Any tips that makes the flow of combat smoother

[Cernunnos]

Hi all,

I would like to know if you have some tips on how to speed up combat and stay true to the rules without turning the combat situations into a tactical board game. I use some of the Tactical Combat rules, but 1sec rounds are difficult to handle in a smooth way.

Combats sometimes became a lots of rounds filled with little content; Just to get from prone to standing takes two rounds, reloading a TL4 pistol takes 20 rounds… Many other systems have 5-10sec rounds and even though it is unrealistic, it gives much smoother combat. A fight with 3-5 players vs 5 NPC can take forever until the combat is over, yet it has only taken some seconds in gametime.

I really love GURPS character-design-system and I like the realism in combat (damage etc). However I need every tip how to make the flow of combat smoother and faster in order to please my players who are used to longer rounds.

Best regards
Cern.

[mlangsdorf]

My advice is:

1) Be prepared as the GM. Have tracker sheets for all the PCs and NPCs so you can tell things like HP, wound status, Active Defenses, and common attacks at a glance to a single sheet of paper or computer screen.
1a) Encourage your characters to be prepared, too. Character sheets that have all the combat information (attacks, range charts, Active Defenses, DR, wound/fatigue trackers) on one side are much better than ones that split the combat information between multiple sheets.

2) Get a constant, simple system of initiative (like clockwise around the table) and encourage people to think about what they're going to do on the previous player's turn. If Player B looks up a complicated rule while Player A is rolling his action, then you don't have to wait when Player B's turn comes up.

3) My online group came up with some house rules for performing some actions faster:
http://westmarchsaga.wikia.com/index...etter_Mobility
These may help, or perhaps not.

4) One advanced topic I've done, especially when dealing with large combats separated into several discrete fights, is to break duels and small skirmishes up and run them for several continuous seconds, then declare a lull and move to another set of players. So if Players A and C are meleeing villains W, X, and Y, I'd run maybe 5 seconds of that combat with just those two players and then switch to a few seconds of Player B's duel with villain Z. This let player D reload his pistol in peace without having to redeclare a boring long action every round.

[Cernunnos]

Thank you for your tips. I liked your 4th tip (and I was inspired by some of your house rules).

Perhaps I may explain my situation a little bit more, so more can send me some tips.
In our group we encourage roleplaying even during combat scenes. That becomes a problem when a player describes how he run to his opponent, and strikes with a hard blow after having aim during his advance. With GUPRS rules this might be a three-round-action: a Move, Aim, and All-out-attack. So, do I have to interrupt him and say: “Hold! This round you just run to your opponent. Next round (after all the other players and NPC has taken their actions) you may Aim, and the round after that you may attack”? That is not so good.
Do you have some more tips on how to handle this? Is is possible to hold on to our style of roleplaying-descriptive-combat and at the same time use the GUPRS-rules?

Best regards
Cern.

[OneSeventeen]

Originally Posted by Cernunnos

That becomes a problem when a player describes how he run to his opponent, and strikes with a hard blow after having aim during his advance.

If a player described this to me as his action for a turn, I would say that it sounds like a "move-and-attack" and that if he wants an evaluate maneuver it takes more time. If it's a move-and-attack, then it doesn't take any longer. They don't get the mechanical bonus from their evaluate, but they really didn't describe carefully watching their opponent while doing not much else... they described running up and hitting them. The aiming bit seems tacked on because they want the bonus. So I think there's some rules understanding that could be shifted, there.

I also think you might encourage the players to selectively roleplay, as it were. If they want to run at their opponent one turn, spend a turn circling their opponent while observing and defending, then whack him one real good, each of those three turns needn't be described in detail. It could be, "This turn I'll run at the left-most guy screaming a battle cry: FOR GREAT JUSTICE!!!" Then you move on and maybe one of the other players is more descriptive. When you circle back, you get, "I'll take an evaluate maneuver, keeping my distance and warily watching my opponent." Then you move on. Not until you come back for the hit would you get the long description with details about the sun glinting off the falling blade or whatever. Does that suggestion make sense?

To sum up: I think you might be telescoping what players are imagining taking 1 second into more than one turn (I could be wrong). I also think you could encourage your players to describe in detail only the most important (to them) one-second stretches of time. Hope that helps.


Ben

[trooper6]

In my experience, GURPS combat doesn't take longer than combat with longer rounds...say D&D. I have been in D&D games where combat has taken hours and hours.

GURPS has shorter combat rounds, but once you and your players internalize the rhythm they go really quickly. This will also help in the roleplaying descriptions...once you internalize the rhythm of one second combat, you will stop describing 5 moves.

Now what to do to speed up combat?

There are a couple of approaches. One is to strip down all the rules and:
1) only use what is in GURPS Lite
2) only use the bare minimum of the Basic Set...

various advice like that.

Here is another bit of advice that might seem counter-intuitive. Use a lot of the rules, especially the ones in Martial Arts.

For example, if your player said, "I run up at the guy, aiming, and then I clock him." I don't say--okay that will take 3 turns--Move, Evaluate, Attack.

I say, okay that is a Move and Attack, plus the Heroic Charge option for 1 fatigue point (Heroic Charge is one of the Extra Effort in combat options from Martial Arts). And your player gets to do what he wants in one turn.

What helps combat go fast is if you the GM know combat really well. I always do dry run practice combats at home the night before a game--using the PCs character sheets and some combatants I imagine they might come up against. It allows me to remind myself of any rules I might need for that combat, and get everything fresh in my mind. So when the combat actually happens, I can keep things moving fast.

In the end fast combat in GURPS is like fast combat in D&D, the players have to know the system. Combat in D&D is really slow with people who don't know the system very well. Really slow.

So get you players comfortable with GURPS combat. Which they don't have to do with their own PCs. You could have a gladiator night or something like that. I've been in Wrathchilde's PbP gladiator game, and such intense tactical combat has really done wonders for my skill. I'm 110% certain that the next GURPS game I run will not only have faster combat, but more interesting and challenging combat.

And also, for things that take time, show the players the advantages of those things.

For example. You say it takes 2 round to get up from prone--actually it takes 1 round to go from prone to on your knees, and on the next round you can stand as part of your step and attack...so really only one. Now, how great will your players find that rule when it is their opponent who is on the ground, having to get up. You should lead by example. Have the NPCs do the things in GURPS you want your players to do. And have describe those exciting things your NPCs are doing in a descriptive/role-playing sort of way, so they can see how it's done.

[Kaldrin]

I've got a couple of new players who are really taking to the rhythm of the combat and have their turns planned out and you just have to wait for them to move the character and make the rolls. Turn done. Takes maybe 30 seconds for each person. I also know what my NPCs are doing and plan that around what's going as the turns progress.

My biggest aid is probably the GM Control sheet. I write down everyone in turn order and go from there. The players also know who goes when too, so they can plan their moves accordingly. Just takes some practice and the GM has to push combat faster too, by urging people to think about their turns before it comes time for their turn.

[trooper6]

GM control sheet is my best friend.
And I make a combat sheet with my villains that looks something like this:

Omega Guards
ST-11.....DX-12.....IQ-12.....HT-11 __________________ SMG
ST-11.....DX-12.....IQ-12.....HT-11 __________________ SMG
ST-11.....DX-12.....IQ-12.....HT-11 __________________ SMG
ST-11.....DX-12.....IQ-12.....HT-11 __________________ SMG
ST-11.....DX-12.....IQ-12.....HT-11 __________________ SMG
ST-11.....DX-12.....IQ-12.....HT-11 __________________ SMG
ST-11.....DX-12.....IQ-12.....HT-11 __________________ SMG
ST-11.....DX-12.....IQ-12.....HT-11 __________________ SMG

SPD-5.75.....Ddg-8.....Parry(Hand)-9
Thrust-1d-1.....Swing-1d+1
Punch-1d-1 Kick- 1d-1
Ads: Combat Reflexes, Fit
Guns-15.....Brawling-13.....Tactics-11.....Driving-12.....All Others-11

Ballistic Vest.....Torso.....8/2

SMG, 9mm.....Dam: 3d-1 pi.....Acc: 4.....ROF: 13.....Shots: 30+1.....Bulk: -4.....Rcl: 2

Armor-Piercing Hard Core Rounds (2 armor divisor degrade damage to pi-)
+2 when firing 9-12 shots, +3 when firing 13.

Now, I can also wing this stats at the moment if I need to, but if I know there are 8 Omega guaurds in this facility, I make up a little cheat sheet for myself. I don't make full sheets or stat out the point costs for guards though.

Another tip...this is from the D&D game where combats would go on and on and on and on...the GM wrote the initiative order on a white board, and so we always knew exactly who was coming up next. Because the D&D combats were so long (we were all really high level so we all had multiple attacks and as a Rogue I was throwing 10d6 sneak attack damage 4-5 time a round...boy did it drag on and on)...we would often decide our attack, whisper it to the person to our left, made all of our attack and damage rolls right before our turn and then say something like:
Me: "I made 5 attacks while using my ring of Improved Blinking, so all of them get Sneak Attack Damage. They also all have lingering damamage for next round. So. I hit AC32 for 38 for 29hp"
GM: Yes *scribble*,
Me: "AC 27 for--"
GM: "No"
Me: "AC 26...nope. AC30 for 32hp?"
GM: "Yes"
Me: AC 28 for 25hp?"
GM: "Yes. Thank you. A flurry of your blades snake out and you hit him three times viciously."
Me: "Does it look like I hurt him badly?"
GM: "No, he still looks very strong. Next?"

That was what D&D was like with 8 player all of whom were playing level 20 people...and mine had a lot of die pips to count up, but I was pretty straight forward. The swordsage on the other hand...or the Time Stopping Mages. I still have nightmares.

But by having the list on the board and having everybody pre-roll helped speed up combat. Of course, I was generally bored out my mind because combat would still take 2-3 hours per encounter...or more.

I've never been in a GURPS combat that took that long. And the GURPS combat were a lot more fun for me. But, your milage my vary.

[Maz]

Originally Posted by Cernunnos

Hi all,

I would like to know if you have some tips on how to speed up combat and stay true to the rules without turning the combat situations into a tactical board game. I use some of the Tactical Combat rules, but 1sec rounds are difficult to handle in a smooth way.

[...]

Actually you bring up 4 different problems that do not have the same solution
1) You want faster combat. That is out-of-game time.
2) You want in-game combat time to correspond more closely to out-of-combat time. So you do nto spend 2 hours on a 10 second combat.
3) You want characters to be able to "do something" (meaningful) every turn.
4) You want more narrative combat as opposed to detailed "by the rules".


So lets look at each:
1) Other have already answered this. Basicly experience and practise and quick-decision making is the best ways to speed things up.

2) You could just say that instead of 1 second each turn is actually anywere from 1 to 10 secodns depending on what players do. GURPS allow characters to react with the optimal action every single second. For instance attacking a new oppopnent every second. This is not completly realistic, people often spend time making decisions and trying to figure out whats going on, even people with combat reflexes. However it's borign to play out this, so Personally Ithink it's perfectly ok to say that peopel actually spend more time doing stuff suchs as talking, looking around and deciding each turn so they actually take maybe 3 seconds.

3) I have been playing around with a solution to this. Stole from D&D 4e.
Instead of having 1 action per turn you have 3.

1 standard action (All Attacks and Concentration take a "standard action" to perform)
1 Move action (Move, Change posture, Aim, Evaluate takes a move action).
1 Minor action (Ready, Change facing can be taken with a minor action)

You can "change down". So you could take 1 std, 1 move and 1 minor or 2 move and 1 minor or 1 move and 2 minor or 3 minor. 

You do not have to take all your actions.

You determine the order of your actions yourself. You can move and then attack or the other way around. 

---

You have to be aware of a few consequenses of this. Range attacks are both boosted and nerfed. People can move much faster before anyone gets to act and so close distance before range can act. But then they alway gets acc bonus and can reload faster between attacks, able to atack each turn for archers for instance. 

There also some rules that have to be made a bit more precise. For instance you should get bulk penalty if you move during your turn even if it's not a move and attack.

Also All-out should affect the entire turn. There could be some slight problems with this and the Wait Action. 

---

This also automaticly makes combat turns "longer" as you abstract a bit mroe than normal you can easily say a turn is 6 sec longs for instance.

4) Narrative is IMO opposed by details and "by the rules". If you want narrative playstyle you have to accept to be a little lose with the rules.

What I have done in some combat-light campaigns and in most Scenarios run by GURPS I run is to remove the rules from the players hand so to speak.

So the players state their intent and actions and then I as the GM take care of the rules. 

for isntance the players get ambushed by thugs. One player states "I daw my gun dive behidn the nearest car and starts shooting". Anoth player says "I charge into the group jump kicking the leader and starting to kick their ass"

I then roughly evaluate that it's going to take the shooter 5 secodns to take a shot and the brawler 4 secodns to charge in and attack. But to make it easier I just rule it takes the same time, maybe then give the brawler a +1 to hit for evaluating. 

What I tell the players is jsut what skill rolls to make and their penalties-bonusses. 


Once players gets used to this style I allow them to state a bit more details for isntance. The shooter might say "I want to have time to aim" or the brawler stats "I won't make any move and attack actions". 



A bonus of this style is that people completly new to the rules will have a very easy time. and it makes it much easier to jsut say things happens one way or the other and ignore all the small rules such as readiying and so on.

[Anaraxes]

In our group we encourage roleplaying even during combat scenes. ... do I have to interrupt him and say:

No, there's no need to interrupt the narrative description. There's nothing wrong with describing all at once what may turn out to be a multiple-round action. Just let the player finish the thought, and say "Cool. So do the move for this turn" and go on to the next player. When you come back around, you just pick up, "so, you were sizing this guy up to get in a hard blow; that's Evaluate" and move on immediately. Next turn you say "Ok, now you clobber the guy. Gimme a roll." If everyone is on the ball, then this doesn't take a minute to go through all three turns.

The trick to getting combat to flow is simply not to obsess over the mechanics. Sometimes people phrase this as "knowing the system well". That's true, but sometimes gets misinterpreted as being able to quote chapter and verse from memory for every situational modifier. Instead, the players and the GMs should understand the system well enough to know what the Maneuvers are, and that these sort of "long" descriptions might well break down into more than one round. Similarly, players have to be comfortable enough to do what they want to do, roleplaying wise, without worrying that they need to eke out another +1 somewhere to minimax each and every single opportunity to act. Short combat rounds actually help this problem, because you get more chances to do something overall, and you get more of a chance to change your mind and adapt to circumstances.

(Imagine hour- or day-long combat rounds, like a large-scale wargame. "Well, sorry, you said you were going to the dungeon to clean it out, so you can't come back to deal with your archenemy you saw on the way out of town until tomorrow. Make the (one) success roll for the dungeon-clearing battle." Not what I think of as "smooth"; finer grains in time make for a smoother apparent result, sort of like increasing the resolution on your screen.)

[MKMcArtor]

Originally Posted by trooper6

In the end fast combat in GURPS is like fast combat in D&D, the players have to know the system. Combat in D&D is really slow with people who don't know the system very well. Really slow.

As someone intimately well-versed in D&D, I take extreme umbrage with this assertion. Combat in D&D is really slow no matter how well the players know the system. ;)

The difference between knowing the system well and not in D&D isn't in how much faster the combat goes, but in how much more entertaining the rounds are. When the other players know the combat system and their characters' capabilities very well, it can actually be fun to wait the half hour (or longer) until your next turn comes up.

So to be more on topic with this, to the OP my advice would be something like: no matter how long or short your combats are, the better you and your players know the rules, the more fun the combats will be.

As an addendum: Another way to make combats more fun is to avoid, like the Plague, effects that will incapacitate a PC (or PCs) for more than a single combat round. When you knock a PC out of combat completely, you suddenly create a bored person at your table. Since the main reason to play RPGs is to have fun, you've just removed all possibilities of that person from having fun for as long as the combat extends. Of course, having a shorter combat will prevent that person from being bored for too long, but you should try to avoid putting him into that position in the first place.