thread: 2006-01-17 : Hurt and Abandonment
On 2006-01-18, xenopulse wrote:
While I like the "fiction for mindless fun/fiction for being touched" analogy, I prefer Tony's reference to Martial Arts (as visible in the salute section of BH). I've been a Martial Artist for ten years now, and I happen to study a "street fighting" style (i.e., aggressive self defense style, as opposed to defensive self defense or tournament or traditional or wellness styles). There are plenty of people there who train to be better at defending themselves. They need to train To The Pain or even further, because that's what helps you when you get into a real fight. Once the shit hits the fan, if you've never been hurt and get socked for the first time when it counts, you're done.
However, there are plenty of people who have other reasons for training. They see it as motivated whole-body exercise (and MA works very well for that), or they train to improve their self-esteem, or to compete in kata tournaments, or whatever. And those people don't want to take it past the point of comfort. In fact, what they get out of pushing past the comfort zone is not worth the risk of getting seriously injured, which going past NGH always involves.
I think this applies to roleplaying games. It's not necessarily a distinction between "just fun" and "meaningful art" or something like that. It's different goals and foci, all equally valid, and some of them don't need and don't benefit from the risk of going past NGH.
Sure you can call them wimpy, in the same way some people in my MA classes call people who don't do street sparring to the pain wimps. But the ones who make such judgments are usually the lower-belt, unhumbled students who don't understand the diverse paths of Martial Arts yet.
- Christian
This makes BR go "I remember when I told my friends about being choked out..."
In my old dojo once you got to greenbelt level you'd have a time where you would, under careful and controled circumstances, be choked unconcious. This was because if you're going to ever use the stuff we're learning in the classes you have to be ready for that to happen in a real fight. Now, when I told all my non-"streetfighting martial artists" friends about this they were horrified beyond words. My mother in laws statement about it was "I'd quit before I ever let anyone do that to me or anyone else!" I tried to explain, but it was to no avail.
This makes XP go "Yeah"
I know exactly what you mean.
