A less transparent Feint?

[pawsplay]

I'm not sure how to "fix" this. As noted above Miyamoto Musashi precisely made the point that taking time to deliberately probe your opponent was a waste of time, when you could be trying to land a hit.

A feint would happen most naturally when two fighters were circling each other, trying to get the other to commit. GURPS doesn't really do much to encourage either feeling out the opponent, or forcing opponents to commit. There is rarely a good reason to just let time pass; GURPS's one second rounds encourage things to go fast, fast, fast.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by pawsplay

I'm not sure how to "fix" this. As noted above Miyamoto Musashi precisely made the point that taking time to deliberately probe your opponent was a waste of time, when you could be trying to land a hit.

Musashi seems to have been a bit of a psychopath (it takes a certain personality trait to get into 60+ duels); I suspect what he was skipping wasn't so much the feints as the period of posturing that typically occurs before a fight. Also, he was presumably considerably better than any of his opponents (exactly the situation where feinting in GURPS can be useful) as opposed to duels between relatively equal foes.

The usual reason for wanting to 'fix' feinting is a desire to make one on one combat in GURPS more interesting; two people trading attack actions until one of them lands a hit is fairly dull, though it's worth noting that this may be constrained by rules -- for example, fencing has right of way rules because otherwise the flow tends towards "stare at one another for a while, then someone lunges and if the initial attack doesn't win, stabstabstab as fast as possible".

I suspect the way you could make GURPS combat a bit more inclined towards lulls is by introducing a defender advantage, such as allowing combining certain moves with wait. The usual reason for people stalling and looking at each other, other than trying to get the other person to back down without a fight, is an impression that the first person to move is going to lose -- each person looks at the other person's stance and thinks "If I attack into that, he'll parry and then get me with a riposte". This means a variety of tactics for getting someone out of their defensive stance.

[pawsplay]

I don't mean he didn't feint at all, but that he didn't approach the opponent and go, okay, I'm going to feint them into a disadvantageous position. He said

The three ways of feinting are three ways of seeing: sticking, pinning, and studied assault. When you cannot tell what opponents might do, you should use these three feints to feel them out.
The thing is to find out adversaries’ intentions. When opponents are secured in a passive or waiting mode, you cast these three kinds of impression for the three ways of seeing, implementing strategic maneuvers with covert intentions, inducing adversaries to tip their hands, and thus using this to enable you to gain victory.

Thus, as I said, turning lulls into an opportunity to probe the opponent.

He goes on:

Hit and Be Hit At: The Sense of Winning by Letting Yourself Be Hit At
...
Even if someone lashes out at you with the intention of cutting you down, carefully note the margin of safety where you are out of reach, and calmly let yourself be hit at by the enemy. Even if an adversary lashes out thinking he will
score a blow, as long as there is that margin, he will not manage to strike you.
...
When you use such techniques to launch various preliminary blows and project appearances with covert intentions, and yet your adversary remains unruffled and refuses to make a move, remaining secure in a passive waiting mode, when you then sneak into the range of the sword, slipping right up to your adversary, he can no longer hold back and shifts into the aggressive mode; then you induce the adversary to take the initiative, whereupon you let him hit out at you, and thus strike him down.

so the fear of attacking, and being taken out by the counter, is a universal concern of sword-fighting strategy.

So what is the GURPS action or roll to induce an opponent to think they should attack, when the range is incorrect? Is that a feint?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by pawsplay

So what is the GURPS action or roll to induce an opponent to think they should attack, when the range is incorrect? Is that a feint?

In reality it would be considered a type of feint, but in GURPS terms I'm not sure what it is.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by pawsplay

So what is the GURPS action or roll to induce an opponent to think they should attack, when the range is incorrect? Is that a feint?

That could be a rationalisation of a Defensive Feint (Martial Arts p. 101). I've found those very entertaining in DF combats against large creatures that want to slam. A good defensive feint can cause them to charge past you and slam a wall.

[mburr0003]

Originally Posted by Anthony

The usual reason for wanting to 'fix' feinting is a desire to make one on one combat in GURPS more interesting; two people trading attack actions until one of them lands a hit is fairly dull, though it's worth noting that this may be constrained by rules -- for example, fencing has right of way rules because otherwise the flow tends towards "stare at one another for a while, then someone lunges and if the initial attack doesn't win, stabstabstab as fast as possible".

Exactly, though it think it's an effort to recreate the Errol Flynn/Princess Bride style combats, which I can't imagine* are seen often in reality so much as they are in sparing and sporting matches.

* Most of my experience comes from street/gang fights where at least one side has decided "I'm killing that fool" and has experience in fighting/killing, and in my experience there aren't a lot of lulls (I.E. Evaluates and Waits) on the part of the ones with murderous intent.

I suspect the way you could make GURPS combat a bit more inclined towards lulls is by introducing a defender advantage, such as allowing combining certain moves with wait.

If you want lulls, actual lulls, you have to induce lulls. The best I've seen is to either use the Action Points rules out of The Last Gasp* (Pyramid 3-44) or start charging FP at a certain point in a fight for Maneuvers that aren't Aim, Wait, Evaluate, or All-Out Defense.

I've done both, charging FP works so long as you don't have FP costing abilities, if you do, I recommend giving the PCs ER they can use only for special abilities (and you need to allow PCs to buy more FP than normal. Another option is allow ER to power the Maneuvers, which also works well mixed with special abilities). Action Points works fine, but if you have FP using special abilities you need to figure out how you want to balance it, I again recommend ER for those abilities (and then tying ER recovery to actually resting, not just "automatically every 10 minutes", this forces rests after combats).


* I like to switch AP over from 1 AP/12 points of combat skills to 1 AP/6 points of Athletic skills... for a few different reasons.






Of course, none of this "fixes" Feint in a game where Deceptive Attack still exists. These ideas just encourage 'lulls'. To encourage Feints under either idea I suggest you can reduce Feint to costing no FP or AP, this makes it a viable play to conserve AP for attacks that the Feint helps setup.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by mburr0003

Of course, none of this "fixes" Feint in a game where Deceptive Attack still exists.

Eh, I played in 3e without deceptive attack and people still didn't use feint, they just spammed attacks for crit fishing. What you probably need to do is something like changing the resistance from 'skill' to 'base parry' or some such, so at high skill it reliably reduces defense significantly. That or just remove the defense penalty and it's something like 'feint: roll a quick contest of skill. On success, your opponent cannot parry (or maybe just cannot defend at all) your next attack'.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Anthony

In reality it would be considered a type of feint, but in GURPS terms I'm not sure what it is.

It might be a Ruse. That's like a Feint but based on IQ rather than Dex. It might also be based on Per rather than IQ or Dex.

[EskrimadorNC]

Originally Posted by mburr0003

* Most of my experience comes from street/gang fights where at least one side has decided "I'm killing that fool" and has experience in fighting/killing, and in my experience there aren't a lot of lulls (I.E. Evaluates and Waits) on the part of the ones with murderous intent.

This is very important. When stick sparring, most people I have trained with fight VERY defensively, probing, evaluating, circling, moving in and out of range, etc. In the few real-world engagements I've been involved in/observed, you usually have an aggressive party that takes the "shock & awe" approach and is mostly unconcerned with defense, even when weapons are involved.

That's why my school does more "scenario sparring" where we have a designated "aggressor" who's sole job is to "hit your opponent as hard and as often as you can" since that is much more likely to be someone's experience on the street.

Relevant to the topic, Feint is not likely to work, or be needed really, on an opponent that is spamming All Out Attack.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by mburr0003

It's one I've used for a few years, Don't Roll The Feint Until Immediately Before The Attack It's Affecting.

It doesn't make Feint anymore useful or perferred, but it does mitigate the dichotomy of "I've been Feinted, I'll turtle/runaway/etc" and "They missed the Feint, I'm fine".

What this looks like in play is as so:

Player A's Turn: I Feint. (no rolls are done)
Player B's Turn: I uh... Attack. (Player B has to make an uninformed choice, proceed as if the Feint failed, or act to mitigate as if succeeded - here they're choosing to not give up an attack)

This still leads to metagaming, B shouldn't know A's attack was a Feint.

The best way I think is just to say "I attack" but pass notes to the GM about specifics of the attack - for example is it a feint, is it deceptive, is it telegraphed, etc.

You can then make a roll and the GM will give feedback like "hit or miss" without explaining WHY it hits or misses - and a feint is always communicated as miss.