Originally Posted by DouglasCole (Post 2318625)

that's not how it works. You start with Action Points, usually equal to your HT, and then spend them for a while Doing Stuff. If you do too much stuff, too fast, you have to stop and take a breather. If you run out of AP, you can still act, but you burn a FP to replenish AP.

In many GURPSy fights, it doesn't last long enough to burn through your AP. The 12-14 AP most line combatants have is good for five to seven rounds of combat unless you're doing a lot of All-Out, Rapid Strike, or other 'burst of energy' activity, or - as written - sprinting around the battlefield like a particularly hyperactive ferret.

I'm not saying it's perfect (it's not). But it never has behaved as suggested (look around before you can do anything). The purpose of it was to organically introduce lulls and flurries into combat (which it does, by all reports) by having a currency.

It also allows using an outlast strategy, where a very fit fighter with high HT and/or other purchased advantages to pull what is effectively a Rope-a-Dope: making the other fighter wear themselves out faster than you, after which their options are extremely limited.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth (Post 2318627)

Potentially, but I'd contest that that doesn't scale upward the way you have it. If there's dozens of people on the field it's a sure thing that most of them aren't keeping track of or coordinating with most of the others on a micro time scale. (If there are hundreds, either they just aren't coordinated or a significant chunk of them are staying out of the fighting to do the coordination.) In active close combat it's probably impossible to keep track of more than maybe half a dozen people at once and taking time to improve awareness would be both ineffective (you don't have room to see what's going on anyway) and extremely unsound (because taking your eye off the people trying to stab you right this second for a larger picture gets you stabbed.)

Originally Posted by Say, it isn't that bad! (Post 2318629)

If all you are doing is Action, then you are going to lose focus on the "bigger picture", which is exactly what Donny Brook's suggestion is talking about.

Originally Posted by Say, it isn't that bad! (Post 2318631)

And yet, the post that I responded to, was talking about pairing off a few people in a small fight.

Going from there to dozens is a different scale, entirely.

And yes. If people are breaking off into smaller fights, then you could just play out those smaller fights on whatever scale.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth (Post 2318634)

Yes? I'm not disagreeing with that. I'm pointing out that what Michael Thayne is talking about isn't about losing focus. It's about physical fatigue and aerobic exhaustion and such. That is, precisely what Douglas Cole (the author of the system in question) pointed out.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth (Post 2318634)

Seems like much the same to me, except that at the larger scale it becomes completely compulsory rather than merely possible. Each person isn't dealing with the whole picture at once, but a small subset of it. (Which might overlap with other people's subsets.)

Originally Posted by Say, it isn't that bad! (Post 2318640)

...I don't see a problem with adapting Action Points to a different purpose, though? Or maybe that part wasn't clear...

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth (Post 2318649)

...work equally well for budgeting attention.

Originally Posted by Say, it isn't that bad! (Post 2318640)

A small fight generally involves teamwork. Large groups generally involve small teams.

The scale goes up that high because, for example, an artillery commander might need to take into account a much larger battlefield than Platoon #123.

My post wasn't clear in a number of ways. It could have used quite a bit more refinement - excluding that the idea isn't that good in the first place. And that lack of clarity has caused additional confusion. So yeah, that's on me.

Originally Posted by Say, it isn't that bad! (Post 2318769)

So, kinda annoyed, here.

I already agreed the idea in the original post is not that good.

Why are the baseball bats still being applied to the dead horse?

Why are people still arguing with me about an idea I already agreed is bad?

Originally Posted by Keampe (Post 2318794)

Ummm... You do know this is the internet, right? :P

- Shane