Author: Delos (---.mindspring.com)
Date: 09-09-2002 17:55
While I understand the purpose of this article, visualizing RPG combat in a real setting is generally ridiculously far off. The main problem with AD&D combat is that real fights do not take ten minutes to be decided. Even five minutes would be very long, especially when weapons come into play. In real life, a fist fight will often last less than a minute before one combatant or the other turns tail or the fighters are sepearated. Circling and feinting does occur, but one possibly-effective blow in a minute, even for an untrained fighter, is ridiculous. Armor, of course, can change this; You can batter at plate mail for quite a while. I won't even get started on D&D hit points. GURPS is a bit better, in that fights involving trained fighters or sharp weapons actually can be nasty, brutish, and short. In reality, a single good sword blow will take down an unarmored man, and one proper kick can shatter bone. The rules, however, don't really take into account the testing and circling for position that will occur in a real faceoff.
This is what I've found to be the case over 11 years of martial arts training. While the author has a good grasp combat paralysis and historical military tactics, he doesn't quite understand the nature of real, hand-to-hand combat. I've enjoyed most of the other articles in this series, however.
-Delos
|
|
