You Eye-ballin’ Me, Boy?

by mshrm

In slowly crawling out from under the flood of GURPS-related reading, I ran across the Kromm-note on page 54 of How to Be a GURPS GM, commenting on the Evaluate maneuver. The long and the short of it was, Evaluate is meant for the folks who know the fight is starting three seconds from now.

I’m reminded of the Western cliche, where the Young Guy With Something To Prove approaches the Grizzled Veteran with a rude stare. (Takes an Evaluate.) Grizzled Veteran seems to feel the weight of Young Guy’s gaze, and growls out “You eye-ballin’ me, boy?” (Body Language roll to recognize the Evaluate, then an Intimidate.) Usually, Y.G. backs down, but sometimes he’ll go for the attack anyway and gets spanked. (Rushing to attack without the full +3 bonus, and showing why he could have used it.)

I don’t think any of us in the local group have really thought about the tactic.  When TKotBO went to assassinate the goblin wizard, for instance, he probably could have used another +3. I’m not sure Needles needs any more bonus to his back-stab, but it’s there, if the party starts setting more ambushes.

Just another example of how we’re not so familiar with the lower-tech, melee-oriented rules.

 

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