Hack n' slash?

[ULFGARD]

Originally Posted by chris1982

So your players usually trust the bad guys? ;-)

Well, he had ample evidence -- such as the bad guy laughing off a flame jet to the face. Worst of all, the bad guy simply had his hand on the PC and was casting Death Touch round after round. The PC was physically tougher and armed. He died of repeated Death Touch. Other players DID say things such as "why don't you run" and "why don't you hit him with your staff"... Oh, and he'd run out by himself to face the other wizard alone. While the rest of his party tried desperately to get to him, he was killed.

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by Refplace

For the slow ones I like evaluate as a default action. It makes their attack more likely to work so when they do decide they have better options and feel like it was productive time.
All out Defense if their hurt or overwhelmed is good too.
But ideally they have a SOP move.

I start new players of by tell me what they want to do, and I translate that into maneuvers. If they basically just saying I attack them with my weapon they just get the more advantage swing or thrust for the weapon with an attack mover to the torso. And only start feeding them more as they stat to want to use them.

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by ULFGARD

Well, he had ample evidence -- such as the bad guy laughing off a flame jet to the face. Worst of all, the bad guy simply had his hand on the PC and was casting Death Touch round after round. The PC was physically tougher and armed. He died of repeated Death Touch. Other players DID say things such as "why don't you run" and "why don't you hit him with your staff"... Oh, and he'd run out by himself to face the other wizard alone. While the rest of his party tried desperately to get to him, he was killed.

That degree of player stupidity seems like a self-correcting problem. They'll either learn from their mistakes, or spend half of game-time making new characters, or just get frustrated and quit. If they felt they were taking actions as dictated by their character's flaws (ie, "This character has Impulsiveness, Overconfidence and Pyromania, so he'll always run ahead to tackle problems without thinking and using fire spells") then they'll keep losing characters until they build one that isn't suicidal.

[Walrus]

Originally Posted by ULFGARD

Even his screwing off was a part of this -- he was blowing off nervous energy. Yet he was playing thoughtful characters. I used this mechanism to give him the ability to play a character with mental attributes he himself lacked. It ended up working in the end.

Isn't Common Sense specifically purposed for such cases?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

That degree of player stupidity seems like a self-correcting problem. They'll either learn from their mistakes, or spend half of game-time making new characters, or just get frustrated and quit.

Or they will continue to do stupider and stupider things until nobody is having any fun and the campaign dies. Best just boot these cancers from your group before it comes to this.

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Or they will continue to do stupider and stupider things until nobody is having any fun and the campaign dies. Best just boot these cancers from your group before it comes to this.

True. Ideally, the GM can talk to them and guide them towards playing more responsibly, with traits like the above-mentioned Common Sense. Or at least towards playing a character more suited to their play style. A Barbarian or Knight might be able to survive tackling challenges head-on (at least until backup arrives). A wizard... not so much.

[ULFGARD]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

That degree of player stupidity seems like a self-correcting problem. They'll either learn from their mistakes, or spend half of game-time making new characters, or just get frustrated and quit. If they felt they were taking actions as dictated by their character's flaws (ie, "This character has Impulsiveness, Overconfidence and Pyromania, so he'll always run ahead to tackle problems without thinking and using fire spells") then they'll keep losing characters until they build one that isn't suicidal.

This was another "wise and thoughtful wizard" PC. He had had a great deal of success using fire spells. The bad guy used Divination to prepare for the confrontation. Fire spells obvious came up, so he prepared accordingly. The irony is that the PC had a great suite of spells from ALL FOUR elements. He could have cast Stone Missile just as easily as Fireball as his final spell. Had he done so, he would have survived. Oh well.

And yes, it was eventually self correcting. I told him (the player) that using divination repeatedly on the same quest object would muddy the waters (effectively giving -1 to skill for repeated attempts). What did he do? Kept on casting until his effective skill was 3. Then he (er, I in secret) rolled a 16. Critical failure. They ended up going to a completely different continent and having a rollicking good side adventure. But the rest of the party starting treating that character as a clown (and the players were ****** because they all suspected that something was amiss, especially when I later told him that his near daily divinations were getting him no results whatsoever). He got angry at the rest of the players (and me for being "unfair" in spite of the fact that EVERYONE BUT HIM clearly understood that he as a player had caused the problem, not simply bad die rolls as he claimed) and simply quit.

Originally Posted by Walrus

Isn't Common Sense specifically purposed for such cases?

Yes. He refused to take it, which is fine -- I NEVER gave suggestions out of combat or told him he was doing something outright stupid UNLESS it had to do with character knowledge that he, the player, lacked, or an obvious miscommunication between myself and him. He also refused to take Combat Reflexes, then proceeded to whine about it (it should be free since you need it to do well, he claimed). I think I posted something about this a long while back with respect to stupid player tricks -- i.e., the lack of taking CR and then complaining that he was stunned for most of a combat after being ambushed. Them's the breaks, especially when your starting point budget is around 200 points.

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Or they will continue to do stupider and stupider things until nobody is having any fun and the campaign dies. Best just boot these cancers from your group before it comes to this.

He was a friend. But fortunately the situation sorted itself out.

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

True. Ideally, the GM can talk to them and guide them towards playing more responsibly, with traits like the above-mentioned Common Sense. Or at least towards playing a character more suited to their play style. A Barbarian or Knight might be able to survive tackling challenges head-on (at least until backup arrives). A wizard... not so much.

The only other archetype he'd play to was Ranger. Unfortunately for him, he really doesn't do anything in the outdoors, and so it was hard to get him to understand some of my descriptions. And it was hard for him to manage to aim long enough for a good shot to count. Though his one ranger type was his best character overall. His main problem was that he was terrible at taking risks, and when he did so, he was terrible at dealing with the consequences of failure (i.e., capture, serious injury, or death).

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Sorry for the side track. But that situation probably needed a bit of clarification. I hope that the default action idea works as well for your players as it has for all of (the rest) of mine.

[kdtipa]

I'm actually in a similar situation as Sniperkitty. My roleplaying group is solidly grounded in some form of D&D, and I've been in love with GURPS since 1989. I'm working on a campaign right now where I'm trying to help transition the people to the new system (new to them). I've tried in the past with other people, and there are difficulties... most of which have been mentioned... one of which I'd like to focus on a little.

The perception that GURPS combat is more tedious than D&D combat does have some basis when you consider all the complex options you can include in your game, but as someone else pointed out, it likely has something to do with practice. I've been playing D&D for a long time, and I got really used to concepts like attacks of opportunity, fighting defensively, taking one step so I could make a ranged attack without drawing an attack of opportunity, and so on. If you think about it... there are really a ton of combat rules in D&D too. Even in D&D 4e. It may seem simpler on the surface, with your simple set of options, but as you get up in level, your options increase, and the things you have to remember increase. Not just about yourself but about your comrades too. I find myself trying to remember what bonuses I get from the warlord and the brad in the group, and I have to remember that I used a power last round that gives me a bonus this round, and I have to keep in mind that the rogue needs someone to flank with for his big moves in certain scenarios, and oh yeah... do I have any minor actions I can bring to bear this round that will be useful, and what did the bard just say about temp hit points for bloodying someone?

There's a lot going on in D&D combat, and it gets to be quicker the more we play... the more we practice (still have one player that can't seem to make up his mind), but there's still a lot to it.

What I'm trying to get to is that it might help your players if you point out that it is just a different system you're introducing them to, and that it might take a little time to learn all the same concepts for GURPS that they take for granted in D&D. One of the players I have lined up for this campaign is very logical and accepted it immediately when I pointed out some of the complexities of D&D that we just take for granted, and then told him that it'll just take a little learning in GURPS.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by roguebfl

I start new players of by tell me what they want to do, and I translate that into maneuvers. If they basically just saying I attack them with my weapon they just get the more advantage swing or thrust for the weapon with an attack mover to the torso. And only start feeding them more as they stat to want to use them.

Yep, for most players this is a great idea. Also can do it if one of the players is a designated leader, especially with tactics.

[gmillerd]

There are some really good tips for speeding up combat all around: forums, books and especially DF. But what I like about the speed ups is the ability to scale up and down in complexity or detail without breaking the system or unbalancing things.

Also the same core system is in use for the skill system as is the combat system (contest + modifiers)

In DF example, if you want to play with the 1hp damage mooks, mooks fade away at 0, boss does are the only enemies that you use HT checks for ... that's super. But you can also use the bleed rules as well.

I like having players slot their maneuvers as canned actions, pretty quickly combat is second nature and the GURPS learning curve is over it seems. Some people really like combat cards, they are nice I guess.

I really like bleed damage and some of the other optional rules, they make all the difference it seems when I compare systems.