Episode 1031 - Role Playing Games and the Martial Arts
In this episode, Jeremy and Andrew discuss the intersection of martial arts and role playing games.
Role Playing Games and the Martial Arts - Episode 1031
SUMMARY
In this episode, Jeremy and Andrew explore the fascinating intersection of role-playing games and martial arts. They discuss the importance of chance in both gaming and martial arts, the psychological aspects of adopting different personas, and how combat in games can mirror real-life martial arts training. The conversation delves into the consequences and rewards of role-playing, the overlap between martial arts practitioners and gamers, and the value of embracing alter egos in training. The hosts also touch on the darker aspects of self-defense training and the necessity of stepping into different mindsets to effectively handle real-world situations.
TAKEAWAYS
Role-playing games allow players to explore different personas.
Combat in games can reflect real-life martial arts training.
The psychological aspect of adopting a character is significant.
Martial arts and role-playing games share a common audience.
Consequences in games enhance the experience of risk.
Understanding unpredictability is crucial in sparring.
Role-playing can serve as an escape from reality.
Training can involve stepping into an alter ego.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction to Role-Playing Games and Martial Arts
01:05 The Importance of Chance in Games and Martial Arts
04:02 Connecting Role-Playing Games with Martial Arts
07:01 The Role of Combat in Role-Playing Games
10:08 The Psychological Aspects of Role-Playing
13:08 Consequences and Rewards in Role-Playing Games
15:58 The Overlap Between Martial Arts and Role-Playing
19:04 Exploring Different Combat Styles in Games
21:56 The Dark Side of Self-Defense Training
25:00 Embracing Alter Egos in Martial Arts Training
After listening to the episode, it would be exciting for us to know your thoughts about it.
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Show Transcript
Jeremy Lesniak (02:07.56)
Welcome to another episode of Whistlekick Martial Arts Radio. No, Andrew and I aren't playing Yahtzee, but we could. Today's episode is about role playing games, tabletop games, video games, the notion of becoming someone else through a game and how it relates to martial arts. This is going to be a lot of fun. And those of you out there who fly your nerd flag proudly, you are
Definitely going to enjoy this and even those of you who don't I think you'll still dig this one You'll probably learn something fact the people who are not so inclined You're the ones that are gonna learn the most from this episode So stick around if you're new to what we do. Well, you've picked an interesting one to come in on welcome This is whistle kick martial arts radio the number one red traditional martial arts podcast in the world My name is Jeremy Lesniak joined by my good friend co-host Andrew Adams Andrew. Welcome to the show again
Andrew Adams (03:06.013)
so great to be here, as always.
Jeremy Lesniak (03:08.35)
It is. It is. Thank you, my friend. And to all of you out there, thank you for spending some time with us. If you are new, me, visit whistlekickmartialartsradio.com for every episode we've ever done, including transcripts, video versions, audio versions, links, photos, videos, all the good stuff that goes along with this and every other episode we do. Join the email list to have each new episode sent right to you. Minimal effort. And you can...
get behind the scenes stuff and a free book and all kinds of other good stuff when you do that. And it is free and we're not going to harass you. We're only going to talk to you about martial arts radio. That's why we're doing it this way. Now, if you want to go even deeper into the whistle verse, which is what I sort of call it, but I don't love that name, the whistle kick verse, it's too many syllables whistle verse. You can go to whistlekick.com and you can see all the events that we do. Martial summit, all in weekend, free training day and so forth. You can see all the products that we make.
the apparel, the training equipment, all that good stuff. You can see the training programs. You can get connected with the books, all the things that we do because there's so much that we do at Whistlekick to help you, the traditional martial artists of the world, connect, educate, and train. Thanks for being here. And Andrew, let's jump in. We opened the show with you shaking and rolling dice.
Andrew Adams (04:26.092)
Yeah, let's do it.
Jeremy Lesniak (04:33.342)
Because I don't think there's anything more iconic to at least the tabletop role-playing world than polyhedral, there's a word for you, polyhedral dice.
Andrew Adams (04:44.396)
Ooh. Yeah, I would, I would agree. and you know, there are obviously dice have been around for hundreds, if not thousands of years. but the, you know, the, the dice that people are most commonly familiar with are the standard six sided dice. but those that are into tabletop role playing games know that there are lots of different
Jeremy Lesniak (04:56.928)
thousands of years.
Andrew Adams (05:13.994)
sided dice. Here's a four sided die, right? They're 20 sided. make, they actually make, they actually make hundred sided dice.
Jeremy Lesniak (05:15.328)
That's a four-sided.
Jeremy Lesniak (05:19.136)
There's a 20.
They do. And Jordan, we're still waiting on these seven and a half sided die. That's a slight inside joke. Those of you who are at all in the weekend will understand that one.
Andrew Adams (05:26.349)
Yes.
Jeremy Lesniak (05:34.462)
Why do we use dice? Why do we bring dice into these things?
Andrew Adams (05:41.742)
I mean, it gives you a level of chance.
Jeremy Lesniak (05:47.977)
without chance, you can't have consequence that feels like it matters, right? Without chance, it's just someone telling you, died. You lost. You won. mean, where's... There isn't a lot of fun there. And in fact, in the literary world, there are plenty of examples of, and even TV and movies, where
Andrew Adams (06:00.43)
Yep. Yep. Chance and randomness. Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak (06:19.024)
Even in guaranteed success without the aspect, the element of chance, things become miserable. I just rewatched The Good Place.
Andrew Adams (06:29.442)
great show.
Jeremy Lesniak (06:30.984)
And there's a bit of that. yes, there's a little bit of a spoiler there, but you find out pretty early on. So I don't feel like I'd give it away. And it's a fantastic.
We need chance. Right, and I think that for. Though I've never heard it said this way, and I've never thought of it this way until right now. That might be part of people's aversion to forms. The folks who are averse to forms and prefer sparring in a an intense environment. There is a an element of chance. There's an element of the unknown that is.
strongly threaded through that you don't have in forms. And I, this is a, this is a, a rapidly developing new theory that I just came up with. Can you tell I just folded my arms because I'm, I'm tightening up thinking about it. As a kid, I loved forms probably because they were predictable, because I needed that element of control in my life.
Andrew Adams (07:36.823)
Yeah, that's that's a really interesting concept now. I'm folding my arms thinking about it. That's yeah, that's interesting. because you're right. There's nothing more random Than sparring right? You don't know what your partner's gonna do Yeah, exactly. You know, you certainly don't know what you're what the person you're sparring is going to do you don't you can't tell me how you're going to react to whatever they do because You don't know yet, right? And forms is very
Jeremy Lesniak (07:41.098)
We can't.
Jeremy Lesniak (07:50.568)
Especially someone new.
Andrew Adams (08:05.688)
Predictable you were taught to do it this way and this is the way you do it You know, that's interesting Yeah
Jeremy Lesniak (08:13.912)
We'll have to do a follow up episode on that. That's kind of fun. So we bring in dice, because we need to bring in chance, because chance is what makes things exciting, because it gives us some differentiation in the result.
Andrew Adams (08:16.342)
Yeah, I like it
Andrew Adams (08:30.156)
Mm-hmm.
Jeremy Lesniak (08:32.104)
the greater the consequence, both good and bad, the more exciting the action. Right. There's a reason that there are a bunch of people prefer live action role playing games versus tabletop role playing games, because the combat and this is probably where we're going to start talking about martial arts and role playing and how they connect. For those of you who are unaware, there are quite a few people out there
Andrew Adams (08:39.49)
Yep. Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak (09:01.408)
who take what a lot of people do with dice and they bring it out into the real world and they act it out. And there are entire combat systems and the very first one, two, the first two, three, we did it a couple of times at Free Training Day Northeast. We brought in some folks who did that live action role playing. We had this massive group combat.
Andrew Adams (09:09.261)
Mm-hmm.
Jeremy Lesniak (09:29.273)
And it wasn't random because of the dice. It was random because it was utter chaos and people moving in ways that were unpredictable, much like Spar.
Andrew Adams (09:39.629)
Yep. And, and I did it for years, years and years. I was involved in martial arts first and heard of the, and played tabletop role playing games, dungeons and dragons and things like that. And. Found out that I could do this in real life. And I, for years, I mean, there's, there's 52 weekends a year. I probably went to minimum 35 events a year. Yeah. Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak (09:42.816)
Hmm.
Jeremy Lesniak (10:06.59)
Whoa, I didn't realize you were that big into it. That's awesome.
Andrew Adams (10:09.55)
And, you know, the big aspect that drew me to it was martial arts. Now I was a martial artist, but this is a chance for me to actually do combat, sword fighting combat, which I loved doing in my tabletop games. And it was a chance for me to do it in real life. Obviously, I couldn't punch and No, no, they were foam swords.
Jeremy Lesniak (10:29.625)
Not with live blades, you're not killing people. But there's plenty of carryover.
Andrew Adams (10:38.114)
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So it was for probably 10 years, it was the thing I was into.
Jeremy Lesniak (10:45.696)
That's really cool. And I think that this is where.
I look at role playing games, whether it's tabletop, live action, video game, computer generated, it almost doesn't matter. There are things I can pull back out. I don't know if these are gonna air in the order that we're recording them, but we just a few minutes ago recorded an episode on the martial arts of millenia long, right? If you go into things,
with the right mindset, you can pull anything back to your martial arts. Right. One of my favorite things to do is to observe how other people are acting and predict their next action. It's something we all, if you drive a car, you do this, whether you realize it or not, because you have to, otherwise you die. Right. And so I will really make it even if I'm a passenger, I try to predict, especially if I'm a passenger, I try to predict how people are going to move.
Andrew Adams (11:38.552)
Yep. Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak (11:49.843)
If I'm sitting in a coffee shop, I can really kind of focus in and, you know, I'll listen to people's conversations, not to spy on them, but to kind of predict or, you know, I see people moving in certain ways because the better I get at that predictive stuff, the better I can bring that out into a self-defense context.
Andrew Adams (12:07.342)
Yep. Yep. it's, and it's all about choosing what we're going to do, which, know, I think I hadn't thought of this until just now, but one of the earliest versions of this, you know, playing a character, creating a persona, whatever was choose your own adventure books. You're reading a book and it says, Hey, if you, if you want the character to do this, go to this page. If you want the character to do this, go to this other page.
And it was the first chance as a young child reading where I got some say into what happened. And I never put that together until just now when we started recording.
Jeremy Lesniak (12:49.536)
So fun fact, the publisher for the Choose Your Own Adventure books is about 15 miles that way. And it's Waitsfield or Warren, Vermont. I'm pretty sure it's Warren. My apologies for missing it. But I, at my 11th, 12th birthday, received a book kind of based on the Choose Your Own Adventure books that had a combat system in it. It was the Lone Wolf books. I don't know if you've ever seen these. Yes.
Andrew Adams (12:54.844)
nice.
Andrew Adams (13:14.774)
I have, I could go downstairs and get them. I have them.
Jeremy Lesniak (13:17.276)
I have nearly a complete set. I'm missing a couple. And for those of you who don't know, you very well could have rolled a die, but what they had on the back page was a random set of numbers. And the idea was you were supposed to, you know, unfamiliarize yourself with where they were and close your eyes and use a pencil and pick a number so you could play on the go. And it wasn't anything close to actual combat. I'm not pretending that.
but it was a small step in that direction.
Andrew Adams (13:48.045)
Yep. And you know, so there's, you know, the first opportunity where personally I had to do that. And then the next was playing tabletop or video, but for me, it was tabletop role playing games. and what I found interesting was again, I was already involved in martial arts. Then I started playing these tabletop games. the, the largest that everyone knows obviously is Dungeons and Dragons back then it was
Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, there's AD &D. But there are, you know, hundreds of different role-playing, tabletop role-playing games, GURPS, which is the Generic Universal Role-Playing System, Role Master is another one that I really got into, but there are just tons of them. And what I found interesting was they recognized, they being the game manufacturers, recognized that people could peep, are hundreds and thousands of millions of kids playing our game.
and there is a subset of them that are involved in martial arts, let's cater our part of our game to them. And so they would always come out with a separate compendium, a separate book. You can play their game, but if you buy this book as well, now your character can do these martial things.
Jeremy Lesniak (15:08.948)
I think a lot of that comes from this idea that we need consequences. And one of the most obvious ways for two people or two characters to engage in conflict is through combat. It's fairly primal. We work hard in day-to-day life to not fight each other, but it is unfortunately still an inevitability. It still happens. You don't have to grab too large of a sample of people to...
Andrew Adams (15:23.566)
Mm-hmm.
Jeremy Lesniak (15:38.603)
to talk to someone that's experienced violence even recently. statistically, we're getting better at that, but it still happens. And I think that as we talked about before, chance and consequence being such an important aspect, what would role playing games, even if combat's not the focus, even if we take a look at something like Dungeons and Dragons versus say like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which I think you, did you grab one of the books or the book, the original book? Yeah.
Andrew Adams (15:41.518)
Sure. Sure.
Andrew Adams (16:04.364)
I do, actually. I have the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness, role-play game.
Jeremy Lesniak (16:08.926)
that's so cool. So those of you who never played that, that is a very combat focused role playing game versus something like D &D where the combat is an aspect of it. depending on who your dungeon master is, you want to offer the disclaimer here.
Andrew Adams (16:29.336)
So, yes, so what I'm holding up is the official Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. I'm wondering if I can find the year that this was published. Should be right here in the front. The year is 1985. So this is the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Oriental Adventures. Now, obviously they would not name this book this now, but back then that's what it was called. And this...
Jeremy Lesniak (16:39.168)
Hmm.
Andrew Adams (16:57.934)
You you can play, you could play Dungeons and Dragons back then and say, I'm going to be a samurai. But this book was the actual rules for playing a samurai.
Jeremy Lesniak (17:06.848)
It went deep and that was that was kind of a hallmark there that you would you would go deep. Now the other thing that I kind of want to bring into conversation here because this is probably the first quote of mine that got spread around the Internet.
martial arts gives back exactly and only what you put in.
And the full quote, and it's weird to quote myself, but martial arts is one of those rare pursuits that gives back exactly and only what you put in. Most role playing games are an attempt to get somewhere in that direction that you know, OK, if I do this, I understand these rules. Yes, there's an element of chance here. It's not a direct in and out in the same way martial arts is, but.
It is a much more cut and dry, leveling up experience point results, rewards, et cetera process than the real world is. And I think that there's a large portion of society that really appreciates that. know, statistically, does tend to be younger men. And, you know, we don't need to get into the psychology of that.
But when the world doesn't seem to make sense in the same way that martial arts is a place that can bring a lot of us solace for a lot of people role playing games are similar because there's enough risk to make it fun, but it's not real risk. You're not going to die. You're not going to get hurt. You're not going to lose your job. There are people are not you're not well, you might lose some social standing playing our role playing games depending on the social group that you're in. But fortunately, that that's changed. But I think I think that
Andrew Adams (18:34.39)
Mm-hmm. Exactly, exactly.
Jeremy Lesniak (18:52.544)
the Venn diagram, the overlap between people who are interested in martial arts and people who are at least open to role-playing games is considerable because the in versus out balance is so much closer than it is to other things.
Andrew Adams (19:09.88)
Yep. Yep. And for a lot of people, it became an escape. They got to be someone else, right? And not have that fear of actually, like you said, actually dying.
Jeremy Lesniak (19:21.822)
And I think that for a lot of us when we train, whether it's conscious and intentional or not, we have a bit of that.
I if I'm having a good class, whether I'm training. More so when I'm training than when I'm instructing. When I'm training and I'm having a good workout and I'm feeling strong and the materials clicking, whether I'm sparring or self defense or grappling or rolling or sparring or forms. I feel like a better version of myself. I feel like I've put on a bit of a cape.
I'm superhero Jeremy, maybe not superhero, hero Jeremy, right? And that's a really good feeling. I don't get to feel like that day to day very often. And I'm gonna guess you felt that as well.
Andrew Adams (20:09.666)
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. you know, we have both seen the inverse happen where someone starts training in martial arts because they've been playing role playing games and they want to be able to do the things that their character can do.
Jeremy Lesniak (20:18.432)
for sure.
Jeremy Lesniak (20:27.828)
Yeah. Yeah. And I want to, I want to shout out because he's a good friend of ours and he's, part of the, team, Victor, who's been on the show almost as many times as Craig, right? Like they're fighting, they're fighting it out for, for, for third and fourth. he's running, he's run several.
Jeremy Lesniak (20:54.216)
Instead of thinking about bringing martial arts out into role playing games, he's more going the other direction. And I think the one that he's running next month is, fighting like a barbarian. So taking the idea of how would a. Stereotypical barbarian from a role playing game fight. And then how do we make that real? What, what are the actual implementations with the actual tools? And I think he's using an axe.
Andrew Adams (21:04.014)
Mm.
Jeremy Lesniak (21:22.26)
for this, I think it's like a five week course and it's really cool. his school, he and his wife are really onto something kind of cool there. And as an aside, if anybody out there does something similar, I'd love to hear from you about that. Cause I wanna pick your brain.
Yeah.
Andrew Adams (21:43.277)
Yeah. And I think the last one he did was thieves fighting like a thief, like a rogue type thing. Like, you know, there there's definitely a lot, a lot there. And what I enjoy about all of these games is that, you know, like I mentioned, you know, they, all came out with separate rules for doing that. You know, the, last, the last book I have here is from the generic universal role playing system from called GURPS. And it's the book is titled martial arts, exotic combat systems from
Jeremy Lesniak (21:48.884)
Yeah
Andrew Adams (22:13.236)
all cultures. And what was cool about this was it was the first chance, the first time that I saw, I was ignoring you. It was the first place where I saw African martial arts. They had African weapons and shields. The date on this, it's going to be really early, 1990.
Jeremy Lesniak (22:14.793)
it says exotic. Okay. There's a little blurry on my screen.
Jeremy Lesniak (22:22.344)
I didn't get him. I tried to get him.
I know you were!
Jeremy Lesniak (22:32.862)
What's the date on that book?
Jeremy Lesniak (22:39.338)
Okay, so, you we've had a number of guests on the show who have delved into Mama G being the most recent delved into African martial arts and you know, she, her story goes back to the 70s, but in the grand scheme of a certain flavor of martial arts, that's still really new. And the fact that they had that incorporated, that's really cool. They were ahead of the curve.
Andrew Adams (22:59.032)
Mm-hmm.
So for me, for me, you know, as a martial artist, this was, this was like research material. Like what's the name of that weapon? Wow, I've never seen that before. That's cool. there's a shield that it's a shield and a sword at the same time. wow, you know, that stuff like that was, was research for me.
Jeremy Lesniak (23:13.015)
Hmm
Jeremy Lesniak (23:22.56)
There's one more thing that I want to say and I think it kind of bookends the show. So before I go there, do you have anything else you wanted to bring in?
Andrew Adams (23:29.939)
no, I think we're good.
Jeremy Lesniak (23:33.888)
So there be some folks out there who are watching or listening and they're saying, okay, great. I've hung with you this far. I don't see how this applies to me. I don't wanna get together with friends and roll dice. don't, know, video games don't appeal to me. I prefer the real world to a manufactured world. Great, absolutely. I understand that, I appreciate that.
You cannot be you and be the most effective self-defense practitioner in the moment that you need it. Because if you are you and you are not an inherently violent person, I'm going to guess we have nobody out there in the audience that is an inherently violent person.
Because if you are, you're probably not training. And if you are training, and you are inherently a violent person, you're probably not enjoying it. So you probably stopped training, so you're probably not watching or listening to the show. Maybe we get some weirdo who writes in there like, I hate everyone and I stab people whenever I can. Fine. Okay. I don't believe you, but you know, maybe that happens.
Andrew Adams (24:39.382)
And if that, that's true and you do write in, make sure you give us your full name and address. Yeah. Thank you.
Jeremy Lesniak (24:43.614)
Right. Yes. All the evidence from all the people you've stabbed as well as the contact information for your local police jurisdiction. Right. Also stop stabbing people.
Andrew Adams (24:48.034)
Yep. Yep.
Andrew Adams (24:52.14)
Yep, otherwise we're not going to believe you.
Jeremy Lesniak (25:03.036)
If you play out the scenario.
You have to go to a different place. You have to go to a bit of a dark place and anybody who has really pushed the envelope. On self defense scenario training. Knows what I'm talking about. You can't approach that as you you. Have to put on a different mask costume persona, whatever you want to think of it as. Maybe there's a reflection of who you are in that.
And I'm not suggesting that this is at all bad. This is exactly what it needs to be.
Jeremy Lesniak (25:41.983)
Because otherwise, how do you match up to someone who is trying to hurt someone who is more inherently in that dark place, right? Warm, fuzzy people don't don't commit violence. Trivial, right? There's a there's a very strong reason. So you've got to be able to find a way to step into that place and.
Role-playing games are not going to get you all the way there with comfort, but you can dip a toe in If you let's well Jeremy I'll just be able to do that whenever I want if you can't Sit in front of group out up in front of a group of people that you know that you like that are Pretending to be someone else in a fun way. Maybe over a drink or some snacks on a Friday night
you are mistaken as to how easily you can step into that dark place and be a completely different person that you've never been. Do I have faith that you're probably going to get there? Yes, but if you're training your physical skills and you continue to train your physical skills, there is benefit in training this ability to transition. Now for me,
That is my highest expression of forms. If anybody's ever watched me compete, I go to that dark place. And the better I can do that, my last competition a few weeks ago, it was not great. But the better I do, the longer it takes me to come out. It is generally 30 to 60 minutes for me to fully come back once I go there, because it is that.
much of a transformation for me. And I didn't realize it as I was coming up through the competitive circuit that that's the skill I was practicing.
Andrew Adams (27:35.788)
Yeah, I dig it. I get it.
Jeremy Lesniak (27:38.955)
So to all of you out there, it's okay to put down who you are from time to time. It's okay to think about a persona. And even if you're not going to actually go and roll dice or play games or bang foam hammers, swords with other people, I think there's some value in you coming up with an alter ego. And once in a while training is that alter ego. You don't even have to tell anybody. You can show up to class one day and
You know, today I'm Conan or whoever. Why not? Nobody has to know. The more comfortable you are with it, the easier you can flip it back and forth when you need it.
Andrew Adams (28:13.858)
Why not? Why not?
Jeremy Lesniak (28:25.664)
Awesome. For any of you out there who have found value in bridging these two subjects, we want to hear from you. Andrew at Whistlekick.com, Jeremy at Whistlekick.com. You can comment any place we post these episodes, YouTube, Spotify, Whistlekick, martial arts radio dot com. And if you love what we do, there's three things I want you to do. I want you to leave a review somewhere. I want you to subscribe. And I want you to join the Patreon. It starts at five dollars a month. We give you
extra stuff back and we have big plans we gotta get another 15 people or so in there 14 15 I haven't checked the numbers today and once we do more great stuff coming to you for no extra charge and actually there are higher tiers we could have let's see 15 so we could have one more person join at the hundred dollar level and that would do it too so how much do love us
Anything else before we roll out? Is that it?
Andrew Adams (29:22.102)
No, I think we're good. think until next time, train hard.
Jeremy Lesniak (29:27.562)
Smile!
Andrew Adams (29:28.852)
And hang on.
Hang on, hang on, hang on.
Andrew Adams (29:36.824)
Have a great day!
Jeremy Lesniak (29:38.208)
You got a natural 20?
Andrew Adams (29:41.506)
Train smile, train hard smile and have a great day. The dice told you to have a great day.
Jeremy Lesniak (29:43.562)
Smile and have a great day. love it. That's the dice told you to have a great day.