[ Posted by Janka
Tue, 19 Jan 2010 13:58:58 GMT ]
The Capo Ferro project being over, I made a page with links to all those posts in order, mostly for future reference for myself. Not that I mind if it is useful for others.
To finish, here are the words of the philosopher John Locke, born in 1632 (two decades after Capo Ferro's treatise), on whether fencing should be taught to young gentlemen (Some thoughts concerning education, 1693).
As for fencing, it seems to me a good exercise for health, but dangerous to the life; the confidence of their skill being apt to engage in quarrels those that think they have learned to use their swords. This presumption makes them often more touchy than needs on point of honour and slight or no provocations. Young men, in their warm blood, are forward to think they have in vain learned to fence, if they never shew their skill and courage in a duel; and they seem to have reason. But how many sad tragedies that reason has been the occasion of, the tears of many a mother can witness. A man that cannot fence, will be more careful to keep out of bullies’ and gamesters’ company, and will not be half so apt to stand upon punctilios, nor to give affronts, or fiercely justify them when given, which is that which usually makes the quarrel.
And when a man is in the field, a moderate skill in fencing rather exposes him to the sword of his enemy than secures him from it. And certainly a man of courage who cannot fence at all and therefore will put all upon one thrust and not stand parrying, has the odds against a moderate fencer, especially if he has skill in wrestling. And therefore, if any provision be to be made against such accidents, and a man be to prepare his son for duels, I had much rather mine should be a good wrestler than an ordinary fencer, which is the most a gentleman can attain to in it, unless he will be constantly in the fencing-school and every day exercising.
But since fencing and riding the great horse are so generally looked upon as necessary qualifications in the breeding of a gentleman, it will be hard wholly to deny any one of that rank these marks of distinction. I shall leave it therefore to the father to consider, how far the temper of his son and the station he is like to be in, will allow or encourage him to comply with fashions which, having very little to do with civil life, were yet formerly unknown to the most warlike nations, and seem to have added little of force or courage to those who have received them; unless we will think martial skill or prowess have been improved by duelling, with which fencing came into, and with which I presume it will go out of the world.
Posted in Plain English | Tags training | no comments
[ Posted by Janka
Mon, 18 Jan 2010 20:00:38 GMT ]
There, we have a new theme. A bit late, because I managed to misplace the note to myself that I wanted to change over New Year.
I have a couple of ideas what to write about now that the CF stuff is over, but for a couple of weeks at least I think you will get random observations of life, if anything.
Stay tuned. Assuming someone still is tuned after that swordsmanship flood.
Re: swordsmanship, here's an observation for you all. (A total butchering of terminology follows. You have been warned.) With rapiers, you can always counterattack in seconda. After all, a scannatura is nothing much but a "semicircular parry" (to use smallsword terminology) and an attack in single-tempo. Hence, if he attacks on your outside, you can parry with your point high and riposte in single tempo normally ("counter-attack"); if he attacks on your inside, you can parry with your point low and riposte in a single tempo ("scannatura").
Posted in Plain English | Tags meta, training | no comments
[ Posted by Janka
Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:37:20 GMT ]
I had the most interesting rapier private class this morning. I mentioned to The Guy that I lately find it difficult to remember drills in class, and that this seems to be specific to rapier - I have no memory trouble elsewhere. I can remember fencing sequences if I can remember the logic of my part ("he does something and then I do the thing that makes sense and has a disengage in it"), but I cannot recite an exercise that was just given or even one that I just did and if my partner does something unexpected (for example, when parrying opens the line so far that the change of line I am supposed to do does not make sense anymore) I just completely lose track. I have not had this problem before. I actually consider myself fairly good at remembering choreography.
The Guy says that this is because so far, I have managed to "fake" remembering fencing by remembering it as choreography, but what you need to remember for fencing is not so much a sequence but a decision tree, or a particular path down one. In tech talk (which he did not use that exactly, though he said the same thing) I can execute each node of the tree if it is presented to me, and I can bias my natural reactions to something the instructor wants from each node, but I am memoryless as to previous or upcoming states.
Apparently to fence well you do not need the memory, as such. You just need to have a good tree, and to execute the nodes very well. Unfortunately, to really get better at fencing freeplay, you need the ability to analyze a fight after it happens, and to figure out where exactly your tree and/or a specific node is screwed up, and fix that by training. (Or have a coach do that for you. Which in this context is not the complete solution. And would be more boring anyway.)
The funny thing, especially coming after the previous entry about parallels of adrenaline between EVE and fencing, is that in the computer game, I have also spent the past couple of years as a great promoter of "AARs", after action reports, as in, people explicating after losses to themselves and to others 1) what did they do, 2) what did the opponent do, 3) what lead to the loss, and 4) how could that be changed.
It is not an easy thing to analyze afterwards what happened in an adrenaline filled 90 seconds or so. One of my least favourite parts of the game probably is digging into the adrenaline-covered mush of half-recollections of a humiliating loss to figure out what exactly was I doing right before that Taranis appeared from apparently nothing to 5 km from my position and proceeded to transform my pretty ship into pretty splinters. But since interceptors generally do not appear from nothing to next to jammers at range, whatever I was doing was what kept my attention away from the overview that would have showed me the interceptor closing in. And so, to fix the problem, I need to remember that.
Luckily, one of my most favorite things is when something happens where I can immediately afterwards "see" the fight as it happened, see what lead to what, see how I was tricked, and see how to fix that next time. Traps and tactics are beautiful, and it does not really matter which party executes them. When that happens, AARs are actually fun to do: "I tried this, it sucked because of that. Note to self: in a jammer ship in a non-critical situation, align before engaging." And I love reading other people's notes like that - it's quite useful not to have to do every mistake yourself.
With practice, I have found that the proportion of AARs that seem clear sequences of actions to me instead of a muddle of confusion has gone vastly up. By trying to describe the undescribable you build awareness, understanding, and, slowly, a "vocabulary" with which to really describe actions and counteractions. When you start to have "Your Own Battleplan" in your head with some clarity, remembering which nodes in it actually activated in this or that fight becomes much easier.
Let that be a comfort to me when I struggle to change my answer to "What did he do that made you come forward and attack?" from "The... uh... the blade contact... you know how it changes?" to "His step forward gave me his debole and the time to take it."
In other fencing news, past week I have found myself actually eager to freeplay, instead of slightly dreading the inevitable day of getting back to it. I'm holding myself back a bit still, but not for long.
Posted in Plain English | Tags EVE online, training | 1 comment
[ Posted by Janka
Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:56:00 GMT ]
And now for something completely different.
We often talk about a "fight or flight" reaction, but the truth is that instead of either, most people freeze when something sudden and threatening happens. There are a lot of reasons for why they freeze, and a lot of theories about what exactly goes on and why did evolution lead us to something that seems so borked a reaction, too, in case you are interested. This post is about my experiences in teaching people how to stop doing so in a particular situation.
Situation is this. In the computer game EVE Online, players often participate in player-vs-player combat against other players. While obviously not a real threat in the sense of someone actually risking getting injured or killed, it is nevertheless a fairly intense simulation of a threat -- enough to absolutely give you an adrenaline rush. (To be honest, most people who do that combat probably do it for the rush.) Part of that reality is that combat in EVE is far from consensual: you can be attacked without you signing up for player-versus-player action. Part of it is that losses actually hurt and set you back in the game. Part of it is that you more often than not function as a part of the group, and failing to perform is failing your team mates. Part of it is that in EVE, reputation is everything, and so every engagement threatens your status and your very identity as a player.
A lot of people who try player-vs-player combat freeze in their first fights. They learn all the wrong things from the experience: that they "cannot do pvp", "do not like the adrenaline", and "cannot think fast enough under pressure". The last one is true, but it is not a problem - no one can. The first two practically always turn out to be untrue.
For about a year, I ran a "combat rookie class" for players in my in-game organization, aimed at people who had done no or very little combat in the game. My hunch from those classes is that about 9 in 10 people freeze under a new, threatening situation even when the situation is not about life and death. In any case, about 90 percent of people freeze in EVE when shooting starts, and talking to the 1 in 10 that don't, they seemed to have similar experiences from real life. (In a situation actually about life and death, the percentage is probably higher, if not 100 percent.)
However, with very short amount of instruction, 8 out of those 9 perform perfectly adequately in a game fight. With just a couple of engagements behind them they actually start to clearly outperform the hotheads without the tendency to freeze. They also report loving "the rush". (Only about 2 out of 10 will become absolutely brilliant combatants -- but that's a matter for another post.)
How does this happen?
The first bit of instruction is to tell people that with only rare exceptions, everybody freezes. Freezing under threat is not a sign that you cannot deal with adrenaline, it is a sign that you belong to the human race. Some people freeze easier than others, but my guess is that any sane person freezes if the threat is real and sudden enough. Adrenaline is a double-edged sword. It can help you to execute a plan in a clearer, faster, more effective way. It can also completely stop your brain from working and completely remove that plan from your mind. One thing that makes all the difference in which it does for you is breathing.
When surprised and scared, the natural reaction for most people is to draw a sudden breath -- and then hold it. When you hold your breath, your brains get less oxygen, and your heart rate keeps on climbing, and your ability to act sensibly goes down fast. The first thing to do when about to panic is to take a deep breath, and then keep on breathing. Get that oxygen into your brain and muscles, and the adrenaline is much likelier to be your friend instead of your enemy. In games or sports, and in a real life situation where you can do so without anyone dying, it is a good idea to spend some time getting your breathing right before trying to do more. To begin with, count it if you have to: in-2-3-4, hold-2-3-4, out-2-3-4. With experience, the first deep breath will trigger the correct breathing.
The second crucial bit of instruction is that the human mind is simply not able to make up new plans for fast-evolving situations when the adrenaline is already pumping and the damage is coming in. (Not even when the damage is to an interweb spaceship - much less, I assume, when the damage is to your physical body.) We think too slow for that, and adrenaline tends to slower that sort of thinking even further. The people who look like they are thinking fast in a situation are actually simply executing an elaborate set of conditioned reflexes and premeditated rules of thumb.
You cannot take that elaborate set and hope to start executing it yourself without experience. Even if the people would be able to explicate it, which they in the vast majority of cases are not, and you would be able to memorize it, without experience you would not be able to recall it in the situation. You would simply freeze, having too many options.
The way to overcome this is something I call "Your Own Battleplan". I advice people to make a very, very simple plan before a combat operation for to execute in case of an engagement. Maximum three steps, each step consisting of one basic action. (For those in the know, I suggest something like "1) orbit the primary, 2) target the primary, 3) engage scrambler" for rookies in frigates.) When shooting starts, your job is to, first, remember to breath, and second, perform the first step of your battleplan. That's all. Don't even try and think further, to begin with.
Once you get that down, add the second step. Once you get that down, add the third. Once you manage all that in an actual engagament, revise your battleplan. At some point, add an "if this happens, I'll do this, otherwise I'll do that" condition there, see if you can pull that off. Add a get-the-fuck-out maneuver that you execute if you need to GTFO, and then see if you can switch plans from "fight" to "flee" with an adequate trigger. After each engagement, go through what happened, what you did, did it work, could you have been more efficient. Keep on adding rules of thumb and more complications (for those in the know: for example, guns, drones, e-war, transversal, switching ammo, etc -- these are all "complications"). Very soon you will be one of those guys the rookies believe can actually plan in a situation.
That's all there is to it, really. Remember to breath. Make plans beforehand, execute them on reflex. Teach people those two things, and they won't freeze anymore -- that is, until they end up in a new, surprising situation. Or take up a new role. Then, unfortunately, it all starts again. In my experience, the "when frozen, breath" reflex tends to transfer over - from EVE to swordsmanship, say. The battleplan, obviously, needs to be different for each context, and you pretty much need to start from the three-step trivial plan for each new one. (My current EVE one has at least a couple of tens of rules of thumb and if/elses. My fencing one is "when confused, attack". I am working up to "when confused, close the line and attack". Yay for complicated...)
So, why do these folks outperform the 1 in 10 who does not freeze? Because the people who freeze know on a very profound gut level that they have to think beforehand, or it will all be screwed. The people who do not freeze often believe that they can think in the situation, so they do not make simple plans. Instead they either execute the first thing that pops into their mind in a situation, or try to memorize complex battleplans and in the adrenaline rush get them wrong. Often they do this repeatedly, without accepting the fact that what they are doing is simply not working. They feel it "should have worked" and that "next time, they'll try something else". But when next time comes, the adrenaline again kicks in, and they cannot figure out what the "something else" should be, and either repeat the same stupid thing, or do another stupid thing.
How much of this would transfer to a situation of real life physical violence? I have no idea, and I hope I will never find out.
Posted in Plain English | Tags EVE online, training | 14 comments
[ Posted by Janka
Thu, 17 Sep 2009 10:05:38 GMT ]
I will now undertake a project to read through Capo Ferro’s treatise “The Great Simulacrum of the Art and Use of Fencing”, from 1610. Not speaking any Italian, let alone 17th Century so, beyond random fencing terms, and not wanting to take the time to learn much now, I will use the translation by Jherek Swanger and William E. Wilson, available here in PDF. The translation does not include figures, but the ARMA facsimile has them.
(I have compiled the translation and pictures into a single PDF file formatted for my Sony PRS-505 reader, but before distributing it I need to obtain permission from Swanger & Wilson.)
To facilitate my learning, there will follow on this blog a series of posts, partly probably informative but more likely mostly hilariously embarrassing and irreverent, of my paraphrasings and WTFs about said manuscript, starting now and lasting for a couple of months. Apologies to the readers who find this utterly boring. For those who understand the inherent and utter coolness of 17th Century rapier, I take absolutely no responsibility whatsoever on any injury (on bodies, minds, pride or otherwise) of people who happen to read this and decide to act based on anything that I say. I have dabbled in the art and I am taking lessons while I read, but hell if I have any real clue what I am talking about.
To first get some idea of what I am doing here, the manuscript is organized as follows:
- 2 introductory chapters, one to some duke dude and one to the reader
- 13 chapters on the “art” of fencing, each divided into numbered paragraphs
- an introductory chapter to the “use” of fencing
- 2 general chapters about the use of fencing, again divided into numbered paragraphs
- 42 “plates”, each consisting of a picture of two figures in action and a chapter of text explaining the exchange of actions depicted
- 2 additional chapters (one on cuts, one on “a sure way to defend oneself”)
Click the “paraphrasing Capo Ferro” tag to see all entries so far.
Posted in Plain English | Tags paraphrasing Capo Ferro, training | no comments
[ Posted by Janka
Fri, 20 Mar 2009 14:44:35 GMT ]
About a year ago I sold my soul (for that year) and bought a membership to a local gym on my commute route. I figured I had a busy year ahead of me and as making it to dance or swords classes had consistently failed, I had better invent something to keep me somewhat in shape.
It worked, somewhat. The ability to just go and do it, for 30-60 minutes at a time, did keep me remotely functional through some weeks. Turns out that my mantra “I cannot do exercise simply for exercise” is not really true. The probability that I skip going to the gym when tired is about equal to the probability I skip a physical art class: practically zero when I am in a good mental shape, practically one when I am dead tired. I might be more bored while running at the gym than when figuring out the intricate relationship between a counter-attack and a parry-riposte, but that’s a different matter altogether.
Yesterday I canceled the membership. Not because I did not like the gym or because it did not work, but as part of my efforts to de-clutter my life, mentally and economically. There are rapiers, forests, and push-ups in my life—I do not need a gym to stay in minimal shape, and I have better uses for the money.
Official Janka recommendation about gym memberships: recommended for rich and busy people who want to have an easy way of getting in some exercise with limited time and without having to think about it at all, or for people who actually happen to prefer going to say watching a movie or reading a book. Not recommended otherwise. Go take a walk instead.
Posted in Plain English | Tags training | 6 comments
[ Posted by Janka
Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:34:49 GMT ]
I was better at the salle yesterday than last week as far as concentration goes. I have no idea why exactly but I think the major part was not my “just trying to relax” but rather the classes’ serious attention to detail. I love attention to detail. I will be totally content and happy practicing basic steps or perfecting my lunge solo (or doing endless tendus or suryanamaskara A’s or headstands, for more hypothetical examples from the other arts I have dabbled in) if just given a detail to focus on. Give me a sequence or drill and tell me to repeat it without corrections or guidance and I will bore myself to death in three minutes. Partly explains, probably, why I suck so much at free training without close supervision.
Other than that, all I can say is that rapier simply rules. Longsword is sort of fun and it is nice to be back and all that and I very much like the longsword beginner class followed by an hour of free training rapier (as long as the supervision is there), but there’s something in a rapier that talks directly to me. It is the same same as with ballet: not as much the watching of it as the doing it. Even a pitiful attempt at doing something remotely resembling the true thing is like coming home.
When I was leaving the salle yesterday, Guy told me to stretch and was worried of my legs. I was a bit puzzled, until when at home I realized he assumed I would be sore from all those lunges and recoveries. Which I am not—a couple of years of ballet took care that even with fairly crappy condition now the bounce needed is there (the stability for a long lunge isn’t, sadly, but that too will come). Today, my legs are fine. It is my right arm that is killing me…
(Topic comes not from a new training practice in free fall, sadly, but from a spreading giggly fit along the line when Guy claimed that gravity brings a sword up. We all knew what he meant and it makes perfect sense. I remember being a beginner when lifting and lowering a sword was hard work. I daresay my arms are in no better condition now than they were then, but a basic cutting exercise is, well, a technical exercise, not so much work. But it was still hell of a funny thing to hear “gravity down, gravity up” repeatedly.)
Posted in Plain English | Tags training | no comments
[ Posted by Janka
Thu, 19 Feb 2009 17:18:59 GMT ]
Hello swordspeople, I’m baa-ack! Again.
Wednesdays being the only day of the week swords training is currently possible for me (a condition which lasts until the end of July), I asked and was given the permission to come bother the newbies by trying to match their confused attempts at the beginnings of the first drill with my even more confused ideas of how it should probably have gone a year or so back. For those of you who wonder about my sudden interest in Fiore basics, some guaranteed rapier during the following free training was offered as a lure by my gracious husband.
Note to self: do not resist locks by brute force, it hurts.
Another note to self: be ready to fall in any direction, not just the one the drill should take you if executed properly. It hurts less that way.
On a more serious note, I realized yesterday there is something sort of weird that contributes to my reluctance to go to swords classes when tired or feeling out of sorts—which of course is very often, these days, what with the PhD and clinic. This is how I perceive the usual atmosphere at the salle.
Don’t take me wrong. There is nothing wrong with the atmosphere. Quite the opposite, a friendlier bunch of people than the swordschool regulars would be difficult to find. People are practically always courteous, cheerful, laid-back, and very helpful. Looking down at people with less skill or experience than you or any other sort of disrespect to fellow scholars is not tolerated. Idiocy of any kind, and especially of the macho martial (“budo idiot”) kind, is rare to begin with and when it occurs it usually quickly realizes the place is not for them. The whole place is very energetic—you can feel that the people love their art, and enjoy what they are doing. I don’t remember when last I’d have heard a teacher lose patience when they have to correct someone for the eleven-hundredth time on the same thing, and there’s jokes and laughter as much as there’s push-ups for dropped weapons. These are all good things.
But there’s something about this upbeat, cheerful atmosphere that is tiring for me, especially when I am already tired to begin with. Instead of helping make me calm and concentrated on the art, it makes me hyped-up and excited. There is nothing wrong as such about excited—hell, swords are cool, if you are not excited about them you probably should not be at the class to begin with. But this “winding up” my energy level seriously shortens my attention span and ability to “just do it” and tires me out, which leads to the reluctance to go when not feeling on the top of the world. Also, hyped-up and tired is a bad combination for learning and exercise, as anyone who has tried to fix lack of sleep by overdosing on caffeine should know. It is an especially bad combination when you work with weapons that are potentially deadly, even when blunt.
In fact, the hyped-up effect very much feels like caffeine OD. Funny.
The effect, for some reason, is less during weekend courses. I think that is partly due to the likelihood of me being dead tired on a weekend being significantly lower, but I think it is also partly the classes themselves.
Any possible solutions welcome, in any case any more complex than “just try and relax”. That one I figured out myself as soon as I figured the effect exists, thank you very much. We will see how much that helps—but my suspicion, knowing myself, is that the more tired I am, the harder it will be to resist going with it.
Posted in Plain English | Tags training | 1 comment
[ Posted by Janka
Thu, 27 Nov 2008 18:44:06 GMT ]
Today at the gym in a group conditioning class I realized that I have learned something more than steps and movement in dance class. I have learned to not get immediately frustrated if I cannot get choreography, and with choreography I mean any sequence of movements to be executed in a particular order.
I think this was evident at my latest short-lived attempt at re-entry to swordsmanship, too, but I only realized today. When I don’t get the set steps, instead of getting fussy and cranky, I am able to stop, despite everyone else moving around me and doing it with apparent ease and grace, and to watch either the guy demonstrating or someone who looks like they know what they are doing, and then try it again. And again. And again. I also think, though I did not get to try it today, that I have developed the ability to get a giggly fit at the side of the salle instead of going nuts if I do not get it after the fifth try.
I don’t know where this comes from, but I suspect part of it is self-confidence. I know that I have the ability to learn complex choreography and that eventually, I will get it.
(Note to swordsmen: I am already plotting my next attempt at re-entry. You are not rid of me yet.)
Posted in Plain English | Tags training | 1 comment
[ Posted by Janka
Wed, 15 Oct 2008 11:07:25 GMT ]
Ilkka asked us to write of his Bolognese sidesword seminar / teaching exam on Sunday. My singing your praises as I am about to do will most likely embarrass you, Ilkka, but just remember you asked. I think the “If he doesn’t pass you will be a widow soon”, said (in joking, but with feeling) to the examiner’s wife after the seminar while the board was talking to the candidate, very accurately sums up the feelings of the students present.
I had never done sidesword before (that I remember). I think I have held one once or twice. When practiced by others, it mostly looks silly to me. No offense, but it does. Or, rather, I should have said that it used to look silly to me. I think after the seminar, having grasped the basic concepts, it actually might look somewhat sensible.
Ilkka put a lot of emphasis on natural movement and position, which was good, though I have to point out I yet have to meet a physical art instructor who means anything natural by “natural”. Ilkka comes closest so far, though. He presented the basics clearly and understandably and moved us very quickly through the basic stance to doing the first solo form of strikes and steps, and after that to pair exercises of several defenses against an attack, and ways to attack safely and keep yourself safe after. Without knowing a thing about it, I was at least fooled into thinking I got a comprehensive picture of what this style is about. (In personal summary: definitely more my thing than the damned Fiore longsword that is the bane of my existence, but as to whether I’d rather have a rapier class or a sidesword one, sorry, there’s still no competition whatsoever.)
Ilkka did an absolutely brilliant job making it clear what technique came from which source, where the sources differ, and what was actually documented and what was his interpretation. He answered questions confidently, but also did not get flustered at all by being asked questions he did not know answers for, but simply answered “I do not know – yet” or so, and kept on teaching. There was no arrogance whatsoever, no airs of expertise, no detectable defensiveness about having to “prove” himself. Very obviously, he loves his art and he loves sharing it. In my experience, that kind of ease and comfort with and in himself, confident knowledge of his stuff, and open readiness to share what he knows, are an extremely rare combination in all fields, and something to really be admired. True masters are made out of good persons, and this man is on the way.
I was worried about the pace of the class at first, but it seems there too he knew what he was doing. I am not sure of the real total beginners, but as what can be best described as an aspiring re-beginner I had no difficulties following what he wanted us to do and executing the exercises (and only the expected amount of difficulties in doing them well). For the whole seminar, I only once found myself in a situation where I was completely unable to figure out how to do the technique so that it has even a remote chance of working, and that got sorted fast by Ilkka coming over and showing it again to me and my equally clueless partner. This was totally awesome, especially in a class I felt was moving fast: for reference, such cluelessness usually happens to me two to four times in a normal 2-hour class. Of course the material was basic and most people had experience in other styles, but still.
By no failing of the teacher, I ran a bit into my usual failing of obsession with details. It is not a problem for me to do a movement if I do not get every detail right (if it was, I could never have learned dance, or swordsmanship, or anything, as I also have less than stellar general body co-ordination). It is, however, a problem for me if I do not know the details. In this case, we went through the basic cuts so fast that I was left puzzled about how exactly I should have held my hand in certain positions (palm facing up or down? wrist totally straight or bent?). This should not have stopped me from just practicing the overall movements, since it was unlikely I’d get the detail right anyway regardless of whether I knew it or not, but it still almost did. I am shy of asking technical questions I know are way beyond what I can physically execute yet, so I mostly worked it out by watching people in class I knew had done it before.
**
On Monday, there was time for more swordsmen, though this time imaginary such, as our brave party of adventurers, assuredly good guys despite that little incident of a midnight slaughter-them-all surprise attack with a demon horde on a totally unsuspecting and probably innocent exploration party, continued the exploration of a mysterious manse in Orava’s Exalted campaign. I of course mention this mostly because I love the title of the entry, but I have meant to blog about that shortly anyway, for some time.
I have to say I did not have high hopes for Exalted when the campaign started. I am not into complicated rules systems, I am not into flashy superpowers, I am not into high fantasy in RPGs, I am not into meters high stacks of supplements… So no, Exalted did not sound like my thing. I promised to play because the group sounded brilliantly good, and because living with the GM ensures I get my RP fix without having to drag myself to places much.
The game is much better than I expected. The rules are understandable even when complicated, and they have been smoothed out pretty well (and where they aren’t, the GM brings in house rules to fix it). They actually make combat *resolution fun, instead of the previous best performance of some systems that make having randomized combat results fun. Awesome feat. The world is vast and fun and alive and being at the power-level of minor gods actually works out pretty well and, thankfully, contrary to what was advertised does not get totally overboard cheesy all the time.
The group really is good. Of course that probably affects it a lot, but I’d still give the game some points too.
Posted in Plain English | Tags Exalted, roolipelit, sidesword, training | 2 comments
