Review of GURPS Martial Arts: Technical Grappling

[munin]

Originally Posted by Gef

… the material by nature is harder to DESCRIBE than to USE. I found it intimidating at first, …

This.

I have to admit, I have tried twice and have been unable to actually read through the supplement (so this post isn't an actual review, more like an AAR) -- army regulations are much easier to read than this supplement. Yet the examples of play I've read on Gaming Ballistic have made sense to me and seemed like fun. I've read those, and the "introduction", and I still can't read through the supplement.

My first experience with the supplement was that I hit that first crunch paragraph telling me to refer to a table in the back of the book. So in the middle of the very first paragraph I stop reading and flip to the back -- the table is mathematically intuitive so I can memorize the numbers easily, but the list of skills and techniques it applies to makes no immediate sense to me (I can't see an easy way to memorize them). The way I play, if I can't memorize it, I basically won't be able (or want) to use it*.

So now I try to go back to reading, but I'm already starting to think I won't be able to use this, so my heart is no longer in it. And still in the first page I keep hitting fine distinctions and exceptions to rules I barely understand. Eventually, I stop reading and just start skimming, trying to get the feel for the whole system that wasn't provided in an introduction. And that obviously fails, so I give up and play Minecraft.

: )

TG definitely needed an introduction, talking about real-life grappling and how TG was going to model it. But the first chapter especially could also have used a "roadmap" -- an overview of how the material was going to be presented and how the mechanics were going to be introduced.



* Not to pile on, but I had the same problem with The Last Gasp. I like the idea and the mechanic, but trying to remember how many APs each maneuver or action cost is too much trouble. It needs to start with some simple mechanic that's easy to remember (and called out, not buried in endless prose), then add in complexity for specific maneuvers as an option.