A Game of Supers (The Gamer/Original Superhero Setting)

[Trondason]

Both, Just because your better than non existent, doesn't make it suddenly not worthless,
MA are only useful against Unarmed opponents but in most situations you won't be facing unarmed opponents and a knife makes all your skill pretty much garbage.
A punch or knee or kick doesn't hurt as much as a blade through your arm or chest. So the MA has to be perfect and not even have ONE mistake, and the opponent CANNOT get lucky or they lose no matter how skilled

Edit: this is still so far from my original point its not funny, The only way a MA can beat one person with a knife is Luck and at least a fair amount of skill, to beat more than one but less than 5 is starting to get Super human

Click to shrink...

By definition being better it's not worthless. Worthless means it is without worth, it does not contribute anything of value, it does not change the situation in any way one might consider good. If something is better, it HAS to have worth, slightly more than the alternative.

It's not really that far from your origional point. It can either be Worthless, or Useful. They are mutually exclusive, and if it's not useful they would not teach it to a Soldier. Better dedicate the time to skills more likely to save them, like running more laps so as to have a slightly better chance at getting away.

Now, if you accept the fact that it DOES have Worth, enough that the Military think it's worthwhile of spending several dozen(?) hours on it during their jam-packed training schedule, as opposed to literally anything else, then it's a matter of scaling. By definition, level 15 of Muay Thai had us roughly on level with that of a soldier who tends ot use it. 16, we were near master level and comparable to the soliders who were considered especially skilled in it. That one level increase went from "Passable as far as Soldiers are concerned" to "Pretty darn skilled". And we have 4 more to go.

 

[Ghostdevil]

By definition being better it's not worthless. Worthless means it is without worth, it does not contribute anything of value, it does not change the situation in any way one might consider good. If something is better, it HAS to have worth, slightly more than the alternative.

It's not really that far from your origional point. It can either be Worthless, or Useful. They are mutually exclusive, and if it's not useful they would not teach it to a Soldier. Better dedicate the time to skills more likely to save them, like running more laps so as to have a slightly better chance at getting away.

Now, if you accept the fact that it DOES have Worth, enough that the Military think it's worthwhile of spending several dozen(?) hours on it during their jam-packed training schedule, as opposed to literally anything else, then it's a matter of scaling. By definition, level 15 of Muay Thai had us roughly on level with that of a soldier who tends ot use it. 16, we were near master level and comparable to the soliders who were considered especially skilled in it. That one level increase went from "Passable as far as Soldiers are concerned" to "Pretty darn skilled". And we have 4 more to go.

Click to shrink...

I think were talking pass eachother, REAL LIFE martial arts are worthless against WEAPONS, taught because knowing how to fight at least gives you some CHANCE of maybe surviving, its not 100% worthless just 99%
In fact LUCK has more worth than hand to knife combat let alone when guns get involved.
In most situations HtH is completely worthless, their trained anyways that on the off chance that lady luck is on their side they can use it to survive.

 

[Trondason]

I think were talking pass eachother, REAL LIFE martial arts are worthless against WEAPONS, taught because knowing how to fight at least gives you some CHANCE of maybe surviving, its not 100% worthless just 99%
In fact LUCK has more worth than hand to knife combat let alone when guns get involved.

Click to shrink...

If it's not 100% worthless, it's not worthless. It's ALMOST worthless, but it is not in fact worthless.
I know we are talking about Real Life MA, what I'm trying to get that one does not need SUPERNATURAL skill, just LUDICROUS amounts. Possible, if far from likely. It is considered worthwhile enough that it's worth spending time on that rather than more gun time, or more running time, or something. I'd personally guess it's only 90% worthless, because of all the stuff the Military can train their recruits in, it's hard to believe they would waste time on anything less useful than that. But anyways, Soldiers are SKILLED at it, but they are far from masters. They have far too many other skills to learn and maintain in order to reach complete mastery and become members of the top 10, let alone reach the very peak of human condition.
You truely believe that, in all of history, of every single person who has dedicated their entire life to training to fight and to learn how to handle weapon attacks, there has never been a single person who could handle 5 louts with knives? Not even saying he has to handle them unscathed, just handle them without being maimed.

Of course, Luck plays a large part, but it does in everything. We don't have any Luck Powers, so we have to make do without.

 

[Ghostdevil]

If it's not 100% worthless, it's not worthless. It's ALMOST worthless, but it is not in fact worthless.
I know we are talking about Real Life MA, what I'm trying to get that one does not need SUPERNATURAL skill, just LUDICROUS amounts. Possible, if far from likely. It is considered worthwhile enough that it's worth spending time on that rather than more gun time, or more running time, or something. I'd personally guess it's only 90% worthless, because of all the stuff the Military can train their recruits in, it's hard to believe they would waste time on anything less useful than that. But anyways, Soldiers are SKILLED at it, but they are far from masters. They have far too many other skills to learn and maintain in order to reach complete mastery and become members of the top 10, let alone reach the very peak of human condition.
You truely believe that, in all of history, of every single person who has dedicated their entire life to training to fight and to learn how to handle weapon attacks, there has never been a single person who could handle 5 louts with knives? Not even saying he has to handle them unscathed, just handle them without being maimed.

Of course, Luck plays a large part, but it does in everything. We don't have any Luck Powers, so we have to make do without.

Click to shrink...

Look, Just give me examples Of Martial Arts being useful against weapons and we can call it a day, Show me an example of a single person handling three people with weapons and i'll concede that maybe Martial Arts are not pretty much useless in a real life context

 

[unwashed heathen]

Would picking up a skill like "Fitness" or "Exercise" increase our base physical quality? That seems more important than picking up another martial art honestly. I'm sure all the training has made Iara pretty fit but an athletic 14 year old girl still doesn't punch very hard no matter how skilled she is. If that's not an option picking up Marksmanship would be more useful than another martial art. There are a lot of complications involved with acquiring a gun and finding a place to practice, but we could probably get by during the earlier levels with a Paintball or BB gun.

Another skill that could come in handy is "Throwing". Throwing knives or darts are easy to find and it's a skill that would be very useful even if we end up getting guns in the future. It gives us a ranged option before we have firearms, and after having firearms it would still be useful as a silent ranged attack or to use hidden/poisoned weapons.

 

[Trondason]

Look, Just give me examples Of Martial Arts being useful against weapons and we can call it a day, Show me an example of a single person handling three people with weapons and i'll concede that maybe Martial Arts are not pretty much useless in a real life context

Click to shrink...

I can't even find a single person being attacked by three people, period. Videos of real-life weapon fights usually don't become that popular, being graphic and what not, and we are talking about such a SMALL percentage of the population who would be this skilled. 1 in a billion might be accurate. I can give you a news report of 1 guy with a knife getting KOed, but I have a feeling that won't cut it.

Maybe YOU can give me a detailed reason why the Military dedicates a fair chunk of their time on something that, in your estimate, is as useful as wishing on a rabbit's foot? Why don't they spend that time on things that aren't nearly worthless? Or, hell, maybe tell me why Martial Arts even a thing. Why doesn't every goon carry a knife, making the formation of such fighting techniques literally pointless? After all, knives aren't hard to get. They haven't been for a long time. Why did anyone ever learn to punch fancy when a knife is far easier and more effective?

 

[Ghostdevil]

I can't even find a single person being attacked by three people, period. Videos of real-life weapon fights usually don't become that popular, being graphic and what not, and we are talking about such a SMALL percentage of the population who would be this skilled. 1 in a billion might be accurate. I can give you a news report of 1 guy with a knife getting KOed, but I have a feeling that won't cut it.

Maybe YOU can give me a detailed reason why the Military dedicates a fair chunk of their time on something that, in your estimate, is as useful as wishing on a rabbit's foot? Why don't they spend that time on things that aren't nearly worthless? Or, hell, maybe tell me why Martial Arts even a thing. Why doesn't every goon carry a knife, making the formation of such fighting techniques literally pointless? After all, knives aren't hard to get. They haven't been for a long time. Why did anyone ever learn to punch fancy when a knife is far easier and more effective?

Click to shrink...

Martial arts originated from Japan and China (basically the Asian countries mostly) at least the most popular MAs, both of whom had Problems with WEAPONS, they had Low quality metals (Which is why the Katana is done the way it is) so they had an EXTREME need for weapons but FAR less supply, so they created martial arts.
And Every Goon DOES carry a knife, Every single person in the military is issued a knife, Hand to Hand combat is literally the last resort, its taught so that instead of lying down and dying they can at least ATTEMPT to resist, but at that point its mostly futile in least their lucky.

Edit: Basically MAs are MAYBE of use versus ONE person (No gun) but any more and its over.

 

[Trondason]

Martial arts originated from Japan and China (basically the Asian coutnries mostly) at least the most popular MAs, both of whom had Problems with WEAPONS, they had Low quality metals (Which is why the Katana is done the way it is) so they had an EXTREME need for weapons but FAR less supply, so they created martial arts.
And Every Goon DOES carry a knife, Every single person in the military is issued a knife, Hand to Hand combat is literally the last resort, its taught so that instead of lying down and dying they can at least ATTEMPT to resist, but at that point its mostly futile in least their lucky.

Click to shrink...

Even with a low quality metal, you only need a few stabs. You don't need it to survive a hundred stabs. Heck, you only REALLY need it to survive one. And in a pinch, get a sharp rock. Or Bamboo, since they have used that for pit-fall traps. It'd work still. Why didn't every goon in Asia carry knives or sharpened rocks or bamboo shanks, making MA obsolete before their very creation?

 

[Ghostdevil]

Even with a low quality metal, you only need a few stabs. You don't need it to survive a hundred stabs. Heck, you only REALLY need it to survive one. And in a pinch, get a sharp rock. Or Bamboo, since they have used that for pit-fall traps. It'd work still. Why didn't every goon in Asia carry knives or sharpened rocks or bamboo shanks, making MA obsolete before their very creation?

Click to shrink...

Sigh, I tire of this, you can think whatever you like about Martial Arts, I don't care anymore.

 

[Umi-san]

Though, as I said, no guns. Don't know how we fair against guns, presumably not TOO bad if they aren't too far away, what with that 21 foot rule trained cops use.

Click to shrink...

we should pick up guns, or maybe throwing before that cus that's easier to acquire and practice with

Rl MA are Worthless, you have to be a super duper mega Black belt to not risk losing against an amateur with a weapon.
I forget who said this but, "A knife gives you a black belt in *insert martial art here*"

Click to shrink...

I'm literally rofling at the belief that an amateur with a knife can beat even a level one black belt in karate, much less a sport which actually focuses on things other than punching and kicking at the early levels, like eskrima and aikido. Amateurs signal too much, swing too widely.

guns, yes, MA's have trouble with those, so long as they don't manage to get the jump on them using, say, acting skills.
Swords, a bit less trouble.
Knives and clubs a lot less trouble.

Edit:

Here's a series of unrealistic situations which our acting skills might actually make viable! Yayyyy

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-best-martial-art-for-defending-against-knives

 

[Ghostdevil]

we should pick up guns, or maybe throwing before that cus that's easier to acquire and practice with

I'm literally rofling at the belief that an amateur with a knife can beat even a level one black belt in karate, much less a sport which actually focuses on things other than punching and kicking at the early levels, like eskrima and aikido. Amateurs signal too much, swing too widely.

guns, yes, MA's have trouble with those, so long as they don't manage to get the jump on them using, say, acting skills.
Swords, a bit less trouble.
Knives and clubs a lot less trouble.

Click to shrink...

Sigh
How then? Disarming takes ALOT of skill, Just having a knife turns a amateur without a LICK of experience or ability into an outright vicious danger,
Martial Arts you see in the Movies are not real. The Knife wielder only needs to get ONE hit in, the martial artist has to knock the person out, while avoiding a knife, and Failing a disarm is DANGEROUS

 

[Umi-san]

Sigh
How then? Disarming takes ALOT of skill, Just having a knife turns a amateur without a LICK of experience or ability into an outright vicious danger,
Martial Arts you see in the Movies are not real. The Knife wielder only needs to get ONE hit in, the martial artist has to knock the person out, while avoiding a knife, and Failing a disarm is DANGEROUS

Click to shrink...

Disarming takes a lot of skill, which is what a black belt much less an infinite # black belt has.

Just having a knife turns an amateur into someone dangerous, but not someone undefeatable.
The knife fights you see in the movies are not real.

Anyways, how about you google stuff yourself! gl, hf, sleeping now.

 

[Ghostdevil]

Disarming takes a lot of skill, which is what a black belt much less an infinite # black belt has.

Just having a knife turns an amateur into someone dangerous, but not someone undefeatable.
The knife fights you see in the movies are not real.

Anyways, how about you google stuff yourself! gl, hf, sleeping now.

Click to shrink...

Lol ok, it takes one lucky hit, and the Martial Artist of unlimited skill is Done, Dead

The Knife wielder isn't some dummy standing there to get hit like a mook in a comic, this is a human being and if they are trying to kill you, then you can bet that knife isn't going to be easy to disarm nevermind that The best bet here is to RUN AWAY,

Martial Arts isn't some Godly ability to win against weaponry, it was developed because of need for weapons in a setting where they were not plentiful, But if you had to choose between a knife and the ability of 1000 black belt dan w/e then the knife would be better

Knives don't make you undefeatable but it gives you a bigger advantage against ANY unarmed person, Martial arts you see in movies ARE FAAAKE, Nevermind my original point is that defeating anymore than 2 at a time with Martial arts is super human.

 

[Umi-san]

Lol ok, it takes one lucky hit, and the Martial Artist of unlimited skill is Done, Dead
The Knife wielder isn't some dummy standing there to get hit like a mook in a comic, this is a human being and if they are trying to kill you, then you can bet that knife isn't going to be easy to disarm nevermind that The best bet here is to RUN AWAY,
Knives don't make you undefeatable but it gives you a bigger advantage against ANY unarmed person, Martial arts you see in movies ARE FAAAKE, Nevermind my original point is that defeating anymore than 2 at a time with Martial arts is super human.

Click to shrink...

Yes, if you have 10 people with knives attacking u and are incapable of finding a stick to hit them with, you're in trouble.

R.e. the rest of it: Gj repeating yourself. I remember now why I don't enter conversations w/ you.

 

[Ghostdevil]

Yes, if you have 10 people with knives attacking u and are incapable of finding a stick to hit them with, you're in trouble.

R.e. the rest of it: Gj repeating yourself. I remember now why I don't enter conversations w/ you.

Click to shrink...

Fighting One person with a knife is bad thing to do, I also remember why I don't talk with you even more now since you think Martial arts > Weaponry when reality is clearly not on your side.

 

[Grigori]

Fighting One person with a knife is bad thing to do, I also remember why I don't talk with you even more now since you think Martial arts > Weaponry when reality is clearly not on your side.

Click to shrink...

I think you overestimate weapons. Having one doesn't mean you know how to use it. You still have to deal with the fact that a lot of people who wield weapons use them as a threat rather than with the intention to actually use them to hurt someone. As well as those unwilling to use them, people may have loose holds or focus too much on their weapons making them predictable. Honestly, a lot of people that carry weapons on the street end up injured with their own weapons. Then there's also the fact that killing someone with a knife isn't that easy when the attacker is going for slashes and when you talk thrusts a punch can also kill or incapacitate an opponent.

Also, when making sweeping statements like, "MA is worthless" the onus is on you to back it up.

 

[Ghostdevil]

I think you overestimate weapons. Having one doesn't mean you know how to use it. You still have to deal with the fact that a lot of people who wield weapons use them as a threat rather than with the intention to actually use them to hurt someone. As well as those unwilling to use them, people may have loose holds or focus too much on their weapons making them predictable. Honestly, a lot of people that carry weapons on the street end up injured with their own weapons. Then there's also the fact that killing someone with a knife isn't that easy when the attacker is going for slashes and when you talk thrusts a punch can also kill or incapacitate an opponent.

Also, when making sweeping statements like, "MA is worthless" the onus is on you to back it up.

Click to shrink...

ok I concede that its not completely worthless since it gives you a chance but if you had to choose between a knife or years and years of Martial Arts experience, the Knife is better

An Untrained amateur with a knife is far more dangerous than a MArtist, those "death punches" are extremely difficult to do and require luck and skill, but if you've even seen an actual knife fight than you will realize that Martial Arts doesn't really help, Every attack from a knife is potentially lethal, Every hit from a knife is Definitely debilitating. Attackers are not going to go for wide slashes, they will go for the stab since its easier, not the slash and unlike what the movies tell you, defending against a stab isn't anywhere close to easy and requires luck, strength, and skill. If your attacker has ANY strength in his body then grabbing him is the WORSE thing you can try, the best you can do is to try and parry with an object and then try to run.

The recommendation if your against someone with a knife is to Run Away regardless of how much training you have.

Edit: Hell this doesn't even take into account the PSYCHOLOGY, the sudden threat of a knife is Scary, most people no matter how skilled just won't be able to deal with the sudden fear and stress because that takes A LOT of training just to get right.

 

[unwashed heathen]

Can we drop this MA argument? It became senseless a long time ago. It's largely irrelevant because QM isn't going to make a skill that we worked to get to level 20 useless. Ignoring any unusual circumstances, if Iara ends up fighting against an amateur with a knife, she will win easily. No one cares about what would happen RL so let's please drop it.

Speaking of psychology, do you guys think that's something we should take care of in advance? Her being afraid and panicking is unlikely due to her skill in meditation, but we could set up a self-hypnosis trigger to have her calm down immediately if we are worried about that.

 

[Ghostdevil]

Ignoring any unusual circumstances, if Iara ends up fighting against an amateur with a knife, she will win easily.

Click to shrink...

I'll drop the RL MA thing, I tried to drop it before but someone always has something to say and I am stubborn

 

[Kinni]

Sorry, will have to delay the next part until tomorrow. Just way too tired.

 

[Trondason]

@Kinni Does Shadow Boxing let us practice skills that would otherwise require someone to practice on, on our own? Like, Pickpocketing. It's hard to imagine how one would practice that much without actually pickpocketing people, unless we can imagine people to pickpocket.

 

[Umi-san]

@Kinni Does Shadow Boxing let us practice skills that would otherwise require someone to practice on, on our own? Like, Pickpocketing. It's hard to imagine how one would practice that much without actually pickpocketing people, unless we can imagine people to pickpocket.

Click to shrink...

we can imagine people to fight
I would think a sword is about as difficult as a pocket.
So long as we have enough points in pickpocketing to imagine how people would react to begin with, it should be doable.

 

[Kinni]

Yes. That is possible.

 

[Kinni]

Part 2

Speaking of triggers, you had also used your learning trigger during the week, but instead of using it on one of the skills you already knew, you decided to use the trigger in order to make it easier to train in a whole new skill.

What you had chosen was Cold Reading, since being able to "read" people would be a useful ability in a broad variety of situations. And a thing you understood pretty fast was that your achievements in the Acting skill were actually pretty helpful in this new case.

Since you already knew about how to act in order to give people certain impressions, you just needed to focus on trying to see those same "tells" on other people and quickly draw conclusions from that data. That was the base on which you started your training, again walking around the city and looking at people.

But that wasn't all, Cold Reading also involved deliberately making people give you information, watching their reactions to specific words, using vague phrasing to get them to fill in the blanks for you... all kinds of little tricks that had been used by con men and similar people over the ages.

The results were extremely good.

Cold Reading Level 13

- The skill to gather information on people based on even the tiniest details. At this level, you are an expert at the skill, being able to easily pass yourself up as a psychic.

Besides that, you also decided to learn card counting, considering that another skill to help with your memory abilities (besides meditation) would probably be good, since you wanted to master everything, and having better mental abilities would help.

What ended up happening was another surprise that showed how you still had quite a lot to learn about your own gamer ability. Simply put, you followed instructions to learn card counting (they were easy to find on the internet, but not everyone was capable of it) and you worked hard at it, but what you got was actually...

Mental Discipline Level 1

- The skill to maximize the potential of your mind. At this level, you have started to be able to recall details more precisely and compare information more easily.

And that was that. Apparently the techniques used in card counting were all part of that skill. You kept training those techniques and leveling up the skill, before changing your tactics and working on all sorts of memory exercises and trying to maximize your experience gains by using diverse training methods.

And considering how hard it seemed to be to develop it, you were certain that the eventual results would be amazing.

Mental Discipline Level 8

- The skill to maximize the potential of your mind. At this level, you can memorize things with little effort, and sort information into distinct groups for easy access.

Along the way, you had learned all sorts of interesting details about how memory and other mental skills worked, perhaps the most notable of them being about how easy it was to create fake memories. Every single new thing to discovered made you realize how complex the mind was.

And finally, the end of the week arrived, and you went to the same place as before in order to discover what your position would be.

And when you went there, you didn't find only just the same member you had interacted with previously, but there were also three other women wearing the masks of the Inscrutables. One was notably shorter than the other two, of which one was blonde and the other was a brunette.

It seemed like you were the last one to arrive, because your "contact" started talking soon after you entered:

"Now that you are all here, I can explain how things will work." She paused for only a moment, to be certain that the others were paying attention "It has been decided that the four of you are going to be forming a new cell of the Inscrutables." She motioned to a suitcase on the floor "I have the details of your first mission here, but I think you should get to know each other first."

At that point, you and the three looked at each other, and it didn't seem like any of them was going to make the first move.

It was up to you, then.

You were going to introduce yourself to...

[] The short one.
[] The blonde.
[] The brunette.

You were also going to need a fake name to introduce yourself as, and you would choose...

[] Bianca.
[] Amelia.
[] Fernanda.
[] Something else? (Write-in)

 

[Aiden]

Would picking up a skill like "Fitness" or "Exercise" increase our base physical quality? That seems more important than picking up another martial art honestly. I'm sure all the training has made Iara pretty fit but an athletic 14 year old girl still doesn't punch very hard no matter how skilled she is. If that's not an option picking up Marksmanship would be more useful than another martial art. There are a lot of complications involved with acquiring a gun and finding a place to practice, but we could probably get by during the earlier levels with a Paintball or BB gun.

Another skill that could come in handy is "Throwing". Throwing knives or darts are easy to find and it's a skill that would be very useful even if we end up getting guns in the future. It gives us a ranged option before we have firearms, and after having firearms it would still be useful as a silent ranged attack or to use hidden/poisoned weapons.

Click to shrink...

We could learn jujutsu or one of it's many derivatives (like Brazilian jiu jutsu) , those martial arts rely more on your skill,
and their usually good at fighting physically stronger opponents.