How long is a turn?

[c0matose]

I've always thought that one turn was one second, but that seemed too short so is there an official turn length given by any of the books?

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by c0matose

I've always thought that one turn was one second, but that seemed too short so is there an official turn length given by any of the books?

One second.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Sindri

One second.

Or more properly, zero duration and used in the normal English meaning of the word. The interval *between* your turns is a second of game time, but GURPS does try, admittedly not always successfully, not to use it as a unit.

[ericthered]

basic set (campaigns) 362, first paragraph under combat turn sequence.

If this feels super short, its one of the reasons why gurps manevers can seem to acomplish so little.

[Anaraxes]

The second paragraph also addresses a common topic:

The GM shouldn’t feel constrained by the one-second time scale. This is just a way of breaking a battle into manageable chunks! He should feel free to drop out of combat time whenever dramatically appropriate, and to resume combat time when noncombat action gives way to more fighting. Consider a running gunfight in which the combatants leap across rooftops and chase each other up and down rickety fire escapes: the GM could resolve this through roleplaying and DX or skill rolls (against Jumping, etc.), interspersed with a few seconds of combat whenever he feels the opponents have a clear shot at each other.

What you might think of as "a combat scene" isn't likely played out in a continuous sequence of a thousand one-second turns.

[RyanW]

If you watch actual combat sparring, you'll see that a second is forever in combat. There are pauses, lulls, and moments of circling for position, not really addressed by GURPS (but check out The Last Gasp), but once the actual blows start flying, it all goes blindingly quick.

Some other games wreck my immersion by have fighters throw an attack and then stand around for 5 or 10 seconds doing nothing.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by RyanW

... but once the actual blows start flying, it all goes blindingly quick.

A friend of mine started writing a combat system of his own that would work on the basis of individual movements. He concluded on the basis of video studies that everything that happened in an individual 1/50 sec video frame could be foreseen from the few frames before it, and started on a system where you would put actions into a queue that would be executed by your body something like 5 queue steps (1/10 second) later. It all got far too complex, even for him, who I'd rate as IQ13+ with Mathematical Ability 2. He was very smart, but none too practical.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by johndallman

A friend of mine started writing a combat system of his own that would work on the basis of individual movements. He concluded on the basis of video studies that everything that happened in an individual 1/50 sec video frame could be foreseen from the few frames before it, and started on a system where you would put actions into a queue that would be executed by your body something like 5 queue steps (1/10 second) later. It all got far too complex, even for him, who I'd rate as IQ13+ with Mathematical Ability 2. He was very smart, but none too practical.

Seems like the 'this would run great in a realtime computer game, not a tabletop' syndrome.