Anyway, another major area where RPG's have veered away from an interesting reality is martial arts, specifically European martial arts which somewhat amazingly, tens of thousands of people who spend their weekends pretending to be knights and paladins, swashbucking pirates and "cunninge thieves" have never even heard of. Our characters wield swords and spears and quarter staves but most of us have absolutely no idea what a sword or a spear or a quarter staff was really like let alone how they were used.
The rediscovery of Historical European Martial Arts first began to slowly percolate into modern consciousness back in the 1990s, today it is a booming world-wide phenomenon. The sword-fighting techniques written down in books as far back as the 1300s are extremeley effective and are now pretty well understood, though we are still only scratching the surface.
Perhaps more surprisingly for many people, HEMA as it's now known has become a respected martial art, widely understood to be every bit as lethal as anything ever taught to a samurai.
Gary Gygax did some fairly good research on weapons back around the time he wrote the DmG but nobody back then really understood how sword fighting actually worked and the attempts to make up realistic combat were mostly focused on highly complex wound systems which slowed the game to a crawl. The closes thing most people ever saw to medieval combat was re-enactors at a Ren Faire or the SCA.... or a Monty Python movie. Most gamers turned away from what they thought was the reality of medieval combat and never looked back, after all, everybody knows only the samurai had any real technique in how they fought, right? Knights carried great clumsy ten pound "broadswords" they just hewed dents into each others armor with, right?
Well, no, thats wrong. HEMA is extremely sophisticated and effective and it's now pretty well understood. There are about 30 major HEMA groups worldwide now, and I don't even know how many schools, dozens I believe. A few RPG enthusiasts know about this, but most don't. So I think it's time I'd like to introduce DnD to the new reality..
To convey an idea of what is going on now, here are some videos depicting messer fighting techniques written down in books 500 years ago. A messer was kind of like a medieval machete... a very common weapon you probably aren't very familiar with since they never have them in movies or video games, or RPG's. The word actually means 'knife' but think of it as a kind of a light falchion, though some were quite large called "grossemessers" or "kriegmessers" and used with two-hands, something like a slightly butch katana.
You can see one depicted in this old woodcut, these men are in HEMA fencing guards.
Here is a photo of a real one from about 1520
And this is a similar weapon called a 'schwisersabel' used in Switzerland.
Anyway, these videeos deal with the smaller machete sized weapon. This one is clever because they show you some quotes from the book, followed by the original drawings, then live action of HEMA fighters demonstrating the technique depicted. It's all done nice and slow so you can see the technique.
[ame="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=bWISsk0cy74&feature=related"]http://uk.youtube. com/watch? v=bWISsk0cy74& feature=related[/ame]
Here is another video of similar messer techniques frrom some other books from the 15th and 16th centuries, executed a with little more speed and aggression.
[ame="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=38sVdx7nzhQ&feature=related"]http://uk.youtube. com/watch? v=38sVdx7nzhQ& feature=related[/ame]
Finally here is a public demonstration of messer done in a more comical way for the amusement of a crowd, see if you can recognize any of the moves. Folks here will like the music.
[ame=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=csMrmpNVnZ8&feature=related]YouTube - Messerfechten[/ame]
HEMA also includes unarmed combat techniques which are called "Ringen" which means wrestling.
And it's for real. Here is a video from a HEMA group in poland.
[ame=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=xfuMYqfmACM&feature=related]YouTube - Medieval Wrestling[/ame]
note the building, there is a reason they keep showing the close-ups of the relief. That building was a fechtschule or fight-club, a medieval fencing fraternity, which they are now taking over as they reclaim this ancient martial lineage.
Some HEMA fighters have been entering MMA events recently, so far they have done well.
Ringen is part of European fencing exactly the way jujistu is part of Japanese fencing. This video shows a technique of a ringen takedown during longsword fencing.
[ame=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=f6Pnw-9A8qQ&feature=related]YouTube - Halfsword Throw - Ringen am Schwert (Wrestling at the Sword)[/ame]
The primary weapon in most HEMA manuals is the longsword.
The skill level reached by the most experienced HEMA practiitioners is quite high now with this particular weapon, as you can see in this video showing free play with special sparring swords that were invented in the 16th century called federshwert or 'feather swords', designed to be able to fight without injury.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNja00FNyeg&NR=1]YouTube - ARMA Free-Play in Gambesons with Federschwerter[/ame]
Here you can see the same guy demonstrating a series of specific techniques from the German Lichenauer tradition
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsGU5KI1qJA&NR=1]YouTube - Longsword Techniques[/ame]
notice these are specific counters to specific types of attacks - many of these are known as master cuts - attacks designed to wound your opponent even as they protect you from their line of attack.
This video shows a specific series of attacks and counters from one of the manuals
[ame=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj4Ng6DBfrg&feature=related]YouTube - Fechten mit dem langen Schwert[/ame]
And here you can see full-contact sparring which is a major passtime among most HEMA practitioners (unlike some Eastern MA's which use weapons)
[ame=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=n1G9rj4xoII]YouTube - HEMA/WMA-Axel&Robert[/ame]
There are even annual international tournaments now such as the one at Dijon France and Gunpowder Mills in the UK. Here are highlights from one tournament in France.
[ame=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=C0LYN_JUBGY&feature=related]YouTube - Dijon Tournament[/ame]
So far I have been using a lot of german terms to describe these techniques but thats mainly becuase I study the German school. HEMA is pretty multi-cultural and surprisingly PC. There are two major popular medieval longsword "schools", German and Italian, both similar but with some important diferences. But manuals exist from England, France, Spain, Czech Republic, Poland, Portugal, and numerous other places I can't remember. The top ringen experts were Jewish, Ott Jud and Jud lew. The most famous manuals depict africans practicing fencing, and several include women. Medieval Europe was a far stranger and more interesting place than most people today can even concieve.
Ok, enough of an introduction for now. Next post... more about the weapons. As a teaser: Thought European broadswords were dull and heavy? Notice a novice HEMA fighter test-cutting with a good quality European longsword replica using tatami mats. These are what are used to test-cut "samurai" swords.
[ame=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=mqii4ePSW1M]YouTube - Different Cuts on Tatami[/ame]