Communicating your state, at it's surface, is a very obvious thing. In many ways the basics are built into the rules. A dead arm is place behind your back, while a stabbed one dangles at your side. A dead leg is shown with that knee on the ground, whereas the live one is shown by having the other knee off the ground. Dead, generally, is shown with a weapon over your head or three points of contact (asscheek, and elbows) on the ground. So why even bother to write a blog on such a thing? Well, let's get into that.
How to call "light"
There are lots of shots that look like they connect (and do) but because they don't have enough force on them are simply not good shots. Because rhino-hiders (people who simply don't take all but the most crushing of blows) are a thing in our sport the call "light" has become not so much an indication of what actually happened as it has become an invitation to simply pound that person harder. In 12 years of fighting, as a ~6' tall ~220 pound man, I have had countless light calls for the shots that I have thrown. While plenty of them were correctly called, just as many were from even bigger men who simply decided there wasn't sufficient torque on the shot, even as it landed unblocked, straight on their belly. In that 12 years of fighting exactly 1 fighter I had an issue with I couldn't resolve, and after repeatedly getting railed in the kidney (and calling light) the fighter became unable to stand, let alone continue to fight. Generally speaking, hitting harder isn't the right way to deal with a rhino-hider. It is my opinion that the goal of our sport is to have fun and safe combat. Combat that leaves it's participants covered in bruises is going to limit how often you can fight, on account of repeated hits to sore spots being unpleasant, and it's more likely to have someone throw a shot that injures another fighter if your hit threshold is that high. So, right out, if you're reading this, please don't be that guy. Don't be the guy who throws crushing hits and takes folks off the field due to injury. Also don't be that guy who simply calls every swing that connects as a "light" hit.
So let's talk about doing that the right way. There are plenty of ways to let your opponent know that even though they did in fact see their sword connect with the fleshy bits of your body, for whatever reason it's still not a good shot. If the shot came in off a weapon or a shield, and as a result of impact with that weapon or shield, no longer has any force behind it you can call, "off weapon" or "off shield" instead of calling "light" AKA, "please hit me harder". If a shot hits a shield or weapon solidly, and then sort of slaps or pets you because the weapon keeps flailing the usual call for this is "butter" to imply that although there was contact there was nothing resembling a swing behind it. A shot that hits mostly clothing but not a limb or torso we call "garb". For a swing that just grazes a target area you can call "skimmy".
When in doubt
Let me preface this section by saying, if you don't know what happened, it's best to call dead. If you're fighting a veteran and you call dead and they know they haven't hit you, they will often tell you so. "That was clearly not a good hit, get back up" or "Don't take that, there's no way that was good". Generally speaking, if you can't at any moment tell your opponent what has happened to you or you've become overwhelmed by the number of incoming shots... call dead. You can work out what happened later and you won't effect the flow of battle by sitting there trying to figure it out. One of my own personal pet peeves is a person who I've lit up, who stops to think about all the times they've been hit and then decides that they only processed one of the 6 shots so they're alive, then turns around after appearing dead and backs me. I realize that as a new person they may have issues counting shots, and that's not to be held against them but it's important to stay dead if you start to look dead.
The flip side of being in doubt, is that if you know a shot DIDN'T hit you, but you aren't sure what to call you can simply call "no". That's to let the other person know that you acknowledge that they threw the shot and you are aware that it connected with SOMETHING but for whatever reason you do not judge it to be a sufficient hit. Either that stab didn't quite have enough oomf behind it (which should be a very rare circumstance unless you like getting railed in the solar plexus) or that shot which eventually connected came in off something else. Telling your opponent "no" means that you registered their shot and aren't simply sluffing or ignoring it. While it's always better to use specific communication (hand on weapon, foot on ground, off X, butter, etc), communicating anything is better then not communicating anything at all.
Dead look dead
Especially in larger battles being able to quickly and cleanly communicate to anyone interested that you are a corpse is of the utmost importance. No one wants to get beat up after they're already dead, and no living person wants to discover that corpse isn't a corpse by getting backed by them. This breaks down in two directions. The first is, if you're dead, look dead. Three points of contact on the ground and ideally, no weapons in your hands. While weapon on head is theoretically supposed to designate that you are dead people can be lazy about that and in doing so send an unclear signal. Many fighters that are alive and active will have a A frame wherein the shield and weapon make an A (hence the name) which means that their weapon is often next to or touching their head. To be able to tell the difference between a person in an a frame and a person who is lazy but dead is almost impossible. The person who is a lazy corpse has their weapon touching their head, but rather then hold it at a straight line they've slumped to the point where it only rests on their head while the rest of it forms a line to their body. A live person in an A frame has the exact same stance but is at least theoretically alive and about to hit you. The main difference is that a person who is honorable and alive will communicate this to you. "Alive", "Still Up", etc. BEFORE they begin swinging at you, so that you aren't killed simply because you couldn't tell their state.
When dead don't look dead it puts a veteran fighter in a bind. They can either hit everyone who they aren't sure is alive or dead and be seen probably as a total jackass by the rest of the field (even if they go around giving courtesy hits) or they can walk past people who appear to be corpses knowing full well they're probably going to get hit in the back. A few weeks back at an Armored Penguins practice I opted to be the latter case. I was walking through a pile of corpses when one individual who was standing near/off the edge of the field with his weapons not in a fighting stance, and who hadn't moved in a few minutes suddenly decided to move and back me. I had seen him in the pile of bodies and certainly could have lit him up, but he hadn't moved in a while, and wasn't threatening me with his weapons. Additionally, because he was with a bunch of other dead people it wasn't clear to me if he was alive, or simply another dead person. Unfortunately, all of the dead people around him were in a pretty similar state. They were holding weapons, they did not have 3 points of contact on the ground and many of them weren't even holding weapons on their heads, and if they were they were often doing so in the style of an A frame rather then in straight vertical line. In that situation I could either A) Hit everything I walked past, possibly driving away new fighters because of gratuitous violence or B) Simply submit myself to getting backed by people who appeared dead. Neither option ends well. While going with option A keeps me alive it will also start to kill a realm and if I go with option B I'm going to get frustrated myself because I can't tell who to hit. The correct answer of course is fixing this behavior. Failing that you can always avoid apparently dead people until you've cleaned up a field.
Calling dead
Because it's important to safeguard yourself it's really important to get into the habit of calling "dead" the moment someone lands a good hit. This is less of a problem in a field with 10 people and significantly more of a problem in a field with 600 or 1500+ people (go check out Battle for the Ring or Ragnorok for those numbers). In a field with 600+ people most fighters aren't going to take the time to figure out if a person next to them is alive or dead. They will simply swing at anything that moves or that can resemble a threat, sometimes even killing off their own team mates. In a situation like this it's REALLY important to have learned how to not only look dead, but how to call dead, so that your opponents will stop swinging at you. The first piece of this is SHOUT, don't simply say "dead". Also, don't simply put your weapon over your head, but instead verbalize that you are, in fact, deceased. If you're part of a wall that's getting attacked, don't die where you got hit and drop to 3 points of contact (as would normally be the right action). Instead, put your weapon on your head, guard yourself, and walk away from that melee. Preferably off the edge of the field if it happens to be nearby. If it's not nearby, simply get away from the immediate melee then drop down. If there's a grand melee, your safety is important, and you do no one any favors by being trampled underfoot.
In any other case where you are not in danger of being trampled underfoot, call dead, drop to the ground, and once they've stopped swinging at you drop your stuff so you don't look like you could swing at them. I add in the "wait until they've stopped swinging" because when people are trying to kill you, often their shots have momentum and can't be immediately stopped. After you call dead you can often expect a few more shots to be thrown or completed before your opponents stop aggressing. It's not that they didn't hear you, it's just that they can throw shots faster then they can process "dead" and the interim between when they hear you say that and when it processes will allow them to throw a few more swings. It's not anything personal it's just one of the limitations of being human. We're all human, don't be upset. That having been said, also don't leave yourself undefended.
It's important to learn and practice these skills when there's only 10 people around and it's less important so when you hit that 600+ or 1500+ field you're prepared.
Armor
I am of the opinion that for the first year of fighting no new person should be allowed to wear armor. Armor significantly increases the difficulty of being able to properly take hits by reducing your sensitivity to getting hit which causes you to call light on shots that aren't and it increases the number of hits you can take which makes keeping track of damage more difficult. Assuming that you DO opt to wear armor communication only becomes more important. If you get hit more then once and you call armor twice, in many cases folks will assume you're cheating because armor can only absorb one hit per target location. If you are going to wear armor you'll have to learn to call not only "armor" but also it's location. So it becomes "armor, left arm armor taken" or "armor, torso armor taken" so that they know not only that they scored a successful hit but also where you're counting the blow. When you prepare to engage a person and you're wearing armor it's also considered good form to let an opponent know the state of your armor as far as what is, or is not broken. Keeping track of the state of your armor is additional overhead (which is filed under reason to gain some veterancy before strapping it on) you need to deal with when calculating shots, but is very important to keeping a good reputation. In my years of fighting I've seen more then a few people who have had magical armor which regenerates after being broken. These people are cheaters and in my experience, sooner or later, someone simply hits them as hard as they can over and over again until that person calls dead. ...so for your own sake, try not to be that guy.
There's lots to being a good fighter beyond how well you swing your sticks
See? Look at how much I wrote on that. Communication, like hit taking is a skill that is developed over time as a fighter. It's as integral to the sport and to your honor as learning how to swing stick and how to take hits is, but a lot of the time it's not a point of discussion. Someone who has good honor but bad communication is going to develop a reputation for rhino-hiding when their only sin is not communicating well enough. But someone who has bad honor and good communication will at least give you consistent feedback so you can learn how to hit them in such a way that they'll take your swings, even if that means you have to really but some force behind those swings. Alternately, if they repeatedly call "light" in front of a all of their peers when they're clearly being hit everyone will know they're a rhino-hider and any herald worth their salt will either call them dead or simply remove them from the field.
In an ideal world everyone would have good honor and good communication. Until that time it's up to each of us to be part of the solution rather then part of the problem. Encourage people you fight with the communicate what happened by ASKING why the swings you threw were no good and develop in yourself a habit of calling the shots that connected for whatever they were, even if the shot was good, and was an arm or a leg, that's still valid to call because they may assume they hit torso.
Be that guy who communicates well and looks obviously dead when they're dead. Don't be that guy who doesn't communicate and is ambiguously alive at all times.
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