It sounds to me that people are looking mostly for detailed and complex rules (that make sense). I tend to have the opposite problem, I think that the flaw in most grappling rules is that they're too complicated. With Arrows of Indra (and with my upcoming Lion & Dragon RPG), I chose to make very streamlined wrestling/grappling rules that tried to be as straightforward as possible.

Quote from: RPGPundit;997739It sounds to me that people are looking mostly for detailed and complex rules (that make sense). I tend to have the opposite problem, I think that the flaw in most grappling rules is that they're too complicated. With Arrows of Indra (and with my upcoming Lion & Dragon RPG), I chose to make very streamlined wrestling/grappling rules that tried to be as straightforward as possible.

Detailed and straightforward don't exclude each other;).

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;997208The script gave him the skill.

That doesn't mean it's not a truism. Skill will beat brute force in the vast majority of contests. Whether that is physical or mental is irrelevant.

For me, ideally, a good grappling system works like this:

Players A chooses to grapple and opponent. They make a standard attack(1), if successful applies a "grappled" condition(2). This condition should universally apply a mechanical criteria to both the grappler and grappled. Being grappled should as a condition should(3) limit ones movement, executable actions, outside of escaping the grapple. Damage is applied subsequent to the establishment of the grappled condition(4).

1- This attack could be non-standard if there are elements to your combat system that allow "special manuevers" to specifically grapple someone. I.e. a martial art that specialize in grappling. So a Wrestler might get a "Shoot" ability to establish a grapple with bonuses to this attempt, or whatever.

2 - Being grappled is not the same as grappling someone. This depends on your task-resolution. I prefer knowing whether the attempt worked or not. No one cares if two people are rolling around in some contested check trying to figure out who grappled who.  Grappling someone does not necessarily confer the same penalties to the person initiating the grapple - unless it's due to failing to succeed. This could also be tied to the skill being used. For example a Wrestler uses his Shoot ability and fails - and lands prone.

3 - The grappled condition should specify what kind of actions the grappled person is allowed assuming they aren't going to escape.  Small weapons? Penalties to defense? No movement? Additionally some martial arts skills might work with a bonus while being grappled. These would be listed under those specific skills, things like reversals even throws, locks etc from a grappled state if one possesses the right skill.

4 - Damage should be based on skill (quality of grapple, ideally if your system has degrees of success) and strength. Other options should be available if you have martial arts in your system that allow for throws, locks, drags (movement/push/pull) etc. that might add to this. OR it could be resolved in #2

This is how I'd do it off the top of my head.

Quote from: tenbones;997803No one cares if two people are rolling around in some contested check trying to figure out who grappled who.

I care. Among other reasons because two people rolling around has an actual effect. The two are a tripping hazard to everyone else. That should matter.

Quote from: Bren;997812I care. Among other reasons because two people rolling around has an actual effect. The two are a tripping hazard to everyone else. That should matter.

And so therefore your system can reflect that by adding more complexity (that I deem unnecessary, but have it your way). What do you call it when someone unsuccessfully grapples someone? Give them them "wrasilin around" condition - where you can iterate more mechanics on that condition there. See? I'm inclusive.

Edit: not convinced of the "tripping hazard" unless you're talking about "mass combat" where I could see it. In general combat where weapons are out, very few people I know of would resort to grappling unless they were very specialized fighters. But again, nothing prevents you from adding such sub-systems to my grappling workflow. Many systems out there do just that - but I think those are the systems that people generally complain about when it comes to grappling complexity.

Quote from: tenbones;997813... Edit: not convinced of the "tripping hazard" unless you're talking about "mass combat" where I could see it. In general combat where weapons are out, very few people I know of would resort to grappling unless they were very specialized fighters. ...

People wraslin' on the floor during weapon combat certainly happens in TFT & GURPS, even if many of them would tend to usually prefer to be standing and using their weapons. And it occupies a fair amount of space especially if there's other terrain (including other fallen bodies) in the area, and is certainly an obstacle to the standing folks, and/or a target of opportunity (also a likely way to accidentally hit your friend while trying to help him by hitting his foe).

Reasons for people doing it sometimes go on and on, e.g. dropped/broken/bound weapons, falling down and getting an opportunity to grab a standing foe's leg, seeing a sudden opportunity to slam or tackle someone, wanting to take a foe out of combat when it'll be difficult to do so quickly with your weapon (e.g. he's in heavy armor), or your side outnumbers the enemy and they're more deadly standing with weapons out, or you want to keep them from running away, take prisoners... etc etc etc

Quote from: RPGPundit;997739It sounds to me that people are looking mostly for detailed and complex rules (that make sense). I tend to have the opposite problem, I think that the flaw in most grappling rules is that they're too complicated. With Arrows of Indra (and with my upcoming Lion & Dragon RPG), I chose to make very streamlined wrestling/grappling rules that tried to be as straightforward as possible.

I agree with the bolded (by me) statement completely. The DG rules were designed to avoid complexity by hewing to mechanics everyone is already familiar with, with a tweak or two that are instantly graspable. Or at least, folks from 10yo to 50yo grasped them with maybe five minutes of introduction at GenCon, and were able to use them smoothly and interchangeably through the sessions I ran. They even got on the old school train with "anything may be attempted" and did some unexpected and awesome things that the rules didn't explicitly cover, but were very easy to adjudicate.

Quote from: tenbones;997813In general combat where weapons are out, very few people I know of would resort to grappling unless they were very specialized fighters.

I don't expect it to be an option people would often choose, but weapons are dropped, break, or get knocked away. And sometimes you want to capture the other guy alive and more or less unharmed.

EDIT: I've been Ninjaed. GURPS can do that.

One of the things people in the HEMA community quickly figured out is that wrestling is integral to fencing with one and two handed swords, and daggers with or without a small shield. It is emphasized in all the major manuals, and a significant number of the techniques call for intentionally bringing an exchange to some sort of grappling action, either dropping your own sword or keeping it. And the weapon systems and manuals that are closer to sharp-weapon combat (as opposed to sport) emphasize grappling with weapons more. So, while no one alive really has significant experience fighting earnestly with these things, it is a good bet that no rpg combat system should be thought of as realistic unless it includes wrestling as a core feature, fully integrated with the rest of the system. Not many games meet that criterion, though TFT was an early example that sort of did this, and GURPS with all the combat options turned on is pretty close.

Quote from: tenbones;997803Skill will beat brute force in the vast majority of contests.

I dispute that.  Weight classes in fighting sports exist for a reason.  Roy Jones, Jr, was never as good in the upper weight classes as he was as a middleweight, and he was the most skilled boxer of the time in his prime.

Very true. Anyone who thinks that skill beats 'brute' force in grappling has never fought a competent larger opponent. The only highly size mis-matched wrestling contest I've seen go to the smaller person was between a guy with a decade of intense BJJ training against a guy who liked fighting but hadn't really done anything organized beyond football. And the bigger guy clearly would have won if it had been a fight rather than a formal wrestling match.

Quote from: ThatChrisGuy;998097I dispute that.  Weight classes in fighting sports exist for a reason.  Roy Jones, Jr, was never as good in the upper weight classes as he was as a middleweight, and he was the most skilled boxer of the time in his prime.

Oh you can dispute it all you want. There's always the exception that proves the rule.

As far as weight classes in sports are concerned: I answered upthread, its the removal of extraneous advantages in presumably similarly skilled fighters. That's the *presumption* of sport weight classes. To give no one an obvious advantage within the context of the sport. Because the adage - a Good Big man will always beat a Good Small man is also a general truth.

But if you want to make things more obvious and directly to the point:

165lbs Brazilian Jiu Jitsu specialist vs. 264lbs bodybuilder
https://youtu.be/0tzjcEgPWpM

158lbs greco-roman wrestler vs 339lbs bodybuilder
https://youtu.be/JpvrVe9GIAk

140lbs boxer vs. 320lbs strongman Eddie Hall
https://youtu.be/9aIUrPrzEwU

I could go on. Skill will almost always beat brute force in combat. This doesn't mean being a muscle-bound meathead precludes you from having actual skill - see the difference? The moment that happens, you then become a skilled combatant that happens to be strong as hell too.

Quote from: Larsdangly;998105competent larger opponent.

Then you're talking about skill on skill that happens to be physically stronger. Not skill vs. brute force. Hence the weight-classes in *sports*.

In your example I would dispute your criteria for "skill" equating to time served in training. There is a big difference between training for a fight and actually fighting and being skilled at fighting. Sure there's a general correlation - but I will submit there are *vastly* no good examples of any non-trained fighter, I don't care *how* strong or big they are, beating a real* Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black-belt in a streetfight or a contest without some serious mitigating circumstances. I'd extend this even to brown-belts in BJJ. Purple? Maaayyybe.

I would submit the same for a non-trained fighter going against a Division 1 or Division 2 collegiate wrestler too.

* - meaning they trained with the Machados, the Gracies or one of their students.

Edit: and the reason why is simple training. Skilled grapplers (and by this I'm using the demarcation of someone with a BJJ blackbelt, or someone on a Division 1/2 squad) - are people that have spend *thousands* of hours on the mat going 110% just to get to that level which is a baseline for "skilled". If we're talking about people that dabble (like me - I wrestled for 6 years and in my prime I'd have been barely skilled, now? pfft. Against a nobody, I'd fuck them up. Against anyone active with a modicum of skill - I'd get trashed) that's not a fair standard for what I'm talking about.

Quote from: Bren;997949I don't expect it to be an option people would often choose, but weapons are dropped, break, or get knocked away. And sometimes you want to capture the other guy alive and more or less unharmed.

EDIT: I've been Ninjaed. GURPS can do that.

My "issue" - it's not really an issue - is that I have never run/played in a game where it required that kind of detail. Not because I wouldn't be interested, but mainly because outside of running Cyberpunk2020, and even then we go for my cinematic fare bordering on Matrix-fu, that the rolling around on the ground/struggling for the weapon simply wouldn't happen outside of unskilled fighters. Most of my players tend to resort to skilled gunplay or skilled hand-to-hand where stuff like this would never happen.

And a large part of this over everything else is the systems we use don't really call for it. Probably why I don't use GURPS (players hate it).

Quote from: Larsdangly;998087One of the things people in the HEMA community quickly figured out is that wrestling is integral to fencing with one and two handed swords, and daggers with or without a small shield. It is emphasized in all the major manuals, and a significant number of the techniques call for intentionally bringing an exchange to some sort of grappling action, either dropping your own sword or keeping it. And the weapon systems and manuals that are closer to sharp-weapon combat (as opposed to sport) emphasize grappling with weapons more. So, while no one alive really has significant experience fighting earnestly with these things, it is a good bet that no rpg combat system should be thought of as realistic unless it includes wrestling as a core feature, fully integrated with the rest of the system. Not many games meet that criterion, though TFT was an early example that sort of did this, and GURPS with all the combat options turned on is pretty close.

When your weapons are not adequate to deal with each other's armor unless one of you gets lucky and neither of you gets lucky, you will often wind up on the floor. Early jujutsu put a lot of emphasis on eye-gouging, partly because one cannot armor ones eyes.