Hack n' slash?

[Captain Joy]

Originally Posted by Bruno

One of the biggest things I've found for speeding up people starting in GURPS is to only put down on their sheet techniques or options that they have a 12 or higher in, and that leave their defenses at a reasonable level too.

This is what I gave to my newbie players. I call it Combat Ultralite (not to be confused with GURPS Ultralite).

GURPS combat can be as detailed as you want it to be. This richness of detail can be overwhelming to people new to RPGs. If you find Combat Lite too much to deal with, may I recommend Combat Ultralite.

TURN SEQUENCE: Go in order of Basic Speed. When your turn comes up, you may attack if you want to. You may also need to defend yourself one or more times.

ATTACKING: When it’s your turn, you may make one attack--
1. Make your attack roll. E.g. DX, Brawling, Boxing, or Karate to punch, Gun to shoot.
2. If you hit, your foe can try to defend.
3. If you hit and he fails to defend, roll for damage.

DEFENDING: When you need to, choose one of the following--
Dodge: You may dodge multiple different attacks during your turn. Dodge = Move+3
Block: You may block one melee attack during your turn. Block = (1/2)*(Shield Skill) +3.
Parry: You may parry one melee attack using a weapon or empty hand during your turn. Parry = (1/2)*(Broadsword, Brawling, Karate, etc. skill or DX) + 3.

DAMAGE AND INJURY
1. Roll to see how much basic damage you did. Check your weapon’s stats for this.
2. Subtract the victim’s DR from the basic damage to see how much gets through.
If any damage gets through DR, subtract it from the victim’s HPs.

Hit Points  Condition
   0        HT roll to stay conscious every turn until you fall unconscious.
 -HP        HT roll to stay alive, e.g. -10 when you normally have 10 HP.
-2HP        HT roll to stay alive, e.g. -20 when you normally have 10 HP.
-3HP        HT roll to stay alive, e.g. -30 when you normally have 10 HP.
-4HP        HT roll to stay alive, e.g. -40 when you normally have 10 HP.
-5HP        you die, e.g. -50 when you normally have 10 HP.

EXAMPLE
Ensign Ginger wants to shoot a Klingon crouched behind a console 10 yards away.

1. Ginger’s Beam Weapon skill is 12, so Ginger will need to roll a 12 or less to hit the Klingon. Ginger rolls a 10 and “a blue beam streaks from Ensign Ginger’s phaser towards the Klingon when he pops up to see what’s going on”.
2. The Klingon is hit, but he gets a chance to Dodge (but not Block or Parry). The Klingon’s Dodge is 8; he rolls a 13 and “the Klingon does not notice Ginger’s intention to fire in time to dodge her attack.”
3. Ginger rolls to see how much damage her phaser does. Ginger’s phaser does 2d(2) burn damage. She rolls a 2 and a 4 for 6 points of basic damage and “the phaser energy hits him squarely in the chest”. (Ignore the “(2)” and “burn” until you’re ready and want to add more detail.
4. The Klingon is wearing leather armor which has a 2 DR. Therefore, the Klingon loses (6*-*2*=) 4 hit points. He started with 12 HP, so now he’s down to 8 and “the Klingon is now wounded and returning fire!”.

(Eventually, you’ll be ready to deal with “crouched behind console 10 yards away”.)