First, I like the combat system as presented by trif. It is quick and easy and fairly realistic. The movement rates are what I use (although, once again, I am sticking to Imperial Feet. Silly world with your Metric system for easy conversions, bah!)
As for combat rules in general:
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I participated in two stickfighting matches in switzerland a couple of years ago, where we used very little protection, and the potential for fractures where a real danger. In those fights more time where used for circling, looking for openings and feinting than real commited attacks.
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I would go with that explanation for why RPG unarmed combat seems so out of place with reality. Combat to play around is stupid looking...lots of flailing and poor form. Combat to hurt someone is better, especially when done by professionals (look at how Judo masters do it...usually the bout is done in about 10 seconds...most highly skilled fighters versus other highly skilled fighters follow that pattern in my experience....very little flailing, but very measured actions that result in quick victories or a flurry of blows that will quickly decide a "winner")
The exception is MMA where submission seems to be all the rage these days instead of knock outs...meh. Submissions are nice one on one, but a lot of people seem to have friends, and that doesn't work too well IMO.
For people that kill other people for a living or a hobby, they seem to be pretty damn good at it. Serial killers (usually untrained) seem quite able to kill another human quite easily.
Why this disparity between "fighting", "winning" and "killing"? Well, that's pretty simply actually: most people can't/won't fight to kill...the reasons are myriad, but it pretty much boils down to three things: humans can take a LOT of damage before the expire, most people are not trained to use a weapon (any weapon, much less hands and feet) effectively (and thus have a hard time doing damage, much less enough to cause a person to die) and MOST people don't
really want to kill another human being...hurt, humiliate, maybe even cripple, but it is rare for someone to think "you know, I want to kill that guy over there" and then do it, much less do it effectively.
The problem with RPG's is that the "baseline" for "most" characters tends to be a highly trained, well armed, sociopath...think about it...there are a lot of games where characters are basically racially motivated mass murderers that specialize in home invasion...
I digress...even in mixed martial arts competitions, police training or "hard core" self defense classes...the RESULT is supposed to be stopping the threat, or defeating the opponent.
In contrast, in RPG's the point (usually) is to quickly and efficiently KILL the monster, bad guy, NPC's, whatever...not stop them, or escape or scare them.
To simulate the fact that killing is the primary point of combat in RPG's, the characters are (usually) sociopathic murderers so that they won't pull punches or feel bad when covered in blood or looking into the eyes of their victim(s) day after day of slaughtering "monsters" (for immoral reasons in most cases), and they are well trained so they won't waste their time punching people in the head or body...they will go directly for genitals, eyes, ears, fingers, shins, nerve clusters and other easily destroyed, "high payoff targets"...
A normal person will punch someone in the face or push them. A fighter will try to punch them in the nose to break it and give them that "wake up call". A killer will kick them in the groin or punch them in the solar plexus, preferably from the shadows...or even better, just stab them in the kidneys from behind and run away to wait for them to die...or the best option is to kill them from hiding, at range and with some friends to help.
RPG game combat is not unrealistic...RPG characters are, especially when compared to the average western educated, middle class gamer.
Just my opinion.
-STS