Quote:
Originally Posted by sir_pudding
On the other hand 10 seconds of movement drills, or even sparring isn't extreme. I've done training where it was more like 30 seconds or 1-2 minutes of uninterrupted drills.
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The problem with 5 to 12 second rounds is that if it is what happens sometimes, other times, things go much faster… In reality as well as in fictions. So, GURPS does a very good job by allowing it (aiming and evaluation maneuvers) while maintaining a very short round length.
The best definition of a combat round I have ever read is the one described in
Call of Cthulhu 7th edition (
Keeper Rulebook, page 102):
“A combat round is a deliberately elastic unit of time in which everyone wishing to act and capable of doing so has a chance to complete at least one action. An investigator’s equality of opportunity is much more important than the notion that a combat round must represent a precise amount of real-world time.”
I tend to use it for every roleplaying game now. Not 1 second, but about 1 second. Not 6 seconds but about 6 seconds. And so on. That avoid all these discussions which inevitably occurs during play: “Is it really possible to do that in so few seconds?” or “What, you say I’m not able to stab him three times in a raw while he can search for a potion in his backpack and drink the whole content?”
And even if it is not what is said in GURPS rules (
Basic Set, Campaigns, page 363)…
“Each character actively involved in the combat gets one opportunity to act per second, referred to as his “turn.” After everyone has taken his turn, one second has passed.”
It is still the spirit of the text: “
one opportunity to act”. Furthermore: “
The GM shouldn’t feel constrained by the one-second time scale. This is just a way of breaking a battle into manageable chunks!” (
Basic Set, Campaigns, page 362).