Quote:
Originally Posted by Rev_Pee_Kitty
(I do plan on running a few dedicated martial arts adventures at Hallowcon next month, so I'll probably come back to this thread and comment on how it went. The theme this year is pirates, so whoever runs cold steel through the most pirate hearts will be the winner each time. Arrrrr. <grin>)
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Okay, ran it. More importantly, I ran this game with people whose experience with GURPS ranged from zero to little. In fact, several of the players had
never played an RPG before.
The games went off wonderfully. I built the PCs as masters of one or two Styles, and then made up a cheat sheet with (1) their bio and personality, (2) some good signature combat moves (e.g., "Bind and Stab: If your foe likes to parry your attacks, you can use your sword hilt to bind his weapon (roll 14-) while simultaneously stabbing him in the torso with your main-gauche (roll 12-). He defends at -1.", which is just a Dual-Weapon Attack comprising Bind Weapon (Rapier) and Targeted Attack (Main-Gauche Thrust/Vitals)), and (3) all of the Extra Effort options, as I've found players enjoy being able to spend the "currency" of fatigue points to influence their actions. I found that these things helped ease them into play.
The adventures were mainly combat, and it all went pretty well. Once they understood the way turns worked, and how the attack/defense rolls worked, the rest was cake. It wasn't long until they started using attacks other than the "signature moves" I'd given them -- they became comfortable enough that they'd ask, "Can I kick his legs out from under him?" or "What if I wanted to cut his leg off -- is that possible?" As we went on, I let them in on the detailed rules, little by little -- such as giving one the option of making a Committed Attack instead of a regular one, and explaining what that meant.
Everyone ended up enjoying the games a lot, and no one felt even a little bit overwhelmed by the rules. Admittedly, I did my best to introduce them as gradually as possible, but that's how any good GM should do it. So I feel very confident in saying that a competent GM should be able to implement as much of GURPS Martial Arts as s/he wishes, by introducing it in manageable bites.