[MUD-Dev] About Fencing (was: mass customisation)

[Greg Titus]

On Friday, July 19, 2002, at 02:57  AM, Marian Griffith wrote:

> Mainly I am curious to know how the experience of actual fencing
> (which I have done only twice) can be translated to muds. For me
> the actual experience is *vastly* different from watching messages
> scroll by..

>   You hit the ugly troll
>   The ugly troll misses you
>   You hit the ugly troll
>   The ugly troll barely scratches you
>   ... and so on.

> From what I understand fencing is more about blocking your oppo-
> nent, and moving him into a position where you can strike, and I
> wonder if that can be done in a mud. It would slow down the pace
> but I can not help but think that it would be, in the end, more
> entertaining. And on a graphical mud, where you can actually see
> your opponent, it would look and work even better I think.

It really depends upon what form of sword fighting you are
attempting to model. SCA style broadsword bashing, Kendo, the many
different martial arts that include sword forms, et cetera. Stage
fencing (which is its own speciality and training) _looks_ a lot
like what you are describing above, except of course, that the
actual purpose is to make the fight look good, not to try to kill
the other guy.

But I'm a foil fencer, so when you say fencing, I think of the sport
with saber, foil, or epee.

Foil fencing is originally based on sword-armed infantry
practice. The foil is a long, thin sword with a point and no
blade. The idea was to pierce the guy in front of you in the vitals
as quickly as possible so he can't pierce you, then move on. Almost
any hit to the body was quickly incapacitating, while almost any hit
to the limbs was nearly useless (and likely to get your blade
caught, resulting in _you_ becoming quickly incapacitated).

Fencing is very fast. It makes a terrible spectator sport because
(a) it is over so quickly and (b) usually the untrained eye can't
even see what happened. You go back and forth on the strip,
maintaining distance, with a few feints and quick changes to try to
wrong foot your opponent. When you sense an advantage, you attack --
preferably with a particular sequence in mind -- and there is a
flurry where you react without thinking. Most of the time resulting
in a touch. If not, get distance, settle yourself, and repeat.

It is mostly about training your arm and your footwork to react
instinctively. You also train your eye to see that your opponent
tends to lean forward too far in en garde position exposing the
shoulder to an easy flick, or almost always does their circular
parries counter-clockwise. That sort of thing.

The strategy and mind game part of it is very much like
rock-scissors-paper. If you succeed with the same attack twice in a
row, is your opponent going to be over-prepared for it, and fall for
a feint? Or is he thinking that surely you won't do the same thing
three times in a row, and it will work again? You come together,
your hand takes over, and whatever you both pre-planned mostly
happens. (Assuming you are of relatively equivalent speed and
technique.)

Would modeling this make a good game? Hard to say. I'd sure love to
try it. But I think the style of system that modeled foil fencing
would look a lot like "Firetop Mountain"
<http://www.gamerz.net/~fm/>. Lots of feints. Worrying about having
the right timing. Then the results unfolding simultaneously and
quickly. It seems like it'd result in a lot of fast player deaths.

Speaking of which, the other game that has the same sort of 'feel'
as fencing to me is the RPG "Paranoia". You go along for a while,
trying to be careful, trying to figure out what is going on, then
BAM you just died. The weapons were so deadly (and the excuses to
use them on each other so plentiful) that each character had a
number of clones (5? 6?) to replace yourself because you expected to
die a couple times on each adventure.

Hope this helps, 

-Greg

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev