Thanks for the long post! Full of crunchy stuff.

Looks like you beat me to making use of my own forums. : ) I'm glad to have the post here. So I almost hesitate to say this, but as the topic really addresses the upcoming Martial Arts 4e, you might want to post on the regular SJG forums too; you stand to hear directly from MA 4e team members, and other folks who know much more about RL martial arts than I do.

That said, you do mention some Diner-specific stuff, and it's all an interesting topic, so I'm happy to wade in here:

Well, I have now found out EXACTLY how much Ninjutsu need to be altered in GURPS.

Good to have input from a practitioner (though I have to note that various schools may have differing opinions on each others' claims...)

Let me start of by saying that Esquive (from Swashbucklers 2E) needs to be added to very many martial arts. The concept of stepping out of the way while executing a dodge, a parry, or even an attack is totally fundamental

Sounds like a common RL move, as you describe it; can you paraphrase the technique for those of us without Swash 2E?

Oh, and Cat Stance should be part of Ninjutsu. We call it Hicho. And, it wasn't developed in Okinawa, contrary to claims in MA 2e. It is much older, and likely came from China, like much of Japanese martial arts.

I would expect some schools would teach it, and others would not, or not at the same stage... Is that a possibility? (Oh, and as for the Okinawa origin, that may be via Hollywood... : )

I assume that in the new MA too, you can build your own Ninjutsu style as you like. Just toss the above in... Same with deleting Jump Kick and making other mods. I don't know that there's a single Ninjutsu school MA could claim to depict (though again, I'm no expert).

Shuto too, but this one is totally is misnamed. We have both actually. That is, we have the manoeuvre described in MA 2e as a Shuto, and we also have the real Shuto, which is a way of holding your hand for a strike that looks kind of like the classic karate chop, but with the hand in more of a curve, used to make scoooping, cutting types of blows.

What are the names you use for the two different moves?

I am totally at a loss as to why GURPS calls Roll with the Blow "cinematic." Not only is it used quite successfully in many real martial arts, but they even teach it to paratroopers.

Sounds to me like something even an untrained fighter could attempt, at least if prepared somewhat. Maybe there'll be changes in MA 4e.

Additional thoughts: There are no plain vanilla parries in Taijutsu. Done properly, every parry is either an Aggressive Parry or a Judo parry. I think that in COSH terms there should be some sort of discount for parry cost, because we just don't study that plain blocking parry. (And Aggressive Parry at 4 points not 2.)

But if you have the full (3E) Judo Parry in a COSH-made skill, that includes and improves upon a "plain" parry, doesn't it? So unless I'm missing something, I don't see a discount in order.

Shuriken: not a "Hard" skill. More like average. Real shuriken are pretty thin. You should be able to hold nine in your palm or pocket with no problem. Throwing them is very similar to throwing knives. And indeed, ninja throw throwing knives (bo-shiriken) in the same manner as shuriken.

No argument here, though I don't speak from shuriken-chucking experience.

And weapons: nearly every taijutsu move has an equivelent with a weapon. The stances translate over. Sometimes hand position is changed, but for many manoeuvres, when we learn a weapon, we don't really have to learnb a whole new move. And the footwork is the same in any case.

That's a wide-ranging issue: is there "general" combat ability above and beyond individual skills? High DX is a sensible answer for a skilled fighter, representing improved ability with any weapon or combat move, stemming from his areas of focus... Or, as you say later, perhaps there should be more extensive cross-defaults, even between really disparate skills. (But as you may know, I don't think the GURPS mechanics for defaults support that too well; once level in the leading skill is high enough, it becomes a waste to put any points into the defaulting skills. It can make for a bit of a point crock.)

Some kind of discount on the price of weapn skilsl and manoevres taught in Nijutsu would staff-naginata-spear: these are not, at least in Ninjutsu, and I susect in all Japanes Budo, three seperate skills. The moves are the same, and when you train with one, you train with all in mind. They are pretty much one skill, with one set of manoevres.

Doesn't GURPS 4e already grant this, via cross-defaults among the three? Per my comment above, it may not be an ideal mechanic, but it is some treatment of the matter. Do you think the cross-defaults here should be even less?

If you know the footwork to Taijusu, you are a long way towards learning the footwork in George Silver's True Fight, and vice versa.

If you consider the footwork as belonging to a style, not an individual skill, there's nothing in 3e to address what you say here. It's one of the vaguely unsatisfying things about MA 3e: a style isn't really anything more than a name attached to a bundle of component abilities. There's no skill, or other special "hook", that creates and defines the style itself. I'm curious as to whether 4e has something new here.

And then there are combos. Hmmn. This is the thing: in real fights or practice between trained opponents, using real fighting arts, as opposed to sports/competition/show stuff, you are ALWAYS using combos, quite commonly of three, anbd sometimes four or five different GURPS manoeuvres.

But that doesn't mean we "learned" the combo. We do learn combos, but we learn probably hundreds by black belt level, and the point is never to memorize the combo, but rather to understand the combo, so we can use pieces of it whenever we need to.

3e combos are multiple actions bought at a special cost (and with some special features). I wonder whether 4e will change that. For example, now that 4e offers Rapid Strike, it makes sense for combos involving multiple blows to be bought as reductions in the Rapid Strike penalty. Or if combos are more of an on-the-fly "mix and match" of abilities, not preset combinations, as you say, maybe overall reductions in penalties for Rapid Strike, multiple parries, etc. within a style make sense.

Anyway, I have no idea whether 4e has something new for us here.

Some martial arts do teach set combos, often in katas and such. But many arts actaully designed for the battlefield teach you to just do whatever seems appropriate and remain flexible. Part of the whole point is not having set combos, but rather, being able string together whatever manoeurvres you need and improvising a combo on the spot. No two moves ever the same.

Hmm, picking up on that thought, you could also see normally-paced, everyday mixing-and-matching of general attacks, defenses, and other actions as "combos", if you want to use the name, meaning normal GURPS combat does support combos as you describe them. Would you agree?

T Bone