Afterblow in HEMA

[@legacyShredder1]

It..was.. bedtime. I could blame my self-control, but instead I choose to blame you.

[@knightforlorn6731]

This is one of the best videos I've seen for this topic. I like those rules.

[@euansmith3699]

I don't do any HEMA type stuff (though I used to do Viking-ish Battle Reenactment back in 1980s); however, that was an interesting video just for its insights in to the effects of setting rules on the way that people play games.

[@reaperwithnoname]

I think baseball and cricket could be good inspiration here. Perhaps there should be different rules for each round. For example, afterblows might work this way for the first two exchanges, but work differently in the next two, and then a third way. It could even be randomized. Or, if we really want to get interesting, there could be a few standardized rules, but the combatants themselves aren't told which one is being used until after the exchange ends. Thus, the only consistent path to victory is proper swordplay.

[@tatanawypasie568]

How about extra points for defence? 5 for the head + 3 for succesful step back?

[@schwertschwinger]

Make a lot Systems with different rules. Should work...

[@JimGiant]

It's working so far.

[@aretemaat9348]

Better yet: don't tell the participants which rule set is being used for scoring.

[@jaredlevin5156]

The flip to this (ie how you train) with afterblows is also worth observing. Full disclosure I do not trait HEMA, but currently train Muay Thai and trained in Kendo for about 6 years. One thing you recognize after transitioning out of a point scoring system is how players/athletes stop fighting once a perceived point is made (especially in scoring). While I understand what is being discussed in regards to competition, you do see a lot of HEMA sparring videos where once someone gets hit, both athletes stop to acknowledge the point. In weaponless fighting you see this when TKD or point karate fighters transition to Muay Thai or kickboxing as well. They will rush in for a single blow and then stop. But in a real fight (with or without weapons) you can't just stop, because (as stated by Matt) you never know how effective the technique really was. So I'd argue in sparring you would want to encourage people to go for after blows to train people out of the habit of stopping the moment a "point is scored", because your first hit may not incapacitate opponent or even hinder their follow up.

[@Riceball01]

In my experience with TKD when sparring in tournaments there is no pause after scoring, there isn't even any verbal acknowledgement of scoring either. What I've seen is that during each round the two competitors just go at it and if one (or both) scores a good hit the judges will signal to the scorekeeper whether it's a full or half point, or 2(?) for a head shot and the scorekeeper changes the score accordingly. But the ref doesn't stop the action, nor do the comptetitors, they just keep on going.

[@jaredlevin5156]

@@Riceball01 I can't speak to anyone else's experiences. To be clear though, I am referring to sparring AS OPPOSED TO competition. I have definitely had TKD guys come into our Muay Thai gym and in sparring they will land a punch or kick and then essentially retreat or posture without maintaining a proper defense, only to be confounded when their opponent follows up with a 3 piece combination. Of course this is a generalization and only my experience, though in my understanding this is a common occurrence (and the interesting thing is to see how point fighters transition this skill after much training ie Lyoto Machida/Kyoji Horiguchi in MMA or Raymond Daniels in Kickboxing. That said though, I was more relating an experience I'd had in Muay Thai (and in Kendo) to how I have seen some people spar in HEMA, where if a good hit is landed both or one athlete stops to acknowledge it, which is a habit that seems to develop in systems that award points for a hit and would lead to the action stopping in competition (ie in Kendo, HEMA, or point karate tournaments). Cheers

[@NoeLPZC]

The reason people stop sparring after a point in HEMA is because each blow you land on a person can _potentially_ disable them instantly. If you get cut on the arm it _might_ be superficial and do little to stop you carrying on the fight, but it might sever tendons/bones or send you into shock, incapacitating you on the spot. Since there's no really good way to estimate how incapacitating any particular hit can be we can't know whether or not an afterblow was even possible (e.g. if you landed a decent cut on someone's sword wrist they might have no hand/sword to hit you back with). Even light cuts can stop an opponent if hit in the right areas. So people spar with the assumption that receiving a proper hit (i.e. correct edge alignment and at least SOME force) will take you out of the fight. You could argue that people should fight with the assumption that ALL hits will be superficial, but that's no more realistic IMO. It's not even necessarily better for training, since you'll have to compromise your offense for a potentially unnecessary defense. When I spar I try to act in a way that's consistent with reality. If I take any cut to the hands I stop my cut immediately (can't hold a sword if my hands are messed up). If I take a substantial cut to the neck/head/forearms I stop my cut immediately (can't cut back if the nerve control from my head to hand/arm tendons is compromised). If I take a substantial cut to the front leg while stepping in I stop my cut immediately (I might not die immediately but my balance is compromised from that point). For every other hit I'll follow through with an afterblow then stop fighting. Launching a second attack from that point isn't fair since I could be pretty messed up.

[@Acetylsalicylsaeure2]

I read it somewhere else but I still like the idea a lot so Im showing it here aswell: Drop scoring attacks and hits all together. Give each combatant a number of points and each time they get hit, they lose points. Mathematically it comes out the same but the perspective is different. The incentive would be to defend successfully and keep your points while reckless and risky behaviour is punished. That rulesystem punishes received afterblows and risking doubles quite well i think, includes the right of way but only for the very last point. Ofc it can be modified by losing different amounts of points for different areas, afterblows, ect. to fine tune it but I think the basic approach gets closer to what most HEMA people want to achieve.

[@cryoshakespeare4465]

I'm not sure about that, in video games with hitpoints, a very common strategy is highly aggressive tactics that simply try to take down the opposition's hitpoints faster than yours.

[@sirbobulous]

@@cryoshakespeare4465 Have a fixed number of HP for the entire tournament! If you waste half of them on round 1 in hyper aggression you;re screwed for rounds 2, 3 and beyond?

[@esgrimaxativa5175]

With this we'd fight out a carefully thought out first point or two and then just defend the whole time. This ruleset causes passivity.

[@junichiroyamashita]

It seems to be the best proposal until now

[@GruntSquad92]

@@junichiroyamashita definitely don't have the hit points for the entire tournament. Otherwise people start to make deals with others, maybe even paying them to be aggressive so when your own fight comes, the other is already several hits down. Might not be an issue now, where all the people know each other, but that rule will bite you in the ass when HEMA gets bigger.

[@1jimmarch]

If you get hit upside the head hard enough in fencing class, do you get a HEMAtoma?

[@gameaccount6254]

"the good fencer does everything right, and the bad fencer essentially behaves like they're happy to give their life away and just doubles, and if a person is willing to give up their life, willing to just go "aaah" and just stick their weapon out and ignore everything that's going on, it's very difficult to fight against that" And that, it seems to me, reflects the real life situation that historical swordfighting is following. Against a fanatic, or someone whose blood is up and just berserks in response to a strike, or even just against a strong idiot, there must be huge risks in any swordfighting even for the most expert fighter. As you suggest, presumably, there is no perfect solution short of fighting for real, and all that can be done is to find rules that encourage the particular goals we wish to see encouraged, and try to address the problems of gaming those rules as they come up. It's an interesting topic, though, in which you would seem to be in a great position to add value to the discussion, Matt, with your experience of modern hema swordfighting combined with your long interest in the historical sources. Presumably (as you mention at one point in your piece), this was an issue that was extensively discussed during the times when swordfighting was evolving from brawling and battle through formalised duelling towards the sport fencing that was really all that was left of it in the west by the C20th, and I for one would be very interested in hearing (or reading) a longer and more detailed discussion of the logic and history of that evolution, perhaps concluding with a speculation about where hema might go as it grows. Will it travel the route of sport fencing, perhaps driven by the same logic to the same conclusions, or find its own different route perhaps reflecting different goals? If you were to write a book on that topic, I'd buy it....

[@esgrimaxativa5175]

I'd buy that book too! I've been in sport saber fencing for over 20 years now and I can tell you the whole sport has lost its head when it comes to anything related to its origins yet they insist on maintaining a rule book that was published before the first world war when dueling was still around.

[@gameaccount6254]

@@esgrimaxativa5175 Matt discussed some of these issues in slightly more depth a couple of years ago, here: Some thoughts on Sport vs Martial Art - HEMA kzbin.info/www/bejne/b2HLoHaagtFgjbc There he confidently asserts: "we're not [going to go down the sport fencing route] - because we're hema".

[@ohshipman]

the problem is we actually have duel reports of the late 19th century that tell the contrary. Pardon me, i am not finding them now. The issue is that the fencer that berserks, most of the time, ends up having his arse handed to him if the experienced player has his chills during the encounter, so he gets out of it pratically unscathed. Funny thing though that in one of these duels, the "berserker" had a fencing class prior to the engagement where the teacher said he did not knew how to parry, but the guy simply said "it always works when I charge" or something like that. The problem was that this "berserker" had never been to an actual swordfight outside a classroom, and as a result, he was severely wounded on the throat without coming near his opponent. This duel happened with smallswords, that means the wound was most likely light compared to other kinds of swords. I do not know why so many people nowadays believe that fighting with gambesons and top notch protection gear tells us how an actual swordfight was better than most of the old fencers (if not all) tell us. That is why I encourage the use of light protection gear in my group, the risk of a heavy bruise speaks louder than bravado.

[@alexvogel610]

********************************************** "the good fencer does everything right, and the bad fencer essentially behaves like they're happy to give their life away and just doubles, and if a person is willing to give up their life, willing to just go "aaah" and just stick their weapon out and ignore everything that's going on, it's very difficult to fight against that" And that, it seems to me, reflects the real life situation that historical swordfighting is following. Against a fanatic, or someone whose blood is up and just berserks in response to a strike, or even just against a strong idiot, there must be huge risks in any swordfighting even for the most expert fighter. As you suggest, presumably, there is no perfect solution short of fighting for real, and all that can be done is to find rules that encourage the particular goals we wish to see encouraged, and try to address the problems of gaming those rules as they come up. ********************************************* This, I feel, is why something like a dedicated bayonet charge can be so unnerving and so effective. From the receiving end, there's a LOT of pointy steel coming at you, an apparent disregard for accepting casualties, and very little hope of successfully defending regardless of how good one might be in a one on one encounter

[@a-blivvy-yus]

@@eddard9442 The problem of doubles like this is exactly what you're explaining - it doesn't happen when the experienced fencer is on guard and expecting the attack. it's when they're making their own attack and the other guy goes "AHHHDOUBLE" and "wins" in a sense by making the legitimate attacker's legitimately-earned point go away.

[@SmigGames]

Would a more realistic and (arguably) exciting ruleset work by treating anyone hit as an immidiate loss, whether it's on the first hit or an afterblow? It would be a nightmare to set up as an event since fights could end very quickly and you might not even get a winner at the end, but I think it would put participants in a psychology much closer to a real fight.

[@garethbarry3825]

I suggested something very similar even though I hadn't read your comment. My slight difference is that I would have a scoring system with a very limited 'tank' of 'life points' relative to the number points awarded for a blow. You are right about the logistical problems, as was pointed out to me. My suggestion is to run two 'streams' of the tournament concurrently; the 'sudden death' version as well as a more traditional version. Having a knockout of competition, each of which is very quick, 'sudden death' match, would be very tough psychologically.

[@kargaist]

I have participated in a tournament where all participants had to do 3 bouts with this ruleset. Those who won 2 or more, advanced in the next round where they began to use a point system. The problem is that a competition like a tournament wants to determine the best fencer of that day. And if you use the suggested ruleset for the whole tournament including the finals theres a good chance that the winner is someone who just got lucky. As even the best fencers get hit sometimes. You could just have everyone do a fixed number of bouts and then score them according to their survive/death ratio. However this way you lose the thrill of people advancing in the rounds of the tournament and the exiting finals. However I've seen tournaments with point based scorig where a "perfect hit" (clean hit to head or thrust to the torso, engaging disengaging while covering the enemies blade) can win the fight instantly if all three judges agree that it was a flawless and save attack.

[@tomdutoit5591]

This idea reminds me of the fencing portion of the modern pentathlon using the épée (and I believe the old school way they handled the epee in the Olympics in general). The competition is a round-robin, meaning each competitor will face all the other competitors once, of course. Each match lasts up to one minute; the first fencer to score a hit wins instantly. Double hits are not counted. If neither scores within one minute, they both lose the match.

[@wilsoncalhoun]

Taser swords? Taser swords.

[@johnzaitzev1115]

Taser swords

[@LamgiMari]

Better than taserface.

[@marcaononymous]

Teaser swords yesss

[@Will-Woll]

*Truely a perfect comment*

[@100RAmen]

Taser swords!

[@tonberrytoby]

Sometimes I wonder how a tournament simulating to the death fights would turn out. So everybody who receives a (clean) hit gets thrown out. With the overall winner being the only one who never got hit. Or the lighter version, where the person who got hit the least wins in a non bracket pairing. Then I remember that it would turn out like Olympic judo, and be decided by penalties given for excessively defensive fighting style.

[@guest3507]

Also, in larger tournaments, a team could "sacrifice" their weaker fencers to damage the most serious competition as much as possible and give their team's best fencer an advantage. If they get matched against other fencers they go suicidal, if they get matched against each other, one of them throws the fight completely.

[@inscrutablemungus4143]

Tournaments aren't representative of an "actual duel" and never will be, but IMO that's completely fine as long as the rules encourage good behavior. For instance, of the three modern fencing disciplines, I think foil encourages the best behavior of the three weapons simply because the onus is on the retreating/defensive fencer to deal with their opponent's attacks before they launch one of their own. There are some quirks with marching/absence of blade attacks in the modern game, but overall I've found that foil is the easiest weapon to branch out from just because of the fact that it encourages good behavior. Is this how an actual duel will go? No, obviously not. A real life-or-death opponent is not going to obey ROW, but the rules instill correct behavior (defend first, then attack once you've dealt with the immediate threat). As a somewhat experienced foil fencer (I'm currently a 'B' by USFA ratings), I've got to say that ROW is not all that hard to switch off. I've had no trouble at all switching to Epee and I've even done decently with HEMA smallsword and rapier (essentially Epee rules but with a massive lockout/afterblow window). A tournament bout will never be the real thing (and it shouldn't be), but it is possible to construct a training exercise that enables the right set of techniques that carry over to a 'real duel'. That should be the focus of combat sports, not simulating an actual life or death duel.

[@kaizen5023]

Stop giving points for double hits at all. Just no. If you failed to defend yourself, you weren't safe, therefore your art is deficient. Game over.

[@passingthetorch5831]

I'm late to this party, but you make some good points. First: it's very important to allow the rule sets to evolve as people find and exploit the weaknesses --- because, as you say, the rules will never be perfect. I love the idea of the afterblow and I love the idea of not fully weighting it. I love the idea of having different points for different areas of the body. I wonder if you could change the psychology a bit by not awarding points for hits, but by subtracting points for getting hit ... quite like the typical HP meter. This can make a psychological difference, but in a tournament, it can also be useful to give an award to the person who defended themselves most effectively, as well as the person who beat the most opponents. That would be: the person who had the highest average HP at the end of each bout ... or, with the current positive points for hits, the person with the fewest average hits against them.

[@TheReykjavik]

I have an idea that you may want to try. Instead of scoring points for hits, lose points for getting hit. Each combatant starts each bout with 10 hit points, and when one combatant gets down to zero, the bout is over. The player's hit points remaining are added to their score (one gets a zero, or perhaps negative points if they were already low and took a high value strike, and the other may have all their hp left, or none), and the other gets to keep however many they had left. Do a round robin type of tournament, and whoever has the most points wins. Or the top two go to a final match with a handicap to account for any point differential. There is a potential downside, which is that combatants may choose to go for safer, less dramatic strikes against legs and hands, but that comes down to the weighting of the points. There is risk in continuing a bout by chipping away one or two points at a time, and a different risk in going for more difficult targets for higher value, so if the point values are chosen correctly (and this may take iterative testing), combatants will have a meaningful choice to either end the bout quickly at high risk, or let it go on for lower risk now at a cost of further rounds within the bout. I think this system also reflects to a pretty good degree the real world behavior we would want. In a real fight to the death with a sword, I'm happy to cut at an attacker's hands and legs until they can no longer threaten me, but if the opportunity is there to end the fight without too much risk, I'll take it, and if my opponent is very skilled, it might be worth risking a leg wound to keep myself alive. This has some good effects for combatants who's goal is to win, the strategy of always doubling isn't good, you walk away from all your bouts with very few points if any. Risky attacks are similarly punished, you will walk away with more points than someone who always doubles, but if you are taking hits to the head and torso, you aren't going to be scoring the points that someone who defends themselves during and after their strikes does. It may feel bad for a combatant who defends themselves during their attacks to go up against someone who employs a strategy of always doubling, but those opponents will be more rare as it is a bad strategy, and when they are in the tournament, everyone has to deal with it. Against such an opponent, one skilled fighter may score 2 points, while a less skilled fighter may score 1 point, and others may score 0, but that margin is still meaningful, and those fighters will have much different results against less reckless opponents.

[@tarquiniussuperbus21]

Or you use the original Epee rules where you fight to one point and the winner is the fencer who doesn't get hit. So if you get a double or an afterblow both lose.

[@punchosaurus7015]

at the club I train at we've been playing with a rule set similar to racket sports. First you skirmish and the first person to land a clean hit get attackers privilege. Than in the next round the attacker can land up to 5 clean hits before it stops. If the defender hits the attacker the round ends if it was clean he gets to attack next if it was a double they skirmish again. The idea is you need two consecutive clean hits to put one point on paper. Its not perfect but its fun.

[@Hostility1812]

Sounds like a good time.

[@justsomeguy3931]

I like the idea of the afterblow detracting points from the person hit. It has all the benefits you mentioned, and it also encourages people to keep fighting AFTER they are hit - rather than quit or succumb to pain. Emotional fitness is very important in martial arts. Doubles should be lots of pushups and -1 for both lolz

[@LordSoulSicarious]

Here's an interesting option from my club: King of the Hill. Doubles just mean you both get eliminated, no victory to either party. Now, this has difficulty scaling to a large tournament, but it does shine a light on a different concept, which is that a set "lives" system might work, where your bout versus one opponent can affect your position in subsequent bouts. For example, "Each fencer has 10 lives. Each bout is played to first hit. Shallow targets lose you one life, deep targets lose you two. You cannot regain lives in any way." You then get matchups drawn by lot (prioritising those with the least bouts fought) from surviving contestants until only one fencer is left standing.

[@JulianHernandez-tp9lw]

I prefer thunderdome rules. Two man enter one man leave.

[@Zajuts149]

Should "Afterblow" be added to the Easton Portfolio of Innuendo?

[@demoncard1180]

Considering the leather thong that featured not too long ago, that's quite a mild suggestion.

[@armorfrogentertainment]

I'd be curious what would happen with a "lives" system tournament. Everyone starts with 7 lives. Your lives carry on from match to match.

[@NilAthelion]

I was reading through the comments because I had a very similar thought. One concern, I suppose, is that in a non-tournament setting, this does very little, or worse, if you have the advantage in lives (7 lives to 6 lives) or something, then you have incentive to trade every single time. Another concern is that in a tournament setting, it exacerbates the problems with pairings in an elimination-style tournament. If I am a good fencer and my first opponent is an equally good fencer, I may barely get out of there with a life remaining. In my next match, I get paired with a mediocre fighter who happened to be paired with someone who had no experience, and thus the mediocre fighter has 7 lives to my one. A round-robin points based tournament is better about this, assuming that "lives remaining in victory" is what is used to tally the scores, and could work quite well, but that runs into the resource problems of round-robin tournaments. If things are for a monetary prize or something else that is infinitely divisible, you could have the prize be adjusted by lives remaining after each match in an elimination tournament. I.e., after each match, the winner's remaining lives are counted, and then their lives are refreshed for the next match, and so forth until they are eliminated. At the end, everyone's excess lives are tallied up, and the prize is distributed proportionately. I feel like... there's a good ruleset somewhere there, but I can't figure it out on my own.

[@ericcadwell5193]

That may very seriously explain the idea of a duel. "I don't care if I get hit or die. As long as I get to kill them. And, if I don't, I hope to leave a scar they'll never forget, and from hell's heart, I stab at thee.". It's just as much a social commentary as it is a martial observation. The absolute best outcome is when the HEMA practitioners fight it out in a safe space, and then agree between each other which person came out ahead - only deferring to a judge or other third party when they can't agree.

[@entropyembrace]

What do you think about this idea? If a fencer is hit they score no points. So doubles are worth no points. Afterblows are worth no points, but the fencer who made the original attack also scores no points because they couldn't defend themselves after dealing the blow. The idea is to make fencers more concerned about their personal "safety" than rule sets in which it's possible to score points when receiving an "injury."

[@kanucks9]

That allows fencers to decide to strike, rather than parry, against anything that they think is a low percentage defense. What you're really looking for, is to maximise parrying

[@entropyembrace]

@@kanucks9 You're right. I didn't think about it from the perspective of the person defending.

[@yunikage]

HEMA isn't a game. If the focus of training becomes competition, you will produce great competitors, great players of whatever game you construct, but no swordsmen.

[@Misericorde9]

yunikage that is the first point of division: whether HEMA proceeds as martial science/art, or sport. After that there is still another: train to understand and be capable in the use of dagger, sword, mace, axe, polearm, and grappling, or translate what has been learned into more practical applications, the latter likely using staves of various lengths to replace any weapon longer than a knife, and focusing more on grappling and half-swording derived fighting methods.

[@yunikage]

​@@Misericorde9 Oh, I don't think mainline HEMA will ever eschew traditional weapons. There's just too much popular demand, specifically for swords. The people looking for practical martial arts are already studying any of the dozens that exist, for the most part. There are going to be niche communities, I'm sure, but I can't imagine it going beyond that. I do see a real danger of HEMA turning into just another sport like fencing or Kendo. There are all sorts of financial incentives for it, but in the long term it will damage the advancement of HEMA study. People come to HEMA looking for something real. It may take a generation, but if we go down the sporting path, there will have to be a revival and rebirth of real HEMA. Bottom line is that HEMA is supported by a widespread desire to learn to actually fight with a sword. That's why instructors can fill classes, because this is something people want. Stop teaching people to fight or stop using swords and you'll lose those people eventually.

[@PomaiKajiyama]

Why not just only give a single point if you hit someone anywhere with no after blow. No one scores on doubles or after blows so you have to keep doing rounds until someone reaches a certain number of "perfect hits" like first to 3 or 5 perfect hits with no after blow/head hits/torso thrusts If nobody scores on these and you only tire yourself out on trying suicide blows then it should discourage that behavior and refocus it back on delivering a blow and then defending the counter attack as it becomes the only way to score.

[@basilefff]

I believe that's what they've done in kendo. And in kendo some people seem to strike opponents instead of defending themself which is once again, counterproductive.

[@typorad]

Seems ok, but that could encourage practicing getting very good at afterblows and just fighting until your opponent gets sloppy from running out of stamina.

[@a-blivvy-yus]

Kendo counts double-hits as a "non-point", but if you land a hit first, you win the point and their afterblow would be ignored. I've fought using a HEMA system where hits each give you a single point, *but* there's a "value" weight to your strikes, and an afterblow has to hit a more valuable target to negate the point. We also had a rule that a hit to a limb meant that limb couldn't be used for an afterblow. The result is that successfully attacking the opponents sword arm or head was a guaranteed victory in single sword - arm because they can no longer strike you with their weapon, and head because it was the most valuable target. Other strikes were often preferred simply because this prompted more careful defense of those areas, which... worked well for the group I was with. I'm sure someone would "game" the system, but I haven't seen it happen in the experience I've had.

[@MisterKisk]

Perhaps reward defense more instead of hits? It would work as positive reinforcement. So if you successfully hit your opponent, you get 1 point. If you then defend the afterblow, you get an additional 4 points, and if you don't defend, the opponent gets 1 point. Likewise if you defend successfully, get 4 points, and if you successfully make a counter attack, an additional 1 point.

[@winfieldjohnson125]

Look into the combat rules for SCA.... Encourages honorable behavior and individuals that don't honorably "count" a blow get a bad reputation, and sometimes, get shunned..... That's bad......

[@JSheepherder]

A suggestion: build your system around the notion of negative score (getting hit loses you points), disengaging to the ring edge after landing your hit, and allowing the first struck individual to also recoup a portion of lost points by also retreating and accepting a "first blood," scenario... Or they can pursue and make it a double.

[@johnzaitzev1115]

So this will probably get me talked down to by other larger or better off groups or clubs but here goes. My friends and I have been sparring for years now with a large number of different weapons, but only in the past 2 years or so have we been able to buy properly made training swords because we have very little money to put twords gear. Thus for the most part the only safety equipment we use are semi padded gloves, that's it. So, having only the barest of equipment we learned pretty quick to that it wasn't about points, it was about not getting hit. I get it's dangerous and not a proper answer for larger clubs, but it works all the same. We usually go in bouts of roughly 2-3 rounds, each round consisting of 3 engagements where the first person to land a solid blow wins the engagement, best 2 of three wins the round. It's simple, brutal, and usually only lasts about 20 maybe 30 min on the long side but it works. We don't suicide in, and we always have to keep our guard up. Real fights don't care about points, they care about stopping the other guy without dying in the process

[@johnzaitzev1115]

As a side note before it's brought up, we don't intentionally aim for the head or face, just as a general rule

[@mikefule330]

@@johnzaitzev1115 So that's a partial solution. If the blows really hurt, people fight to avoid being hit. However, blows to the head were fundamental to real fighting, so, for a perfectly sound practical reason, your rules encourage (in fact demand) a style of play that is unrealistic. Sounds great fun, though.

[@NoeLPZC]

The guy who teaches my club used to train in a similar way when he was starting out. He ended up getting all his fingers broken, and now he can't hold a pencil without being in pain. Moral of the story, get some decent hand protection _before_ you irreparably injure each other (and I'd highly recommend throat/face too. A fencing mask is cheaper than a nose job). Bruises and welts are temporary, broken phalanges aren't.

[@MrBandholm]

Isn't the simple solution just to change the pointsystem? A clean hit, gives 2 points. A simple double, gives 1 point. A kamikaze double, gives 0 points. In case of a kamikaze double, the one that sacrifice him/herself for points, gets 0 points, and the other get 1 point. That way, the kamikaze is punished. The simple is acknowledge, but with a penalty to both (they were aiming for the 2 points after all). The point score should not be affected too much in a negative way.

[@Ranziel1]

Pretty hard to prove a kamikaze double.

[@MrBandholm]

@@Ranziel1 Sure, but the principle is still there.

[@esgrimaxativa5175]

@@Ranziel1 right of way rules then?

[@krotenschemel8558]

Handicaps! If you get, you get a weight hung on your arm. Doubles score, but both combatans get weights. Weights get increasingly heavier.

[@zeprin]

Ever give any thought to scoring on the 'GOLF' method. Hits count...you could grade types of hits but at the end of the exercise the one with the LOWEST SCORE wins.

[@l3lixx]

The problem of exploiting right of way has more to do with the referees accumulation of power over trends in fencing, that trend is the degree to which the referee tolerates attack improper and still grants right of way protection.

[@sepulture777]

very unfortunately, because we are not fighting not with sharp swords.... :D

[@Overdrawn_]

Afterblow/double hit exchanges doesn't give points. 2 points torso/head, 1 point legs/arms. Fight until 5 points or 3 mins. Simple to understand, simple to judge.

[@Misericorde9]

How much surviving documentation do we have concerning the Marxbruder’s tests?

[@CJ-uf6xl]

The worst thing about HEMA. Thousends of pounds spent on kit. Hundreds of hours spent training. Then in competition you tickle each other. 😐

[@DctrBread]

Honestly i do wonder if its worthwhile to train people to give a hit to get a hit. There is certainly precedent for that in knife fights, but it's not exactly about what limb gets hit, more whether you get hit on the outside of your arm, ribs, parts of your body that are inherently less vulnerable, versus the inner elbow, armpits, groin, abdomen, eyes, neck, etc.

[@CoffeeSnep]

I nominate Matt Easton as President of The World. Using Context, he will make the world perfectly balanced, as all things should be.

[@coreyc9741]

It would be unworkable for official competitions I think, but it would be interesting to see a probability-weighted scoring system to simulate the inherent uncertainty of combat (does the armor hold? Is an artery missed by an inch? Etc) Example: a head hit: 70% chance for 4 points, 20% chance for 3 points, 10% chance for 2 points. Leg hit: 60% chance for 3 points, 20% chance for 2, 10% chance for 1. Etc etc etc. Like RISK sorta. It'd be a huge pain to calculate, but it has the advantage of encouraging people to protect their more vital bits while reminding them that a leg hit can't simply be ignored because, hey, it MIGHT be a 3 pointer for the enemy.

[@lewiswhitling1351]

This whole problem is just a symptom of mixing non-binary points based systems, which are more the domain of unarmed combat, with binary win-loss weapon dueling. What are you trying to simulate with your rules? 2 possibilities: A) Who is the better fighter in general? B) Who walked away from this particular fight? If the first, then you should be embracing a non-binary approach. Firstly, you shouldn’t terminate rounds on a weapon touch. I would suggest something closer to boxing, with timed rounds, and each participant with starting with 10 points. Any clean touch (one that isn’t immediately answered or doubled) loses the opponent a point, but a mutual hit (from a double or immediate counter) cancels this out. In this scenario, two kamikaze opponents would just continuously draw each round. In the case of a draw, the judges decide who loses an additional point based on the relative skills displayed in the round. But the important thing here is that the fight doesn’t stop on a touch. A wrinkle to this could be that a ‘superb’ hit (i.e. a massive strike that clearly would have ended them), that isn’t doubled or immediately countered, is the equivalent of a TKO - and the player that dealt it automatically wins the whole match. If the second, you’ll want a much more binary system that gets rid of points as much as possible. This may terminate each round on ‘death’ (which is probably closer to current HEMA rules). Perhaps multiple rounds (to reduce the luck factor), but each round gives at most a single point. Draw (mutual death) == 0 points, victory (a clean unanswered hit) == 1 point. I.e. no complicated adding / subtracting certain numbers of points based on the scenario a strike was made in.

[@emarsk77]

The goal to bring HEMA to the Olympics or even just have a standardised tournament ruleset is completely opposite to the goal of exploring its historical, martial and artistic aspect, i.e. everything HEMA is - or should be. Paraphrasing a bit what Marco Danelli said in another video on this channel (kzbin.info/www/bejne/faeWe3ifrsiZetE , from 17:20 to 20:19), we already have a sportified fencing: it's called "sport fencing"!

[@Kwiskaseden]

Have you heard of the "Convention des Joueurs d'Epée" ? It's a French HEMA ruleset. To score a point you need to hit your opponent and then take 2 steps back (or in another direction) without being hit (evasion or parry) by a possible afterblow. If you're hit by the afterblow, you score nothing, nor the opponent. So you need to hit and be safe.

[@Konstantin357]

Just some thoughts about possible point calculations. If there is a double second person gets some percentage of points of first hit off. Lets say head - 100%, body - 50%, legs - 30%. Or maybe even 125% for head or something like that. Other idea is if there is double both fighters lose points no matter what. It can be more of psychological trick but it can work to build mindset "if you get hit you are losing" even if there is some competitive advantage to initiate double hit.

[@GeFlixes]

On the subject of Afterblow rulesets: Maybe treat head/chest afterblows as reducing attack blow points to zero, outer extremity hits reducing by -2. That means you hitting someone in the arm while being stabbed in the heart in afterblow is really bad, while center-of-mass hits that result in a nick to your arm still impact negatively. Getting hit center-of-mass should always reduce your amount of points you can receive in that round to 0, as you're very likely would be pushing daisies.

[@LumenP1023]

Another big problem is all training and discipline goes out the window once HEMA players make contact

[@oolooo]

Afterblows should be punished in tournaments and training .The whole point in HEMA is historical authenticity , if not accuracy .Would you really care about points in a possibly mortal duel ? .No , you ensure that you are safe from your opponent's strikes . Or maybe this is coming from me wanting more extended , cinematic bouts , with a lot more sword clashing .

[@BH-rx3ue]

i almost got my first antique swords the other day. it was a set of 3 swords in an auction. i think it was a 1821light cav with a post 1845 blade, a 1908 cav and some random middle eastern sword. I was sadly outbid. I blame you!

[@johnng1078]

What about longer fights and more rounds, and the referee gives pple warnings if someone is just evading and staying too distant. (similar to MMA). If the rounds are only won marginal by a few points I can imagine a superior fencer losing, but if there were 200 or so points being scored on both sides. Surely, the better fencer will win, just from the volume of scoring. This happens to me in table tennis, frequently someone who is an inferior player can beat me on the first round, but when it goes best of 3 rounds or best of 5 rounds, they can't beat me, because 3 rounds is 3x21points, and 5 rounds is 5x21 points, eventually I win due to the averaged volume statistically. Not unifying is also a good idea, since you can different people who are champions in defense, or champions in offense, champion in afterblows, champion in headthrusts etc. These champions pass on their legacy and techniques to the next generation and progress martial arts and the sport for decades to come.

[@nathanlevesque7812]

The key, I believe, is seen in fighting game design. Simply put: it's better to incentivize the behavior you want, than to penalize the behavior you don't want (buff vs nerf). So there could be three scoring brackets: strike without being struck, afterblown, and double. Within each bracket there could be different amounts of points depending on where the strike is made. So there would be no penalties this way, just greater incentives for better exchanges.

[@soonersmith4179]

Adopt the hit indicating equipment from sport fencing but wireless link it to shock collars. The fencers each wear a shock collar around an ankle, if you’re hit you get a safe but painful zap! This will condition your brain to associate getting hit by swords with pain; reinforcing good habits. Sounds extreme but it would be very effective. Electric shock therapy works.

[@ColinCox_Sjovargen]

My thought on doubles is to treat them as if they were mutually “afterblow” to each other. IE if an afterblow results in -2 points, then a mutual head strike (4 points) results in 2 scored by each side, but head-for-arm trades favor the swordsman finding the deeper target. There remains the issue of target interpostition, but judges being empowered to call out and award points as if the true target had been hit can help with that. (IE: I know I’m about to trade head for head, but I put my left arm in the way to reduce the value of the opponent’s strike.)

[@jeffhreid]

Why not count afterblows as half points? It would lessen the value of the afterblow. Ah, Matt mentioned a modifier system later in the video

[@Anathmatician]

Good video! As you point out, while the right of way rules in olympic fencing are intended to encourage fencers to hit without being hit, the effect is frequently the opposite; right of way actively encourages double hitting in a wide variety of contexts. Personally, I would like to see it replaced by a “tier” scoring system similar to the one you describe for HEMA, with (something like) 3 points for hitting without the opponent hitting you within 2 seconds, 1 point for hitting FIRST if the opponent hits within two seconds and zero for hitting second. As we have electric judging in olympic fencing, the question of doubles is less of an issue; I would keep the current interval of hits within a 25th of a second (or less at some weapons? I would have to check) counting as double with neither fencer scoring on a double. This system would not be perfect, but as you (correctly) point out, there probably isn’t a perfect set of rules, and it would be simple, comprehensible, and generally encourage the principle of hitting without being hit. I think you are also correct when you say that it is difficult to avoid being hit by people who are willing to die to do so, but I would agree with some of the other commenters who mentioned that this too is a reality of combat and warfare. Some opponents will attack in a blind rage, attack into attacks out of ignorance of the probable consequences, or be willing to sacrifice their own lives to take yours. All round, that was great and I agree 100% on the difficulties inherent in trying to come up with a set of rules that cannot be exploited.

[@TheBaconWizard]

Are you willing to go into negative points? I'm wondering if a double can mean taking points away from both fighters. That way, in an asymmetrical double, the one behaving all kamikaze just mires themselves worse and worse while the better fighter will inevitably score some points and climb back up. Obviously this means there can be times or final scores where one person has -3 points or whatever, less than 0

[@Crypt4l]

In your club for Longsword training we try to keep the rules more streamline and simple. We have no afterblows and a slight right of way rule to deal with doubles. We also work a lot on actively encourage people to hit without getting hit. We treat every hit as lethal since you might survive a wound in the duel, but you probably don't survive the battle wounded. On experienced fighters against fresh ones: It's really annoying to fence against fresh fighters since they usually react to you closing the distance with attacking. Seems to be a natural reaction. It's still the job of the experienced attacker to abort their attack to not get hit. If they attack into a immediate attack from the other side and get hit they didn't do "everything right".

[@ClockworkAnomaly]

I have an idea!! So, instead of giving points for afterblow, allow it to negate the points of the attacker. This encourages the afterblow without encouraging hit trading. Also makes it imperative to scoring that you hit unopposed.

[@brotherandythesage]

Matt brings up some great points and at 16:00 he talks about sport vs combat. While serious injury and even death can occur in many sports, like American football or MMA, they are rather rare. Certainly much rarer than in combat. Most people play sports, even HEMA and MMA, with the idea that whatever they do they aren't going to be seriously hurt or killed since their opponent isn't trying to "really" harm them. However in combat that's the point. A soldier doesn't actually have to be killed or wounded to be ineffective. All you have to do is make them afraid that they will be and they hold back. Numerous studies have shown that one well aimed shot does more to harm the enemy than countless wild shooting. However even US Special Ops utilize "suppressing fire" as their most common tactic in a firefight. So how do you train someone for combat? How to you get someone in a sport to play like their life actually depends upon it? I think getting away from one on one sparring and dueling and move over to armored skirmishing where you have to be ready to face any type of armor, weapon, and unit types would go along way to making it more "real."

[@holyknightthatpwns]

I have a different idea for tournament fighting, but it requires you to not use a bracket. It could be even more complicated than this, but for starters I won't care about strike location: You fight in 5 round bouts. Every situation in which someone is hit counts as a round (regardless of if it is an afterblow, double, or clean), and once you've had 5 rounds the bout ends. If you hit cleanly (no afterblow), you get 3 points. If you hit and then get hit by an afterblow, you get 2 points. If you double, both of you get 1 point. The max points per bout is 15. If you double every hit you get 5. If you only afterblow you get 0 while your opponent gets 10. A tournament would be several bouts against different opponents (like in a round robin), and whoever has the most total points across all their bouts wins. You'd need a tiebreaking method, and you could have an issue where someone intentionally doubles in order to give their opponent less points and let a third party win, but no one will win on their own with doubles or afterblows.

[@brotherandythesage]

How often did "swordsmen" fight duels/sudden fights compared to military combat? It just seems like armored combat skirmish would be the most common form of martial encounter.

[@elirantuil5003]

Why not limit the number of doubles or afterblows to avoid abuse? Or maybe use high speed cameras and pennelize fencers who clearly suicide for points?

[@FrenchHemaBoy]

It's already done is some tournament here in France, for the double. Afterblow are a part of the system, we don't have to limit them, You have to be able to defend after a strike, that all.

[@kargaist]

Some tournaments will count a certain number of doubles as a loss for both.

[@kargaist]

But then you have to have realy good referees and it has to be weapon specific. For example if i thrust you to the body with a rapier and receive a cut to the arm while doing so it would with most rapiers not even cut through the ghick Wool clothing of the time. So most likely I would receive only a bruise while delivering a potentially fatal wound.

[@FrenchHemaBoy]

@@kargaist The exemple of good thrust versus a tip cut or a panic cut is an easy case for a referee, cause , even if the rule mention the obligation of retreat and not be hit during it, a good thrust usualy prevail, is a particularity, you can't count a cheap afterblow versus a strong and precise thrust, it would be dumb to count it the same as the little cut. But it's an easy exemple, Is the most case, if you land a cut, take imediatly a guard, or you will be hit by something, even a panic riposte. This what the codex tel us when it said that most of guard posture are end or intermediate strike posture. Just transform every strike you do in guard, and you will rarely get hit by an afterblow. Easy to say, hard to master.

[@kargaist]

@@FrenchHemaBoy I've seen refs who where mostly longsword fencers counting doubles in the cut and simultanious thrust situation with rapiers. Mknd you it wasn't a tip cut but a solit blow but no dragging motion of the blade and it hit the upper arm or shoulder (=one of the places where you have most layers of cloth with period clothing). Such a hit might do damage with a longsword but from our tests a rapier blade that has a very different balance wouldn't even cut through the clothes in that situation.

[@shieldcaptainmyrmidon]

Why don't you use a penalty system? For example if a player forces 3 times a double or intentionally exposes himself to hit back with an afterblow they het penalised either with points or disqualification. A judge can replay the round for example up to 3 times in a match and then depending on the faul give diferent penalties. That should work I think :P

[@harjutapa]

One option: every fight in a tournament is decided by 3 sets: 1 with no afterblows allowed, 1 with afterblows allowed as the -2 modifier, and 1 with the "normal" afterblow rules (or some other trio of rule sets). That way, fighters who train heavily towards one of the three will still (theoretically) lose to one who is decent with all three rulesets. It would mean more fights, better trained refs (or three sets of refs, heh), and would be somewhat clumsy... but it'd minimize the minmaxer mindset.

[@alexvogel610]

Dude, one word-- *TASERS* You're not losing points, but you're getting the CRAP shocked out of you lol Out of curiosity, do y'all ever do "Black Knight" drills? We used to do them for fun in warmups for Krav--we'd fight with foam bats or pool noodles or whatever, and while a head or torso hit was a kill, a limb hit meant you lost the limb, so people would be fighting weak-handed, or hopping around or whatever. It was more for fun, but I could see it being employed in a more formalized way...

[@ianalexander6977]

There seems to be a bit of discussion around this of whether HEMA should proceed into a competition sport or ‘stay true’ to a vision of learning real fighting skills as they practiced in history. Why do we think it will be one or the other for the whole community? In almost every other martial art there are groups who train for competitions and others who train for application and still others who train for some kind of spiritual or personal growth. Some martial arts end up with a general focus that typifies most clubs (e.g FMA tends towards real application and TKD has a large competition scene) but you still get groups within those who train in other ways. It won’t be one or the other. It will definitely be both. If HEMA somehow became an Olympic sport all those people interested in the history an traditional ways wouldn’t suddenly say, “right there decision has been made, HEMA is now a sport so we all have to stop what we’re doing and sell our swords”.

[@icfubar9150]

Interesting as sword play is a unique sport that should equate to actual combat situations. Without instant replay from several camera angles, as in hockey or North American football, judging after blows or doubles becomes the subjective world of the judges. I used to run dogs in field and trial and besides scores for successful retrieves, hits in sword play, the dogs were also given subjective points for their style or fire. This might work to some degree in HEMA if a swordsman were to be given additional points for proper style, parry to reposte to guard and the choices made and totaling say 40% in addition to the score that ends a match, with total scoring for the tournament winner? In golf there is the handicap system for players of unequal skill level but in swordmenship this could probably be taken care of in classifying skill level, novice to expert and in between depending on match results as in the chess world.

[@nbogota5293]

I have never competed in HEMA but after practising Kendo for a year I saw a similar problem in trying to teach a act of combat under sport conditions. It appears the rules you outlined are pragmatic and properly blend the two conditions . I like your quote from the the past, "There would be none of this" Referring to trading a cut for a cut.

[@internetenjoyer1044]

the ruleset is always going to be metagamed. Hema can never achieve perfect realism, the incentives of blunt bladed sport vs fights to the death (or non lethal duels, another important variation of reality) is never going to be equal. I think hema should accept that any sword fghtng simulation is going to be imperfect, there are going to be rules baed tactics involved, but to just find a ruleset which doesnt make too many trade offs in the direction of abstraction, that still retains sword fighting as a martial art, but be comfrotable with the trade offs. Ultimately, what fencing is for is socially contextualised, and in our modern context, self defence isn't a legitimate purpose of fencing, but sport is. and if one or two things are unrealistic, so long as it doesnt completely become a non martially applicable, non perfect realism is okay imo. And it's worth pointing out that, given how much hema is struggling to be totally realistic, most likely the training and competitions of the fencers back in the past had to deal with imperfect realism, but understood that they had to compromise in order to train

[@b19931228]

Weighted score area and after blow are both fine on itself, but combine them you need to tweak them a bit. Take combatcon ruleset for example, any after blow is 1 point. Meaning whether you hit them in the head or the toe, afterblow is one point and one point only. Where as the highest scoring hit would be up to 5 points (controlled thrust, although controlled thrust itself mean that there's no afterblow). So there are bound to be some people going for high point area (eg. head, torso) and complete disregard the after blow because it's just one point deduction. So I can go for a full force max speed leg hit, knowing full well I can get hit by a after blow anywhere else, potentially my head or body. But I still came out winning, because leg hit scores 2 where as afterblow only scores 1.

[@aretemaat9348]

If a thousand real fights to the death were fought by trained swordsmen, you'd see a certain number of clean hits, afterblows, and every other type of hit or series of hits. With score based fighting, since it becomes a question of how often these things happen and not just who would have won the first fight, you should optimize scoring for what happens when skilled fighters who aren't playing for points face each other over however many rounds. So set up some practice matches between very good fighters, and record them. Encourage them to treat it as real as they can. After each match, decide for yourselves who fought better/whose fighting style you'd prefer to encourage, and whether it was close or a blowout. Analyze how many hits they gave to what body parts, what afterblows happened, etc.. After doing this many times, analyze the data and try awarding different points for different things (use a spreadsheet or other software suited to the task), and see what point system would choose the same winners as you. If you want to take this to the next level, iterate this by having one practitioner play "for points" using the rule set you developed, while they face someone playing "for real". Re-analyze this data set simultaneously with the original data set, and optimize for a new point system that rewards more martial fighting. The more times you repeat this process, the closer it should come to incentivizing martial technique. This step can even be re-iterated years down the road as people further optimize for one rule set (just don't include data of people pursuing old scoring systems when you re-run it). Of course there is a risk of over-fitting your equation, but try lots of the points systems that have been used historically, along with other suggestions here and elsewhere.

[@williamkilmer6299]

One thing that I found interesting was the one chance bout. I did this at Lord Baltimore's challenge in Maryland, U.S. in July. Trivial hits basically ignored, though recorded for tie breaking purposes. The first immediately lethal or disabling hit [in the assessment of the judges] ends the bout. Doubles and afterblows that would have been lethal or disabling for both combatants scored as a loss for both. There was a time limit. Ninety seconds. If time was reached with no lethal or disabling hits, the bout ended. I don't remember the scoring convention for this, but since it never happened... It really should have happened if people were fighting as if defending their lives, but as you note, the endorphin rush from making a hit is compelling. Forcing out of bounds was treated as a lethal or disabling hit. This was for single sidesword and single rapier. For sword and buckler and rapier and dagger a more conventional five point bout system was used. I really hope more events will experiment with some version of this for some of their tournaments. I think it has something to teach. I understand that some one chance tournaments have gone to eliminating a fencer on their first loss. Very quickly decreases the field, but somewhat off putting as one goes to a tournament in part to fence people one does not normally meet. I rather like the idea of doing a one chance on a round robin basis so that everyone would meet everyone and there would be no "finals" unless there was a tie score for first or second. Opinions?

[@TheKahiron]

I know it may be controversial, and far from advisable for some fencers, but I tend to find that sparring with reduced or no protection produces far better fencing habits as it instills a greater sense of respect for the sword/feder, and effectively forces you to not make suicidal attacks. Something like no strikes to the head (unless masks are used), reduced striking force, and no force behind thrusts tend to work quite fine between moderately experienced fencers. Of course this won't stop people gaming the system, but seems a way to avoid personally falling into such mannerisms. Somewhat analogous, one might say, to how some advocate sparring with sharps, though not nearly as extreme, and so more approachable.

[@calamusgladiofortior2814]

Hmmm... it's an interesting problem. My first thought is that why are afterblows treated differently than doubles? In a real fight does it matter that much if you strike each other simultaneously or within a few seconds of each other? Sword blows would rarely be instantly incapacitating. Unless you sever the spinal cord or significantly damage the brain, a sword blow would likely take at least a few seconds to incapacitate. So perhaps an afterblow should be treated the same as a double. But then, you don't want to discourage people from trying to score an afterblow after they've been hit, either. Perhaps some system were, depending on where you've been hit, you're allowed a certain number of seconds to attempt an afterblow before the match is called. If you score an afterblow in that time, the match is a draw. If you don't, you lose that bout. Of course, that could be tough to referee. Yeah, trying to emulate what would happen in a real combat is hard.

[@clementlefebvre9835]

Good & interesting points :) I desagree on one, about the asymetrical double : even though it must be frustrating for the "good fencer", i think it can mimic a real life encounter : the duel between a soldier/professionnal fencer vs a random but really angry dude. For exemple, a soldier campagning rampaged a farm and killed the farmers family, then a surviving member of said family ask for a duel for reparation. Maybe that person is an inexperienced fencer, maybe not and maybe they want revenge at all cost, maybe dying could even be a relief. So in my mind, if you are really that so called "good fencer", you should have way more than just a technical edge, you should also have sense for analysing people and situations, and be able to adapt your fighting style and become way more defensive agaisnt that type of person.

[@Uhlbelk]

I think the problem with subtracting points with the afterblow is better, but still encourages reckless kamakazi attacks. If you are attacking and always come out even or ahead, than you will just keep attacking. I think you should combine full point afterblow with points only being applied to the attacker. So they attack a leg, and get hit in the head, they lose points, but the other person doesn't gain points. It incentivizes attacking to get points, but also incentivizes defense by keeping your points.

[@WoL0WizZaRD]

We have a very simple way of dealing with doubles... nothing, fight again. theres two dead guys and noone to talk to

[@ArthurNiculitcheff]

How about just subtracting more points for being hit than giving points for hitting? There's a risk that this might make fights to defensive, but i guess that’s what you want. But tweaking the relationship between how much points you gain/lose by hitting/being hit should get you to your preferred aggression level.

[@randyhavard6084]

We're in the same position with fencing and HEMA that we used to be in with martial arts back in the 80s and early 90s. The only way to know for sure what works the best is to do it for real like they did with MMA which arguably can never happen with actual weapons. There would need to be years of work on training and competition with deadly combat to get back to the point they were in the days and these sword fighting treatise

[@tehanureaver4299]

-1 points for doubles (don't care about asymmetry, must deal with buffalos), 1 point for a blow that was punished by an afterblow, 0 points for an afterblow delivered, 3 points for a clean hit, the first one to get 9 points wins, if one or both fencers get to -3 points, the fight is stopped.

[@yogiHalim]

In video games, there are game mechanics in which you recover health if you do timely counter attacks. Which is awesome.

[@MiskyWilkshake]

I'm not sure that I understand how the unscored afterblow which only reduces the points of the initial blow would dissuade a competitor from suicidal play. We know that it's extremely difficult to defend against a suicidal attacker (at least to do so whilst avoiding injury yourself), so if this suicidal attacker knows that it's difficult for you to get out unscathed, and they know that so long as they land the first blow, it is impossible for you to score (only to reduce their score), what incentive do they have not to continuously attack suicidaly? Sure, they might not score highly with each blow, but so long as they can ensure they get the first hit, there's really no need for them to do so in a way that protects themselves - they know the defender can never out-score them with the after-blow. I think one potential solution, to encourage realistic self-defending fencing is simply to say that the first clean blow landed (perhaps only to a deep target?) without the opponent landing an afterblow wins the match. Now, sure that means that there's going to be a lot more chance and luck involved, but people will sure as heck be being careful not to leave an opening.

[@MWodenberg]

Do reverse scoring as mentioned in on of the oldest comments. Give each fighter 5 hit points, if you get hit you lose a point. Rounds are 5 minutes. Every minute each fighter loses a point. Keep a running total of hit points. Person with the most hp at the end wins. 5 hit points/5 rounds may be too much, may need to run 3 or 4 minute rounds with 3 or 4 hit points. This way there is less benefit for delay, at least in the early rounds where landing hits while defending well gives the biggest bang for the buck.

in my experience there is another factor to classify doubles. especially with dagger. not all hits are equal, and very often getting a hit in the hand if it allows you to get in a killing blow might be an acceotable tradeoff. sure you cannot do this forever, since all wounds will make you less effective in the long run, but i think you get my point

[@Kiterum]

@scholagladiatoria What if each had their score reduced by the quality of the other's cut? E.g. A cut to the head for 4 is reduced by two for a leg, and the cut to the leg becomes 0 as it is reduced by 4. How might that play out?

[@beverleybrownlie5148]

Here's my rules critique as you will Head cut or thrust 6 points Body cut or thrust 4 points Appendage cut or thrust 2 points All blows to score must be landed with authority If you land an afterblow to the head it cancels any points scored on the hit by the opponent If you land afterblow to the body it takes 3 points from your opponents scored hit but never to minus numbers If you land afterblow to an appendage subtract 2 points from your opponents scored hit but never to minus numbers Doubles resolutions as follows Headshot against headshot, no points scored Headshot against bodyshot, no points scored Headshot against appendage, headshot scores 2 points Bodyshot against appendage, bodyshot scores 1 point and most of all ladies and gents keep it classy

[@ohshipman]

Probably one of the worst rules I have seen was that the afterblow completely negated the first blow, no matter how light of a tag it could be. So, in actual sparring and competition, it was just two buffons constantly hitting each other and running away, trying to win the race of getting out of measure without any bladework whatsoever. They just tried to win the race of hitting first and getting out of measure, exactly like a tag competition or, pardon my strong language, a fucking olympic sabre competition, yes, that was how the end result looked like.

[@Valkanna.Nublet]

I like the idea of losing points on afterblows, but maybe the points lost should be based on the type of hit. With the chance of it ending up with 0 points if they open themselves up to a blow that's worse than the one they give. eg, A hit to the head (5 points) gets an afterblow to the hand (2 points). End results is 3 points. eg 2, Hit to the hand (2) opens themselves to an afterblow to the head (5). End result is they gain no points. People could be willing to get reduced points, as long as they get something, but the risk of getting nothing may make them less reckless in their attacks.

[@TheCaniblcat]

Why not just rule that receiving an afterblow negates all points that exchange?

[@anotherboredperson]

What if instead of scoring simply between rounds or bouts- you held a continuous score throughout the whole tournament (or even longterm competitive rating)? Getting hit would reduce your longterm score- incentivising both people to defend themselves and their score first and foremost

[@RodneyGivisiez]

Rule in real life No time limit. Lose in fatal hit or by blood loss. If you lose a arm, leg, feet, hand, finger... you fight without it for about 2 minutes(arms end legs) 5 minute for hands and feets, non lethal for fingers. Non instantaneous lethal Impaling is lethal in 1 minutes

[@SpacePatrollerLaser]

This lack of concern for taking a hit is a "first world problem". You get a minor cut IRL you treat it and go on about your doings. In the heyday of swordplay, even a minor cut could get infected and be fatal so you did not want an opponent's blade anywhere near you if you could help it

[@dudeduedate5020]

Can you talk about the typical D&D/fantasy short sword, and why it's dumb?

[@Draconis555]

Is there really a need for points outside of the tournament? In karate, boxing or judo you usually 'feel' that you are the winning/loosing side.

[@vytas5584]

So, if a crap swordsman is ready to die, he can still kill a good swordsman. Very interesting. I wonder how many times in history these doubles occurred.

[@scollyb]

Are there any tournaments where any "killing or crippling" blow means you are eliminated? Treating as if it was a real wound. This would mean with a double or after blow both fencers would lose

[@hschan5976]

Just an idea that might be worth experimenting: Do not award points for delivering the afterblow but create a separate score specifically for receiving afterblow hits. The points should accumulate throughout the tournament and Fencers who have more afterblow points against them get ranked lower when they come out of eliminations pools, if and only if there are multiple fencers with same number of wins.

[@yoursexualizedgrandparents6929]

I personally think after blows should take points away from the person getting blowed. Yes, that was supposed to sound dirty.