Would the peasant railgun be possible in GURPS?

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Nah, in GURPS the scheme would be reliant on Cascading Waits.

In D&D, the behavior is pretty heavily dependent on edition. Some of them have delay actions, which at least solves the initiative sorting problem. Sometimes they have triggered held actions (the GURPS Wait), though maybe that's just Pathfinder, and sometimes not -- before the houserules show up.

In fact, one reason for the lack of actual military application of the peasant railgun is that field commanders learned not to rely on weapons whose operation is so sensitive to changes in the fundamental laws of metaphysics. Terrific in this campaign, useless in the next. Makes magic look tame and stable by comparison. So there's no way to rely on the weapon system when drafting your military plans.

Swords, on the other hand, almost always work (as Corwin pointed out). In any edition, you can make some progress by whacking things with a sharp piece of steel. Much sounder basis for the foundation of your military might.