Quote:
Originally Posted by DanHoward
I've done it personally. During a fight I've seen attacks that I judged were going to either miss completely or hit somewhere that I knew would not hurt much so instead of dealing with it, I ignored it and used their opening to improve my attack. Sometimes I judged wrongly. One time I ended up in hospital with broken ribs. Another time I misjudged the distance of a footsweep. I was already balanced so he couldn't take out my front leg so I ignored his sweep but he stretched just far enough to clip my back leg too and I and landed on my back with my head hitting the floor. A third one was a back kick that I knew was too low so I let it go between my legs as I moved in but he hooked his leg up and his heel collected the family jewels.
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That's not really ignoring the attack. You used an opening. I'm sure you used either footwork, angling or positioning to place yourself beyond the reach of the attack or set yourself up for your counter technique. In either case, you made a conscious choice to ignore the attack which is still an option. A Gurps player can say "I don't defend" and take their chances. The times where you ignore the attacks and got hit anyway were the times you guessed or read wrong.
I've read attacks also but I always position myself so that I'm not in the way. I get hit if I am too slow, position incorrectly or read wrong (one of my kempo instructions told us that not getting hit is the best defense right after attacking first). I've had players use defensive feint and then choose to ignore an attack on themselves based off of their roll.
Bottom line, I don't think you lose anything by declaring the defense and doing so opens up lots of tactical options.