History, Mythology, Art and RPGs

[Galloglaich]

To offer a counterpoint, take Kurt Buseik, and his comic, "Astro City". In the prelude to one of the collections, he says that people often write him, praising his comic for how realistic it is. And then he says, basically, "realistic? It's got shapechanging aliens and a giant ice kingdom full of trolls!" And it does. But what makes people say that is that, unlike most superhero comics, the people in Astro City are aware their world has heroes in it. Mr. Fantastic is allowed to cure cancer, but people also write letters to the editor complaining that local heroes jetted off to prevent the world from exploding when there's a serial murderer on the loose in their neighborhood, and don't they care?

Or, put a different way, "the difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to be believable". The problem with overfantasy is not that it's fiction, but that it's unbelievable.

I think what you are talking about is verisimilitude, which is not the same thing as realism. It's more a kind of internal consistency. Thats what you really want in either a story or a game.

The problem with the general inflation of fantastic elements making dinner into "all sugar, no meat" is tied to another problem, of increasingly derivitive fantastic notions which have no internal consistency.

I try to explain this with cartoons sometimes. If you are old enough you may remember three of my favorites: Johnny Quest, Bullwinkle and Buggs Bunny. Johnny Quest was the archetypal 'realistic' action / sci fi cartoon, Bullwinkle and Buggs Bunny were purely fantastic and satirical. To me both types had excellent verisimilitude. While Johnny Quest was more realistic than the other two, it regularly introduced fantastic elements, but which were logically integrated into the marginally plausible world they had created, which had it's own logical consistency and a certain satisfying verisimilitude. like Call of Cthulhu or something like that.

Buggs Bunny or Bullwinkle on the other hand are utterly fantastic. The physics, the talking animals, the very appearance of the world is just wacky. And yet it also has a certain verisimilitude. It has it's own internal logic, you know when Yosemite Sam blows up a keg of gunpowder he is only going to end up with a black face and and blown up hat, not ruptured internal organs. And we are fine with that, in fact it's what makes it fun, one of the most delightful cartoons ever made IMO. I would liken these cartoons to a game like Paranoia or Kobolds Ate my baby, which is over the top silly but tons of fun. Their sense of humor and satirical dialogue was reflective of real life people, politics, events, etc. The con artistry and hucksterism of foghorn leghorn, the lechery of pepe le pew, are themes we can recognize from life. Thats why we relate to them so much, thats why these particular cartoons stand up so well in terms of modern viewers (despite being made as far back as the 1940s) and older (adult) viewers.

Contrast this with the lesser imitators of some of the originals, derivitive and formulaic (some of the later Hana Barbara stuff ... anybody remember Frankenstein, Jr. and The Impossibles, Shazzan, Birdman and the Galaxy Trio, Moby Dick and the Mighty Mightor, Young Samson and Goliath, The Herculoids or etc.). That I think is kind of analagous to what has happened with some RPGs.

G.

 

[GlaziusF]

I think what you are talking about is verisimilitude, which is not the same thing as realism. It's more a kind of internal consistency. Thats what you really want in either a story or a game.

The problem with the general inflation of fantastic elements making dinner into "all sugar, no meat" is tied to another problem, of increasingly derivitive fantastic notions which have no internal consistency.

So you agree with me that it's more a problem of consistency.

But even for "realism", consistency is still a problem. I mean, consider a hippie stockbroker, if you even can. Hippies are real. Stockbrokers are real. What's the problem? They're not consistent with each other.

Consistency is more entertaining than realism. This is why hearing an Italian film critic rant against "8 1/2" makes no sense in the modern era. He's absolutely apoplectic! Why, the film has dream sequences! They're shot in sharp focus against indistinct backgrounds with high contrast and no shadows! There are poor people played by rich people and rich people played by poor people!

Originally these were all anathema to Italian cinema, which prided itself on its realism. Nowadays, do they even seem odd? No. That's because even if they aren't realistic, they're still entertaining.

 

[Galloglaich]

So you agree with me that it's more a problem of consistency.

But even for "realism", consistency is still a problem. I mean, consider a hippie stockbroker, if you even can. Hippies are real. Stockbrokers are real. What's the problem? They're not consistent with each other.

Consistency is more entertaining than realism. This is why hearing an Italian film critic rant against "8 1/2" makes no sense in the modern era. He's absolutely apoplectic! Why, the film has dream sequences! They're shot in sharp focus against indistinct backgrounds with high contrast and no shadows! There are poor people played by rich people and rich people played by poor people!

Originally these were all anathema to Italian cinema, which prided itself on its realism. Nowadays, do they even seem odd? No. That's because even if they aren't realistic, they're still entertaining.

The thing is, it's often (usually?) the link to reality at some level which makes the verisimilitude possible.

For example, I think Fellinis later films are very overrated. Yes it's good to break stifiling norms when they are strangling creativity, but it gets a lot harder to make something which actually works on an organic level. Fellini was ground breaking, innovative, his early films were brilliant, but who wants to watch "Satyricon" today? When it comes to Italian directors from the 60's, I personally like Sergeo Leone or Dario Argento a lot better.

Give me a Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Western or a viscerally realistic Argento horror fantasy over some abstract art film done to make a point any day of the week.

More to the point, if you want something truly unwatchable, think of all the hippy films which were trying to imitate the innovative camera tricks of Fellini, Godard et all that came throughout the late 60's and 70's. Ever try to watch one of those psychadelic cinematic creations recently? To me that is analagous to where some fantasy and RPG 'culture' has gone to.

The films with the most lasting impact IMO are the ones that were grounded in reality in at least some significant ways.

G.

 

[Mallus]

Give me a Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Western or a viscerally realistic Argento horror fantasy over some abstract art film done to make a point any day of the week.

I like Leone and Argento better than Fellini too, but tell me Suspira doesn't qualify as an "abstract art film", albeit one with stabbing and witches. The last time my wife and I watched it we decided it was the most frightening film about interior design ever made.

The films with the most lasting impact IMO are the ones that were grounded in reality in at least some significant ways.

The comparison between non-narrative films and certain, newer RPG's is a pretty weak one. You're comparing films with an unorthodox structure (ie, they don't really tell a traditional linear, literal story), to RPG's that do[/i] have an orthodox structure (ie, 4e is still about dungeon-delving, killing things, and taking their stuff) but more outlandish trappings (Dragoborn, Tieflings, laser-equipped electric sharks --oops, sorry, that's a reference to another thread I'm posting in).

 

[Galloglaich]

I like Leone and Argento better than Fellini too, but tell me Suspira doesn't qualify as an "abstract art film", albeit one with stabbing and witches. The last time my wife and I watched it we decided it was the most frightening film about interior design ever made.

But what made Suspiria famous fairly or unfairly, was not the interior design, but the realistic (if bizarre) extreme violence particularly of the first murder. This is what I mean by how the anchor in the real world can allow the fantasy to take flight more effectively.

The comparison between non-narrative films and certain, newer RPG's is a pretty weak one. You're comparing films with an unorthodox structure (ie, they don't really tell a traditional linear, literal story), to RPG's that do have an orthodox structure (ie, 4e is still about dungeon-delving, killing things, and taking their stuff) but more outlandish trappings (Dragoborn, Tieflings, laser-equipped electric sharks --oops, sorry, that's a reference to another thread I'm posting in).

I'm not talking about the structure so much as the stylistic techniques, and I'm not talking about the original art films, which you could argue were worth watching and still are, to their many hippy imitators of the 70s etc. which most people would like to forget about.

Similarly to a lot of the really derivitive formulaic slasher movies of the 80's, or to my original analogy, the later Hana Barbara cartoons, like say, Birdman and the Galaxy Trio, which I've never seen that I can remember, but from reading the wiki on it I suspect a laser shark or lightning scorpion would fit well.

G.

 

[Galloglaich]

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]

 

[GlaziusF]

The thing is, it's often (usually?) the link to reality at some level which makes the verisimilitude possible.

Other way around, actually. We call the largest stretch of consistent events "reality". I'm certain you can remember both a dream you had and the day after the dream, yet you can also easily tell them apart. Why? The dream wasn't consistent, even with itself. It was your brain firing off at random and putting the pieces together.

So we can call a sequence of internally consistent events "realistic", even when they have no consistency with the larger string of "reality"; and at the same time we can call an actual experience "unreal" because even though it is superficially consistent with the string of "reality" too much inside it is inconsistent.

Anyway, another major area where RPG's have veered away from an interesting reality is martial arts, specifically European martial arts...

I'm sure this will all be of great interest to the developers of D&D 12th edition for the Holoethertron, which as you know is a full-immersion substitute-reality experience that takes motion-captured input.

Luddite that I am, I'm still playing an older version. Here is how I figure out how my attack hits: I roll some dice. Here is how I figure out how soundly it hits: I roll some different dice. Sometimes, if I'm feeling particularly bold, I will roll both sets of dice together. Scandalous, I know.

If I want to narrate the blow, I generally do not concern myself with the specifics of placement and motion or worry much at all about fluidity and seamlessness, because even if I did there's no guarantee I could turn that into words that someone else could turn into the same image with any kind of regularity. Persistence of image is really not a major concern, especially since everyone only bothers to pay attention and stay engaged until the next person in line rolls some dice and narrates for themselves.

Something that has notably taken on an actual master of martial arts as a reference is the now-concluded Avatar: The Last Airbender series, though it was more Eastern martial arts. But that was a television program, and television is all about persistence of image. There's obvious utility there, not only in the presence of a consistent visual style, but in the way that the underlying martial arts can serve as a springboard for the construction of action sequences, and the resulting action sequences can affirm without stating outright that the motions the characters are making are not arbitrary but the result of training and practice.

 

[amysrevenge]

Now of course if you don't see RPGs as having anything to do with story telling, but rather only racking up points / possessions and fame to build the alter ego of a character, then none of that matters.

I like to kill monsters and take their stuff. And rescue the mayor's niece from bandits. And find the entrance to the lost tomb.

There's a story there, but there's also a bunch of fat guys rolling dice and letting off some steam by pretending to chop imaginary kobolds in half.

 

[Galloglaich]

Other way around, actually. We call the largest stretch of consistent events "reality". I'm certain you can remember both a dream you had and the day after the dream,(snip) though it is superficially consistent with the string of "reality" too much inside it is inconsistent.

I'm sorry I don't follow you. All I'm saying is I think the artificial and derivative constructs usually don't work on an instinctive level and feel 'off'. That's why nobody remembers most of tthem any more than they remember pizza huts culinary creations from 2004.

And because of this, I think you should pick your abstractions very carefully The further you move away from a grounding in the "real", I think the less likely you are to pull it off.

I'm sure this will all be of great interest to the developers of D&D 12th edition for the Holoethertron, which as you know is a full-immersion substitute-reality experience that takes motion-captured input.
Luddite that I am, I'm still playing an older version.

And yet, instead of some truly simple game, you play DnD? Or do you use the 1E basic set?

Here is how I figure out how my attack hits: I roll some dice. Here is how I figure out how soundly it hits: I roll some different dice. (snip) If I want to narrate the blow, I generally do not concern myself with the specifics of placement

Why would use of martial arts in an RPG combat system require detailed 'placing of blows'. I suspect most gamers assume this because the early attempts to make "realistic" games worked that way, usually with enough charts to frighten a tax accountant. But most of the designers of those games didn't actually know martial arts and weren't fighters. They certainly didn't have a clue about HEMA.

Persistence of image is really not a major concern, especially since everyone only bothers to pay attention and stay engaged until the next person in line rolls some dice and narrates for themselves.

If you are honest about it in most typical RPGs you actually do spend a fair amount of time thinking about rather complex mechanics, only they are made up abstractions which have little to do with the actual ebb and flow of a fight. They are rules for spells, magic items, special powers, and strange guidelines which at best only vaguely resemble a real fight (or even one on TV).

Imagine if you could game a real fight (or something from a good samurai flick, or star wars or the martrix) with less rules, arithmetic and die rolls than you would make to resolve a typical mid level 3.5 combat. Not tracking anything like bleeding rates or lung deflation, but the actual ebb and flow of combat, the interplay of tactics of each combatant.

This has actually already been done before, games like Riddle of Steel already proved that it was possible.

Something that has notably taken on an actual master of martial arts as a reference is the now-concluded Avatar: The Last Airbender series,

Yes, that sounds more like what I'm talking about. I'll have to look that up. The key question is, would it be possible to do something like that with relatively simple rules? Could you do it in DnD?

G.

 

[Galloglaich]

I'm sure this will all be of great interest to the developers of D&D 12th edition for the Holoethertron, which as you know is a full-immersion substitute-reality experience that takes motion-captured input.

And don't forget by the way, they already have Wii. You may be seeing HEMA in a game new you before you expected to

G.