How to make combat more exciting?

[Lord Azagthoth]

In my campaign, in the very first fight, one of the heroes lost his left arm. These players are all used to D&D3.0 and 3.5 rules but did see the movies on which my campaign was based on.

They encountered two droidekas (the type of rolling tripod droids seen in Star Wars Episode I from which a Jedi Master and his Padawan flee from). The heroes in my campaign were just starting (some weren't even adult yet) but they came soon to know that combat could be deadly. From then on, they first decided, when they encoutnered an enemy, if they could reasonably win the combat without losses (if they recognize the type of opponents) and if not, what are the retreating options if it goes wrong.

During the campaigns, the heroes have grown and are able to grind themselves through mass numbers of opponents (as long as they don't something stupid or very heroic) but still have to rethink their option when they encounter tougher enemies. Even then, the danger of getting badly hurt, losing limbs (which can be replaced) is very real.

[simply Nathan]

Ways to speed up GURPS combat:
- Don't use a map, or if you do keep spaces confined to where it doesn't take more than a turn or two to get within striking range with a hand weapon. This penalizes all ranged weapons other than throwing weapons, but oh well.
- Don't use hit locations. Every blow is a torso blow until you feel comfortable looking up rules for specific locations or feel you have them memorized.
- As a follow-up, don't use piecemeal armor. Either use the armors from GURPS Lite, from 3rd edition, double the $ and weight of the Basic Set's torso armors, or triple the $ and base weight of Low Tech torso armors.
- Don't bother with any of the rules for reducing someone's effective Move, Dodge, or ST when low on HP/FP.
- Don't change encumbrance levels mid-combat.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by c0matose

Hey guys,

In pretty much all my gurps games up to now my friend (the one other person who plays GURPS that i know) has GMed for us, and has "pretended" not to know stuff for my benefit. I now feel like a bit of an ******* so ive offered to GM some nice long campaigns for him, mainly DF with some MH elements. My main question is how can i make combat quicker/more fun. DF says unless its a boss is has in effect 1 health and any hit will kill it, and minibosses have health but die at 0. Does anyone have any other methods for making it more exciting. Another question is how to i handle attack order? I remember when i played Warhammer FRP and you just went in initiative order, is it similar for GURPS with basic speed?

Thanks

(also share links to nice DF campaigns you have because I will either put no effort into it and it'll be boring or i'll put too much in and the heat death of the sun will occur before i finish)

Play with toy dinosaurs while everyone else is busy plundering a wrecked ship.