The last version I had downloaded was Version 5, which still had The Mysterious East as a chapter title and had a Martial Arts talent tree.  Obviously, it was Stormfront recruiting material and had to be expurgated.

At least I have a version I can read without laughing.

Quote from: jhkim on November 09, 2020, 08:20:33 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on November 09, 2020, 06:44:20 PM

Quote from: jhkim on November 09, 2020, 04:45:07 PM
Isn't that the point of the complaint? I agree with your point here - but that problem is that in practice, almost no one refers to Conan the Barbarian as a "martial arts film" or Errol Flynn as a "martial arts star". For example, in my copy of GURPS Martial Arts (3rd ed), the cover has a yin-yang symbol and there are seven weapon tables: Chinese, Japanese, Ninja, Philippine, Indonesian, Indian, and Korean. So clearly it's not about all combat forms but rather focused on Asian forms.

Unfortunately that's true, and it came about after the term "Martial Arts" became associated with eastern unarmed styles with the influx of Martial Arts films in the 70s, which continued in the 80s and somewhat the 90s.

However, that was at the turn of the last century. We're living in 2020 now. HEMA is all over YouTube. People know about Capoeira, Krav Maga and other non-Eastern martial arts as well. People should know "Martial Arts" extends beyond just eastern styles of unarmed combat by now, and even if they don't they're still in error and need to be corrected, not change the meaning of the term "Martial Arts" cuz some people are idiots.

This was a pet peeve of mine even in the 90s (the decade I started playing), and I would frequently correct people when it came up during play or character creation, and point out that swinging a sword itself was a martial art.

I think we're just agreeing here. I had exactly the same pet peeve.

As regards Conan - it sounds to me like Conan 2d20 originally had a talent tree called "martial arts" that implied something more like Asian styles, rather than just general combat skills. However, I only have the quickstart rules which doesn't have that tree - so I'm not sure what the deal is.

All of the talents except one are based on the first step in the tree, Open Hand, and they are Unarmed.
The one weapon talent in the tree is Symphony of Blades, and it lets you use the abilities of open hand techniques with weapons.  So instead of blocking an arrow with your hand, you can do it with a sword, staff, whatever.  Each new weapon you add you retake the Symphony of Blades talent.  So yeah, it's mostly focused on Open Hand techniques and the types of moves you see in Asian Martial Arts.

Quote from: Charon's Little Helper on November 09, 2020, 10:21:57 PM

Quote from: Batjon on November 09, 2020, 09:50:55 PM
Tons of KS backers are demanding refunds, including me.  I spent over $1,000 on this game at the Mount Yishma highest pledge level. 

I told them "At this point I think I'd like a refund of the $1,000 I spent on backing this bait and switch scam of a Kickstarter and sham of a game.  I paid for the tagline of being authentic to REH and the original Conan stories and you have now breached my trust.  I do not want SJW virtue-signaling and soy boy politics in my Conan game.  Leave your politics out of gaming products."

There are tons of people pissed off in the comments for the backers and many are demanding refunds.

Good luck to you - but I have to say - a grand is sort of a ridiculous amount of cash to put into a single game, especially before you've seen it. I think I probably gave a bit more than that to Games Workshop over the years, but that was over the course of more than a decade with multiple armies and three different game systems.

That level of Kickstarter support just reminds me of the Star Citizen backers who bought a theoretical digital battle carrier or whatnot. (To be fair - I did buy Star Citizen nearly a decade ago now - but just the base game. I'm an optimist who liked Wing Commander and Freelancer - I'm not crazy.)

As a birthday present I got an account with a Constellation Ship.  I'll have to go back and see if I can fly it yet.

Quote from: CRKrueger on November 15, 2020, 05:28:16 AM
The last version I had downloaded was Version 5, which still had The Mysterious East as a chapter title and had a Martial Arts talent tree.  Obviously, it was Stormfront recruiting material and had to be expurgated.

At least I have a version I can read without laughing.

If you keep this disgusting PDF on your PC you are endorsing hates speech and potentially, literally, killing people. That. Is. Not. Okay. You will be receiving one Yikes from me, sweetie.

Anyway, it's Morphius so I don't know how anybody can be too surprised to see this. It was inevitable.

Does anyone have a complete list of all the changes they made?

I wanted to reply to too many posts RE: MMA, so I'll just leave a general response.
Sorry.

The "holy trinity" of MMA foundations are the Olympic Four (Freestyle, Greco, Judo, Sambo) for your Takedowns - submission grappling (has lots of names, but all basically the same thing) for submissions - and Muay Thai or Dirty Boxing for Striking.

That's pretty much it. 

Over the past 30 years, this is what works.  This is what consistently beats everything else.  Over and over and over, person to person to person.  It isn't guess-work anymore.  It isn't opinion.  There are occasionally techniques that we thought were bullshit in the 1990's that people manage to "rediscover" by making changes, but they are RARE.

Absolutely NO ONE in MMA considers Bruce Lee to be the godfather of MMA.
Mentioning you practice JKD in MMA circles is almost certain to get you laughed at, and probably straight to your face. If not, then behind your back.  It is considered a "joke" art, along with Aikido, Kung Fu (any style), virtually all TKD, Pencak Silat, and many others.

MMA did not start with the UFC.  The UFC was the Gracie Families move to get their product into the US market (and it worked). They knew exactly what they were doing in which fighters they invited to their PPV, and they knew 99.999% of the US had never even heard of Luta Livre, Shooto, or Catch Wrestling.  MMA started with the late-19th, early-20th century traveling circuses (same origin as Pro Wrestling, believe it or not).  If anybody wants to know, just ask.

Vale Tudo was publicly televised in Brazil as late as 1960.  Shooto leagues have been in continuous operation in Japan since the at least the 1980's.  For those of you who watched in the early days ... where do you think guys like Marco Ruas came from?  He wasn't a BJJ practitioner, and was not affiliated with any Gracie school.   

If you only have the time (and MONEY) to train one thing, study BJJ WITH THE GI.  If you get in a street fight, chances are you will both be wearing clothes.  Gi techniques are extremely important and you won't see them anywhere else. This should cost ~$120/month at a legit school (depending on where you are in the nation).

If you are not going to be a pro, don't waste time on standing techniques unless this is your full-time hobby.  The return on training is extremely low, and training properly carries significant injury risk.  If you are going to practice it, for the love of god don't take a normal boxing class.  Boxing has evolved into a very specific sport, and because of that, they do a LOT of things wrong for a regular fight.  (e.g. the torque off the lead foot ... which gives you zero TD defense).  You ever watch those really old boxers holding their hands palm-up?  They are punching like that because they are not wearing gloves.  The are mostly short-arming backfists.  Punching the way you see in the sport today without being properly taped and wearing gloves will almost certainly break your hands before the fights over. Watch the early UFC stuff ... this is what took out the America Kickboxers and Kenpo guys consistently.  Even if they "won", at least one hand was broken.

Lastly, ask the school if they train ankle locks & heel hooks.  If they say "yes", go somewhere else.  They are extremely dangerous and can easily result in life-long injury.  Most schools will not allow them.

Quote from: Two Crows on December 30, 2020, 05:45:43 PM
I wanted to reply to too many posts RE: MMA, so I'll just leave a general response.
Sorry.

The "holy trinity" of MMA foundations are the Olympic Four (Freestyle, Greco, Judo, Sambo) for your Takedowns - submission grappling (has lots of names, but all basically the same thing) for submissions - and Muay Thai or Dirty Boxing for Striking.

That's pretty much it. 

Over the past 30 years, this is what works.  This is what consistently beats everything else.  Over and over and over, person to person to person.  It isn't guess-work anymore.  It isn't opinion.  There are occasionally techniques that we thought were bullshit in the 1990's that people manage to "rediscover" by making changes, but they are RARE.

Absolutely NO ONE in MMA considers Bruce Lee to be the godfather of MMA.
Mentioning you practice JKD in MMA circles is almost certain to get you laughed at, and probably straight to your face. If not, then behind your back.  It is considered a "joke" art, along with Aikido, Kung Fu (any style), virtually all TKD, Pencak Silat, and many others.

MMA did not start with the UFC.  The UFC was the Gracie Families move to get their product into the US market (and it worked). They knew exactly what they were doing in which fighters they invited to their PPV, and they knew 99.999% of the US had never even heard of Luta Livre, Shooto, or Catch Wrestling.  MMA started with the late-19th, early-20th century traveling circuses (same origin as Pro Wrestling, believe it or not).  If anybody wants to know, just ask.

Vale Tudo was publicly televised in Brazil as late as 1960.  Shooto leagues have been in continuous operation in Japan since the at least the 1980's.  For those of you who watched in the early days ... where do you think guys like Marco Ruas came from?  He wasn't a BJJ practitioner, and was not affiliated with any Gracie school.   

If you only have the time (and MONEY) to train one thing, study BJJ WITH THE GI.  If you get in a street fight, chances are you will both be wearing clothes.  Gi techniques are extremely important and you won't see them anywhere else. This should cost ~$120/month at a legit school (depending on where you are in the nation).

If you are not going to be a pro, don't waste time on standing techniques unless this is your full-time hobby.  The return on training is extremely low, and training properly carries significant injury risk.  If you are going to practice it, for the love of god don't take a normal boxing class.  Boxing has evolved into a very specific sport, and because of that, they do a LOT of things wrong for a regular fight.  (e.g. the torque off the lead foot ... which gives you zero TD defense).  You ever watch those really old boxers holding their hands palm-up?  They are punching like that because they are not wearing gloves.  The are mostly short-arming backfists.  Punching the way you see in the sport today without being properly taped and wearing gloves will almost certainly break your hands before the fights over. Watch the early UFC stuff ... this is what took out the America Kickboxers and Kenpo guys consistently.  Even if they "won", at least one hand was broken.

Lastly, ask the school if they train ankle locks & heel hooks.  If they say "yes", go somewhere else.  They are extremely dangerous and can easily result in life-long injury.  Most schools will not allow them.

Those are what largely work but it does leave out some things. For instance Sanda is very effective, as is Savate, though neither of those make much of an appearance in MMA for various reasons (Sanda due to rarity in the west, Savate due to the fact that shoes change the kicking dynamic they use). In the grappling world Shuai Jiao is an incredibly old art that could best be compared to Judo but has different emphasis and mechanics and there are a host of folk wrestling styles that work but simply don't have a large competitive scene to produce fighters.

I don't think it's so much that MMA has revealed what arts work but rather what training methodologies produce consistent results. Even then it's not really a new revelation, it's just that the traditional martial arts world post 1950 was forced to reckon with it for the first time. For instance look at the Machida family and their karate, and make no mistake the Machida brothers are Karateka in their striking, why do they get by when other Karateka don't? They adopted the live training methods of arts like Boxing, Muay Thai, etc. For instance if you look at the Lei Tai tournaments held on the east coast and in China you'll see traditional Kung fu schools actually fighting, and looking reasonably competent. Why? Again because they adopted live training methods much like the Machida family did. Hell, Alan Orr is a Wing Chun instructor and has a fight team that competes reasonably successfully in low level MMA promotions, but again he adapted live training.

Most arts out there contain nearly all the same techniques for their given range, the thing that separates them in to ineffective or effective is how they are training.

As to Bruce Lee having any real impact on MMA, yeah that's marketing for you.

MMA predates even the 19th and early 20th century music hall and carnival matches. Pankration was a popular sport in the Greek world for nearly 1000 years.

When it comes to picking one art for self defense training I'd argue Judo over BJJ. Most BJJ schools I've been to have shit take down game, and I figure it's better to be able to decide where the fight goes. Not to mention that many Judo schools out there have a significant Ne-Waza component which will essentially teach you the basics of BJJ and certainly cover what you need for self defense. Not to mention that Judo is universally cheaper.

I sort of agree with you that unless martial arts is a significant hobby or you intend to fight that striking training can have a low return on investment given the danger involved. Though I do think it behooves someone interested in defending themselves to be at least familiar with the basics and to have sparred a couple of rounds to understand what it's like when someone intends on hitting you. 

I have to hard disagree with you on Boxing. The supposed flaws it has "regular fighting" are greatly exaggerated. Torquing off the lead foot is only really done for throwing lead hooks and is necessary to maximize weight transfer on that line, throwing nearly any strike leaves you open to a take down. Every thing you do leaves some opening or another, it's a matter of knowing what those are and preparing accordingly. Broken hands are a risk with any punch, and in fact recent studies from modern bare knuckle leagues actually show less broken hands than in MMA or other gloved sports.

The bare knuckle boxers you see in old photos weren't punching the way they held their hands in those photos. They relied mostly on long range straight punches with a vertical fist. Most of what they did was a game of sniping straight shots and avoiding the clinch because holding and hitting was allowed, given that there were no time limits to rounds getting caught in the clinch could be a disaster.

Heel hooks and Ankle locks are starting to come in to their own in BJJ. Most of the aversion to them has been due to people not being careful with them in training. I trained in them without incident. Look up Roli Delgado, he's a BJJ black belt who has good material on the subject.

Western boxers still lead off the wrong foot even when throwing jabs.  No one can keep their feet with their weight distributed like that.

Look at what happened to Tooney.  Boxing world champ at 4 weight divisions (including heavyweight) in his career, with a record of 72-6.  He could not keep his feet for 60 seconds against a 47 year old who clearly at the end of his MMA career.

As for the broken hands, do you know of any boxer who has been able to fight untaped and ungloved without hand injuries? 

I also wouldn't use Machida as a justification for a style.  One guy who had some success over a decade ago is an exception.  If Karate worked, there should be plenty of people using it effectively.  Same for all the other arts mentioned.  Even PRIDE, Pancrase, ONE, Dream, and on and on, in the homeland of Karate, and no real representation there.  Same goes for Wing Chun.  One guy somewhere who teaches it doesn't make it an effective approach.

Chinese styles are terrible. China has it's own leagues because their fighters are getting stomped everywhere they try to go. 

Heel Hooks and Ankle locks have always been around.  They are banned because their is insufficient window between locking the move and tapping to safely avoid injury.

P.S. Where do you go?  I've just moved to the west-side and have the option between Gracie Barra & Rodrigo Vaghi.  Team Z isn't too far, but I don't want to drive if I don't have to.


P.P.S. For those of you who don't follow it much, St. Louis is and always has been a hotbed of MMA.  Matt Hughes, Robbie Lawler, Lance Benoist, Tyron Woodley, Ben Askren, and plenty more famous pro's lived and trained in the metro area.  We have an insane number of professional quality schools here.
 

Quote from: Two Crows on December 30, 2020, 05:45:43 PM

Absolutely NO ONE in MMA considers Bruce Lee to be the godfather of MMA.
Mentioning you practice JKD in MMA circles is almost certain to get you laughed at, and probably straight to your face. If not, then behind your back.  It is considered a "joke" art, along with Aikido, Kung Fu (any style), virtually all TKD, Pencak Silat, and many others.

I used to be an Aikido Shodan until about 10-12 years ago when I woke up one morning and realized it was bullshit, and my Sensai was probably going to get some 90lb chick hurt. So I chucked it.

There's a Krav Maga place in my city. I've toyed with the idea of signing up with them, but haven't found the motivation so far.

Feel free to message me privately with whatever city you are in.

I probably won't know anything about it, but I'll bet some of the more hardcore guys at the school will.  They should be able to give good suggestions on who is near you.  Or at least who to avoid.

(Not promising, I might ask about "Little Rock", for example, and get blank stares.)

I only know the greater St. Louis area personally.

Quote from: Two Crows on December 30, 2020, 08:09:28 PM
Western boxers still lead off the wrong foot even when throwing jabs.  No one can keep their feet with their weight distributed like that.

Look at what happened to Tooney.  Boxing world champ at 4 weight divisions (including heavyweight) in his career, with a record of 72-6.  He could not keep his feet for 60 seconds against a 47 year old who clearly at the end of his MMA career.

As for the broken hands, do you know of any boxer who has been able to fight untaped and ungloved without hand injuries? 

I also wouldn't use Machida as a justification for a style.  One guy who had some success over a decade ago is an exception.  If Karate worked, there should be plenty of people using it effectively.  Same for all the other arts mentioned.  Even PRIDE, Pancrase, ONE, Dream, and on and on, in the homeland of Karate, and no real representation there.  Same goes for Wing Chun.  One guy somewhere who teaches it doesn't make it an effective approach.

Chinese styles are terrible. China has it's own leagues because their fighters are getting stomped everywhere they try to go. 

Heel Hooks and Ankle locks have always been around.  They are banned because their is insufficient window between locking the move and tapping to safely avoid injury.

P.S. Where do you go?  I've just moved to the west-side and have the option between Gracie Barra & Rodrigo Vaghi.  Team Z isn't too far, but I don't want to drive if I don't have to.


P.P.S. For those of you who don't follow it much, St. Louis is and always has been a hotbed of MMA.  Matt Hughes, Robbie Lawler, Lance Benoist, Tyron Woodley, Ben Askren, and plenty more famous pro's lived and trained in the metro area.  We have an insane number of professional quality schools here.

To be honest I'm having a hard time understanding what you mean when you say they lead off the wrong foot when jabbing?

Toney wasn't exactly a prime specimen either in that fight. He had been retired from boxing after a long decline which had seen him getting stopped by nobodies, and had ended up at heavyweight despite the fact that he had always been a natural middleweight. He was a fat old shell of a fighter. His boxing ability didn't cost him the fight, it was the fact that he had never grappled a day in his life.

For a more interesting example you should watch Ray Mercer vs Tim Sylvia. When they fought Mercer had been fat and washed up for ages, and Sylvia wasn't that long off his last UFC title fight, Mercer knocked him out seconds in to the first round. Or if your interested in kickboxing vs boxing watch Francis Botha vs Peter Aerts or Jerome Le Banner.

With the Machida thing, I think you're missing what I'm saying. I'm not saying that Machida makes all Karate good, I'm saying that Machida is proof that it can be fixed with the proper training methodology. The issue with arts like them isn't that the arts are useless, it's that they are trained in a sub-optimal fashion. What do all the most common effective arts have in common? They share incredibly similar training methods, drilling with resistance, sparring, conditioning, etc. You can apply those training methods to any art and dramatically improve quality, the problem is that traditional arts have been divorced from fighting for generations and there is little interest in those communities in fixing the problem despite the blue print being out there.

I used to train at West Side MMA under Roli Delgado, though at the time I was at their Benton gym under Kevin or Mark Sniff, I don't recall which it's been a minute. These days I box, I train with my father and brothers, my old man was a high level amateur boxer with multiple state and regional tournament wins and occasionally sparring partner for some 80's contenders. He was 151-6 when he hung it up.

If there is a father of MMA it's Gene Labell. 

Quote from: myleftnut on December 30, 2020, 10:11:08 PM
If there is a father of MMA it's Gene Labell.

No.

Gene Lebell was an enforcer.

He was basically a mafia hitman with no gun.

Nobody wanted any Gene LeBell action ... kind of like Fedor in his prime.  If he showed up, you f#$cked up, and on some level, you knew it.

In all seriousness, the pro wrestling circuit did keep a man like that.  His name was Lou Thesz.

If the promoter said the "champ" had to lose the belt, and they refused to lose the match (under kayfabe), Thesz could be hired to come in and beat the sh!t out of the biggest, meanest face/heel the promotion had.  It was literally his whole career.  He was a "catch" wrestler (short for catch-as-catch-can), or hooker for short.

No joke.

Not hooker as in "lady of the evening", but "hooker" as Fish Hook.  Planting your index finger into someone's cheek where the top and bottom lip meet ... and pulling back like a fish on a hook.

Like this:



In other words, Lou would beat you and hurt you until you agreed to whatever match outcome the promoter wanted.  No joke.

Lou grew up in the era where real "catch wrestling" (legit MMA) separated from Pro Wrestling (scripted entertainment).  His dad was the real thing.  He was too, but sold his services to the entertainment side (that is where the money was).

Guess where?  St. Louis.  This is where Thesz learned to utilize the guard against larger men.

Thesz trained and fought in Judo.  He actually was part of an ongoing battle with a prominent Judo school.  He lost against the best the world had to offer in his time, but he was still good enough to beat the crap out of the entertainers Pro Wrestling was offering in his day.  He was, rightfully, a feared man.

Lou last defeated one of these large, muscle-bound, entertainers in a real match at the age of 62.

One of Lou's students defeated RENZO GRACIE (of the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu family) in a MMA match. 

Outside of Ed Lewis, Lou was probably the most skilled fighter to participate in "Pro Wrestling", and yes, I'm including Ken Shamrock & Don Frye in that description.


Oh, and mentioning Ed Lewis, other than Lou Thesz, his most famous student was ....

Gene LeBell.

Quote from: Arkansan on December 30, 2020, 09:31:16 PMThese days I box, I train with my father and brothers, my old man was a high level amateur boxer with multiple state and regional tournament wins and occasionally sparring partner for some 80's contenders. He was 151-6 when he hung it up.

I won't knowingly criticize anything to do with parents or family.

I apologize, please ignore me.


P.S. 151 - 6 is awesome, under any circumstances.  I wish I could ever be close to that good.  Seriously.  We all like to think we could be champs, but that kind of record shows he put up again, and again, again.  That isn't luck.  My respect.

Quote from: Two Crows on December 30, 2020, 09:10:13 PM
Feel free to message me privately with whatever city you are in.

I probably won't know anything about it, but I'll bet some of the more hardcore guys at the school will.  They should be able to give good suggestions on who is near you.  Or at least who to avoid.

(Not promising, I might ask about "Little Rock", for example, and get blank stares.)

I only know the greater St. Louis area personally.

Actually, yeah... I'm in Little Rock.