Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Grappling, the bane of all tabletop RPGs

But sometimes, grappling is used for wonderful, amazing, hilarious things. That said, very rarely do grappling rules seem at all intuitive or useable. Usually the players and/or GM will groan when a grapple begins, as they try to dig out the rules for it.

GURPS grapple rules seem a bit more versatile and friendly than those of many systems, such as D&D. D&D treats grappling as automatically dishing out minor amounts of damage throughout the duration, with a few other options like trying to move the grappled thing around. Shadowrun barely even mentions it, calls it "Subduing" and pretty much treats it as "successful hit=opponent is immobilized until the break out", with the options of doing minor amounts of stun damage, trying to get a better grip, or trying to knock down the opponent. Simple, but leaves a lot to be desired by players wanting to do ridiculous things.

GURPS, particularly once you look at techniques such as those found in Martial Arts, allows for all manner of things to be done. Occasionally there are rules that don't seem quite accurate (sacrifice throw is only available through Judo, despite the Suplex being the most well-known example of a sacrifice throw, used in wrestling. Well, "wrestling", at least.

6 comments:

  1. Suplex requires a willing and cooperating opponent. Kayfabe.

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    1. Per the description of sacrifice throw, I'd say at least some of the less ridiculous versions of suplex count. To pull it off as reliably, safely, and over-the-top-ly as they do in pro '"wrestling", definitely requires whatever bonus (+5?) for a cooperating opponent.

      Now that I think about it, for GURPS, wrestling is grapples and pins, whereas throws are pretty much the exclusive territory of judo, so I can kind of see why they'd classify sacrifice throw as such.

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  2. My players trended to being too bloodthirsty to use the unarmed rules.

    GURPS is the sole system where the rules for unarmed combat were used successfully by my group without cursing the author.

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    1. I really appreciate them, in GURPS it's possible to be a legitimate threat to things without a weapon if you have a bit of skill and no other options. In D&D? Not so much (nope, not even the monk. Most monks I've ever met are basically useless). Although grapple rules seem to be vaguely effective, particularly with things like the Reaping Mauler (pin enemy for 3 rounds, KO, pin for 5, instant death? Not too bad!)

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  3. Rise, o thread! Rise!

    I've said quite a bit about grappling - one of my favorite RPG subjects - over at The Grappling Mat section of Gaming Ballistic (http://gamingballistic.blogspot.com/p/the-grappling-mat.html) for any that might be interested.

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  4. Rise, o thread! Rise!

    I've said quite a bit about grappling - one of my favorite RPG subjects - over at The Grappling Mat section of Gaming Ballistic (http://gamingballistic.blogspot.com/p/the-grappling-mat.html) for any that might be interested.

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