Re: Realistic Human DR
 

The thing is, in GURPS most combats are short enough that they (in my experience) don't get to the point where, in real life, you'd be taking a break anyway. The exceptions are longer-ranged gun fights, and those do tend to have breaks for the same reason they do in RL - people are in cover and trying to move to better positions so there's nobody in sight to shoot at anyway.

Where GURPS breaks down are duels between people of equal/near-equal ability, and struggles between large groups of people, where most of it is pushing and shoving rather than what most gamers would consider a proper attack - battlefield melees. The latter are generally best covered fairly abstractly, so don't really come under the purview of the core combat rules, leaving the former. The problem is that the former are relatively common in genre fiction and combat sports, and a good way of replicating those long duels is missing.

Re: Realistic Human DR
 

My experience is that a typical exchange before breaking off is a single combo attack that ranges from one attack at low skill to something like 3-5 at high skill -- the time before taking a break is actually quite short.

Re: Realistic Human DR
 

Then why if it's suboptimal, in real fights, do people frequently stop and "do nothing" for 2-3 seconds. You would think trained fighters wouldn't stop, in a real fight, and assess the situation... oh wait.

The actual problem is GURPS combat is hyper-efficient. The cause of this is "combat omniscience", which every PC has... unless the GM does things to remove it, which, and trust me I've done this, garners you all the grumbles from the Players.

They don't like giving up their omniscience. Even if the NPCs are under the same constraints, it's nothing but "Nope, don't like it" and "let's just go back to the unrealistic way of doing things".


My experience as well. Even in duels, even in sparing matches. Especially in street fights.

The only place I don't really see it is in boxing when one fighter is either desperate, or has completely taken the measure of their opponent and is just hammering them, or MMA where relentless pounding or submission grappling rules the day.

Re: Realistic Human DR
 

Does that ever happen asynchronously? Or are you talking about lulls where both fighters simultaneously stop actively fighting?

Because it's very hard to justify the latter with 'do nothing is tactically powerful'. It's easier to justify them other ways, though I don't have a model for why they'd start and stop at any given moment.

(One way to partially justify them tactically under GURPS rules, but potentially a weird gamey one, is that retreat is powerful. If one fighter starts giving ground, retreating and using their step to retreat further, the other can't force the engagement to continue without fighting at a significant handicap - either using more aggressive maneuvers to keep up or using their retreat as a less-effective forward slip.

Consequently, either fighter wanting to start a lull in melee can strongly pressure their opponent to grant it.

This is, of course, opposite to the popular 'momentum' model.)


Aside, what about the 'situation' are you supposed to be 'assessing'? In a duel, there's very little to assess and if you wanted to do so, your opponent would seem motivated to not let you. In a complex melee battle there's loads to assess, but nothing but sheer chance to create the opening where nobody's currently attacking you. (In a prolonged gunfight, of course, being in total or near-total cover gives you limited visibility but a good possibility of taking a time out.)
See, to me the exception sounds like a considerable endorsement of what I said. If it was a strong play why would MMA fighters avoid it?

Street fights, on the other hand, are a really big place you would expect lulls, because in a forceful intimidation match (which is the base state of animal fights where neither party is planning to eat the other) you have to give the other party a chance to fold!

Re: Realistic Human DR
 

I'll note that if you really want this, "This Last Gasp" does make tired people who have to suck wind.

Re: Realistic Human DR
 

The normal trigger is, essentially, a move that combines a step back, a wait, and an evaluate. The other fighter can charge forward into that, but it's a bad idea... so you wait and try to evaluate your opponent's stance, looking for an opening.

Re: Realistic Human DR
 

The other type of fight which can last tens or hundreds of seconds is a fight where both sides are armoured against the other's weapons (eg. boxing or a duel with broad-tipped swords and big shields in full mail).

Re: Realistic Human DR
 

I've watched LARPers do the latter a fair bit, and asked them about it. They do it without consciously knowing why, but tend to describe it in terms like "wanting to recover their balance." Some have described going up against more skilful opponents, who don't need to recover so often, and thus have a big advantage.

Now, in GURPS terms, these guys are mostly using default skills and telegraphic attacks. The first-time newbies are also suffering unfamiliarity penalties, and tend to lose very quickly. If the "more skilful opponents" I've heard described have actual points in Combat (Sport) skills, they have significantly higher hit probability and can thus deal with penalties.

So you might model this with -1 to all skills per second of continuous attacking, recovered at the same rate while not attacking.

For example, a pair who are attacking each other with default DX/Easy skills telegraphically are rolling DX on their first round, DX-1 on the next round, DX-2 on the second, and so on. They'll probably want to start recovering from their penalties once their rolls get down to 8 or so, which they'll do approximately simultaneously, if they both have DX 10.

But put one of these up against someone with a point in the skill, and it's very different. He starts out non-telegraphic attacking at 10, to avoid giving defence bonuses, but switches to telegraphic after a few seconds when he's worn down their defences. He has four seconds longer "combat endurance", before his telegraphic attack number gets down to 8, and is making his opponent defend with greatly penalised skills.

If this isn't clear, I can do a full example. I have no idea if it's representative of skilled hand-to-hand combat.

Re: Realistic Human DR
 

I never said it wasn't a "strong play", I said it's uncommon (IMO) in real fights. I'm glad johndallman mentioned LARPs, that's the other place I've seen that 'frenzied' unrelenting onslaught... mock fights where there are no real consequences.

From my experience, that's not what lulls are about in a street fight. I have no doubt it happens, certainly often in media depictions of street fights, but the ones I've experienced? Not from my perspective anyway.



In some LARP culture (and I'm lumping the SCA in here - don't hate, y'all are LARPers too) those lulls can very much be part-and-parcel with their social contract. You engage, have a brief clash, then back off to give each side (even if it's just mano a mano) a moment to tally hits, determine if there has as of yet been a victor, compare hits, and then continue.

But yeah, even in clubs that don't have that culture, where it's just a messy free-for-all of "I shot you, no you didn't", there are still brief clashes, lulls, then back to clashing.

Unless you have a rabid rhino-hiding 'zerker.


I you want to really model lulls and clashes, Last Gasp is really great start. I've only used it once because A) converting Magic to use it would be onerous and B) my prior post on the "whinging of the Players".

Re: Realistic Human DR
 

Because of the limits of acceptable actions in MMA. Frenzied attacking greatly increases your odds of getting hit.