"Uhn... too weak... passing out..."

That's fine for battle-battered heroes, but do we want dumb monsters conked out in combat? Here's a simple way to have beseiged beasts raise bloody hell – and then properly die – like good monsters should.

This rules nugget looks at two separate but complementary items: the very simple interaction between a shield and its wielder's size, and the more involved matter of letting shields provide cover instead of a DB bonus.

DECIDE has been a busy little topic for discussion. In the spirit of designer's notes, here are additional notes not on the idea behind it, but on the specific implementation I used.

More under-the-hood musings for fellow monkey-wrenchers.

What's this about? A simple rules tweak: running active defenses without the defender knowing the TH roll results in advance – a piece of information that, in many cases, the defending character could not reasonably know. It's a GURPS article, but could apply to any game system that runs defense rolls in the same way.

I've been a vocal (if not quite proselytizing) proponent of the proposal below; 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 tweak".

DECIDE is a re-named revision of the article "Revised Defense Flow in GURPS", which remains viewable.

Okay, here's a topic I've yabbered about enough on my site and in forums, but it still pops up often as a frequent GURPS player question. I'm going to post a one-stop overview here, which I can point to when the topic next comes up.

Why do ranged and melee TH use different rules in GURPS? What happens when a weapon is really big compared to the target? What happens when combatants are odd-sized? Does SM apply in melee? If so, how can two tiny combatants possibly strike each other? Why can't ranged weapons get a bonus for really close range? And if they can't, again, how can tiny shooters ever manage to blast each other?

All is answered: there exists a GURPS Unified Theory of Hitting Stuff (or GURPS Unified TH System; it's GUTHS either way). Read on.

Of all the rules hacks at the GURPS Diner, this is surely the least ambitious. It's a look at a simple, single, "for the heck of it" rules change: handling defenses with regular skill rolls, instead of the oddball "skill/2" mechanic.

As always, it's yours to use, abuse, or refuse, as you choose.

Hi there.

I just read the "It's About Time" articles and GLAIVE.
(http://www.gamesdiner.com/about_time_part1
http://www.gamesdiner.com/about_time_part2
http://www.gamesdiner.com/about_time_part3
http://gamesdiner.com/gurps/glaive.htm)

There are some thought:
Normaly a character in GURPS get two actions per turn. By default thats one defence and one attack.
A player opting for an AllOut-something can do to differnt things:
1) He/she can trade an attach for an defence and vice versa.
2) He/She can merge the two actions into one. Getting a bonus to ToHit or to damage or defence.

The first thing can be put down to "You have two actions. Do as you willst."

On the other hand there are mechanics that allow the player to get more attacks (e.g. the Jab in Boxing) or to trade ToHit for a malus on ToDefend for the "victim" (Fast Attack or Fast Blow in one of the Compendiums. Can't remember).

I think that all follows the same machanics and should be put together. And I think the Ready Penalty from GLAIVE fits in perfectly.

Some thoughts on including the effects of Mass in GURPS

"GURPS Japan has them. GURPS Swashbucklers has them. GURPS Rome has them. Why doesn't GURPS Middle Ages?" Sure, all throughout history Europeans have proven their adeptness as killing each other en masse, but they also did it mano-a-mano with more flair than you may have realized. A great look at historical fighting techniques in the lands of knights.

I won't be able to post things next week, so here's some recycled material for approaching visitors. While searching through old email, I found the following post I'd made to the Gurpsnet mailing list. In a thread on armored GURPS 3e fighters having much-too-high defenses, I respond to one poster below. 4e greatly alleviates the problem by eliminating PD, but it may still be an issue for some players. It does summarize what is to me an important point: the game should accommodate "too high" defenses when those are warranted!