Re: (TFT) Why not GURPS?

[John J Hyland <johnnyboytmm@juno.com>]

-- Peter von Kleinsmid <pvk@oz.net> wrote:
It does depend on the players. However your 5-roll/6-calculation example is 
quite exceptional. 
[snip]

 I suppose it takes a little longer than TFT even after you 
get used to it, but I tend to relish the added interactions, rather than 
seeing them as an obstacle. Each GURPS melee also tends to play out 
uniquely (even a replay of the same encounter) with weapons and bodies 
often scattered all around, while in TFT they seemed more predictable 
----------------------------------------------------------------------

I admit my example may not come up that often, but iswear it was the first thing I thought of, because that is the way I  fight.  If I had a character, that sort of thing would happen pretty often - well, maybe not all 5 rolls, but the feint, all out attack and block would happen pretty often, as that is how you avoid just standing there swinging.  If I just wanted to stand and swing I'd play D&D.

The added interactions are definitely something I would want to explore as a PC.  And I imagine in a 1 on 1 combat, say a duel between a musketeer and a soldier of the Cardinal, that it would add to the flavor and uniqueness of the combat.  
But as a GM who runs more group melees than 1on1 duels, it would slow me down too much.

I hear what you're saying about the predictability of TFT though,  after 3 or 4 rounds of jockeying for position, it is not uncommon for everybody to be engaged and swinging.  But those first few rounds are darn exciting, and the squaring off process doesn't always happen.  Just like I'm sure GURPS combats don't always take 3 hours.

The thing I love about TFT combat is just what happened last week,  9 player party got chased by 15 hymenopterans.  The party took a defensive formation, and got overrun, a few hectic rounds of scrambling, disengaging, re-engaging, and hacking later, the bugs were well on the way to being routed, and the healthy party was divided into 3 groups, 3 finishing the combat with the bugs, one chasing the workers who carried off unconscious players, and one attending to the severly wounded "mostly dead" wizard in an attempt to revive him.
and it all took 45 minutes.  HUgely fun large combat, with plenty of time left in the session for exploration and role playing.

My poor skills as a GM would not let that occur with any other game system that I am aware of.

John

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