GlyphGryph’s comment reminded me. To avoid getting too bogged down in “but this style should really be able to…” and similar issues, I’d like to suggest when a style is added, it gets a short description written for it, and that description is the cannonical reference for how the style works in the game.
Yes this caricatures styles, but frankly if you don’t do that they all end up being nearly the same.
The comment on -justsu vs -do is accurate as I understand it. T’ai chi makes heavy use of the chinese straight sword (proper name Jian, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jian), but also uses various staffs and other implements. As an example of strereotyping I’d say restrict it to the Jian and other swords that are similar enough, for example a rapier or foil would handle very similarly in practice, and possibly a longsword.
I really like the idea of having “sport styles” that aren’t all that great, with kendo being a great example. On the other hand some sport styles, like boxing might be very practical.
For implementation, a question is which do we annotate for compatability with a martial art, the style object or the weapon? It seems more pertinent to annotate the style with a list of compatible weapons, but there might be some reason that doesn’t work. Also weapons are relatively simple and styles are relatively complex already, so keeping the complexity in the style definitons is also a plus.
On the subject of styles that use weapons, most kung fu derived styles (which is um, most of them) use weapons, it’s probably more common to have weapon-only styles than styles that are only unarmed.
Most branches of Karate use a whole boatload of weapons, as do most kung-fus, definitely ninjutsu*, Akido and Judo kind of stand out as being light on weapons, but I’m no expert on either of them. Escrima and Brazilian jujutsu use a variety.
With the current system, I’d just make “Escrima sticks” (or a more proper name?) a singular item you equip together, similarly with Tonfa if you’re using two. Possibly apply them to each other to pair and unpair them.
*From what I know of ninjutsu, being to incorporate most any weapon into the style is a major focus.
