Martial Arts vs. Brawling

A thread of 2 messages, 14 March 1991 to 15 March 1991, in the order they were sent.

#2227 Martial Arts vs. Brawling

Bruce T. Ritchie, P.S.C. · 14 March 1991

        Greetings Gang! Hi Bob!

     A question, if I may... How do some of you handle a Martial Arts
skill? I know that a while back there was an article about MA in
either Chall. or Travellers Digest, but I found it a bit confusing. If
I recall the author equated MA skill level with dan rank. This would
seem to suggest that you'd need a skill of 12 to be a beginning black
belt!! I must have missed something and the issue is not available to
me at the moment.
     Or, would the Martial Arts be lumped under Brawling, with
extentions to take care of weapons such as Katana (long blade), etc.?
Have any of you done anything with `ninja-esque' PC's or NPC's?? Do
you break down the skill among things like stealth, blade, brawling,
etc?

     Sure, a FGMP is great... but sometimes ya gotta be subtle....

                                brucer
```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
        Bruce T. Ritchie ([email removed]) AKA: Zben Blaine
        Media Services
        Plymouth State College
        Plymouth, N.H. USA
``````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
       "The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects
        is that science requires reasoning, while those other
                subjects merely require scholarship"
                                        Lazarus Long

#2229 Re: (2227) Martial Arts vs. Brawling

Peter L. Berghold · 15 March 1991 · reply to #2227

Operating System: HP-UX A.B7.00 U
Organization: AT&T-BL, Red Hill System Administration Group (HRSAG)
Location: HR 2C119
Phone: [phone removed]
Return-receipt:
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL5]

*|
*|         Greetings Gang! Hi Bob!
*|
*|      A question, if I may... How do some of you handle a Martial Arts
*| skill? I know that a while back there was an article about MA in
*| either Chall. or Travellers Digest, but I found it a bit confusing. If
*| I recall the author equated MA skill level with dan rank. This would
*| seem to suggest that you'd need a skill of 12 to be a beginning black
*| belt!! I must have missed something and the issue is not available to
*| me at the moment.
*|      Or, would the Martial Arts be lumped under Brawling, with
*| extentions to take care of weapons such as Katana (long blade), etc.?
*| Have any of you done anything with `ninja-esque' PC's or NPC's?? Do
*| you break down the skill among things like stealth, blade, brawling,
*| etc?
*|
*|      Sure, a FGMP is great... but sometimes ya gotta be subtle....
*|
*|                                 brucer

I have been handling martial arts the way the GM I first started
playing under handled them without thinking too much about it.  The
asumption he made was that a brawling of 3+ indicated some level of
martial arts skill.   Increases above 3 were higher levels of
martial arts skill.

So far as long bladed weapons were concerned, he (and I ) take the
closest weapon covered in the sword, broadsword, etc skills and
applied those.

Funny you should mention Ninjas... He had some character
generation table that he created just for that purpose.  You could
have a Ninja character in his campaign, and parties often had to
deal with Ninja assasination attempts if they got a little too big
for their britches...


- - --
Peter L. Berghold | TELEPHONE: [phone removed]
- - ------------------+---------------------------------------------------
EMAIL ADDRESSES:   BIX - PETEB  COMPU$ERVE - 70152,3017
FAX [phone removed] DELPHI - BERGHOLD GENIE - PBERGHOLD