Quote:
Originally Posted by philosophyguy
My play group has discovered that we enjoy official combat for major setpieces, but in most combat situations we don't need that level of granularity.
I am thinking about using the contest mechanic to abstract some of the detail of combat so it isn't as detailed, but I'm struggling with the implementation.
Has anyone done something similar?
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Lots of people have suggested this. Search the forums.
The main problem is all of those traits that characters can take that rely on all those details. What benefit does someone with Combat Reflexes get? What happens when someone is stunned for one second? Can you take extra time to aim?
What I have found is that combat, as written, speeds up considerably if you simply not go into combat time until it's absolutely necessary, and you drop out of combat time as soon as it's no longer necessary, even if you anticipate more combat to come momentarily. Don't let players stop to think about what they want to do; explain ahead of time that they have to announce their maneuver within, say, five seconds of their turn arriving, or else they Do Nothing or Concentrate. Don't ask players for flowery descriptions of the combat, and don't offer any. Get it over with quickly. And if players just want to do something like Aim or Move that doesn't involve rolling or explaining details, just acknowledge them and move on to the next turn.
In other words, I've found it's not the granularity that slows down GURPS combat; it's people dwelling on the details. If it's an unimportant bit of combat, don't give it so much attention. Just resolve it and move on.