer or even simple squeamishness.

Even in a starship you can't count on being able to defeat an enemy militarily without doing unpleasant things to him in the process.

Tournament fighters may not need this but actual defense training has to include the willingness to _hurt_ people when necessary.

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Look at MCMAP. The Marine Corp doesn't teach a Style that includes familiarity with TA: Stamp Kick/ Face because the situation comes up all the time. It's a part of teaching people to ignore Reluctant Killer or even simple squeamishness.

I suspect that part of it also inculcating the feeling that comes with thinking "I'm such a badass I'd stomp your face in" when combat comes along. You get a certain feeling of confidence from practicing really nasty stuff, like you're someone people shouldn't mess with. It's all part of getting people to do the violence when it comes down to it, and to feel like they're the kind of person who'd do that violence. That's why they call it "aggressiveness" training.

[DangerousThing]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

The ability to ignore _pain_ might not be what is being taught.

Look at MCMAP. The Marine Corp doesn't teach a Style that includes familiarity with TA: Stamp Kick/ Face because the situation comes up all the time. It's a part of teaching people to ignore Reluctant Killer or even simple squeamishness.

Even in a starship you can't count on being able to defeat an enemy militarily without doing unpleasant things to him in the process.

Tournament fighters may not need this but actual defense training has to include the willingness to _hurt_ people when necessary.

I know that, but the NPC Pappy Smith doesn't talk about that reasoning to his martial arts students. The students who aren't willing to actually hurt others don't stay more than a couple years in his school. The talented ones who are also driven, he teaches for a long time. Unfortunately a few bad apples slip into the mix sometimes. The PC's enemy was a fellow student.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Peter V. Dell'Orto

Maybe I'm misunderstanding. You could buy Style Familiarity without learning the style right now (a good example is that Masters of Defence stylists can learn Style Familiarity (Italian School) without learning that style. You can learn a style with the Self-Defense lens and have no Style Familiarity right now, although you must forgo the benefits of having that perk as well as its downside. You can create your own style, too, which pretty much no one else will be familiar with.

I'm just saying you shouldn't be able to take advantage of the upsides of a style (reduces penalties from DAs from other stylists, better access to perks, access to some perks not commonly available, social advantages, excuse to buy up techniques, etc.) and the advantage of not having one (no one gets a benefit against you). I just think buying, say, Goju-ryu and BJJ and then saying "I throw a non-style punch!" using the points you've claimed as an excuse for buying a Technique from Goji-ryu and counted for buying an extra style perk, to avoid the one downside to having a style.

In more detail, to make my point as clear as I can:

Joe has 20 points in the skills and techniques, etc. of Goju Ryu. He uses this to justify buying 3 perks - two style perks (1 per 10 points) and one general combat perk (1 per 20). Is it fair for him to then say, when he runs in Miyagi Chojun's great-grandson in a fight, "I use a non-Goju Ryu punch on him with Deceptive Attack, and he can't ignore -1 of that because it's not a punch from his style"? I think the answer is no, and that the easiest way to control that is to just say no. The harder way is to decide what points are from what learning, and I don't play games that meticulously detailed, but I suppose you could. I just don't see the upside (do you have a Goju Ryu unch at Karate-15 but an unschooled punch at Karate-13, because that's where you were before you joined the school? Maybe, but that seems like a headache.)

A perk to say my style is no-style isn't unbalanced from a cost perspective. I just can't wrap my head around how you learn that without, basically, not learning a style in the first place.

So, while I'm not saying you should be free to ignore the drawback of style familiarity at no cost, I think what you're proposing now is actually contradictory with the rules in Martial Arts.

First of all, obviously, you can have the upsides of having a style without the downsides. You just need another style that your opponent doesn't know, or to use a technique outside your style. By the book it doesn't even need to be a style at all relevant to the fight you're in, though moding that seems simple and reasonable enough.

Secondly, while I don't have my Martial Arts with me right now to quote, I think you'll find it explicitly states that the same skill investment can justify perks in multiple styles, if you have them.

On the side, there aren't any rules that actually characterize your moves as belonging to a particular style...


Also, as for my own argument, I seemingly must reiterate that I'm not proposing an 'I throw a non-style punch' combat option, and never have done so. I also was in fact specifically talking about a hypothetical character who learned 'non-style' fighting by not learning a style in the first place...and then subsequently acquired a style.



The ability to learn style familiarities for styles you don't have is kind of weird. The way the perk is actually written, having that familiarity would make the Master of Defense's deceptive attacks with a polearm unpredictable to another Master of Defense who doesn't have the familiarity...

[Otaku]

Prefacing this with my usual thing - I know mostly 3e. I think, as usual I failed to make this clear enough when writing (that I am using 3e for reference), and for that I apologize.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

This is not the case. You can have brawling, boxing, karate, wrestling, judo, and sumo skills without having any style.

If your setting is not using the rules for styles... correct. That would be a setting where you wouldn't be able to purchase Style Familiarity to begin with... unless you like wasting points and your GM is okay with that.

Otherwise there is no such thing as a "generic" style... or perhaps there is only the "generic" version of the style. Style Familiarity is for a major branch of Martial Arts; don't micromanage it. Some official Styles from GURPS Martial Arts (well, at least 3e) are variations of the same underlying form... but usually it took something significant for the subdivision.

Martial Arts 3e has French Fencing and Italian Rapier Fencing; just looking at the Primary Skills of those two styles, you can see why they were split. The former uses Fencing (Smallsword) and Fencing Art while the Primary Skills of the latter are Cloak, Fencing (Rapier), and Main-Gauche. They have overlapping but different Secondary and Optional Skills, as well as different Maneuvers [Techniques].

So I find this idea of throwing a "generic Karate punch" self-refuting; if the strike is different enough from your own style as to not count as your own style... then it is another style.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

What this represents is fairly obvious...someone who's picked up the skill without studying any school (or even 'school') and thus whatever quirks their idiosyncratic style might have, nobody is going to be familiar with them.

Again, this is self-refuting. If the character didn't invent it the style his/her/itself, they learned it from someone (even indirectly, such as from written instructions). If the difference between learning Karate from studying it through text books and from learning it at an actual dojo is pronounced enough to count as a different "Style"... then it is a different style. If they are truly self-taught (everything they know about fighting comes from personal invention)... they may have their own unique style, but it isn't "generic".

If you want someone to perform a technique so that it doesn't resemble their actual style, I would consider allowing it but at a penalty depending on the circumstances.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

It's slightly perverse that that character could then learn a style and in the process become predictable to all practitioners. I wonder if an additional perk would be enough to buy away the 'recognizable style' penalty.

You'll need to explain why it is "slightly perverse". Again I think you're treating personal style with martial arts style.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Otaku

Prefacing this with my usual thing - I know mostly 3e. I think, as usual I failed to make this clear enough when writing (that I am using 3e for reference), and for that I apologize.

There's almost no point in doing this, I'm afraid. The rules for Martial Arts didn't quite change as much as Psionic Powers (for example) between editions, but it changed a lot. You might as well be using a fluent knowledge of Portuguese for a conversation about French grammar.

Otherwise there is no such thing as a "generic" style... or perhaps there is only the "generic" version of the style. Style Familiarity is for a major branch of Martial Arts; don't micromanage it. Some official Styles from GURPS Martial Arts (well, at least 3e) are variations of the same underlying form... but usually it took something significant for the subdivision.

Can Conan the Cimmerian have Broadsword, Wrestling, Axe/Mace, and so on? Can he have Targeted Attack (Broadsword/Neck)? Can he have 1 combat perk per 20 points in those skills and techniques? Can he do all this and not have Style Familiarity?

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Otaku

Prefacing this with my usual thing - I know mostly 3e. I think, as usual I failed to make this clear enough when writing (that I am using 3e for reference), and for that I apologize.

Well, perhaps that is a problem, because...

Originally Posted by Otaku

If your setting is not using the rules for styles... correct. That would be a setting where you wouldn't be able to purchase Style Familiarity to begin with... unless you like wasting points and your GM is okay with that.

No. The rules for styles do not require that characters use them. A character with Karate at DX+2 and no other martial arts junk is perfectly fine in both a game without styles and a game that's using styles to the fullest.

Originally Posted by Otaku

So I find this idea of throwing a "generic Karate punch" self-refuting; if the strike is different enough from your own style as to not count as your own style... then it is another style.

Well, throwing a 'generic Karate punch' is a kind of ridiculous thing to talk about. Except in game mechanical terms, where one might use it to mean a punch thrown with Karate skill by a character with no Style Familiarity.

Originally Posted by Otaku

You'll need to explain why it is "slightly perverse". Again I think you're treating personal style with martial arts style.

It's slightly perverse because I can write up a character who is a martial artist, with no style familiarity of any kind. They are not subject to the drawback of style familiarity, though of course they have none of the benefits.

Then I have that character take a few classes with a martial arts school that overlaps with their favored skills, and they acquire the style familiarity perk (after picking up a point in any skills they may be missing). They now have the drawback of having style familiarity. If they fight a practitioner of the style they studied, they will be worse at landing hits than they were before they studied it.

[ericthered]

If its a big issue, say that the perk reduces the deceptive attacks and feints of those using the same school or no school at all, so long as the skill they use is in the style. (skills not the style have no effect)

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

First of all, obviously, you can have the upsides of having a style without the downsides. You just need another style that your opponent doesn't know, or to use a technique outside your style.

Yes, and I don't think what I said contradicts that. It's something you pay for, really, and I've got no issue with that.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Secondly, while I don't have my Martial Arts with me right now to quote, I think you'll find it explicitly states that the same skill investment can justify perks in multiple styles, if you have them.

Page 49, and I know that. I chose a one-style example for ease of illustration of what I see was the abuse, not because I don't know how to figure out how many perks you can buy. ;)

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

On the side, there aren't any rules that actually characterize your moves as belonging to a particular style...

I'm not sure what you mean here. If a technique can be outside your style, then some "moves" can belong to a particular style.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Also, as for my own argument, I seemingly must reiterate that I'm not proposing an 'I throw a non-style punch' combat option, and never have done so. I also was in fact specifically talking about a hypothetical character who learned 'non-style' fighting by not learning a style in the first place...and then subsequently acquired a style.

What is it you want Hypothetical Man to get for this? Figure that out and price it out.

If he doesn't get anything he doesn't already get (see the first thing you quoted), it costs zero and just don't worry about it. If it gets him the same as if he had another style that no one knew, and thus no one could ever get the effect of knowing all of his styles, it's working basically like a new and/or secret style. It's 1 point (Unorthodox Attacks, say?) and it's not any different than anyone else who did it via another style.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

The ability to learn style familiarities for styles you don't have is kind of weird. The way the perk is actually written, having that familiarity would make the Master of Defense's deceptive attacks with a polearm unpredictable to another Master of Defense who doesn't have the familiarity...

Which clearly isn't the intent. I'd argue that's twisting the letter of the rules, personally, but I agree we could have made it more explicit it's a version of "know your enemy" not "you fight like your enemy and you get the full benefits of his style, including all upsides and downsides of having another Style Familiarity, without the point investment." The intent is very much the former; you chuck 1 point into SF (Italian School) as one of the Style Perks of Masters of Defence and know their moves, unless they have some other style you haven't studied. Not that you're an Italian School stylist.