Humans in rpgs

[number4096]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-11-02-buck_x.htm

This could be interesting.

For what you said earlier:

-I didn't assumed anything,i linked the articles so that you could argue with them.

-The way i see things,unless you see something firsthand and in the finest of details,and recorded it and linked it,your arguments don't count and neither do mine.

-If i shouldn't assume,neither should you.

-This thread was about humans in rpgs.

-I want to avoid fights,i would like it if it was the same on your side.

-I think Final Fantasy had something going with calling their human equivalents"humes"and"clavats"instead of humans,it allowed them to explain any inconsistencies the human equivalents could have.

-If you want to continue the discussion we previously had,remember that history is vaguely recorded and therefore unreliable and that assuming from either of us is mere speculations rather than proofs and therefore is pointless.

 

[Zacharine]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-11-02-buck_x.htm

This could be interesting.

Only in how on earth a buck gained access to a bedroom, and why didn't it die form glass cuts within a few minutes.

For what you said earlier:

-I didn't assumed anything,i linked the articles so that you could argue with them.

Why on earth would I want to argue with factual information?

I simply contest the conclusion you seem to draw from those facts, as well as the assumptions you make in addition to those facts.

-The way i see things,unless you see something firsthand and in the finest of details,and recorded it and linked it,your arguments don't count and neither do mine.

Wrong. You simply say that because you cannot apparently admit that so far in this thread, all your claims have been wrong.

I am so tempted to link a picture here, but it has a dirty word on it so I will not risk the Banhammer.

Tell me this: Did you witness the construction of the factories that constructed the components that your computer is made of?

Yet your computer exists.

So because you didn't see the factories firsthand, according to your argument they do not exist. Because according to you, your computer is not evidence of their existance and you did not "see it firsthand and in the finest of details,and record it and link it." when the factories were under construction.

Get your head straight, please, and stop these childish missteps of logic.

-If i shouldn't assume,neither should you.

Show me a baseless assumption I have made here.

I have simply kept my options open instead of baselessy narrowing down the scenarios. I have talked of could be's, might have been's, possibly's. Where as you... you have talked of nothing but supposedly absolutely known truths.

-This thread was about humans in rpgs.

It began as such. It changed when you intersected real world into. It left RPGs when you began to cite real-world examples.

-I want to avoid fights,i would like it if it was the same on your side.

So do I. But I also value truth, knowledge and honesty above the consequences of a verbal spar.

-I think Final Fantasy had something going with calling their human equivalents"humes"and"clavats"instead of humans,it allowed them to explain any inconsistencies the human equivalents could have.

As always. In most RPGs, this explanation is called 'magic', or 'The Empire' or 'Co-existance with human-cat hybrids'

There is always an explanation, some better than others. I am not interested in explanations, but the changes, the effects and fantastical rules masked by those explanations.

-If you want to continue the discussion we previously had,remember that history is vaguely recorded and therefore unreliable

And therefore, we must assume every single unsupported claim as false by default.

As I have done, but you have not.

and that assuming from either of us is mere speculations rather than proofs and therefore is pointless.

No, because we can analyze those speculations. We can draw conclusions. We can initiate test.

Claim: "DaVinci designed a tank and several armies used it in battle"

Test: "Is it possible to build a mobile fortress, carrying gunpowder cannons, with that day tools, materials and know-how?"

Results of test: "Yes. We constructed one from wood with historically accurate techniques. It can carry the weight of several cannons."

New test: "Would such a construct been practical in warfare?"

"No. Practical test with the copy proved it useless: the wood is of little protection, it is slower than a walking man and impossible to turn. It is better to give each man operating this tank a rifle and use the cannons separately in a line, as we have seen happen in combat description of the time."

Truth value of claim: "Designed? Propably yes. Constructed? With the help of a dozen men, possibly. Used in battles? No."

See what we did there? You are assuming that such a discussion would be pointless. I am saying there might be value in such a discussion, if for no other reasons than to better educate you so that in the future you know better, and for entertainment value for me with the chance that I might learn something new.

 

[number4096]

Since you convinced me you were not starting a fight,and said what you meant by arguing(Well said by the way.),i will continue this conversation further.

Thus far you taught me a whole lot more than i tought i would get with this thread.Thank you for that(More articles about history would be appreciated.).

As for fighting multiple opponents,my brother and i did it in real life without problems.Since i cannot link to an article that would talk about it or show a base,all i can say is that personal experience goes against what you are saying.I know you think i could make stuff up if i wanted,but this is the truth,take it or not(It was at school and i got punished for it every time,by the way.So was my brother at his school.).

As for fighting animals barehanded or with a melee weapon,i was basing it on something my mother watched on tv and talked to me about(One was an african guy who killed a lion barehandedly as part of a hunting method,the other was about inuits killing whales with spears,shadow of the colossus style.).I never saw either examples personally but i tought my mom would not tell me things at random for fun.

Both things i said about fighting many opponents and fighting animals are useless to this conversation.I just told them so that you could know why i am so stubborn in what i say.

I know that fighting in general is a bad idea,but the reason is not because you are weak,but because of the results of the battle and what is lost meaninglessly because of it.Fights in general can be avoided and should be avoided.

 

[Zacharine]

As for fighting multiple opponents,my brother and i did it in real life without problems.

*facepalm*

So just because you and your brother, untrained and without real weapons that hurt, have significant weight and 'inertia' (resistance to changes in speed and direction) to use and did it against other, untrained, similarly unarmed with real weapons, means that...

...A trained man, weight down by armor that never quite fit his left shoulder properly, sweat on his brows from the hot day and glare of the sun in his eyes, an itch in his left foot from poorly worn shoe, can take on a mass of equally trained solders, seemingly looming above you in stature despite being of same physical height, that are armed with weapons that can cut you up and make you scream with the slightest errant twitch of a wrist, or fell you down with a heavy-handed strike to your chest-armor... that as you stare at their imposing form and see death glittering in their blood-soaked weapons, simultaneously fearful of dying and never seeing your son and wife again and on an adrenaline high from the danger, as they carefully close upon you and circle you.... you roll the sword in your hand, suddenly almost as light as feather as you realize death is approaching... You have nowhere to run, the ground is littered with stones, making backing up in your armor difficult...With defiance in your eyes you scream and the injustice of it all - and it simply encourages your enemies to charge at you from all the sides at one...

That because you can do it, that hypothetical soldier can also do it without dying in turn?

Please, stop your childish fantasies. There is nothing even remotely similar in your situations.

all i can say is that personal experience goes against what you are saying.

And I am saying that my considerable personal experience, martial arts and historical sword training, military training, survival of two armed robbing attemps, read and taught historical fighting manuals, knowledge of weapons and human body and descriptions of real duels and battles fought... disagree with your no doubt... considerable... personal experience.

As for fighting animals barehanded or with a melee weapon,i was basing it on something my mother watched on tv and talked to me about(One was an african guy who killed a lion barehandedly as part of a hunting method,the other was about inuits killing whales with spears,shadow of the colossus style.).I never saw either examples personally but i tought my mom would not tell me things at random for fun.

And I do not doubt you. However, notice what you are saying here: trained experts, good physique, their choice of 'battleground', their choice of weapon, attacks from ambush against unsuspecting targets....

You are not talking of fighting against animals, you are talking of group huntings, of trapping them to a location, of attacking in a premeditated and co-ordinated manner... and executions that depend on getting close unsuspected and killing the target in one stroke.

Both things i said about fighting many opponents and fighting animals are useless to this conversation.I just told them so that you could know why i am so stubborn in what i say.

And I am so stubborn in what I say, because I know you cannot draw a parrallel between fighting against an animal, and hunting said animal. Between a situation where you are the ambushed... and where you are the ambusher.

You are overgeneralizing. You are taking one specific method or situation that would be almost worthless outside of those specific examples, and generalize that to be the normal situation.

You are taking a honed and polished hunting method, with a specific weapon that has been honed for that specific purpose, from a specific area and climate, against a specific target... and generalizing that to include all weapons, all targets, all situations.

This is like saying that because a Stinger shoulder-to-air missile is good against helicopters, then it is the perfect non-lethal crow-control weapon for cops as well.

EDIT: you are too focused on one, predetermined aspect of the weapon, or the technique/method to the exclusion of almost all else, that you forget these other considerations as you create new scenarios in your mind.

And you seem unable to understand that you are doing this. Despite this having been pointed to you, several times, if only in different words.

 

[number4096]

I am done for the night and tired¸.I will continue this thread if i feel like it another day.

 

[number4096]

Nam Anh once said to my brother that killing a tiger barehanded is possible(You bait it with your hand and when it tries to bite you,grab its neck and break it.)Another martial artist who managed to kill a bull barehandedly said that killing a tiger barehandedly was impossible.

Another guy i know said that a group of vikings managed to conquer england on their own but they were so few that they had to go back to were they came from out of being unable to even occupy most of the place.

Since i haven't experienced first hand most of the stuff talked about here you could say that doing a kamehameha is a viable strategy that i would have to believe you.But actual experts never seem to agree on anything(Like mentioned above between what Nam Anh said and the other martial artist.).Also,the master of Ho Hai Long once managed to kill five tigers barehandedly in the same fight,think what you want of that.

You were trained by the military,and from what my brother told me from his time there they teach you to cooperate and function as a team,so i know from where you get your ideas that one man armies are impossible(They don't want their soldiers to think they are rambo and go fight on their own without strategy.).

Thus far,you told me that humans were glorified preys for bigger predators until some of them died on their own from lack of adaptation and more or less offered the dominance of planet earth to humans by dying.Before that humans were pack animals,like wolves,but without any fangs or claws or hopes for survival(Before they could get to learn how fire works they had to eat raw meat,so they probably all died of sicknesses.).Then technology and science progressively arised,making humans better at killing each other but still too weak to take on other predatorial animals.Then firearms appeared and humans could now stand a small chance of surviving against other animals(Shooting a big enough animal may as well just make him angry and charge you so that you learn who's boss.).Then explosives and nuclear weapons arrived and animals got beaten up as a result.And a lone human in a forest is a glorified lunch for every other animals there(Owl's included as well as sufficiently motivated stray cats.).

Your toughts?

(Question:If we can break cement with our head and a tiger can't,then why would we be unable defeat a tiger?We can even strike pressure points and dislocate bones with our opposable thumbs.)

 

[number4096]

From what you said,i think war dogs should have been used more extensively,since they have fangs and claws and are overall better fighters than humans(Sure,archers could have shot them from away,but in a forest or any non-flat area or anywhere at night they would have been invincible.).I would have kept some engineers to dig tunnels under fort walls and train the dogs to hunt down horses so as to make cavalry useless(I think wolves can already do that.),and then my army would just need some ships and archers for sea travels and my army could take down everything(Apparently two akita inu can take down bears,so i doubt even other predatorial animals could stand a chance against sufficiently numerous war dogs.).

I wonder why humans even had melee fighters or infantry.A bunch of archers and maybe some more archers on horses should have been the only human fighters allowed on the battlefield(Along with war dogs.).Do you think this army would be flawless?

Edit:Some sufficiently lightweight and protective armors on my dogs could have made them even more invincible.Even archers would have a problem at being useful against them.

 

[Zacharine]

Snip

Your two latest posts are based almost entirely on false dichotomies.

I never said humans were glorified preys. I simply strongly contested your claim that humans were superpredators.

How you draw a line from 'Not superpredator' to 'Glorified prey-animal', I cannot understand.

see this youtube video about critical thinking. While the practical examples are taken from religious perspective, the idea is the same.

The world is not black and white. Have you ever considered, that when experts disagree on something, it might be because they are squabbling the minute things a non-expert would never even guess to think of? Or that because, there is no single answer? Or because, they all correct?

I simply have no patience for your continued unsupported assertions, such as "group of vikings managed to conquer england on their own but they were so few that they had to go back to were they came from out of being unable to even occupy most of the place."

Did you even for a moment consider the possibility that they began to live in those villages they conquered and thus were no longer Vikings but Englishmen? And those that didn't stay and become part of the native population, decided to leave?

And give me evidence, that ",the master of Ho Hai Long once managed to kill five tigers barehandedly in the same fight". Without evidence, this is an unsupported claim that must be considered false, pending said evidence.

Again and again, I am forced to repeat the same things to you. Either you have no will to learn or refuse to learn from your past mistakes. Trying to teach you in these matters has proven futile so far. And I have no wish at all to continue banging my head to the wall.

If you wish to continue this discussion with me, show to me that you are capable of learning, capable of improving your thinking based on the evidence and drawing new conclusions based on them.

This is your second warning from me regarding this issue. And just so you now... "Thrice I ask and done" is something I tend to follow.

Where we go from here, depends on you.

I will not dignify your posts with more elaborate answers, you should be able to see the mistakes and inherent assumptions and false dichotomies they are riddled with by yourself.

 

[number4096]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ConservationOfNinjutsu?from=Main.ConservationOfNinjitsu

The truth in television section of this link.Read it if you want.

I see that you are not telling me that winning against big odds is impossible.I see that you are telling me that i see all in black and white.Winning against more numerous then yourself is not impossible,just unusual.

The stuff i said about my brother talking to Nam Anh are true,i would lack any reason to make that up.

I am honestly tired of this discussion,you told me a lot of interesting things but now i am very tired(And i can tell that you are finding this discussion tedious.).If you want to continue this discussion,you will do it with someone else,This may be my last post on The Escapist.

If you were trying to tell me to not believe in absolutes,then i refuse to believe in the absolute that the more numerous always wins and that wild animals are invincible in unarmed fights.Correct me if you want,but other experts have differing opinions on this,one of them called Nam Anh.I am done here,thanks for the informations.

 

[mawk]

OP seems like personal taste. haven't seen any arguments on your case that lead me to believe otherwise.

"humans are assholes" is a ridiculously trite statement, and generally impossible to prove or disprove. there's a reason there are multiple schools of thought on the subject of human nature, and it doesn't help to have internet kids oversimplifying it.

"humans that can use magic in RPGs can't be humans because humans can't use magic."
A) pretty much every fictional piece with magic in it has a different set of rules. stating that magic is always racially exclusive is a huge stretch, especially since magic doesn't exist in the real world and so it's all incredibly hypothetical.

B) are you really demanding realism from a game that has magic? break thermodynamics if you want, but be careful that it's realistic! I don't want people thinking those fireballs you just shot out your fingers couldn't actually happen!

third, you're only comparing humans to other non-intelligent species, unsubstantiated conjecture regarding the larger mammals notwithstanding. in a speculative world with alternative sapient races, those races could very well be more specialized than humans, or anything else. we've never met a human-like, sapient, non-human species, so we can't say for sure.

bottom line, I find the thought process behind your original post to be poorly executed. you make a lot of claims as to how things should be done, but your logic falls apart and it's pretty clear that it's just an arbitrary preference. I'm not sure what these other ten pages have been about, but I'm pretty sure getting involved wouldn't help things.

 

[demoman_chaos]

Spears and polearms in general were always better than any other melee weapons.

Incorrect. A polearm was generally better for fighting against cavalry, but not as good against infantry. Swords and axes weren't as great against cavalry, but were more effective against infantry. With plate armor especially, a spear would often just glance off while an axe would pierce through to the soft meat.
Since most RPGs have heavily-armored foot enemies, a sword would be a wiser choice. A Gladius would be better than a katana since the Gladius excells at stabbing while still being able to deliver wicked slashes and a katana is only good at slashing. Most RPGS are in medieval days when most wore chain mail at least, meaning the katana would be near worthless.

As for the bit where you say shields of wakizashi were needed, you seem to forget about 2-handed swords, like the claymore favored by William Wallace.

Sorry, had to speak up about that. Weaponry is one of my favorite things to research.

OT: Dwarfs are the strong ones with axes, Elves are the naturist bowmen, Orcs are the ugly ones with 2 handers, we are stuck being the magical ones with swords since somebody has to.

 

[mawk]

Most RPGS are in medieval days when most wore chain mail at least, meaning the katana would be near worthless.

of course, the target audience being what it is, that's the opposite of how it always plays out. pardon me while I thinly slice all these stone columns and airplane parts.

 

[gutterball17]

So much wrong with that rant, don't care enough to to correct. Enjoy your rightfully earned opinion.

same

 

[martin's a madman]

Zhao yun once managed to fend off at least a hundred soldiers using only his spear.Polearms are more powerful than you think.

That's not unique to spears though. I mean at the battle of Stamford Bridge a lone viking held of the entire English army singlehandedly.

Haha funny enough, the weapon that killed the supposed viking was a spear.

 

[Axolotl]

[That's not unique to spears though. I mean at the battle of Stamford Bridge a lone viking held of the entire English army singlehandedly.

Haha funny enough, the weapon that killed the supposed viking was a spear.

Yes the ignoble pikeman. Notably aformentioned pike killed him by being thrust up throuh the bridge from below where he was unarmoured. Horrible way to die.