What's this about? A simple rules tweak: checking an attacker's TH after the defender announces his defense, not before. I've been a vocal (if not quite proselytizing) proponent of this mod; I'll daringly call it "the biggest pro-realism, pro-roleplaying bang you can get from a zero-bookkeeping, zero-extra-rolls, zero-effort rules change". (And I'll gladly accept a better name for this tweak if you've got one.)

The topic comes up a lot in online discussions. This article brings together everything I have to say on the matter, drawing on previous gurpsnet discussions, SJG forum ramblings, and writings here, including:
http://www.gamesdiner.com/GULLIVER/B5combat.htm#DeclaringDefenses
http://www.gamesdiner.com/hey_stick_to_the_facts

The text grew long, but it's a rich topic that gets at the heart of how things flow in RPG action. (Do please note the caveat at the end: this is not an impassioned screed against some "broken" game feature; it's yet another dry, friendly peek at core game mechanics.)

Introduction

Active defense rolls are a GURPS innovation, and one of the game's niftiest features.

GURPS active defenses are also a wee strange.

FEND points out how defense rolls are at odds with normal game mechanics in one respect: they're the only regular instance of a success roll made against a fraction of Skill (Skill/2, sometimes Skill x 2/3 in 3e). That's a quirk, however, not a problem, and FEND's suggestion for full-skill defenses is all theoretical musing, not a "fix".

There's another big oddity with defenses, though. This one's peculiar in two ways: like the above, it runs at odds to normal game practices – and unlike the above, it also runs smack up against any test of reality.

Ever wonder why a defender makes the decision to defend after the attacker openly checks his to-hit roll? Ever wonder why we don't have the defender make that decision before the attacker checks TH?

Are you wondering why that's even worth thinking about? If so, consider the below.

The current defense flow (or, "Hold on while I read that incoming bullet... nope, my name's not on it")

Say you're creating a game that uses the mechanism of active defense rolls. And as part of the campaign background, you allow powerful "psi" characters, including amazing "precognitives" who can even predict whether incoming blows and missiles will hit or miss, and can then choose how to react accordingly. How would you game that incredible precog ability?

Hmm, that one should be easy! When a sword or arrow comes whooshing in, you let the precog know in advance whether it's on target or not, and thus whether or not she needs to defend at all. If she senses an incoming miss, she can stand pat and laugh as the missiles whiz by! That's a simple, intuitive way to game the amazing ability.

But... in GURPS, everyone already has that same ability! They don't have precognition by design intent, but effective precognition is the mechanical effect of the current defense flow.

"Objection!"

Some GURPS players object to this portrayal:

Objection 1: "But a trained warrior should be able to predict whether incoming blows will hit or not."

Yes, to some degree – but GURPS makes no distinction whatsoever here about "trained". A wheezing librarian who's never battled anything bigger than dust bunnies is granted the same automatic, unfailing predictive sense as a champion gladiator.

Experience is a moot point anyway when bullets and lasers start flying; it makes no sense for any normal mortal to know a bullet's hit-or-miss in advance.

Objection 2: "It doesn't matter anyway whether the defender states he dodges. Dodges are free and unlimited. We can assume the defender always chose to dodge."

No, GURPS says that it does matter, a lot. The game is very specific on the consequences of active defenses: if you're taking an Aim, Concentrate, or similar time-consuming action, dodging instead of staying put can disrupt your action.

Besides, there are more active defenses than Dodge! The above consequences of defending apply equally to Parry and Block – and unlike Dodge, your choice of one of these burns up a limited use.

On realism

Like it or not, GURPS allows characters to dodge gunfire. Real people can't evaluate and dodge incoming bullets, of course, but the game has a rationale: you're dodging away from the direction of the gun's muzzle, the perceived path of fire. (And the game is clear that this Dodge an intentional action, not an effect of your random movement; for all your bobbing and weaving, GURPS says you get no Dodge vs gunfire from the rear, after your All-Out Attack, or in any other situation where you wouldn't otherwise get to make an active, intentional Dodge.)

Arguably, ducking away from an invisible line of fire should be much more difficult than avoiding a solid weapon, especially versus long-range gunfire. But that quibble aside, it is reasonable to allow some sort of Dodge vs the perceived path of gunfire. No complaints on my part, even if GURPS cinematically allows the full Dodge at no penalty.

The problem, again, is that the current defense flow turns this all upside down. Instead of forcing defenders to preemptively jump away from a gun muzzle's direction, it expressly lets them wait for the gun to fire, then check the path of the supersonic bullets, then decide whether and how to defend, and then take some defensive action.

Wow, that's busy!

The same oddity holds true, if less glaringly so, for other attacks. As above, do you have the luxury of knowing whether an incoming arrow or spear will hit or miss, or do you reasonably toss up your shield just in case? And whether or not a trained knight can automatically "read" the accuracy of an approaching sword blow, should everyone be able to do the same? Could you do so, or would you move to protect yourself with a parry as soon as that sword started sweeping down at you?

On action flow and roleplaying

In addition to realism issues, the current defense flow is at odds with the normal flow of action in gaming. What's the basic "unit" of RPG play? I'd call it this little exchange or interaction:

1) Something – some event, stimulus, etc. – happens.
2) Players weigh that something, and state how they respond.
3) Based on that interaction, the GM, players, and game rules determine the outcome.

Like this:

1) GM: "You learn that the Crime League will hit the jewelers' convention at noon!"
2) Players: "We need to stop that! Let's make a plan. First, we'll..."
3) Everyone plays on to resolve what happens.

Defense rolls, by curious fiat, twist that 1-2-3 order to 1-3-2. That is, an attack is launched (that's the 1), the GM determines and announces its future outcome (that's 3), and then the defending player is allowed, based on that knowledge of the future, to choose his response (step 2) and – possibly – change the future (go back to 3, get new outcome). If the rest of the game were played that way, it'd look like this:

1) GM: "You learn that the Crime League will hit the jewelers' convention at noon!"
3) Players: "Will they succeed?" GM: "Actually, no, they're going to fail."
2) Players: "Okay, we'll let them go and fail; we need to spend some time in the Training Room. How many hours can we get in today?"

To me, the current flow emphasizes dice-rolling over the most fun element of table-top gaming: character interaction and decision. Attackers do have to make decisions (good!), yet defenders don't necessarily have to; the game jumps right to the mechanical stuff, and only asks the defender to make a decision if the mechanics call for it. Yet, it's the defender that's facing a life-or-death instant!

There's a halberd screaming down toward your character's head. He's a split-second away from death. It's as 'cliffhanger' a moment as you'll ever find. If that's not a time for you to decide to do something, and decide now, then when the heck is?

The revised defense flow (or, "Yikes! Bullets! Duck!")

Here's a suggestion for an improved way to play: Have the attacker announce his attack. Let the defender announce his defense. THEN resolve TH and defense.

How this works for your defenses in play:

If you choose to defend and the TH roll succeeds, you made a smart choice. Roll your defense normally.

If you choose to defend and the TH roll misses, you're okay. You ducked or otherwise defended against an attack that would have missed anyway, but hey, that's life. Your head's in one piece; quit griping.

If you don't choose to defend and the TH roll misses, you lucked out – and probably looked pretty impressive (or nuts), standing pat as bullets chew up the wall around you.

If you don't choose to defend and the TH roll succeeds, you're hit. Too bad. Better luck (and duck!) next time.

 

 

Easy enough.

Options for the revised defense flow

You could introduce this tweak on a wide scale, or just where it's needed most, as follows:

Option 1, firearms only: Use the revised defense flow only for bullets, beam weapons, and the like, where preemptively ducking away from (or blocking, if possible) the perceived path of fire is the only logical defense. That removes the big existing oddity with precognitive bullet-dodging.

For other attacks, where oddities are less pronounced, don't bother changing anything; use GURPS rules as written, announcing and resolving defenders' actions only if necessary.

Option 2, all attacks: Use the rule for any attacks – bullets, beams, arrows, knives, punches – in one of the two flavors below:

2a, all or nothing: As above, if you don't choose to defend and the TH roll succeeds, then you're hit. Too bad.

2b, panic defense: If you don't choose to defend and the TH roll succeeds... wait, it's not over yet. You played wait-and-see – and are now thinking "oh, @#%!!" as that mace screams toward your head after all. Time for a panic defense!

You can make a last-second defense at a penalty: -1 for a melee attack, -2 for a thrown weapon, -4 for a missile like an arrow, -8 for a bullet, or -16 for a hypervelocity round. (That's pretty well impossible for bullets and faster – because it represents actually dodging or blocking the bullet itself, not jumping out of the muzzle's path.)

The Dodge penalty versus a laser beam would be infinite. If you didn't dodge the perceived path of fire before the trigger is pulled, there's no way you can even see, let alone dodge, the beam after it leaves the gun. (It's not a problem in a cinematic game, where "blaster" beams travel at a speed that makes arrows look fast.)

 

 

 

Benefits of the revised defense flow

There are plenty!

1. The revised flow is how defenses work in real life. If you know someone's about to shoot at you, you take action now. If you wait for the bullets to fly first, you're too late.

The benefit is especially clear when gaming defense versus gunfire, but it's realistic when applied to other attacks as well.

2. The revised flow is how everything in the game (except active defenses!) already works: 1) Something happens. 2) Players state responses. 3) Everyone resolves things. Why make active defenses the sole exception?

3. The revised flow emphasizes roleplaying, not mechanics. "Here's what happens; what do you do?" is the heart of the game, the source of excitement. An arrow is whizzing in from high above; do you duck for cover or not? It's an important decision.

And soldiers on both sides are watching your PC. How she reacts matters to them, too.

4. The revised flow allows more dicing by the player, and less dicing by the GM. Here's how:

For any TH/defense exchange in GURPS, you only go to the final step (damage) if two conditions are met: TH succeeds and defense fails. If either of these is unmet, the exchange ends.

When a PC attacks, the player always gets to roll TH, which is fun for the player. Afterward, the GM only rolls defense for the defending NPC if necessary, which is usually welcomed by busy GMs. This is all good.

Now we move to the NPC's counter-attack. Under the current flow, the GM always gets to (or has to, as he may feel) roll TH when the NPC attacks. The player waits passively; he only gets to state an action afterward and make a defense roll if necessary. Yawn.

But now let's use the revised flow. It's the NPC's turn to attack... and instead of rolling TH, the GM hands the dice to the defending player. That's right. Both the NPC's attack and the PC's defense have been announced, and either a failed TH or a successful defense will end the exchange. That means the order of the rolls no longer matters! So let the player roll defense first. If he succeeds, the exchange is over; move on. Only if he fails does the GM need to check the NPC's TH.

If that observation doesn't spark a small "wow", please read it again. Nothing changes in the outcome probabilities or in the number of rolls needed, but you've guaranteed that the player will always make a roll during both the PC's attack turn and the NPC's attack turn, while during either attack turn, the GM will make a roll only if necessary. The action and dice stay focused on the PCs.

Now, what player won't like that?

5. The revised flow emphasizes tactics. Now that a fighter no longer knows an arrow's future in advance, he'll have to make tough decisions. Should he "spend" his Block on what's probably a wild shot, or play it safe and put up the shield? Does he defend during an Aim or Concentrate action, or maintain the action and hope his attackers are uncoordinated?

6. Here's a new tactic you only get under this rule: the ability to force a defense using a Feint. When you announce your "attack" (really a Feint), your foe may needlessly spend his Parry to stop an "attack" that doesn't come. The Feint leaves your feinting weapon a nice opening on your next turn, per normal Feint rules – and also leaves your foe short a Parry this turn! And there you are, with a ready weapon in your other hand... Rapier-and-dagger fans, just imagine the tactical niceties.

(Option: If the defender announces his defense against the "attack" but then wins the Feint content, he spots the ruse in time and can cancel the defense. Fair enough.)

7. The "panic defense" option allows experienced fighters to "read" incoming attacks. Anyone can choose to wait and "read" an incoming sword thrust, and then make a last-second defense if the blow proves accurate. But an untrained fighter, with his lousy defense scores, can scarcely "afford" the resulting -1 penalty; his waiting seriously reduces his already-slim chances of saving his hide. He's best off reacting instantly to any attack!

The veteran fighter, on the other hand, can likely afford the -1 penalty. He reads the attacks and doles out his defenses only when they're needed. With his high defense scores, he can absorb the small penalty.

8. The "panic defense" option also allows a distinction between dodging the "path" of gunfire, which the game lets everyone attempt, and dodging the bullet itself, for which there's currently no option. If you've got a Matrix-style game with super defense scores, characters can now try to actually dodge bullets!

9. The revised flow creates the perfect way to game combat precognition. Just use the current defense flow, for precogs only. The result: everyone in the party gets told, "The orcs start firing arrows. What do you do?" But the precog is told, "Two arrows are coming for you... but... <GM checks TH>... both will miss you easily. What do you do?" And the precog can just stand there looking smug, if she likes.

10. The benefits are free! A time-tested GM's first reaction to all the above will rightly be, "Ah, but what's the catch? What new combat steps, extra rolls, added bookkeeping, and worse will we have to undertake?"

NONE! There are literally no extra rolls or bookkeeping. No funny extra phases or steps. Just follow the same "Here's what's happening; what do you do?" action flow that you use everywhere else in the game. You still carry out normal TH/defense exchanges on the spot, just like now, with nothing extra to record for later.

Summing up those benefits, I confidently call the revised defense flow "the biggest pro-realism, pro-roleplaying bang you can get from a zero-bookkeeping, zero-extra-rolls rules change". Why not try it in your game and see how it plays?

Final note

An important caveat: This article isn't saying that the current defense flow is nasty, evil, or even "broken". There's no game-wrecking flaw in the current method; the worst I can say about it is that it's odd. (I didn't notice anything funny about it for years, so it can't be too big a problem!)

I offer the revised flow for your consideration as I think it's easy, intuitive, more realistic, and more fun to boot. It's hard to beat that combination! But naw, it won't change your life, make you taller, or lure actual girls to your gaming table. If the current rules never bothered your group, feel free to stick with 'em and play away!