What is the point of GM's notes?

[Fenris-77]

Which grappling styles are you talking about there BRG? I'm thinking of Judo and various forms of wrestling here, all of which feature a heavy dose of full resistance ground work. BJJ is probably the most technical of the bunch, especially for submissions, but putting it down to full power sparring seems to be missing the point.

And this sort of crap, ladies and gentlemen, is why this metaphor is failing us badly.

 

[pemerton]

It started out with me rejecting your language of playing to discover the GM's notes and me posting out the flaw of that language as the foundation for this thread.

That phrase occurred in a reply I made to another poster on page 17. That is not the foundation for the thread. The thread began on page 1.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Which grappling styles are you talking about there BRG? I'm thinking of Judo and various forms of wrestling here, all of which feature a heavy dose of full resistance ground work. BJJ is probably the most technical of the bunch, especially for submissions, but putting it down to full power sparring seems to be missing the point.

I wasn’t thinking of grappling styles. Judo, wrestling etc all did pretty well. I was thinking about traditional striking styles and schools that avoided sparring or had very limited sparring. i am not saying it’s all about the sparring: I am saying a martial art that doesn’t have to deal with that level of reality in its training, and put the skills to the test against resisting opponents isn’t going to be as effective

Personally I like Judo better than BJJ because it is more fun for me, whereas BJJ always bored me to tears.

also don’t get me wrong, martial arts don’t have to be effective to be worth your time.

 

[pemerton]

For all I know you run traveller as a living world.

In that case why am I not on your side as opposed to being on the opposition "my side"?

 

[Bedrockgames]

Also sparring / rolling is way different than actually fighting. Sparring is part of training. Only bad training partners treat sparring like a fight.

I'll reiterate. Not making a gaming argument here.

Well fights have zero rules, so I am really talking about fully resisting opponents in the context of combat sports. Of course in sparring you often go light for technique. And I feel that is good for developing the technique. But you still need to put people in the fire before a full contact competition so they can experience the confusion that creates. Sparring a fully resisting opponent who is also trying to land hard hits, is exhausting. It is important that your first experience of that is in a safe envirornmebt and not the ring or competition. Striking schools vary. A lot of boxing gyms around here go very hard in sparring. In boxing it is almost a way of weeding people out. That is just the culture. Muay Thai gyms here tend to have lighter sparring but will increase the power. I’ve been at places too that would put a percentage on how hard to go and increase to about 90 (sometimes 100) building up to a competition

 

[pemerton]

There are plenty of people who don't care as much about a world's internal consistency. I am not saying you don't. I am saying there is a spectrum of play where you have people who are perfectly happy to overlook believability in favor of other things, and people who are deeply invested in realism.

How did the three bolded phrases suddenly become synonyms?

My 4e game isn't realistic: among other things, it features demigods who travel through the multiverse in a flying tower. It is believable only in the same way that an X-Men or Avengers movie might be believable - ie it evokes established and fairly familiar tropes. The fiction is internally consistent.

My Prince Valiant game isn't realistic: it is rather sanitised faux-mediaeval. It is believable in the same way that any B-grade Arthurian fiction might be. The fiction is internally consistent.

My Classic Traveller game isn't realistic: for starters, it includes FTL travel and anti-gravity. The main thing in my group that puts a strain on believability is the woefully underdeveloped communication and computing technology. (I explain this in the following terms: the effort that in our world went into those things, in the Traveller world went into quantum gravity and fusion research.) The fiction is internally consistent provided one doesn't look too hard at the scientific impossibilities.

 

[Bedrockgames]

How did the three bolded phrases suddenly become synonyms?

they weren’t. I was contrasting believability and realism (and internal consistency is just important to them: I wasn’t equating these things)

 

[AnotherGuy]

How about you go "huh?" yourself? This is such a silly argument.

A tad overly-aggressive don't you think?

Especially since the original argument from MBC is flawed given that he is comparing paid professions to hobbyists - specifically GMs.

 

[Fenris-77]

I wasn’t thinking of grappling styles. Judo, wrestling etc all did pretty well. I was thinking about traditional striking styles and schools that avoided sparring or had very limited sparring. i am not saying it’s all about the sparring: I am saying a martial art that doesn’t have to deal with that level of reality in its training, and put the skills to the test against resisting opponents isn’t going to be as effective

Personally I like Judo better than BJJ because it is more fun for me, whereas BJJ always bored me to tears.

also don’t get me wrong, martial arts don’t have to be effective to be worth your time.

So, for one, I've been coaching Judo for years, so yay! That said, I have an enormous amount of respect for what BJJ does in terms of the technical breakdown and practice of ground fighting. Most Judoka could learn a lot spending some time rolling with BJJ guys. As for the second thing, yeah, the lack of actual full power sparring, or some close equivalent, is a huge downside for a lot of arts, as is not practicing against anything but itself.

The last point (bolded) is important too, as I fully agree, and that particular point I do think speaks directly to what we're talking about here. By that I mean that there are lots of people who play RPGs for fun and who would look at this thread and shake their heads at the lot of us. If it's working for your group, great, everything else is gravy and not everyone needs or wants to know how the sausage is made. So, that said, lets get back to talking about how we make sausage,

 

[Bedrockgames]

So, for one, I've been coaching Judo for years, so yay! That said, I have an enormous amount of respect for what BJJ does in terms of the technical breakdown and practice of ground fighting. Most Judoka could learn a lot spending some time rolling with BJJ guys. As for the second thing, yeah, the lack of actual full power sparring, or some close equivalent, is a huge downside for a lot of arts, as is not practicing against anything but itself.

I have a ton of respect for BJJ too. I just come from a striking background, and find grappling doesn't sink in (especially very technical styles like BJJ: to me it was like doing algebra). But judo clicked a lot more. I am no expert in it, but I was able to train in it for 6 months, learn a bit and have fun. And I found that when I got into sanshou, I was able to apply some of the judo stuff