A Challange - Legal Hits

[Inox]

Most of the people I know will take a shot that is not very hard and tell the person to hit harder, but they still take the hit. As it should be.

That is how I do it.

Also, count me in on the committee.

One other thing: Can we get a ruling clarification that although the motion may be full arm, and the weapon may stop on the opponent, no "slow blade shall pass" style shots count; that you have to swing at a speed normative for attacking an opponent. I can just see some metagaming tool arguing that their slow-motion touch was a shot.

[fingers630]

Most of the people I know will take a shot that is not very hard and tell the person to hit harder, but they still take the hit. As it should be.

Yup, take the shot, tell them next time to swing a little harder, and go about your business. Tyriel did this with one of our guys at the campout. Matt (6-7 event guy) came up as a Zombie and stabbed him lightly in the back with a dagger. Tyriel Died and then called matt over to let him know to swing a little harder next time.

Now I understand why he pulled the shot, as rupturing Tyriel's kidney for no reason is never a good thing, but now Matt knows swinging a little harder, even from behind is ok and that people wont blow his shots off due to being too "light".

[jayjay]

I agree.

The full arm motion thing is problematic as well since some of the shots taught by the Sword Knight video's are NOT full arm swings but are hard enough to meet the 'percussive' requirement of Amtgard.

i was talking with valfryn about this a bit at FP last night. i don't remember his exact wording, but it was something along the line of all three joints in the arm (shoulder, elbow, and wrist) being involved in the montion. not just flicking the wrist for extra shots after the arm had been extended. i think something like this should be involved so that 'full arm swing' is defined as well.

i have a problem with the concept of 'light'. one person's light is another's solid. when people start to call light, the natural progression is to swing harder or bring out one's cheater beater stick. this is a slippery slope that can easily lead to breaking some 100 lb noob. sufficient force rules are a bad idea because of their subjective nature. saying nicks, grazes, pushes, butter, and things of that sort not counting is a better way to define a shot, IMHO.

[Sir Gwydion]

Butter?

[Lord Dubh]

Butter?

Think buttering bread, smearing...sliding the non-hitting edge down the target.

[Thrush Svartehjertet]

I want in on this committee.

Thrush
berserk

[jayjay]

Butter?

what john said mostly. it's basically when someone misses you with a stap and then proceeds to rub your side up and down with their stick. you're not a slice of toast, and butter ain't a shot.

[Sir Tyriel Firebrand]

You see I disagree with sufficient force being a bad idea. It works, yes it is subjective but not to the point that no one can be called on being a cheater. If you see someone get hit with a hard shot that resonates and you can tell has some ass behind it, and the receiver of the hit calls light, you know they are cheating. Thats how that works.

Darkon has for years taken pride in being a FULL CONTACT, role playing larp. Darkon is the only game that does that. Dag and Bel all have sufficient force requirements, but no rp or classes. Amt has classes, but if anything touches you, you pretty much have to take it. Darkon is the awesome in between, and its the reason why I love it. I am all for a sufficient force rule, and I feel thats the direction we should take.

[fingers630]

Im totally calling butter when a bad shot hits me.

[Lord Cailen Sendor]

I will definitely volunteer to be on a committee to change this rule. Count me in as well please.

Without going in to much discussion on this I have seen people that full arm swings are less then others that only move the weapon slightly. For the experienced fighter there are ways to make your oponent wince from the blow with the weapon only traveling less then a foot similar to bruce lees one inch punch. This is not the norm and few know the technique nessary to pull it off but used properly it generates massive force with no full arm swing but rather controled acceleration of muscle mass released in a burst. I believe we need a way to tell others on the feild what and how blows are legal or not. Yes there are those that will never swing with great force and their blows are legal and should be taken every time but also there are those that train to make quick blows that indivually could incapicate someone if it were real steel (I am not talking drumroll here but rather indivual blows which any alone would never be questioned as hard enough). So there are a lot of things that need to go into this proposal so we on paper can share in english what we all know in reality is a good or bad blow.

Many times I have asked someone to not take a blow that I knew was not legal in force or contact from me. Any time we set a standard of (must be x pounds of force) that never takes into effect the person who is swinging ... you can see if a player is moving at a combat speed (for them) and normally you can gauge by both the sound of the blow and the force involved if it is a legal blow. We must be able to equate this somehow into the proposal so that it is not overlooked.

It is a job when wearing armor to activly be thinking at all times what hits you have left or what damage you have taken and where. When you are hit by foam but wearing padding and steel that would stop a real sword sometimes you have to use more then feel or force to register a legal shot. Many times sound and vision are your only tools and of this you have to stay keenly aware.

[Taggart MacBannion]

Did cailen just tell me how to dragon punch a dude?

[Calus]

I agree with Cailen. There are alot of people who have perfected the art of dishing quick, hard shots without doing a full arm motion. A full on swing is fine and dandy but it telegraphs your movement and your opponent will know where to block before your hit even lands. So naturally people come to realize this over time and opt for quick, hard snaps which result in solid hits. This is simply smart, experienced fighting and I don't think people should be penalized for it when the end result is still a legit hit. The first person that comes to mind when I think of this is Malkin. He always keeps his greatsword infront of him at a slight forward angle and all it takes is a whip of his sword to deal a penetrating blow. His swings were short but when I did get hit there was never any doubt in my mind about what just happened.

Apart from this I also feel that a "full arm swing rule" would just be another avenue for skepticism and debate over legal shots. People will have their own definitions of what a full swing is and anything that comes shy of a that definition will be up for debate. Imagine playing by this rule during a bridge battle with barely enough elbow room to get your sword in the air, it won't be long before you hear conflicting opinions about legal hits.

[Sir Gwydion]

The president reminded me that if he were to officially sanction this committee, he would not let us have beer at our meetings. As such, we are going to form a committee to make this proposal, and the EB will not have any involvement with it until down the road. Here's the plan:

Identify the committee (first week)

Meeting in person (end of first week) to establish the remaining meeting schedule

Begin an online dialog between the members of the committee targeting certain questions

Meeting in person (end of third week) to discuss dialog items specifically and hammer out any language we can. Raise new questions if necessary. Run through test situations (spear against plate shins, white sword to the back, etc.) to verify the rule will be universally applicable.

Continuing online dialog

Meeting in person (end of fifth week) to determine final language of the rule. Test language again. Vote within the committee on final rule language. Send wording to the EB and NC for comment. Elect two representatives to present at senate.

Submit proposal to Magistrate (end of sixth week) and identify two representatives who will represent the committee for senate.

Based on the people who have said they want to join the committee on this board, I think we've already made a good start. I won't be at the event this weekend, but I want folks who read this to spread the word that this is happening. If anyone wants to be on this committee, send an email to eric.silva5@gmail.com and I will include you in future communications. I am thinking that google+ or facebook would be the best online forum for this, so by contacting me via email before 5/11, you are going to get an invite to the off-board discussion. We will establish the meeting times and locations listed above ASAP so we can all get them into our schedules.

Looking forward to your volunteering!

[Lord Valfryn]

I wouldn't mind being involved in the digital discussion stream. Unlikely that I could meet personally, though.

[Sir Gwydion]

I think that the majority of the good conversation where decisions are going to be made will be held in person. If you can handle not being a part of the decision making, then you can join the digital chatter only.

[Lord Valfryn]

Having contact with the group will increase the likelihood of being able to schedule a plausable time to meet for me, as well.

[Thrush Svartehjertet]

I wouldn't mind being involved in the digital discussion stream. Unlikely that I could meet personally, though.

As my job suggests I do not socially network, I will be doing the opposite.

Thrush
berserk

[fingers630]

Machete don't text.
Thrush don't twitter.

[Sir Tyriel Firebrand]

So when is this committee gettin started?

[Sir Gwydion]

Email me to find out. You're behind.

[Sir Tyriel Firebrand]

I sent an e-mail, waiting for reply lol.

[Ogre Solaris]

How is this committee doing?

I ask because I had two back to back incidents yesterday where people were calling "light" on me, 1 a good example and one a bad one.

The good one ended in an explanation and the guy taking the hit anyway. I had no illusions that it wasn't a solid hit, but he took it which is commendable. He basically moved his body into me after my first swing making my second swing about a half inch tap because he was too close for me to effectively hit him. I still don't know why he took it at all, but thanks.

The bad one was where I swung a black sword into a guy, hit his shield and carried through into his leg. He said (exact words) "hot hard enough, boss." and continued to fight. I didn't see the shot land, but I felt it in the handle of the weapon and it definitely felt solid after the initial shield hit, but the bad part was the elder told me the exact opposite of this ruling. I believe the exact words were "there is such a thing as not hard enough in Darkon".

[President]

A proposal was presented to Senate at the August 12th event.

If Elders make bad calls, let the EB know, but go with what the Elder says on the Field.

[Ogre Solaris]

Oh, I did obey the elder, in fact I took the death and let the whole thing go anyway. I kind of thought out loud "I thought there was no such thing as not hard enough at Darkon" and the elder "corrected" me. Just saying, this is still a problem and giving some real life examples of stuff that needs covered from one end of the spectrum to the other. I think my first example needs to be accounted for, there's no way the hit was good and the rules need to make sure those are not being counted.

[Sir Tyriel Firebrand]

If anyone from Kindred went to senate on Sunday, they should tell you about the awesome proposal about hits that was made my Wraith.