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Champion
 
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Marios (6/15/2006)
Just as a brief aside, why don't you (Stuart Maher) like the 1-second rule?
MariosI thought about answering this on the PD page as they activley use the one second rule, but to be honest any system can and a lot do, so I think this is more general. Ok, Firstly I agree with a lot (Not all) of the sentiment behind the one second rule. I agree that what I know as chainsawing, others know as drum rolling, tappity blows and a host of other coloquisms should be discouraged. I am not a fan of heroic fighting or any other style of "Fight realistically as if you have 5 lbs of metal in your hand". Why, simply because I do not have 5lbs of metal in my hand. I have a LRP weapon and I am fighting LRP combat which I see as a phys rep for real combat. All that aside, if we look at the one second rule, one of the key reasons I dislike it is my original character conept, before the source books came out was a native drawing heavily on the red indian curlture for background (He was never played as I didn't want mask's or make up so when the native races were revealed I shelved the plan). His fighting style was to be 2 short tomohawks which would be used to fight in a stab 'em in the back while not looking style. or get in close and chop them up style. However, the one second rule states that I can only do one damage call each second. When you have 2 very short weapons that 1 damage call per 2 seconds per weapon. When your startegy is to get in hit them a few times and get out before they can turn there sword/musket on you this restriction is a killer. Now, surley it sounds like what I want to do it chainsawing/drum rolling, because I agree a lot of people who do this use the style I have just mentioned. I know a lot of my fighting styles are ones that a lot of drum rollers us, However I always make a point to never hit the same location twice (Yes I know maelstrom is total body.. you know what I mean) and people who have monstered or played against me in fights may notice that if I inadvertantly do double tap the same location I generally tell the onster/player only to take the first. That said, 2 and a bit years on, I have never notivced the 1 sec rule at maelstrom. This may be because I specifically play someone who does not get into fights (Hear that Sturrock you bully!) and have avoided it, but even so I am still pleaseantly suprised how I have not noticed it. Stu
RL: Stuart Maher
PD: Stuart Maher in a frock coat
LT: Stuart maher in orange hi-vis
Omega: Stuart Maher in a rat mask
BUTT: Stuart Maher in various crap costumes
EOS: Stuart Maher writing plot EOS - Book now, thank me later. I was going to copyright my posts... but then remembered this is an LRP forum!
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Wag
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Now, surley it sounds like what I want to do it chainsawing/drum rolling, because I agree a lot of people who do this use the style I have just mentioned. I know a lot of my fighting styles are ones that a lot of drum rollers us, However I always make a point to never hit the same location twice (Yes I know maelstrom is total body.. you know what I mean) and people who have monstered or played against me in fights may notice that if I inadvertantly do double tap the same location I generally tell the onster/player only to take the first.
I have this glockenspiel image. Lots of rapid blows from a small weapons all on one location, bad, lots of rapid blows distributed a bit more widely, good? I don't really see how that's significantly different from drum-rolling (yes, I think it's better that they aren't all on one location because that's forcing some movement between each blow).
Funny thing is, I could sort of buy it with a decent length larp sword, but only because I take it as read that you return to guard position between each blow. Most complicated sword forms involve queuing up a series of shots - shot to the head on the way in, shot to the actual target location, shot to the head on the way out. You do it as rapidly as possible - while bringing the sword straight back to guard in between, because you're assuming that the other guy is equally fast. Normally, up against someone of similar training that gets you 20-40% chance of the middle blow actually getting through, but if you're up against someone who isn't that used to that they may manage to be a little behind on parry each shot and all three will go through.
Why don't I think these are the same? Because I don't think there's much limit on how fast you can jab someone with a short weapon (even if you move you two hands up and down their body - I think the limit would be how fast you can call damage). Putting a fast blow in and coming back to guard with a decent length weapon takes a certain amount of time and you can still parry faster if you have your wits about you. Equally, clever shots need to be sequenced - 3 shots in about a second requires at least a couple of seconds to queue up in your head. Never leads to ridiculous number of damage calls the way machine-gunning with small weapons does (not that I have anything against small weapons - I'm a big fan of small knives - I just don't think they should mean instagib if you can step with range of someone, regardless of whether you alter location, I think there should be some upper limit on how rapidly damage should be called (partly a matter of game balance, partly because it doesn't sound good). At DUTT there is (or was) an informal limit at two damage calls a second.
So, the one-second rule can be irksome insofar as it renders some clever moves illegal (but only if the opposing player is naff - so long as the blows remain feints I think you're ok, but I think you should only be putting in one blow _that gets parried_ a second). But I don't think that's a major annoyance so long as you only crack out the complicated sequences for fighting good people and cut the threat shots to feints (let the wrist tendons eat the pain). Only once have I ever actually directly noticed the one-second rule and that was when a guy with daggers leapt on men and rained many, many blows rapidly over the period of about 2 seconds - at which point it was very useful because I knew exactly how much damage I'd taken.
One thing which is a little odd is that Maelstrom supports this rule where LT does not, despite the fact that we've had pages and pages (on other threads) explaining how LT is compelled, by necessity, to be a nanny state and can't trust it's players. Come on! If you're going to ban self-flagellation because you can't trust anonymous players not to be idiots might as well ban machinegunning. Or would it just be ignored? I remember the quality of fighting being a bit poor (often from some very visible people too!) which is a shame for an event which is often sold on the strength of it's mass battles. Just strikes me as a little inconsistent.
Marios
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Champion
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| I like it, but if I had a £1 for each time I heard 3 shouts of double per second from one person at the weekend Id have about £30... I admit the 2 weapons example is one place the 1 second rule loses any sense of realism, or rather it doesnt quite ring true. Same with daggers and very short weapons, which in theory would be pretty fast for stabbing, which suddenly get slower to 1 per second. However I am a fan of roleplayed combat and treating it like it is a huge lump of metal, so anything to encourage proper blows is good in my mind. Those two minor gripes are far outweighed by the fact I know I wont get drumrolled or rather can legally ignore anything over 1 per second if I do. Its a matter of compromise for me and I think the 1 second rule is a good compromise. The only other option would be guidance on how to swing a blow, but an event the size of Maelstrom thats not really going to be feasible. So in summary, I mostly like the 1 sec rule.
--------------------------------------------If the Gods didnt want us to eat people, then why are they made out of meat?Grumf Kikuto - United Tribes of New BantustanSir Nathaniel Holt - The Fallen
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Wag
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There's a crucial distinction between "contended combatant" and "unresisting combatant".
In the case of someone who has no weapons/can't fight back/isn't moving, there's normally no hurry and it seems reasonable to set some upper limit on calls/per second (since the rate at which you can strike isn't really constrained by anything suck as having to avoid their parries/having to go back to guard to defend against counterblows).
Contended combat, on the other, does _not_ mean that people with ambidextrous combinations should have double the number of damage calls at all. Two weapons and an aggressive fighting style just means more chance of getting through (most people are not ambidextrous - it's not actually an amazing weapons combination even if you are wielding two equal decent length swords). Often the second sword just becomes a very narrow and inferior shield.
By and by, I think it's a damn good thing that "unresisting combat" has a cap on speed, because the safety context of the game would allow "contended combatants" to shift to "unresisting combat" simply because their target isn't allowed to kick them down a flight of stairs/smash them against the wall, pommel bash them in the face. If you stand next to someone with some daggers you should not be able to stab them to death as rapidly as you can call merely because they can't punch you/beat your unconscious with a sword pommel.
If you backstab someone, that should mean putting some blows in at the standard rate, not glockenspeiling them with 10 calls in 2 seconds (might as well just put in a system call called "Backstab" which inflicts ten times your damage call if you want that sort of thing).
Marios
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Knight
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| I feel that the 1 sec rule is only good under some circumstances. As has been stated if you try and shiv someone from behind with a dagger, the one second rule is completely unrealistic and makes daggers virtually useless unless you have a mechanism to make up for it (instagib). Same with double weapons. Annother thing I've noticed one person do, which i believe was breaking 1 sec rule but easily done, was to when under attack from 2 assailants, ignore the damage calls of 1 of the assailants on the ground that they were both hitting simultaneously at a rate of 1 hit per second, since this overall gave a total hit rate of 2 hits per second. I only noticed this because when the player eventually went down and someone went up to them and OOC said something like "OMG how hard are you? 10 doubles to drop you, how'd you get so hard" and the players reply was "only 5 doubles, 1 second rule, only take on hit per second." and it was left at that. I only realised it was breaking the rule when i double checked the wording of the rule for this post. Still, its good for big weapons.
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Wag
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I feel that the 1 sec rule is only good under some circumstances. As has been stated if you try and shiv someone from behind with a dagger, the one second rule is completely unrealistic and makes daggers virtually useless unless you have a mechanism to make up for it (instagib). Same with double weapons.
I have to say, from combat experience I absolutely disagree. If walk up behind someone with a knife - the major advantage of knives beind that they are easily hidden and you can wield them more subtily than a sword - and start stabbing them then the system (particularly the Maelstrom system where knives don't rack up damage with starting skills) seems pretty close to reality (as I recall, real life knife murder victims tend to have quite a few stab wounds - lets ignore ninjas and green beret men for know - although, now that I think about it, knifes are also better for doing coup de graces).
Instagib strikes me as less realistic than Stab ... Stab ... Stab. As for ingame practicality, surprise (if it's complete surprise) lasts for an impressive amount of time. I've seen it take about ten seconds for people to really grasp that their camp is under attack (from first damage call). If you walked up behind someone and they weren't ready for it, I reckon you'd have a good three seconds minimum for before their brain kicked in and started directly a competent defence.
If you want the element of surprise, if you want to fight close so that they have to back of when their wits come together to use their 42 inch sword, if you want to be standing close so you can whisper their damage calls into their ear while pressing a rag over their mouth, then I think a dagger is a really good choice.
If you want something which you can poke people in the back with and cause them to fall down dead after a second or two, then you probably want some sort of bizarre super-gun-tech.
Annother thing I've noticed one person do, which i believe was breaking 1 sec rule but easily done
Seemed pretty clear to me that that's not how the one-second is supposed to work:
http://www.profounddecisions.co.uk/rules/rules.asp?NavID=84
Could be a bit clearer (keep the pronouns in from the first sentence to make it clear that it's calls made from one target), perhaps it should have it's own subsection rather than being under miscellaneous?
Marios
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I do talk a good fight
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As well as being easily the most concealable weapon in the game, Daggers are, I believe, the smallest weapon in Maesltrom that's capable of delivering a mortal wound... and that wound is Through. So, even against someone who is suitably talismanned up, you only need to get 2 dagger blows in to have them on a death count. 2 dagger blows, with the 1-second rule, takes 1 second.
2-weapon users are definitely at a slight but significant disadvantage in the system, I think. But then, at a game in which combat is relatively rare, 2-weapon users have the massive advantage that they don't have to lug around a shield or pole-arm -- just a couple of swords or axes on their belts.
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I do talk a good fight
Group: System Moderators
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Oh, and Stu -- I would have shot you again by now if you hadn't had me guillotined. 
http://www.hyboriantales.com
PD: Ghostdance ("The most irritating curse I've ever encountered" -- NPC played by H.)
Riftworld: Rossar Kuug ("Clearly mad, because he thinks he's a Com-Trow Skirmisher" - Aela)
Hyborian Tales: Crew, cook, dogsbody, general labourer, toilet cleaner ("Dangerously overoptimistic ref" -- Tom Nowell)
Otherwise usually crew ("Quite spry & fit, & willing to wear a big costume & run around a lot" -- various event organisers)
"My other oversized foam weapon is THE LORD" -- Questionable Content
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