From: CX6L <CX6L@MUSICA.MCGILL.CA>
Subject: Re: game vs reality simulation
Organization: McGill University
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 06:47:42 GMT

In article <1992Oct2.184457.8420@cs.tulane.edu> eebonar@sn01.sncc.lsu.edu (Dave Bonar) writes:
> Now, in a GURPS firefight the rules might well make it benifitial
>to always aim for the vital spots.  If so I think they should be changed
>or the specific game you are running should have lower average skills
>(probably the latter, most GURPS games I've seen tend to have extremely
>high combat skills, especially guns).
>
>Dave Bonar
>eebonar@lsuvax.sncc.lsu.edu

Hm. I think whether or not skills are too high (or low) is based
on the players, GM and campaign: not reality. In reality, I'd
never want to be in a firefight! Given the choice of trading
rounds with a pimp who bought a 9mmP to scare the competition,
and with an SAS guy who's got *anything*, I'd pick the former.
He's just going to point-n-plug. The SAS guy *can* and *will*
go for heart and head shots *even under fire*! That's true in
general for "real-life" highly trained types (ie-those who go
in to take out hijackers). I actually knew someone who was a
friend of some Sayarot Maktal (sp?) guys: yup, that's what
they *really* do!
     If you want to simulate what goes on in movies or novels
in your campaign, then high skill levels are a must. Try to
emulate a Bond movie, or even the deeds shown in most war
movies, *without* high skill. Likewise, if you want to try
and simulate real-life special forces or antiterror units,
you need absurd skill levels. If, on the other hand, you are
doing GURPS Gang Violence, or GURPS Normal Folks Meet Cthulhu,
then you want low skills. The same goes for low-tech combat
skills: try doing Conan, or Elrich, or Cuchulainn, or Arthur,
or Robin Hood....without skills at 20+! Uh-uh.
     The point: GURPS combat is realistic, and IMHO perhaps even
fairly believable. The situations people apply it to *are not*!
If you want to take Joe with his default knife skill and pit
him against some HT 9 heroin addict in an alley who lacks the
training to defend himself, you'll get real-life. Now take
six or eight thugs with heavy body armour, firearms, grenades,
sap gloves, combat boots and k-bars, all of whom have about a
20 in a gun skill, 15 in a martial-art  (and all maneuvers at
18), and who are all ST 13, DX 15, HT 12 killing machines. Let
them think out every move in combat, and work like a perfect
team. Sick them on inferior foes. You then have a typical
high-tech special ops, espionage or supers-type situation in
GURPS: or a real-life special forces action against some
undertrained and mentally fatigued hijacker.
     It's all up to you.

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