Combat in Single-Player Campaigns

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Ezra

I avoided some of the more cinematic advantages when I set up the campaign, but that might have been a mistake. I always allow my players to take a level of Luck, but often they don't avail themselves. Still, I need to start reminding him that he can buy successes.

I've been known to make Luck mandatory . . . I've run more campaigns where I've done that than ones where I haven't. People who want to play the "lucky guy" just take more than the baseline Luck level.

[Black Leviathan]

I'd suggest more NPC allies. Ultimately no matter what you do to toughen the character he'll face things that are dangerous and will be injured. Even if they're not combatnats, just having someone who's hiding during the fight and lures the enemy off so you can be rescued after you fall is a win.

Also expect that Conan will take a sword to the chest and it will take him out of the fight. Lots of Conan books had sections where he was recovering from an injury and dealing with more subtle intrigue. Have downtime stuff ready for when he's resting up to get back into the fight.

[Ezra]

Originally Posted by Kromm

I've been known to make Luck mandatory . . . I've run more campaigns where I've done that than ones where I haven't. People who want to play the "lucky guy" just take more than the baseline Luck level.

I need to start doing that. For some reason, my players avoid it otherwise.

[GWJ]

It's very interesting topic. Are there any chances of any possibility of something like "How to be GURPS GM: Solo Campaigns" to be published in the future? Not only for combat encounters, but generally about playing like that. It's somewhat hard "style" of gaming, requiring more effort from both GM and Player.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by GWJ

It's very interesting topic. Are there any chances of any possibility of something like "How to be GURPS GM: Solo Campaigns" to be published in the future? Not only for combat encounters, but generally about playing like that. It's somewhat hard "style" of gaming, requiring more effort from both GM and Player.

This subject interests me! GURPS pours most of its energy into projects aimed at gamers who are many supplements deep and many years in – and given the extremely scarce resources GURPS has to work with, that certainly comes at the cost of support for players just starting to play the game. Expanding How to Be a GURPS GM into a series is a fascinating proposition . . . and your suggestion would make a reasonable part of such a series. Please let me think about it, and thank you for the idea!

[ericthered]

Realistically, fights result in injuries and injuries result in lots of down time. I don't think the problem is actually about single-player games, its about play style and genre.



Most combat heavy games either need "partial failure" conditions other than wounded, access to rapid healing tech, or to mostly be about fights you have good odds to win.



I don't think that changing the number of characters in a party actually fullfills any of those, unless the enemies aren't scaled as well. But if you have 5 close fights in a row, you'll probably come out of it all banged up.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Realistically, fights result in injuries and injuries result in lots of down time. I don't think the problem is actually about single-player games, its about play style and genre.

It occurs to me that the "genre" of Conan involves lots of downtime between individual short stories. All Ezra has to do is calculate how much time it will take to heal after an adventure and start the next adventure some time after that. The next Conan story begins...

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

It occurs to me that the "genre" of Conan involves lots of downtime between individual short stories. All Ezra has to do is calculate how much time it will take to heal after an adventure and start the next adventure some time after that. The next Conan story begins...

That's a valid take. I believe to make it work, the GM needs to have enemies always charge frontally and/or attack one at a time, so the outnumbered lone hero isn't flanked and backstabbed, which with GURPS' lethality is much worse than "you'll need to heal some." This is easier with a "theatre of the mind" approach than with a battle map, because the GM can more easily have the time it takes the next bad guy to reach the hero be magically equal to the time it takes the hero to defeat the current bad guy. In tactical combat, it's much harder to explain why an NPC is just standing around taking Do Nothing maneuvers, and not circling behind the PC.

I suppose that's "play style" in a sense, though it's a result of there being a single PC, not a choice most GMs would likely make if there were several PCs, some with abilities that require a battle map to shine. Ultimately, it's still really about numbers, not style of play.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Kromm

That's a valid take. I believe to make it work, the GM needs to have enemies always charge frontally and/or attack one at a time, so the outnumbered lone hero isn't flanked and backstabbed, which with GURPS' lethality is much worse than "you'll need to heal some." This is easier with a "theatre of the mind" approach than with a battle map, because the GM can more easily have the time it takes the next bad guy to reach the hero be magically equal to the time it takes the hero to defeat the current bad guy. In tactical combat, it's much harder to explain why an NPC is just standing around taking Do Nothing maneuvers, and not circling behind the PC.

Now I'm thinking of Macaulay's poem "Horatius," where the Etruscan army, nearly a hundred thousand strong, is coming to conquer Rome. They can be stopped if the bridge over the Tiber is brought down—but there isn't time before they arrive. So the captain of the gate, Horatius, volunteers to lead three men to hold the far side of the bridge. "In yon strait place a thousand/May well be stopped by three./Now who will stand to either hand/And keep the bridge with me?"

And because Macaulay is emulating heroic popular ballads, it works. At the end the wounded Horatius swims the Tiber in full armor—but none of the Etruscans swim after him.

The other two guys on Horatius's left and right could be convenient NPCs. . . .

[Imbicatus]

Conan also usually has a huge discrepancy in the abilities of Conan vs his opponents. It may be 10 to one odds, but those may be 50 point soldiers vs the 500 point Conan. He’s got weapon master for multiple parries, and HT 20 to keep him up and fighting long after others would have dies from the wounds that do get through. And there’s still superior tactics so it’s rarely a situation where they are able to surround him and attack from the back.

Where there is usually trouble it’s from Magic or monsters that can’t be killed until you target their weak spot.