So you’ve got three stats in GURPS that determine how fast you can cover ground (or air or water):

• Basic Speed: A number that starts as (DX+HT)/4, with fractional scores (in increments of 0.25) retained. It can be adjusted in increments of ±0.25.
• Basic Move: Basic Speed, with fractions dropped (e.g., Basic Speed 5.75 becomes Basic Move 5). It can be adjusted in increments of ±1.
• Move: Basic Move multiplied for circumstances (such as encumbrance and environment) and for actions (such as sprinting or crawling). Fractions are dropped (e.g., Basic Move 6 x 0.6 for Medium encumbrance is rounded down to 3, not left at 3.6). Move (land Move, that is) isn’t adjusted directly as a stat in the manner of Basic Speed and Basic Move.

That’s all fine. But note the double round-down: first, a pruning of Basic Speed to get Basic Move, then a truncating of final Move after multipliers. There’s nothing shocking or game-wrecking about that. But here I opine that you’ll get more interesting results if you instead keep those fractions.

Keep that fraction on Basic Move; don’t round down. And when you multiply that score for encumbrance or other factors to get final Move, again, keep any fraction. Drop that fraction from Move only once, at the end, if and when you finally need to apply that Move to discrete hexes on a combat map.

“The Final Round-Down”, let’s call it (cue 80s synth intro). The benefits of this – in a nutshell, more benefit from a fractional Basic Speed score, and more interesting differences among characters’ final Move stats – are pretty obvious without long-winded text (which you’re going to get anyway; sorry). But there is an interesting question to look at: just how much difference does it actually make?

Why keep fractions?

Making a difference off the map

When your PC attempts to flee as far as she can in long-distance movement, or any time when movement spans several seconds, it’s only fair that we not lop off that fraction. A non-truncated Move 5.25 should beat a plain 5.0 in a footrace.

I don’t see where Basic Set explicitly says to retain the fraction in long-distance movement, though a couple of passages hint at it. I expect a lot of GMs do it so as a matter of course anyway, and if a GM doesn’t, players are pretty sure to suggest it:

GM: “Okay… with 10 seconds before the bomb goes off, and Move 5, you’ll cover 50 yards, 60 with a sprint. That helps, even if you won’t quite reach the trench…”
Player: “Aw, come on. My Basic Speed is 5.75, and I’m not encumbered or anything, so I’m quite a bit faster than Move 5. I should get a good 57 yards, almost 70 with the 20% bonus for sprinting.”
GM: “Okay, that’s reasonable…”

Again, I don’t think the GM is bound by printed rules to entertain this player request, but it certainly makes sense. It’s fair to the player who kept her PC’s Basic Speed at 5.75 instead of shaving it down to 5 to nab an easy -15 points (with no downside beyond effect on turn order).

Similarly, if a party’s slowest member would have a Move of 4.5 before rounding down, it’s just as simple – and more sensible – to set the day’s hiking distance to a multiple of that 4.5, not a truncated 4. It makes miles of difference.

Simple and agreeable stuff. But what about turn-by-turn movement on the hex map?

Making a difference even on the map

Combat maps don’t allow for marching one figure 5 hexes and another 5.75 hexes (unless you’re going hex-free). You’ll have to move both characters the same 5 hexes per turn.

But even here, making that round-down at the end, after all multipliers, can make a difference.

Quick Quentin has Basic Speed 6, while Speedier Sammy spends a bit more for Basic Speed 6.5. That means Sammy can outpace Quentin over a distance if the GM plays as discussed above. During combat time, though, the two unavoidably share the same Move 6 on the hex map.

All right. But let’s give both Light encumbrance. Under standard rules, we get this result:

• Quentin has Basic Speed 6; Sammy has Basic Speed 6.5.
• Basic Speed rounds down to the same Basic Move 6 for both runners.
• Multiplying Basic Move 6 by 0.8 for encumbrance yields the same Move 4.8 for both runners.
• Rounding that down yields the same Move 4 for both runners.

Simple enough – but pretty uninteresting. Now we’ll save any rounding for the end:

• Quentin has Basic Speed 6; Sammy has Basic Speed 6.5.
• Nothing gets rounded down yet, so the runners also have Basic Move 6 and Basic Move 6.5.
• Multiplying Quentin’s Basic Move by 0.8 for encumbrance yields Move 4.8. Multiplying Sammy’s Basic Move by 0.8 yields Move 5.2.
• We still round nothing down, so there’s a clear difference between the runners in long-distance movement. And when we finally round down for the hex map, a difference remains: Quentin has Move 4, Sammy has Move 5.

The upshot: By investing in higher Basic Speed, Sammy hangs on to higher long-distance Move – and even keeps a higher rounded-down Move than Quentin under this instance of encumbrance. That’s fair and more interesting!

Other circumstances yield similar results for the pair. Take sprinting. By standard rules, the unencumbered runners start with the same truncated Move 6 and end up with the same sprint Move of 7.2, rounded down to Move 7. With Light encumbrance, they start with the same truncated Move 4, which rises to an identical Move of 4.8 for both, which… rounds back down to Move 4 for both. Again, there’s no difference between the two runners – and with encumbrance on a hex map, sprinting does nothing for either. Yawn.

With The Final Round-Down, sprinting takes Quentin’s Basic Move of 6 to Move 7.2 and boosts Sammy’s Basic Move of 6.5 to 7.8. Sammy has a clear advantage in long-distance speed – though unfortunately, in this case, a final round-down for hex map combat leaves both runners sprinting at the same speed. But toss in Light encumbrance again, and Quentin’s sprint Move becomes 6 x 1.2 x 0.8 = 5.76, while Sammy’s is 6.5 x 1.2 x 0.8 = 6.24 – a difference that matters in both long-distance movement and per-turn hex movement.

Other benefits

Letting PCs keep fractional bits of Move also helps a bit with a common player complaint: “Moving serious distance in GURPS combat is too slow.” When a separated PC is racing to join the fray, keeping those fractions in play can make all the difference between arriving a moment too late or just in time.

Needless tables!

Okay, so The Final Round-Down matters to long-distance movement, and can even matter to rounded-down per-turn Move. But how often is it meaningful to the latter?

Here’s a table showing un-rounded Move for any un-truncated Basic Move and encumbrance level.

All right, pretty simple. (For clarity, I’ve bolded rows with integer Basic Move scores.)

Now let’s do a final round-down on those Move scores, if you’d like a table ready for per-turn hex-map movement (while keeping a minimum Move of 1, per GURPS):

All right. Useful enough.

But it’s not clear at a glance how this differs from Move under standard rules. So check this:

That’s a lot of info. A guide:

• Bolded Basic Move and Move scores: Rows for integer Basic Move scores, as a guide for the eye.
• Red Move scores: Rounded-down Move scores that differ from scores under existing rules. These are the spots where The Final Round-Down makes a difference, boosting rounded-down Move by 1 from what it would be under standard rules.
• Boxed Move scores: Rounded-down Move scores that increase from the previous (lower) Move score, i.e., the first appearance of Move 4, Move 5, etc. for a given encumbrance level.
• Grey Basic Move scores: Basic Move scores for which no rounded-down Move score, at any encumbrance level, increases from the previous (lower) Move score.

So, using The Final Round-Down, here’s the munchkin’s guide to wringing the most from points spent on Basic Speed and Basic Move:

If your goal is to optimize long-distance movement

If the GM drops fractions from Basic Move, per standard rules, then integer Basic Move scores are what you want in order to maximize long-distance (or any) movement with no wasted points.

But if the GM retains those fractions, per The Final Round-Down, then any Basic Move, whether integer or fractional, is valid for purposes of long-distance movement; there are no particularly optimal Basic Move scores for movement purposes. So set Basic Speed and/or Basic Move to whatever hits your goal for running speed.

If your goal is to optimize per-turn hex map movement

Here’s where things are more interesting. What encumbrance level do you expect you’ll most often be dealing with? Guess at that, then choose a Basic Move that nets you a boxed Move score at that encumbrance level.

Example: If you expect to be running around with Medium encumbrance, then 5.00, 6.75, and 8.50 are the minimum Basic Move scores that net you a rounded-down hex map Move of 3, 4, and 5, respectively, with no wasted extra Basic Move.

If you don’t have a typical encumbrance level, buy a black Basic Move, which will make a difference to per-turn Move at some encumbrance level. Don’t buy a grey Basic Move! A Basic Move in grey is fine for its value to long-distance speed, but it adds no rounded-down per-hex Move, at any encumbrance level, above the Basic Move in black that came before it. (Restated: If the goal is to maximize hex-map Move for the points spent on Basic Move, then grey Basic Move scores are for losers.)

If your goal is to optimize Dodge and/or combat turn order

Basic Speed, not Basic Move, matters to Dodge and to combat turn order – two things that aren’t the focus of this page. But, some short notes for completeness:

Basic Speed drops its fraction to yield Dodge, so an integer Basic Speed is what gets you the most Dodge for your point spend. Any added fraction does nothing for Dodge.

By contrast, if your interest is combat turn order, every level of Basic Speed, fractional or integer, is a meaningful improvement over the level immediately before it. So buy whatever Basic Speed hits your target – but while you’re at it, you might as well take optimal long-distance and hex-map Move into account as well, as above.

A tactical shopping note: A lot of players are happy to pare down Basic Speed to an integer, paying no more points than is necessary for a given Dodge. But some tricky players will go for, say, a 6.25, giving up a handful of points to get the jump on those point-misers who settled for 6.00. (I haven’t done a count, but an awful lot of the foes in the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game‘s Monsters book have an integer Basic Speed score. Holding on to an extra +0.25 Basic Speed will let you pre-empt some number of those baddies.)

So. Keeping a little fraction on your Basic Speed instead of sacrificing it for points is nice for its occasional turn order benefit – though it’s expensive. If you appreciate the extra Basic Move you also get under The Final Round Down, that extra fraction may be worth the points. Otherwise, if you really don’t care about the Basic Move and just want the turn order advantage, ask the GM about something like the Blinding Strike perk from Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Swashbucklers. (This buys extra Basic Speed for turn order purposes only, for a mere 1 point per effective +0.25 Basic Speed.)

More tables

Here’s a cleaner version of the above table:

Same deal, but with “first appearance” Move scores highlighted in bold black, and other Move scores in grey. As above, if you want to optimize Basic Move for combat-map Move, pick a Basic Move that yields a black Move score for your expected encumbrance level.

All the numbers!

And here’s a table with all the numbers:

This is simply Table 1, with rounded-down Move included after unrounded Move. Useful, but busy! For a table showing unrounded Move, I’ll stick with Table 1 way above. (And someday, I’ll probably make and post an über-table that adds precise sprint moves to the above. And maybe swimming and flight movement. Each of those with and without a sprint bonus. But today is not that day.)

Odds and ends

Other enhancements

Many actions and traits can modify speed of movement. Sprinting is a common action noted above; common traits include Enhanced Move and advantages built from it (see martial artists’ Tiger Sprint in DF and DFRPG) and spells that boost or hinder Move. Again, keeping fractions until that final round-down on the hex map can make for more interesting differences among characters.

Other environments

Move in water and air is a bit of a hodgepodge. Per p. B18, characters adjust land Move by buying Basic Move up or down. Move in water is based on Basic Move, but characters then adjust Move itself, not Basic Move, up or down. Meanwhile, Move in air is based on Basic Speed, not Basic Move; characters then adjust Move itself up or down, with Basic Move never entering the picture.

That arrangement cries out for some cleaning up, but that’s a topic for elsewhere. (It’s not some glaring problem in play.)

For our purposes here, let’s just note this: as with encumbrance multipliers above, if you hold on to the fractional part of Basic Move and even of Move after multiplications, you retain meaningful differences in long-term movement. (That includes the ability to game, say, a swimming race with subtle speed differences among contestants, as opposed to standard rules, which set Move for nearly all humans in water to a flat 1, 2, or 3, and that’s it.)

And even when you round Move down for per-turn use, doing so after all environmental and other multipliers may yield welcome differences on the hex map.

The Final Round-Down at the table

If you want to record both unrounded and rounded Move on a character sheet, here’s a way I’ve done it:

That’s one way; you might like some other way. Like switching which Move score goes in the parentheses: you could jot down the neat rounded-down integers to the left, and place the fussy long-distance scores in parentheses. As you like.

(A tangent: Setting talk of fractions aside, I think it’d be ideal for a character sheet to offer spaces for not just running Move but also sprinting Move, and swimming Move, and if you really want to go nuts, sprinting swimming Move, and then all the same for flying Move, and maybe more, in the spirit of “once you calculate these things, write them down so you don’t have to calculate them again”. But designing some doofus’s dream character sheet is a separate topic.)

Buying Basic Move by the bit

By the books, Basic Speed isn’t just calculated with fractions kept intact. It’s sold that way, too, at ±5 points per ±0.25 Basic Speed. That’s nice for fine-tuning the stat, whether the goal is to drop the fraction to get back some character points, buy up the stat just enough to reach that next coveted integer (more Basic Move and Dodge!), or just nab a little extra fractional Basic Speed for better turn order placement (and, if you’re using this article, a little extra fractional Basic Move as a freebie).

But if we’re fine-tuning Basic Speed in steps of 0.25, why not allow the same for Basic Move? The idea is an obvious one: rather than big-step adjustments of ±1 Basic Move only, allow steps of ±0.25 Basic Move to get your Move just right.

That sounds simple, save for one question: How would you price ±0.25 Basic Move? Should be easy: if ±1 Basic Move costs a canonical ±5 points, a quarter of that costs… uh, ±1.25 points. Hm. That’s not a workable cost, unless you’re into breaking up character points like old-timey pieces of eight.

Here’s the solution I like best (so far): Charge ±1 point per ±0.25 Basic Move, plus another ±1 point when the purchase changes the integer part of Basic Move.

Example: Grükuk has Basic Speed 6.25 and thus starts with Basic Move 6.25 (no rounding!). She of course has the option to modify that Basic Move in ±1 jumps for the usual ±5 points. Or she can go for finer tuning:

• Raise Basic Move to 6.5 [1], 6.75 [2], 7 [4], 7.25 [5], etc.
• Lower Basic Move to 6 [-1], 5.75 [-3], 5.5 [-4], 5.25 [-5], etc.

Note where that extra ±1 cost pops up: Grükuk pays a total of 4 points, not 3 points, to go from Basic Move 6.75 to Basic Move 7. She nets a total of -3 points, not -2 points, when dropping from Basic Move 6 to basic Move 5.75. These are the points where the integer portion of her Basic Move changes from a 6 to a 7 or 5.

Restated, the scheme charges a simple ±1 point per ±0.25 Basic Move when the purchase affects long-distance Move only, plus an extra ±1 when the purchase also affects rounded-down hex-map Move. At the same time, it maintains the canonical ±5 points for ±1 Basic Move.

I like it. A lot of players won’t care about such fine adjustments to Basic Move, of course, but the above lets you fine-tune an athletic character’s running speed or raise a fractional Basic Move to a nice integer for less than the high cost of a full +1 Basic Move or of Basic Speed fractions.

“Yeah, but does any of this matter?”

Sure, hanging on to finer-grained Basic Move scores is nice for better differentiating athletic performance among characters. But is this some important thing for creating excitement and telling fantastic stories as a group? Of course not!

I have my odd interest in detailed physical performance stats. I like when little differences in ability matter in the game, especially over time or over multiple actions. An in-game footrace that ends in “okay, everyone with Move 7 ties for first, then all the Move 6 runners come in at the same time, then all the Move 5 runners hit the finish line together” is boring. I like how a simple “keep the fractions” makes differences matter more.

And I like letting a fractional Basic Speed matter to movement by lending its fraction to Basic Move, instead of lopping it off so a fractional Basic Speed is nothing more than a far-too-expensive means of boosting combat turn order.

But it’s only fair to note that, even with all the above, we’re still not enabling infinitely fine-tunable Basic Move. We’re still enforcing a “grain”, just a finer ±0.25 instead of ±1.

And the more important “but”: If none of the above speaks to you, and you never have a player complain about the double round-downs that nerf long-distance or even combat map Move, don’t bother with any of this! What’s a cool bit of detail for a small group of simulation fans tracking their figures’ performance in long actions can go completely unappreciated by a big, story-centric group that’s focused solely on schemes to defeat the big villains and debates over treasure split.

If nothing else, just keep The Final Round-Down idea hidden in your GM toolbox until that Village Festival footrace or other unusual occurrence pops up in the game.

And that’s that for this very nerdy dive into Move that no one asked for. (I’ve got some additional Move-related content – including ways for skills to boost Move a la GURPS 3e, a closer look at pace of movement and fatigue, and a cold-hearted wish for Basic Speed to disappear altogether from a future GURPS – but will save that for a thrilling follow-up.)

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Header image: Huh. So, maybe runners do all have the exact same Move 7 sometimes.