Sick of D&D 6sec combat rounds? GURPS 1sec round

1 second round is best round!

[@baileykeller288]

This just came up on my recommendations, and I need to know where you got that 1 inch square paper

[@easygurps]

that is a "LOKE little book of Battle Mats". I love them so much I still use them more than my digital game table to be honest.

[@GooberMcSnorford]

Very exciting explanation. I can see it playing out right now

[@easygurps]

GURPS Combat is so fun to me.

[@beliasphyre3497]

Sounds great for players that know how to play and are anticipating their next move. My problem is the less than experienced player getting bogged down in the minutia. Some of my players don't think ahead and just barely think to look up a spell or ability when their turn begins. Takes four minutes to decide on something happening in a six second frame. A round takes twenty minutes to get through. We only have two hours to play. I can't recall the name of the system, but one I played that I really liked actually stayed in that one second frame for multiple rounds, each successive action imposing a penalty until you recovered. The round didn't end until everyone said they were done acting. You could only recover one action a turn, so expending yourself early left you vulnerable.

[@Kayplay120]

What I've noticed with dnd as a 6 second system, or rather as a multiple action system, is that if you can do so much on one round, it really slows the game down as players try to squeeze everything out of the action economy they possibly can. I haven't played gurps before, so I can't coment on how fast it is to play, however it certainly feels like combat is a lot slower in my current DnD campaign than it was in systems with fewer actions, like Fate or some Apocalypse games. Granted those are very rules light, but still. Gurps seems to randomly come up on my radar every year or so. I'm interrested, but so far I've been kinda overwhelmed every time I tried reading the system so far.

[@protocoldroid7388]

Yeah the granularity is cool but I have come to play it as an "elastic 1 second" or "1 second of meaningful action". This is because it gets kind of ridiculous sometimes - for example, during a firefight one PC wants to say something that takes 2 seconds to say. I'm not going to get the guy to split his message into two. Also I did a complex trench raid recently. I had mortars and machineguns suppressing the enemy and a squad of dudes covered 100 yards in fire team rushes taking about 40 rounds (5yds a second with pauses to go firm and fire). Then there was some combat in the trenches at close quarters and it was all resolved. I played out about 60 rounds, fired thousands of bullets, threw grenades, and cleared a 20 yard long trench system. The entire firefight assault and raid lasted 1 minute according to GURPS! That just didn't seem realistic to me. So in between the rounds I resolved something in, I assume that there were pauses and time spent just observing or getting bearings. The played rounds represent when something meaningful happened and the actual battle took about 5 minutes in my head.

[@thekaxmax]

The system covers both circumstances

[@protocoldroid7388]

(squints eyes) what are the two circumstances exactly?@@thekaxmax

[@thekaxmax]

@@protocoldroid7388 1: saying something that takes more than one second to say. The rules say not to be strict on this and to let it go, but it it's more than a few second's worth to not allow that. The premise is something like 'people talking really fast'. 2: doing something that takes a long time to do where 1 sec combat rounds aren't appropriate. This is discussed, with methods to deal with it, usually to use normal time movement and only use combat rounds for when combat is imminent or actually starts. Also, things like real-world-physics space combat is in 20 min or longer rounds.

[@protocoldroid7388]

Hmm interesting. Thanks for your thoughts. Do you have 3E book/page references for "not being strict on saying something"? Hmm Space Combat 20 min long rounds. Let's look that up in Compendium brb..@@thekaxmax

[@protocoldroid7388]

Hmm Something on Compendium II p101 on Space Combat: "the length of time represented by the each round is up to the GM". Coolness. Thanks

[@robrau8795]

I prefer the 1 second combat. . . It is the downside of the 6 second combat which made me really see the value of GURPS style combat. And I have a specific example. . . At one point a few decades ago, I was running a game with 6 second combat. One of the players had an Indiana Jones type character (he wasn't actually Indiana Jones, but the character was pretty close). This character was basically visiting the "Land of the Lost" (meaning dinosaur-environment, in case that isn't clear). Anyway, at one point during the game, Indiana Jones, makes a full move, and comes up on top of this large, flat-topped hill. Jones is now up on this elevated flat area, gun in hand. But also up on the hill-top are these velociraptors. Unfortunately, even though Jones had his gun out, he made his move already. . . So he has to wait 6 full seconds to do anything. On the other hand, the velociraptors were not surprised, and got to charge him. And a velociraptor can cover a lot of ground in 6 seconds. If this had been 1 second rounds, Jones would have gotten 6 attacks in 6 seconds. The 1 second combat makes a lot more sense to me.

[@romeotango5597]

Not sure what system, but I see a lot of issues with either player, DM, or both more than the 6 second turn. Or just with how the system handles actions if it isn’t similar to something like DnD. He dashed blindly knowing an ambush predator was a possible threat? Seems risky. Was he just traveling? If so, A) if the enemy wasn’t able to surprise him he would have detected the threat before cresting the hill (“As you take your first step up the hill you hear the clicking of claws against stone over the crest of the hill. What would you like to do/Roll initiative.”) and B) initiative would start there as he detects them and he wouldn’t be blindly rushing into an ambush. At least in 5e I don’t think the game would run this in a way that allowed the player to basically force himself into being surprised.

[@robrau8795]

@@romeotango5597 : Those are all good points. I could have handled the situation better as the GM (it was a few decades ago, and I was even less wise at that time than I am now). And the player, who knew he was in a dangerous situation, could have moved in cautiously, rather than charging up the hill. However, all that being said, the problems with those sorts of situations still stand. . . Even if the character had the chance to act, and had the initiative, that wouldn't mean all that much. Sure, he would have gotten an action, but there would be a very limited amount of things he could have done before the enemy was able to get to him. And that would be true whether he had been dealing with velociraptors, or some other threat. The 1 second rounds would have allowed him to get a whole bunch of shots, before the enemy could close the distance.

[@protocoldroid7388]

What about shortround? He coulda kicked the valacorapters in the ball and make fly lice in the spare time! And he had gadgets to cook up a storm in Goonies also. @@robrau8795

[@KnightsoftheRedDragon]

I personally enjoy more fluid systems, not to say this 1 second round is bad (I play a lot of D&D 5e so am also very used to the 6 second system) But with a more fluid system like Blades in the Dark uses where the players role is generally reactive (Not to say they can't choose to start fights or anything) it means the GM can go 'The guys swinging his weapon at you, what do you do' and the player can choose to just block, putting them in an easier position, take the hit and attack, hoping it'll be worth it or try to do both, taking a bit of risk that they might fail both, but BitD specifically has the 'push yourself' mechanic that lets you spend a resource to even the odds. The other advantage to this, which I really like (especially as someone far more narrative then strategic) is that it means a combat can easily happen is really compact moment by moment blows, like in this 1 second system, or can be drawn out in to larger action involving a great number of actors or period of time without needing more rules or 'switch modes' and such. Just weighing in my own take, could really see how this could also get John Wick vibes, but also can see some of the issues others have pointed out (which is true enough for D&D really too) where theres rarely value in taking any action other then attack. Why parry or block (unless its your reaction in D&D) when you can just keep dealing damage. (I know I'm a little late to the party, sue me :P)

[@freddaniel5099]

The ability to imagine the action beyond the game mechanics is often the essence of our enjoyment of the game. Simply stated, the game must "make sense" to be fun. As a fan of GURPS, I do struggle a bit with the 1 second turn from the perspective of recovery and reset. There isn't a worry about pulling a trigger each second, but swinging an axe or lunging in with a spear can easily result in becoming off-balance and vulnerable. GURPS doesn't impose enough mechanical risk to unbalanced actions, imo. The result at the table is often hack, hack, hack, which feels a bit comical as I imagine what it would look like were I actually watching the combatants. If you have a good solution to this dilemma, I would love to see a video on it. Cheers!

[@easygurps]

this is a good point that most players default to a standard "Attack" maneuver every turn which allows them to step and attack and still use a defense. If you step back a moment and picture that kind of high-paced back and forth every second for, say, 10 turns you'd a have a comical looking 10s straight of WILD action. To be more realistic, players should be taking feint maneuvers, evaluating, etc. to break up the potentially ridiculous pace. It's just players being impatient lol. It's not the rules' fault I'd say. When I see real life sword combatants, they circle a bit then engage, and are indeed attacking and defending at CRAZY fast speeds, but they just don't sustain that pace like we often do in GURPS. Whatever, this is make-believe so I'm never worried about it really. But it if you want to slow down the pace to make it more "realistic"you could simply start applying 1 FP cost every round you attack for instance. That would bring back the realism..... but maybe not the fun. I may indeed make a video on the topic with my thoughts. Thanks for watching!

[@protocoldroid7388]

This is coolnessness. You are truly GURPS disciple.@@easygurps

[@freddaniel5099]

Thanks for the detailed response. You describe exactly the sort of reality based circling combatants that I have in mind. And I grudgingly agree that GURPS is probably more fun when playing the usual way attacking every second even if it seems a bit like "mashing the button" to me at times. Cheers!

[@user-zg6sd3ne7p]

@@easygurps I have a house rule for that (works only with two combatants tho, but tbh 'circling around learning an opponent' won't really apply to skrimishes in real life anyways (as someone who by my own stupidity participated in a couple 'wall on wall' fights when I was in school, there is no time to think, you just bash bash bash bash and run away when you get surrounded)). After an exchange of blows, one of the combatants may propose a 'break, if another one agrees, break happens. Break lasts a few seconds, essentially combat stops and starts again, but during that break combatants make a 'weapon skill' contest. Winner then acts first and loser can't attack for 1 round. If another combatant refuses to do a break tho, combat continues as normal and both sides lose an FP. This houserule is a bit too cumbersome so I apply it only for important duels.

[@eGG-pi2qd]

I think it all depends on what the scenario is, a 1sec/round thrives in smaller environments, whereas 6sec/round would do better in open environments where there is plenty of space to move around. You could even expand this further with like 1min/round if youre in like a large battleship vs large battleship or something similar. In short I feel as though more space to do stuff should allot more time per round.

[@stm7810]

actually in gurps you run more in just 2 rounds than most DnD guys move in their 6 seconds, since they're walking.

[@migarsormrapophis2755]

I swing my sword. I'm still swinging my sword. I'm still swinging it. I'm swinging it. There! I've swung it.

[@protocoldroid7388]

That doesn't happen in GURPS.

[@thekaxmax]

Your swords too big to be useful. In actual sword fighting, I've got two hits in in a second.

[@stm7810]

if it takes you that long to swing you're supposed to die to 1 quick hit.

[@Runeswik]

your video is much quieter than other videos on youtube. hurt my ears when i went to the next video. :(

[@coldstream11]

Love gurps but the 1 second turn is one of the most problematic things about the game

[@patrickdesrosiers6378]

I not gonna say this is a bad system but if i can only open a glovebox but the driver can pull his leg over the consile and kick it shut in thebsame ammoubt of time is ridiculous

[@easygurps]

LOL yeah if it's a tight/small car or modern vehicle with high console I'd definitely be applying a negative to that kick at least.

[@Joshuazx]

favoriting this.

[@protocoldroid7388]

Know the TRUTH of GUR PSE