Article on getting legged

[feathalion]

From "The Association for Renaissance Martial Arts". An interesting website if you are interested in ... well ... stuff we are interested in ;D

This article addresses the paradox of getting "Legged" and gaining an advantage as well as proposing an alternative.

www.thearma.org/essays/kneel.htm

[Alric, son of Harland]

My initial reaction is that this fella has never played a full-contact padded weapon game like Dagorhir. If he had ever played it at even a mid-sized event, he would realize that Playability blows his theories right out of the water.

Under some sets of sparring rules, the standing fighter cannot even make use of the one greatest benefit there is to remaining standing while fighting: shifting around. Circling around is usually outlawed and opponents must be faced frontally.

And what boffer system demands this?

Alric

[greybeardabbot]

No System... ARMA... excuse me, John Clements... looks down on all boffers... and that's putting the best construction on it. ( I own his Medieval Swordsmanship; Illustrated Methods and techniques. He devotes two chapters to how awful we are. At least if we try to think of ourselves as even slightly serious about 'real' swordplay.)

I do like his critisism of "kneeling"however. I think Oron knows him, or has met him. He and I talked about this at length... but I've long argued the merits of Clements "Wounded Leg Rule" I think it should be employed... But the truth is people will CHEAT So... better to kneel.
But I still think Clements is dead on. Truth be told, if you lost a limb, especially a leg... you would go into shock quickly and likely die. But if it was only slightly dissabled, you would remain standing but limp/gimped, you would not drop to your knees. That totally reality... People who are legged don't act wonded... they actually "run" on thier knees.... what crap.
And IF the element of LARP is heeded... anyone armed or legged should act the part... otherwise it is... "Just a game of TAG."

[Zaron]

Very true Greybeard. The thing to consider is that our first priority is safety however, while the first priority in real midevil combat was to stay alive and kill your opponent before they killed you. With goals that different we really cann't be fully realistic though. And as you said, this wouldn't work well for playability, people would cheese it up and cheat.

[Kazzell KumoKi]

I tihnk people would argue about the depth of the blow due to how hard it hits, that just wouldnt be fun at all, specialy for smaller folks. There'd be alot of stopping and talking about how hard it was and weather your wounded or fully cut and for a flanker, I wouldnt be there to agrue my point and i'd be dissmayed if people just ignored me.

Come to think of it, I cant really think of the historical refrence to a single flanking troop. So where do we in Dag get that idea?

[Zaron]

Most armies had flankers. They were usually either calvery or light infrantry or even horse archers. Since we don't really have calvery our flankers just kind of developed from people would could get to the flank quickly and were more mobile.

[Kazzell KumoKi]

SWEET I'M A HORSE!

[Sir Storm Brightblade]

yeah ur my horse! jk jk

[Sir Nichtmar]

I actually agree with that to an extent for safety. Like the big Rag battles, when you are legged and on the frontline if you get killed it's so crazy trying to get up and out. I'm gonna think more on this one.

[Militis]

This guy's an idiot.

It's a game.

He's taking it as real life.

That's all.

If I get legged in what I deem an unsafe place (i.e. an incoming front line), I take a death and get out of the way. Same thing for getting killed on the front line; weapon to head and walk away.

It's common sense.

I recommend this to anyone who feels unsafe in any portion of the game: Get out of the way of danger.

[Kazzell KumoKi]

militis said:

This guy's an idiot.

It's a game.

He's taking it as real life.

That's all.

If I get legged in what I deem an unsafe place (i.e. an incoming front line), I take a death and get out of the way. Same thing for getting killed on the front line; weapon to head and walk away.

It's common sense.

I recommend this to anyone who feels unsafe in any portion of the game: Get out of the way of danger.

-dunno but i agree with the common sense aspect.

[vermin]

"The alternative is the Limping-Leg Rule. This rules provides for the following: One could not run or walk after a disabling leg blow, but may still stand and fight. Movement is limited to limping by dragging the wounded leg (no hopping). One could also kneel on the good leg, but not the injured one. If a leg is hit again, it must certainly count again (no excluding it). This rule is the intelligent and effective alternative." John Clements

This is exactly what we do in Darkon.only we are required to lock the knee of our injured leg. If the second leg is injured we still have to knee, everything is a compromise. (we don't have the two-limb death rule)

I am also familiar with the work of John Clements and I think we need to step out of our shoes to understand his perspective. He does view other groups as silly and artificial and in some ways this is very much the case. Though we are full contact sports we have had to institute a lot of rules for safety and managing large groups of combatants. But, the unrealistically weighted weapons, the various armor rules whether simple or complex: and for the "Great-Horned Rat's " sake we fight monsters at our events and my game has magi

Now think about it from his perspective. He's spent his life trying to gain recognition for western martial arts, which other martial artists and martial systems as a whole have never taken seriously. In that situation I don't believe it is unreasonable to distance yourself from groups like ours which have rules designed for safety or logisitcal reasons rather than authentic martial traditions.

Please, remember I am one of you and I'm not attacking foam-fighting groups. (except for amtgard, those panzies)

Vermin

[Sir Nichtmar]

Ha! Yeah I'd never do amtguard, but eh it's their thing I guess. Anyway, it is a valid point that if you do have knee issues or whatever, it's up to you to just take death for your own safety and sometimes I do in the larger battles. It's an interesting idea, but I don't think it's worth anything more than a good board conversation. I know here in Mittelmarch we do have people who have issues with going to a knee and we let them just drag it behind them, but that's very few. Considering this topicish, I disagree with those who get legged who just crouch down and walk around and the ones who get legged and use both legs to jump at you. I know there are few who have the leg strength to do it with one leg, but all in all it doesn't bother me that much, it's like a pet peave.

[balkoth]

i can see his points...i know that on more once i have been hit in a arm and dropped to 1 knee as well with the idea being less areas to hit me (granted its normally vs an armored SnB and im trying to do anything i can). but i think the rules of daggerheir in my mind are set up to be easy to pick up and use while keeping people as safe as we can. and yay im a hore as well

[greybeardabbot]

In my opinion, it has nothing to do with safety. IF it was we would USE the wounded leg rule, and not kneel.
BUT... What it does have to do with is playability.
People would CHEAT.
(But they cheat on thier knees, so what else is new? I guess that we are willing to put up with a cheater on his knees rather than standing. Not me, but everyone else would, so I guess I'm not willing to keep argueing in favor of the wounded leg rule... even though IT'S A BETTER RULE... because that's the way we are used to, and heaven knows we would not want to change what we are used to.)
In spite of my opinion on the "better" rule I've give up the issue as a lost cause.
And now I only grouse about it for fun, since there is no profit in doing so.

[Alric, son of Harland]

You are never going to let go of the wounded leg rule, are you?

Can you summarize it again?

Alric

[greybeardabbot]

Nope! It's like a piece of popcorn stuck in my teeth...
No one who looks at you would know how much it really annoys you... and nor would they really care

Simple rule...
You get legged... but rather than dropping to the knee, you remain standing... but you are not allowed to bear weight on that leg... it's gimped... personally I think that means you should not be able to limp, let a lone walk... But I would allow limping before "hopping"... but the fact is, you need to be able to treat it as a weak/dead leg.

And too many people would cheat... I get it.

At least if they kneel there is some clear handycapping... I GET it.

It's too hard to harold a 'gimped' leg... I GET IT.

IF only people would be willing to "act the part" it would work. Get it?

[feathalion]

It's been awhile since I posted this. I didn't place my impressions because I wanted to hear from some long standing players first. I value experience. My hesitation in posting it included that John Clements is not specifically talking about Dagorhir but foam-fighting in general. Some of his comments were directed at groups like Amtgard. And as GreyBeardAbbot stated he is continually fighting for accurate reconstruction of Western Martial Arts. So there is some undeserved derision in his comments. Were I thirty years younger I would sign up for ARMA training. I apologize if anyone has taken this posting personally.

If I can, I would like to ask some of the experienced Dagorhir people to comment on the relative problems of cheating with the two systems: Kneeling vs Limping. Please if you can comment regarding how it might be used in Dagorhir and not some other system.

Some contrasts I've heard are below -

Kneeling
-- On first blow wounded knee must be placed to the ground.
Crawling and leaping from the wounded leg
Great defensive posture

Limping
-- On first blow wounded foot must not bear weight
-- Alternate? Basketball rule that foot must remain in place
Walking on wounded leg
Lunging from wounded leg

I would appreciate thoughts since it confuses me when we inherently seem to "trust" players in the kneeling and armor rules but hesitate on the "limping" rule. I am also confused that it has been implied that "limping" might be less safe than "kneeling" in a mass combat.

Thank you for your patience and comments

[Sir Nichtmar]

Don't worry guys, I know who is, he's cool. He's just curious and thinking about joining.

First off this rule will never change, so I would let the limping thing go.

Feathalion, this game is is built on trust and honor at its bare bones, because usually there's no heralds at practices, and maybe 2 - 8 at an event. During fighting you never argue a hit, it happens but it shouldn't. And I usually don't care, because I get to hit them again, but next time it'll be harder. If it does become a problem you'd point it out to the fighter, the herald, realm leader or their unit leader. And sometimes it's not a deliberate blow off to your shot, some guys get their adrenaline going and they just don't feel the shot, sometimes people need to take off their skirt and hit harder and some are just tools. There doesn't seem much left to this conversation, but whatever questions you got I'm sure we'd be eager to answer.

This may seem a little off topic, but you brought up "trust" and the rules are setup in away that fighters have to fight according to the rules if they ever want to be respected.

[greybeardabbot]

feathalion said:

Were I thirty years younger I would sign up for ARMA training. I apologize if anyone has taken this posting personally.

You and me both! I think ARMA would be a great martial art to get involved in.
And I don't think you need to be concerned about anyone taking the post personally. I happen to like the wonded leg rule. No one else in Dag seems to get the concept, or if they do they don't like it for some reason.
I just like to take the PRO side whenever the discussion comes up. It just might be because I'm 46 and don't want to go down on my knees... But I think it's because I agree with John Clemets.

feathalion said:

Please if you can comment regarding how it might be used in Dagorhir and not some other system.
Some contrasts I've heard are below -

Kneeling
-- On first blow wounded knee must be placed to the ground.
Crawling and leaping from the wounded leg
Great defensive posture

If your leg is GONE... even just below the knee...
(A) You are crawling on your belly... NOT "running" on, or leaping from, your 'stump.'
(B) You are going into shock very rapidly and the window of your will and ability to fight is rapidly closing. A MISSING leg should STOP you on the field. Actually I would argue that a 'dead' leg should mean you stay put. This would be the incentive NOT to get injured...

But that would really injure the 'Playability' of the GAME. Half the fun IS a good battle, which dosen't happen when everyone is avoiding getting "TAPPED" on the leg. In order to really take a leg off, you need a solid swing... Most the time on the Dag field THAT would cause more than a few REAL injuries... THIS is the SAFTEY issue in my opinion. A solid TAP Might only GIMP a leg, in real combat, NOT take it off...

feathalion said:

Limping
-- On first blow wounded foot must not bear weight
-- Alternate? Basketball rule that foot must remain in place
Walking on wounded leg
Lunging from wounded leg

The First rule is the leg must not bear weight... In play it always does. And TRUST ME, TOO MANY people would ignore the rule and claim... "I'm Not using my leg!" when they ARE. I'm not even sure I could trust myself not to let that leg carry SOME weight when I'm pressed in battle.
I LIKE the basketball rule... I've used that in my arguments... But once again... GAME PLAYABILITY comes into the argument. Being STUCK on the field is almost as much fun as being DEAD. In otherwords, you don't get to play... and that's NOT FUN.

I don't agree that kneeling is a "better" defensive position than standing. In fact... I would argue that kneeling actually encourages "HEAD SHOTS". I would be willing to say that the vast magority of heads shots are incured by those people on thier knees. Hense it IS NOT SAFE or AS safe as limping. That's my argument in favor of safety agasint the PRO kneeling advocates.

But PLAYABILITY and CHEATING are two strong arguments in thier favor. and NOTHING is LESS FUN than comming out on the battle field and laying there "dead" the whole time... unless you want to say... nothing makes for a bad DAG expereience like people who CHEAT... like blow off your shots, not take hits... rinohide... it makes you mad and encourages people to swing at cheaters with greater force... definatly NOT SAFE and real fights and arguments on the feild are really NO FUN..

So while I would like the Wounded leg rule... I can accept that we don't use it.

Althought... we do in certain cases, like when we agree to use it for people who have a knee problem.