I have thought for years about why I have slowly gravitated towards more narrative RPG systems (like Dungeon World) from complex ones (like GURPS) and I struggled to put it into words. And then, it hit me.
I like narrative, cinematic combat in my games.
– Chris Colbath
I absolutely love GURPS, so please don’t think this is a slight against that system. I still think in GURPS terms when I describe the physical world and, oddly enough, try to understand things that are complex. Trying to create an understanding of how it would work in GURPS helps he process some things easier. No other system is as useful for describing the physical.
I have found, at least for more casual gamers, both the complexity of the system and the deadly nature of its combat, tend to make narrative cinematic combat less possible.
I used GURPS early on because it allowed me to say something like,
“I draw my sword and thrust it into his left eye” or
“I backflip over the wall away from his kick.” or
“I roll forward under his blow and come up with a thrust to his heart.”
In GURPS, these all have a real mechanical action associated with them, but the execution of them can take minutes to resolve. The first example, “I draw my sword and thrust it into his left eye” will take two actions to complete, which would take 2 seconds (2 game turns) to actually accomplish (assuming you don’t have the Fast-Draw skill, but let’s reduce the complexity a little).
In Turn 1, I draw my sword… Now, the first turn, there are no rolls, but I don’t get to do anything else, except perhaps, move or speak. NOTE: This turn would be absorbed into the next, if you had points in Fast-Draw for that weapon.
In Turn 2, I thrust it at my opponent aiming for the left eye. I have to calculate my thrust into the opponent. There are two rolls that will get done here; one by me to hit the eye and one by my opponent to dodge/block/parry the blow. In order to hit the eye, I also have to adjust my skill downwards for the complexity of striking such a small target and calculate another factors that will reduce or increase my skill for this particular strike.
If I hit, then the GM will roll for my opponent to defend. They can choose a dodge, parry or block – to get out of the way, stop the blow with a weapon, or interpose a shield respectively – and if they succeed, my attack will not hit. There are optional rules here to deal with damage to the weapon or shield as well, but we will skip those for this example.
Assuming we both make our rolls, I have failed to do any damage, and most of the time was spent calculating my chances. The exception to this is if I roll really well and critically succeed. That will negate my opponent’s ability to defend, and I will get what I wanted. Assuming I hit, I now have to calculate damage.
That will take a moment as well, as I need to factor in the anatomy and armour of my enemy, the weapon I used, and whether it was a critical hit – that requires a table look up and another roll. Once all those have been factored in, I roll the weapon’s damage and apply it against any armour. If any bypasses armour, any modifiers for the weapon type (impaling, slashing, or piercing) are applied to get the final damage. If this exceeds the subject’s HP, they get a set of rolls to determine if they are unconscious, or perhaps even dead.
All of that, for people that are focused on the event, can take a few minutes to resolve for those that know the rules well. For those that don’t, it can take longer.
It is still fun, for a certain style of play, but truly narrative cinematic combat is not that style of play. At least not for me.
Let’s do a Dungeon World example of the same action. This will all be decided in one turn, as ” I draw my sword and thrust it into his left eye” activates the “Hack & Slash” move, which requires one roll against your STR or DEX (plus any temporary modifiers) depending on your weapon.
You will have three possible results from this roll; you will not get what you want (and mark XP), you will get some of what you want or what you want with a hard choice, or you will get exactly what you want. On anything but a complete failure, you will do damage.
If you succeed well, you can optionally do more damage, but suffer damage from your enemy as you do. You roll your damage and the GM let’s you know what happens to the opponent from there.
Regardless, in two rolls, it is all over and you are on to the next player’s awesomeness. The fiction activates the game mechanics beautifully, flowing from one player to the next without effort.
This allows very fast, cinematic action from one moment to the next, without delay. This last point – without delay – is the most important thing, and here is why.
In today’s gaming environment, there are many distractions away from the table. The GM now has to deal with cell phones, TV’s, what happened on the latest binged show, etc. These things will leap into dull moments of play where you are looking things up in a book, or calculating the results of the latest sword hit, or whatever. The faster and easier you can move the action on from one moment to the next, the less of these distractions the GM will need to contend with.
A game like Dungeon World just might give you what you are looking for, if you are anything at all like me. I still use other systems for different styles of play, but this works best for the fantasy RPG I want to run.
This is my 2 cents, for what its worth.
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