Fixing round length in GURPS

[Say, it isn't that bad!]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

How about a house rule that says for every third round past the fifth without a Concentrate (Observe) maneurver characters suffer cumulative penalities on things like defending from side hexes, Tactics rolls, etc.?

I like this. The rate of accumulation needs testing, but I think this could be really good combined with the Action Points suggested by Michael Thayne - that is, taking said penalties after running into the negatives for Action Points, and based on how far into the negatives you are.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Say, it isn't that bad!

I like this. The rate of accumulation needs testing, but I think this could be really good combined with the Action Points suggested by Michael Thayne - that is, taking said penalties after running into the negatives for Action Points, and based on how far into the negatives you are.

I'd suggest keeping them separate, but possibly using both. Donny Brook's suggestion addresses 'you lose situational awareness if all you do is focus on one thing.' (speaking of which, I'd make those penalties not apply to the one thing you're focused on even if, say, that one thing moves into your side hex.) Michael Thayne I think is referring to "The Last Gasp" (Pyramid 3/44) which is an expanded fatigue system that covers getting winded by flurries of high-intensity activity, and the kind of handful-of-seconds breather that makes a difference there.

[Fred Brackin]

This would work quite poorly with basic Magic and somewhat poorly with any other time-limited magic. That's assuming that you still count FP expenditures by the 1 second Turn. If you fiddle Spell Durations and maintenance intervals to match Melee actions that might be a different problem.

Soem characters really don't stand around ;looking at stuff while they make up their minds what to do. Their "tactics" are already decided upon. I present as an example Nyx the Barbarian.

What Nyx is going to do every round of comabt is either Attack with a Flail in a TA to the Skull or Move to set up such an attack if she's killed everyone within flail's reach. Oh, and she's going to do this scary fast because she has an Item that casts Great Haste on her.

These things are baked into the character and you're just excluding this character concept from your game. This would be your right as GM but Nyx's player would pout.

It might also disrupt gun combat. Gun combat is one thing Gurps does comaprativley well becaue it uses realistic ROFs. Soem characters might jsut stand in place while they look at things but msot should be moving whiel they look of delay their observation phases until they have achieved hard cover. WWI type machine gunners with water-cooling and long belts also attack somewhat like Nyx for long seconds at a ime.

I also don't quite see the point if PCs and NPCs stand around looking at stuff symmetrically. If Moves and Evaluates and other non-Attack Actions aren't hapening in the added time, The added time appears to be msotly a phantasmal addition.

You say there is time being spent but it doesn't affect wehat's happenign in the game except for Spell timing and other time-based measurements like vehicle speed. Be they chariots or airplanes vehicles do not stop while a command and control phase is taking place.

[Michael Thayne]

Martial Arts addresses this somewhat via the rules for flurries. There's also a Pyramid article somewhere where every action requires spending "Action Points" which eventually need to be replenished by taking certain maneuvers like Evaluate or even Do Nothing. When I've run mock combats to test the "Action Points" idea, though, it felt like it could use some more baking, so to speak.

[Say, it isn't that bad!]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

Martial Arts addresses this somewhat via the rules for flurries. There's also a Pyramid article somewhere where every action requires spending "Action Points" which eventually need to be replenished by taking certain maneuvers like Evaluate or even Do Nothing. When I've run mock combats to test the "Action Points" idea, though, it felt like it could use some more baking, so to speak.

That (action points) also feels like something of a blunt instrument. "You cannot act until you look around, even though there's someone trying to stab you in the face."

However, Donny Brook has a good idea that could be combined with Action Points that I'll address next.

[Say, it isn't that bad!]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

This would work quite poorly with basic Magic and somewhat poorly with any other time-limited magic. That's assuming that you still count FP expenditures by the 1 second Turn. If you fiddle Spell Durations and maintenance intervals to match Melee actions that might be a different problem.

Soem characters really don't stand around ;looking at stuff while they make up their minds what to do. Their "tactics" are already decided upon. I present as an example Nyx the Barbarian.

What Nyx is going to do every round of comabt is either Attack with a Flail in a TA to the Skull or Move to set up such an attack if she's killed everyone within flail's reach. Oh, and she's going to do this scary fast because she has an Item that casts Great Haste on her.

These things are baked into the character and you're just excluding this character concept from your game. This would be your right as GM but Nyx's player would pout.

It might also disrupt gun combat. Gun combat is one thing Gurps does comaprativley well becaue it uses realistic ROFs. Soem characters might jsut stand in place while they look at things but msot should be moving whiel they look of delay their observation phases until they have achieved hard cover. WWI type machine gunners with water-cooling and long belts also attack somewhat like Nyx for long seconds at a ime.

I also don't quite see the point if PCs and NPCs stand around looking at stuff symmetrically. If Moves and Evaluates and other non-Attack Actions aren't hapening in the added time, The added time appears to be msotly a phantasmal addition.

You say there is time being spent but it doesn't affect wehat's happenign in the game except for Spell timing and other time-based measurements like vehicle speed. Be they chariots or airplanes vehicles do not stop while a command and control phase is taking place.

Moving and evaluating are both things that can happen during non-discrete actions. In fact, I explicitly listed movement in the examples for both Discrete and Non-discrete Actions.

Your Nyx the Barbarian's strategy would not happen in this theoretical game, no; but basically any house rule is going to advantage, disadvantage, allow, or disallow some characters. So frankly, I don't see this as an actual objection.

Your other points are good ones.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Say, it isn't that bad!

1. Typically, it's not a matter of who's paired off, but who do you need to keep in your "awareness space"? In addition, a team tends to fight as a team, with each member taking on distinct responsibilities, but all working together - and thus, needing to be aware of not only each other, but members of the enemy team.

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.)

[Say, it isn't that bad!]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

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.)

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.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Say, it isn't that bad!

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.

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 Say, it isn't that bad!

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.

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.)

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Say, it isn't that bad!

A battle involving 1,000 individuals on each side, still proceeds at 1 second per round, with no game time given to Oberve, Orient, or Decide in the game time. No time is given to pauses, unless rules such as exhaustion mechanics force it.

The Action Point system is a big help there. I also think maybe if we required stuff like a # of concentrate maneuvers to use skills like tactics (along with all the potentiall rerolls it optionally provides) it could also push pauses.

To add some randomness to the AP (Last Gasp) system you could appropriate the "Lulls" idea for 3e's compendium 2 (pg 81) except to "Press" during a lull should merely deplete 1 AP instead of 1 FP, so it's not such a huge gamechanger, just a quirky setting feature. It doesn't tire anyone any faster if they're taking restive actions, but will tire them faster if they avoid them.

To deplete AP faster (thus encouraging more pausing) you can also opt to ignore the free step / free pivot built into last gasp. Charging for those will require a lot more Evaluates / Do Nothings to recharge the AP.

Originally Posted by Say, it isn't that bad!

In addition, everyone is clearly shown as perfectly aware of everything that doesn't need an explicit per roll.

Observation rolls 'round the board are too crunchy for many but I like the idea for helping to RP the knowledge limitations that happen in the fog of war, the speedy heat of battle, to keep things away from metagame tactics.

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

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.

One idea that just came to mind... given that "Do Nothing" allows you full defensive capability (unless of course you're stunned, then you defend at -4) what are your thoughts on something along the lines of an "All-Out Do Nothing" to give you either +2 or +4 to the usual HT+4 roll a normal Do Nothing gives, in exchange for losing defence capability? Similar to the All-Out Concentrate?

Plus maybe a middle ground like "Committed Do Nothing" where you take the defensive penalties of Committed Attack for either a +1 or +2 to the HT roll?

The idea being that the usual DN with it's "I'm keeping alert for attacks" is kinda stressful and not as restive as it would be to entirely tune out.

I know that DN's HT+4 roll has an "if uninterrupted" disclaimer meaning you wouldn't recover AP if you had to defend yourself (doesn't seem like that applies to Evaluate's HT roll though?) but you're still basically keeping an eye out for them so it might be cool if there was a reward for zoning out and being less defensive, like with sleeping.

Probably shouldn't be an option if already stunned though since you're already taking huge penalties to defence in which case you're not trading much.