You Can Pick Your Friends, But Then You Make A ST Roll…

Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of players look at the rules for picks getting stuck (from p. B405 in the basic set, or Dungeon Fantasy Exploits p. 39) and decide to take up the ax instead. Nobody wanted to risk having some dragon fly off with their main weapon stuck in its hide. So, I almost never saw it come up in actual play.

After the first few session of the current campaign, Blixa the mute barbarian upgraded from a maul to a warhammer. The attraction of swing impaling damage was just too much. For the first time, the possibility of getting a weapon stuck came up.

 

Pokey

 

I’m a cat herder.

Out of five full-time players, I’ve got three that are self-professed fans of professional wrestling. One, at least, that I know of, participated in organized, competitive wrestling (at the high school level? not sure I entirely caught the set-up on that story). Two own their own luchador masks and regularly appear in public wearing them. One has a side project in which he’s writing up all the pro wrestling moves in game terms — first HERO System, and now GURPS.  When I started thinking about using the more detailed Technical Grappling rules, I anticipated the player reaction to be somewhere between “meh” and dignified celebration. What did I find?

Nah, I tease. I got to touch base with a couple of the players yesterday, and while there is a certain amount of trepidation, they seem to be on board. I figure, as long as I’m harping on the subject, I might as well record some of the questions. Maybe the other players will have similar worries.

“Do we need more detail? I don’t recall there being a lot of grappling in the game thus far.”

On the one hand, this is true, most combats have been resolved through the use of intimidation and the poking with the pointy ends of weapons. I suspect there are a couple of different reasons behind this. One is likely just the dungeon crawl vibe. In my D&D experience, the rules for unarmed grappling in every edition were “DM gives you the hairy eyeball for suggesting such a thing and then asks why you can’t just whack the thing with your sword like a good little fighter”.

But, another reason could be the relatively flatness of the rules. The kind of combat we’ve had, with lots of striking for HP damage, wouldn’t be nearly so fun if characters only had three levels of injury:  “untouched”, “hurt”, and “dead”. By tracking HP, we gain detail and nuance and the ability to groan at a low roll or cheer at a high. In a nutshell, that’s what I’m looking to change. With the TG rules, we’ve got the mechanics for Alric to picks up a kobold and pwn him so completely that they can play “Why you punching yourself?” The potential for hilarity here is immense.

On the other hand, I would say that we’ve had a fair sprinkling of grapples. When TKotBO put Zomb-Mongo over the rail of the Great Bridge, he started by grabbing his ankle, and had to drop his morning star to do so. The giant mushroom was all about grabbing someone and swallowing them whole; it just never got a good shot at anybody before Alric tore it up. Doughal, the infamous invisible halfling, made his first appearance with a grapple, using a rope garrote to good effect. The zombies that have popped up here and there would probably go for an All-Out Attack with a two-handed grab with a bite follow-up, except they’ve always been turned, defenestrated, or otherwise nuked from orbit before getting going. (For all the party knows, the zombies are all actually friendly under their ugly exterior and lack of vocabulary. Maybe they’re all just going in for a hug.)

So, grappling is far from unknown. In all these examples — aside from those poor zombies — I feel we would benefit from the extra detail.

“How do you grab someone behind you?”

Page 11 of TG, you can attempt to initiate a grapple against a target behind you as a Wild Swing from an acceptable posture.

As it turns out, though, this wasn’t the real question. The real question was, how does one perform a backslide pin. Just looking at this clip, I would say we don’t get to see the grapple initiated. We come in with grapple already in progress.

Here’s how I see it, breaking down the linked clip:  We enter with a low-Control-Point grapple. I would say Black Trunks probably has no more than 1 or 2 CP, maybe even 0, to start with. During the first second, Black Trunks tries to improve his CP total, but Red Trunks manages to turn the tables, reducing Black Trunk’s total to 0 and applying massive CP of his own, on Black Trunk’s right arm. (At this point, it starts to look like Black Trunks might be stunned, perhaps by the pure, raw awesomeness of Red Trunks. Maybe there was some Rapier Wit applied?) From there, it looks like a Force Posture Change (TG p37) for Red Trunks to move into Black Trunks’ rear arc, and a successful grab of the other arm. (Maybe an All-Out Attack (Double) to do it so quick? Safe enough, what with Black Trunks taking a nap.)  Then, having racked up a sizable pile of CP, Red Trunks applied another Force Posture Change to take Black Trunks to the mat, dropping to a lower level himself to get a bonus to the roll. This triggers the win conditions of their brand of Wrestling Sport, and the ref comes in for the count. Sadly, it looks like Red Trunks must have finally expended all those CP, and Black Trunks kicks free.

“It seems like a lot of pro wrestling moves are going to have a lot of variants and take multiple turns…”

Well… yup. Guilty as charged. A lot of those moves are done over the course of several seconds, so they’re not going to translate, one-to-one, into GURPS maneuvers. Each step has to fit within a 1 second turn. If you want to chain those moves together so that a cinematic grappler can throw them around in a single turn, you’ll want to look at the rules for Combinations. Personally, I think that’s overkill, though. Pro wrestling is cinematic enough if you just accept what you see in front of you, and what you see is, folks taking several seconds to set up a move.

“How are you supposed to hurt an enemy with grappling, aside from chokes?”

See page 19 of GURPS Martial Arts: Technical Grappling (I love typing the whole name, and I look forward to GURPS Martial Arts: Technical Grappling: Transhuman Space: How To Stick A Thumb In A Pirate’s Eye In Ziggy, just for Hal), under the heading “How to Cripple and Kill”. There’s several ways to hurt a grappled enemy, but just squeezing them isn’t a great one, unless we’re talking about a choke or a bear hug. What you want is wrenching a limb (Wookie style!), throws, locks, and throws from locks.

Just like you’d expect, from real life and fiction, a wrestler would kill enemies by either tearing them limb from limb or by taking advantage of their control of the enemy to bash ‘im into something until ‘e stops squeaking. When Bane broke Batman, the set-up was a grapple, but the pay-off was a strike. (In GURPS terms, it’s a Backbreaker, but in the real-world, it’s damage caused by being rammed into the guy’s knee, not from being gripped tightly.)

NOT Sean Connery in a shark mask.

Then, later, after I provided the page reference….

“Throw, from a lock, using CP to boost the damage limits? OUCH.”

Yes, yes, indeed.

Corrections, News, and Scenes of Pastoral Charm

As PeterD pointed out, when I was troubled by Gabby’s apparent ability to skewer anybody grabbing her rapiers, I overlooked B391, which says it’s impossible to use such a long weapon in Close Combat, and the expanded rules in GURPS Martial Arts, which would allow it, but at a daunting -12. I tend towards using the latter rules, just because I’d rather see ’em roll than not. That means Gabby would be rolling at (if I remember correctly) an effective 7. That’s the land of wild swings and the gun going off accidentally during the struggle, so all’s well.

Remember, though, Gabby has a decent pile of accumulated XP and no particular project to spend ’em on. If she decides to chase pure, raw skill with her weapon of choice, she’ll rapidly achieve the high 20’s. At that point, she can eat a -12 and keep on coming. That, too, is entirely cool.  You don’t tug on Superman’s cape, and you don’t try to grab the swords off Miyamoto Musashi.

Word is that the players that animate Alric and Gabby won’t be able to make the next session, though. Luckily, the party managed to extract themselves from the dungeon last session, so it’s easy to sideline them for a bit. In-game, the two of them decided to take a week off to rest and recuperate from their respective injuries. Gabby is waiting for the power of prayer to mend all the bones in her arm, of course, while Alric took a hit to the groin that wasn’t mortal, wasn’t crippling, but was deeply demoralizing. They’re going to spend some time at the inn, drinking heavily in between lessons in fighting more like the jumping flea than the raging bull.

Thus, the next session is going to be the classic Fighter-Thief-Magic-user team of The Knight of the Blood Oath, Needles, and Mississippi Jed. Last I heard, they were plotting to perform an exorcism and shut down the evil temple they found last session. That’s after checking in with Strang, to give him the bad news. I’ve been discussing the situation with the remote player behind Strang, and he’s come up with an interesting response, something a lot more fun that I would have come up with, alone.

In the meantime, I’m splitting my gaming attention between setting up for the debut of (a stripped-down version of) the GURPS Martial Arts: Technical Grappling rules, and working through the long-delayed restocking. I expect that the next session will start with a flurry of paperwork as we look up everyone’s Grip ST and training bonuses (boni? bonusim? bonoxen?) and favorite techniques and such-like. I’m a little surprised to report, looking over the character sheets, that 3/5th of the PCs already have points devoted to some form of grappling skill. The highest skill level is DX+0, though, which makes sense: none of these guys are meant to be dedicated wrasslers. The one who put any points towards it at all are the more front-line folks, who surely did it for defensive purposes. I guess that’ll save looking up those training bonuses, after all…

 

Wrestling with Technical Grappling

At this time, I can say for certain that the future of the Dungeon Fantasy game will include some form or subset of the rules presented in GURPS Martial Arts: Technical Grappling. It’s all just a question of figuring out the sweet spot of rules to use and rules to ignore for speed. I would be a lot more skittish about the change without the evidence provided by reports based on actual play, like this one over at Dungeon Fantastic, and examples like “Technical Natasha” over at Gaming Ballistic.

I’ve been going through the PDF, start to finish, making mental notes of neato stuff. There’s a lot there, more than we can use at the moment.

* * *

I love the idea of Grip CP — “CP” being “Control Points”, a central concept for these rules, representing how much control one exerts over the thing being gripped, grappled, wrestled over, or wrung out — as presented on page 12. Effectively, anybody wielding a weapon has a grip on that weapon, with a rated strength. Under the basic rules (B370), two people wrestling over control of a weapon would engage in a Regular Contest of ST. Under the TG rules, they would attack the grip, modifying the Grip CP as they go. As the current grip varies from turn to turn, the weapon might be hampered but still usable, or retained but unready, and control can pass back and forth depending on who is doing better at the time.

As I look at the equivalent basic rules, it occurs to me that there doesn’t seem to be an option to force an opponent’s weapon to become unready:  if you win the Regular Contest, you take the weapon away; if you lose the Regular Contest, you lose your grip on the weapon; while the Regular Contest is being contested, the weapon is grappled and apparently the wielder apparently suffers a -4 DX when attempting to use it.  Unless there’s something I’m overlooking, under those rules, anybody trying to grab Gabby’s rapier is just setting themselves up for trouble. She won’t be wrestling for control, she’ll just be happy that you’re standing still and perforate you at an effective 15 skill. Offhand, that sounds like “Telegraphic Attack to the vitals” and “stabby-stabby-stabby” to me.

Or maybe I’m wrong, and the proper way to interpret the basic rules is to say that while the Regular Contest is going on, the weapon is flat-out considered unready. (Doubt it.) However, that means anybody who can make the initial grab can take away a person’s weapon, at least for a moment, and we’ll never, ever see (say) a kobold (ST 8) wrapping all four limbs (Grip ST 12) around Alric’s axe in an attempt to slow him down, only to have Alric eat the penalties and keep on swinging. That image alone is enough for me.

TG takes that Regular Contest, and injects a bunch of fresh nuance and options. It seems like it would just feel more like slowly peeling the enemy’s fingers off the grip, one by one. It offers the chance for more descriptive combats — “Since two hands aren’t doing it, I’ll add my teeth!  I bite his thumb!” — rather than just rolling until somebody fails.

* * *

More options for the light fighter types. The basic books don’t seem to support armed grapples, only unarmed. GURPS Martial Arts appears to be where the Armed Grapple technique appeared, but I wouldn’t expect either Needles or Gabby to be much interested in it. Now, under TG, they’ll be receiving a bonus to their Trained ST — well, Gabby will, anyway, and I’m sure Needles will be raising his skill higher in time — which should help offset that reluctance.

Furthermore, I’m toying with the idea of having Trained By A Master and/or Weapon Master (and/or Heroic Archer, if anybody ever decides to pick up a ranged weapon and take to pinning bad guys to the walls by their clothes…) turn on one of the cinematic switches, and double inflicted CP.

It seems appropriate to me that a quote-unquote “Weapon Master” would be just as much bad news grappling as they would striking. At the very least, a master of nets or the like, weapons that entangle without damaging, should get some benefit equivalent to the normal damage bonus. It seems appropriate for other masters as well. Many’s the time, in movies and cartoons, I’ve seen the teacher snag the student’s collar with a weapon and drag ’em around.

* * *

Bolas. Oh, goodness. I used to hate bolas. If they weren’t such a weird, off-brand weapon, I bet there would be more talk about ’em. One of the characters in the old street-level supers game (not the Supers 1200, but an earlier, 500-point attempt) was a pseudo-Batman-knockoff who used bolas, among many other weapons. Made sense, what with the less-than-lethal nature of the weapon. But in play… gah, they were horrible.

By the rules on B410, if you hit, and they try to Parry, you have a good chance of taking away their weapon.  If they fail to defend, you’ve just taken away the target’s next three actions. If you manage to entangle both their hands, they’re… I dunno, I guess they’re stuck until somebody comes along to free them. There’s no provision for escaping through ST or skill.  (Which is odd, since Escape would be available if someone were tied up carefully with a bola, but not if one is thrown at them.) If someone tried to entangle Rhino like this, I would just have him start doing thr-1 damage against the weapon itself until he broke free, which wouldn’t take very long at all, but that’s not very helpful for characters of high but still near-human strength. All else being equal, I would expect Conan’s superior strength to free him faster than the normal soldier beside him.

Conan’s probably got more Luck, too, which helps, but that’s beside the point.

At any rate, TG removes all that magic and turns them into just another entangling weapon, works the same way as everything else, by inflicting CP. A skilled user, one dedicated enough to slam the points into it, can still pull off crazy stunts… but the weapon itself isn’t an instant-win. It’s possible to get a bit of a hold on a target, enough to hamper but not enough to drop ’em. It’s equally possible for the skilled or lucky wielder to get massive CP and put a target down indefinitely, rather than having an upper limit of three DX rolls’ worth of inactivity. That’s win-win, as far as I’m concerned. It puts a lot more distance between the master and the student.

Funny thing about the Batman-knockoff:  over time, he used the bolas less and less, preferring to use a taser when seeking live prisoners. The taser was pretty darn effective, but not nearly as much as the bolas: it didn’t work on robots, and Rhino often likes a HT-based rolled better than three DX rolls, even with a steep negative modifier. It was almost as if the player became embarrassed at using such an annoying weapon.

* * *

The rules concerning the differences between a wrestler wearing loose clothes and a sturdy backpack versus one wearing a loincloth and covered in oil (TG7-8).  When TPoTKotBO ran his experimental GURPS fantasy game, I played a wrestler, name of Dog, who made a habit of making sure he had a good coating of olive oil at all times. The GM allowed me a level of Slippery to account for this, which was cool of him, but the TG rules add some necessary spice. They don’t just have slipperiness making it harder to grab a character. They actually make it possible to lose CP over time, as the target slides from one’s grasp.

Makes me want to run a greased pig competition. Douglas Cole already outlined how to do a tug of war. If somebody writes up some good rules for bobbing for apples, Tembladera might have to have a fair.

* * *

Spending CP to reduce hit location penalties with a strike. Simple and elegant, and it covers a bunch of moves with a single mechanic. Grabbing the head to set up a headbutt. The old trick with a hand on either shoulder and a knee in the natural place for a knee to go. From behind, one hand on the forehead and a blade across the throat. The smiling assassin, taking a handshake or a friendly hand on the shoulder and turning it into a grapple and a yank onto the concealed dagger.

Know something else you could adapt it to, I betcha?

Bishop, performing surgery.

You can do something similar with CP using Grab and Smash (TG24, updating MA118), where you make two attacks in a single turn (by whatever means), start off with a grapple, and then spend some or all of the inflicted CP to increase damage. (Some of those examples above could be played out this way, too.)

Hmm. Seems like you should be able to spend your CP’s to reduce the penalties for someone else’s attack, like when one guy puts the victim in a full nelson and the other guy punches the victim in the jaw. On the other hand, that could just be the active control penalties at work. Plus the All-Out Attack that sets ’em up for a surprise kick from the victim…

* * *

The options under “Muscling It” (TG26) look like they’d come in quite handy, if we ever go back to playing any kind of supers. They’re also a key piece to running a rodeo in GURPS. (There’s that greased pig again…)

I’m inordinately fond of any set of rules that opens up a weird new kind of campaign. When GURPS Social Engineering came out, it made me extraordinarily happy that I could now set up a campaign around one character’s run for President. In a similar vein, I’ve been known to threaten a Matlock-based game, after a couple of drinks. I wouldn’t rule out a modern-day game based around rodeo competition, with or without the optional solving of mysteries or battling against supernatural menaces on the side.

* * *

The One Foe option, where the character concentrates on one enemy, to the exclusion of any others, to get a benefit in defending against that enemy. It’s never, ever going to see use in the average dungeon brawl, of course, but it’s just the thing for one-on-one fights.

Who knows, maybe TKotBO will get his honorable duel one of these days…

That quiet is the sound of digestion

Between the sale at Warehouse 23, and the new stuff that’s been coming out for GURPS, I’m way behind on my reading. My gaming time has been spent with new PDFs, rather than doing anything terribly productive around my own campaign.

Along with the new stuff, I’ve been hoping to circle around and give GURPS Martial Arts: Technical Grappling another look. I played a wrestler in a fantasy game that TKotBO’s player ran a while back. Sadly, my character didn’t get to do as much actual wrestling as I had hoped, but the one match he did have — against an animated four-armed statue — was quite entertaining. We were using the basic rules, not the Technical Grappling option, though. Rumor is, the TG rules open up a satisfying level of detail for Dungeon Fantasy games. I’ve got visions of Alric wrestling Dagoth like the original barbarian did in the Conan the Destroyer movie.

The special effect that Should Not Be.

 

What little productivity I’ve got left over has been mostly dedicated to setting up GCA data files for the Order of the Sun magical style. I’ve got the new spell chains working, which originally seemed like the hard part, and I’ve got a first draft of the template for the style itself. The next hurdle is figuring out the best way to present that long list of Perks… and if it needs to be presented at all. The path of least resistance would certainly be to skip it, but I suspect that would just mean that without an easy list for me to pick from, PC stylists would choose Perks and NPCs wouldn’t.