Explaining the 1 second/turn rationale

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by johndallman

I'm pretty sure you're right - and RQI was much like RQII in this respect. I got to skim-read a friend's copy once when researching the Greg Stafford bibliography. T&T certainly didn't work like that, Traveller didn't, and after a quick read, C&S didn't. That's the major first-generation games. Incidentally, C&S uses melee rounds of 150 seconds, which has to be a record.

You seem to be omitting Superhero 2044 and Villains and Vigilantes. But neither of them worked that way; V&V was a lot like D&D, and S44 had a really strange hybrid system, though I think it might have used 3d6 for some things.

Bill Stoddard

[Xplo]

Originally Posted by RussellChamp

I like the suggestions of limiting communicated information and putting a time pinch on players when their turn comes around. But, as new players, we still get the "ahh... um, I think I want to do this... how do the rules for that work again?"

Well, it's not GURPS' fault that you can't make up your minds quickly. If one-second turns feel strange when it takes you forever to deliberate on what to do, blame yourselves. ;)

People who do this generally assume familiarity with the combat system. If you're all new, I'd extend the time limit; 30 seconds or a minute should be plenty. But unless you all want to have the possibility that someone could spend five minutes looking up, say, grappling rules on their turn before deciding what to do, you probably should have some sort of time limit. Think of being able to make quick decisions about whether to use obscure combat options the reward for learning them.

[RussellChamp]

Originally Posted by Xplo

Well, it's not GURPS' fault that you can't make up your minds quickly. If one-second turns feel strange when it takes you forever to deliberate on what to do, blame yourselves. ;)

People who do this generally assume familiarity with the combat system. If you're all new, I'd extend the time limit; 30 seconds or a minute should be plenty. But unless you all want to have the possibility that someone could spend five minutes looking up, say, grappling rules on their turn before deciding what to do, you probably should have some sort of time limit. Think of being able to make quick decisions about whether to use obscure combat options the reward for learning them.

This actually sounds perfect. We've gotten most of the core rules down from this first campaign (eg attacking, defending, aoa, misc skills) so this would now be a lot more viable.

[smurf]

Print off the battle cards from the pdf.

Each player has a set. They ought to remove the ones they do not need. Note there are GM specific cards within it.

You can't fight and talk so get them to flip cards on what they are doing.

If they take wait maneauvers then have a 3d6 second lull, the first person to say something leads and return to combat. If someone shouts over the first person then ssshh them.

Note the PCs do not have to listen to what was said.

The cards will make it easier.

[RussellChamp]

Originally Posted by smurf

Print off the battle cards from the pdf.
...
The cards will make it easier.

Yeah, I just saw those recently. I think I will give them a try in our campaign!

[dcarson]

For a reality check, in the world championships for fast draw you have to draw your gun and hit a less than man sized target at 8'. If you can't do this in under a quarter second you won't win. This is starting from not touching the gun and drawing when a randomly timed light goes on. So doing it when you feel like it should be faster.

[Lord Carnifex]

As regards to reducing player decision time and talking as a free action, I ran a GURPS Cyberpunk game that implemented some house rules for it.

1) Talking was a free action, but limited to five words or less.

2) Asking the GM a question about the battlefield resulted in a Vision roll (this was modified 3e. In 4e it would be a Per roll). If the roll was failed, the PC would get an answer, but would do nothing that turn. The character is assumed to be surveying the tactical situation.

Both of those worked out well enough. The original game had some home-brewed rules for initiative and turn order that I probably wouldn't repeat, as they run somewhat counter to Kromm's vision of how turn order is supposed to work. A simplified version would be:

3) The PC has a limited amount of time (i.e. ten or so real world seconds) to describe his intended action. Declarations like "I shoot number 3" or "I knife the thug in front of me" are valid. Full-on mechanical embellishments like Deceptive Attack, hit locations, and looking up rules can happen after the declaration, but once made, the declaration stands.

All of the above was intended to enforce the theme of "In the future, there is no time to think." Worked pretty well.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Xplo

Well, it's not GURPS' fault that you can't make up your minds quickly. If one-second turns feel strange when it takes you forever to deliberate on what to do, blame yourselves. ;)

People who do this generally assume familiarity with the combat system. If you're all new, I'd extend the time limit; 30 seconds or a minute should be plenty. But unless you all want to have the possibility that someone could spend five minutes looking up, say, grappling rules on their turn before deciding what to do, you probably should have some sort of time limit. Think of being able to make quick decisions about whether to use obscure combat options the reward for learning them.

Tips to make combat go faster:

1. Require that players have their maneuver ready as soon as their turn comes around, or within a certain time limit (I favor 5 seconds). You can extend this for people with Combat Reflexes and Enhanced Time Sense.

2. Help people learn the basic maneuvers. e23 has some free combat cards, if you favor the D&D approach.

3. Want some complicated moves? Work them out in advance. List a series of "signature moves" for each character that have all the detail of exactly how that move works listed on a piece of paper, so that when they need to pull off something tricky, there's no flipping through the book to figure out how it works. You can even spend a point to make them into trademark moves, worth +1 to the entire setup.

4. "When in doubt, roll and shout." GURPS isn't as hard as it looks. There are two major GURPS GMs in my area, myself (I'm a serious stickler for every rule and every modifier, most of which I have memorized) and a friend of mine (who constantly improvises and never looks at the rules). Fascinatingly, if you ask either of us what a modifier for a particular situation will be, my picture-perfect knowledge almost always matches his off-the-cuff estimate, within +/- 1. Nobody's going to call the cops if what you came up with on the fly is slightly off, and you can always check the book later to see if you were right or not (how I came to memorize all those numbers).

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Lord Carnifex

2) Asking the GM a question about the battlefield resulted in a Vision roll (this was modified 3e. In 4e it would be a Per roll). If the roll was failed, the PC would get an answer, but would do nothing that turn. The character is assumed to be surveying the tactical situation.

Say, that's a pretty good rule.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

2. Help people learn the basic maneuvers. e23 has some free combat cards, if you favor the D&D approach.

Have those been updated yet, or are they still missing the attack options from the Basic Set and everything from Martial Arts, High-Tech, and so on.