Swords in the Time of Guns

 GURPS is fundamentally based on reality (or at least realistic adventure fiction) and reality has a ranged weapons bias.

People often ask "How do you make melee or unarmed attacks effective against firearms in GURPS?" There are many ways to approach this problem and I'm going to go over some of them here. Which ones you use, and how you combine them depends on how you want your encounters and your campaign to work.

Kill That Guy Over There

Before we get to any solutions, we need to understand the problem and maybe clear up some misconceptions and reframe what we are really trying to achieve. 

Ranged Weapons Were Always OP, Pls Nerf

This is often expressed as a problem for TL5+ games, but that really is just the evolution of a trend that started when humans got better at throwing than any other mammal. It has simply just always been better to use ranged weapons than melee weapons. Killing your enemies (or dangerous game) as far away from you as was practical puts you at less risk, (unless they also have equivalent - or better - ranged weapons), enables support and reconnaissance by fire, makes defense in depth possible, allows area denial tactics, etc. 

What firearms did initially was to make this possible with less training than for bows, and later with higher volumes of fire. However that's just amplifying the fundamental advantage of ranged weapons have always enjoyed.

This is a helpful reframe for two reasons. First, some things about the melee vs. ranged dynamic are unchanged regardless of the weapons. Secondly it helps to isolate what advantages firearms give over other ranged weapons when addressing them.

As Seen on TV

Other media often have melee weapons be effective in settings where firearms should exist. While sometimes the specifics might not work as well in a tabletop game, the goals are aligned (especially if you are trying to emulate a specific genre or work!) and the underlying logic is usually adaptable. 

This is useful because you can compare your encounter or setting to other media and see how they were able to restrict firearms, or make melee attacks more effective, while suspending disbelief.

Who has the Gun Makes the Rules

Consider the following possibilities:

• Nobody uses guns in the campaign, even if they technically exist in the world.
• None of the PCs use guns, but sometimes their opponents do.
• The PCs all use guns, but sometimes they are attacked by melee fighters, or wild animals (or monsters).
• The PCs all use guns but also have melee weapon and/or unarmed skills.
• Some of the PCs are gunfighters, but some other PCs are melee fighters.

These different scenarios need different solutions, so it is important to identify what you are trying to achieve. Do you want the PCs to be badass melee gods reaping hordes of faceless gun mooks? Do you want your giant space bug encounter to be a credible threat to hard-charging space marines? Do you want Gun-Haver and Stabitha McStabbington to both feel like their characters are useful? Do you want to have some encounters where Commando Squad actually uses their martial arts training instead of just shootouts?

Practical Stabbing For Fun and Profit

In the real world, melee weapons never went away. People still get stabbed with knives (350 attacks per day in the US alone). Riflemen still get issued bayonets. Documented bayonet charges occurred as recently as 2011 in Afghanistan (and in every major 20th century conflict). The first weapon used in the Global War on Terror was a utility knife. There are many good realistic reasons why GURPS characters need to know how to use and defend against melee attacks at any Tech Level. 

The "21 Foot Rule" and the Prison Yard Rush      

A lot has been made of the so-called "21 Foot Rule" or Tueller Drill. Originating in a 1983 SWAT magazine article by Dennis Tueller, a Salt Lake City police sergeant, this was the result of an experiment to see "how close is too close" when a shooter with a holstered pistol defends against a charging attacker. This evolved into the idea that if an attacker starts 21 feet or less away the shooter won't get off a shot before they are stabbed and as a corollary you need a minimum of 1.5 seconds to respond to a threat.  Like a lot of things like this, the conclusions have become overstated in repetition and therefore subsequently debunked. Reality is much more complicated - the shooter's odds improve if they are able to retreat; threat response time is significantly increased if the shooter is distracted, etc - but at a basic level it is true that a close enough attacker with a melee weapon is likely to succeed, and GURPS rules reflect this.

Turn Sequence: Since GURPS is an I-go-you-go system it is very possible for characters to be attacked before they can even take their turn. This is one of those situations where the conventional wisdom that you shouldn't ever All-Out-Attack is just wrong. If you are within 1/2 Move of an opponent with a gun and you have a melee weapon, charging them can be your best choice to neutralize them before they can shoot you.

Close Combat Firearms have three problems in close combat. First, the obvious one is the Bulk penalty (B391). Secondly your opponent can parry the firearm like a melee weapon (B376). Thirdly you must make a DX roll to Ready in Close Combat, and risk doing nothing instead of drawing or reloading a firearm (B391).

Surprise and Stun The advantage of surprise can far outstrip other tactical advantages, including unequal weapons. If you can attack while your opponent is stunned then you can potentially disable them before they have a chance to shoot back.This is especially useful for both ambush predators and guerilla fighters.

Field of View and Situation Awareness If a melee attacker can approach a shooter from behind, or if using the Situational Awareness rule (GURPS Tactical Shooting p.11) a shooter isn't aware of them, they can potentially attack without being shot (as well as use Telegraphic Attack - GURPS Martial Arts p.113 - with no consequences).

More generally this means that to make melee attacks more viable, simply negating the range advantage and allowing the melee fighter to close without getting shot makes a significant difference.

Sentry Removal, Close-Combat and Combatives

For killing someone quietly, guns are not great tools. Sentry removal therefore is a task that still demands getting close, grappling and stabbing. If you have situations in your game where the adventurers need to eliminate someone without alerting others, then they'll want to have some hand-to-hand ability.

Similarly as noted above, Close-Combat makes firearms less effective. You want to be be able to parry attacks so that you don't get shot at point blank range. You also want to be able to use your weapon as a melee weapon; pistol-whipping, bayoneting and butt-stroking.

This is one reason why military combative martial arts programs exist (starting with GURPS Martial Arts: Fairbairn Close Combat Systems) and why most warfighter templates in GURPS have some unarmed (and often melee) skills even at higher TLs.

PSA: Guns are Not Magic Death Wands

In movies (especially older movies) and TV, people who get shot fall down and are either killed instantly or otherwise unable to keep acting. This is a dramatic convention, not reality. In reality the only way a bullet kills you instantly is if it causes significant damage to the central nervous system (e.g.  by hitting the brainstem) or by massive damage to tissues (like being torn apart by HMG fire). GURPS rules by default are more like reality; if you need to make several rolls against dying (due to multiples of negative HP) you are very likely to survive (or have a mortal wound) even with HT 10. Remember that people can still fight while wounded.

Don't Bring Your Guns to Town 

Even in games set in a world like ours, you can run an entire campaign where nobody uses a firearm. There are many fictional examples that could make great game settings where nobody uses a gun and the audience doesn't sit there wondering where the guns are.

Filmed on Location in London In countries like the UK, where gun control is reasonably effective and even the cops don't have guns, gun crimes are relatively rare. This is the case in most prestige British police procedurals, in British urban fantasy like Rivers of London, and even in British spy thrillers like Slow Horses. Since the United Kingdom is real, you can justify fictional settings with similarly effective gun control.

Or at a Hospital (or an Airport) Even in the USA there are places you can't easily bring a gun in to. Medical procedurals rarely have shootouts (even on American TV). Similarly you can set a scene in airport (or space station) and require them to leave their weapons behind. 

Murder is Bad Guns are lethal weapons, it is very hard to not seriously injure people when you shoot them, and legal systems all over the world treat crimes with guns as more serious than those without. If you aren't playing killers, or fighting other killers, then it is reasonable (and realistic) for professionals to not risk carrying guns. Guns escalate situations; turning a fist (or knife) fight into a potential firefight. Leverage was set in the United States, but Eddie never used guns (he also rarely faced anybody with a gun) and this worked fine, because their targets were never people who could get away with literal murder.

No ESPN for Infantry Combat In the Karate Kid universe, set in the (well-armed) San Fernando Valley, there are a lot of karate fights, and never any gunfights. Even in Enter the Dragon (or its videogame descendents like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat) superspies and evil warlords stick to the rules of the martial arts tournament. If the story is about unarmed or melee martial artists then the fighting can be all hand-to-hand. The fighting can even all happen in the ring (like most boxing movies). You could easily use this format for games with contemporary longsword duels if you wanted.  

 

Cinematic Rules

Several cinematic optional rules (B417, GURPS Action 2: Exploits p. 38)  help melee and unarmed fighters. Many GMs seem reluctant to use these rules for some reason, but I recommend you instead consider if not using them is actually giving you the game you want.

Bulletproof Nudity Dodge is the only Active Defense against getting shot at range, and many unarmed skills (and fencing weapons) suffer from encumbrance penalties. This rule helps you dodge if you aren't wearing much. It is a bit problematically written (although Action implies it extends to skin-tight outfits) and I recommend hewing closer to the spirit of the rule rather than take it literally as written.

Cinematic Explosions Getting shredded by frags is no fun. This rule means the explosions can actually catapult you into melee range.

Gun Control Law This one is very useful. Shooters shoot shooters. Punchers punch punchers. Shooters don't shoot punchers unless they really are special shooters. Punchers disarm shooters and make them into punchers. 

Melee Etiquette Especially appropriate in games where martial artists have a code of honor. Enemies who break this, and gang up on the fighters are therefore signaling they aren't playing by the same rules. 

Mook Marksmanship Having the enemies open up with a burst of badly aimed fire gives a really good impetus to close with them quickly. You can even keep this one secret from the players and see if they ever notice.

TV Action Violence The A-Team also never used guns (presumably they did back in Vietnam though). They got chased by guys with guns all the time. People got shot at but never shot.

Unarmed Etiquette This rule completely avoids the problem of getting chewed up by parries. See also How to Bring Your Face to a Sword Fight.

Flawless Firearms (offensive) Allows melee fighters to disable firearms at range (at the cost of character (or Wildcard or Destiny) points.

Note that when using these rules, you do not have to use them all the time. You might apply them in some fights, but not others, or just for some combatants, or even on only some turns in the same combat. The movies and TV shows that these emulate do this all the time, so don't worry about any need to be consistent. If you are getting the effect you want, that's what matters.

GURPS Action 

GURPS Action 2: Exploits pp. 36-37 and GURPS Action 3: Furious Fists  pp. 23-25 has very useful rules and advice for unarmed and melee fighters that I think needs highlighting. In particular pay attention to Flashy Fighting, Sneaky Fighting, Acrobatics Galore, Don't Shoot!, and Extra Steps all of which help make fighters survivable and able to close range. 

Especially read the Some Bulletproof Advice box on Furious Fists p.24 which specifically addresses the same topic as this post, giving very good advice on how to mix melee, unarmed and guns. Of particular note (because it potentially upends this entire dynamic in a pretty seamless way) is the recommendation to run such fights as Chases. 

Technological Countermeasures

In science fiction games, especially sword-and-blaster settings, technological defenses may render ranged weapons less effective. The classic example of this are the Holtzman effect shields of Dune. GURPS Ultratech p. 192 has the Velocity option which does this. There are other possible technologies that can have similar effects:

• Jamming fields that disrupt energy weapons and suppress chemical reactions.
• Teleportation that allows melee fighters to instantly close
• Concealment technology that makes ranged attacks impossible to target
• Battlefield effects that slow projectiles across an area, or that don't permit velocities above a certain limit (typically destructively) 
• Mobility technologies that significantly boost dodge and/or give high Speed penalties. 
• Active protection systems that intercept projectiles
• Causality effects that depend on observer proximity, e.g. a device that makes attacks hit alternate universes or that makes fighters into waveforms that need to be collapsed before they can be directly hit.

One thing to consider with technological solutions is that there are likely to be unintended (or intended) consequences for these. For example velocity limited shields tend to allow "grenade on a stick" type attacks. You can either choose to incorporate these in your worldbuilding or apply the No Bob, You Didn't Just Invent Bread principle. 

It's also worth noting that you can use different TLs for armor, ranged weapons and melee weapons. E.g you can have TL 12 force screens, armor, and melee weapons, but ranged weapons stuck at TL10.

Rock-Paper-Scissors Technologies

One way to make this into interesting worldbuilding is to set up interactions between technologies. Dune does this by having Holztman shields and lasers destructively interact, exploding either the shield or the laser or both unpredictably (so you can't reliable weaponize this effect). Also on Arrakis shields attract and enrage sandworms. So there are trade-offs for using shields or ranged weapons that fighters must carefully weigh.

Some other possibilities:

• Personal armor has high enough DR to stop laser weapons, but melee weapons with high armor divisors exist. Personal force shields are impenetrable to all attacks, but can be overloaded once they sustain enough damage (which they shed over time). High RoF lasers are used to overload shields but then you must close to melee to defeat armor (or optionally also allow expensive high velocity, low rate-of-fire, railguns to be effective, which makes snipers viable as well as skirmishers).
• The battlefield projectors that limit velocity over an area also permit personal teleporters to work due to spacetime effects. Jammers that disrupt these projectors exist, but must win electronic warfare Contests.
• Chameleon systems that make detection at range difficult and very accurate gunfire locator technology means you are unlikely to be exposed until you shoot, but will be detected if you do. This makes for stealthy close combat at objectives, shoot-and-scoot tactics, and disposable drone systems that wait for targets of opportunity. 
• Ubiquitous surveillance of public spaces can detect weapons, so most organized crime enforcement is unarmed. However hacking these systems (or institutional corruption) is possible, which means that criminals (or police) can't just assume that firearms aren't going to be a factor.
• Causal defenses mean that the probability of any attack hitting is infinitesimally small, unless you use a retrocausal weapon. Retrocausal weapons are a sword-with-no-handle with potentially unpredictable effects on present time. This risk decreases proportionately the shorter the range to the target, due to observer effects, and becomes negligible with Reach C attacks.

Magic is Just Technology With Pointy Hats

All of these considerations apply to paranormal methods as well. The Missile Shield spell of GURPS Magic deflects all projectile attacks, a Ghost Shirt charm from GURPS Thaumatology: Ritual Path Magic gives DR against firearms, psionic teleportation works just as well as technological warping to instantly close range etc.You can also include the supernatural in Rock-Paper-Scissors interactions; e.g. in the world of GURPS Technomancer magically depleted necronium ammunition ignores Missile Shield.  

Laws of the Night

In urban fantasy and supernatural horror supernatural creatures often need to make close combat attacks (like a vampire bite) or are especially (or exclusively) vulnerable to melee attacks (like the stake through a vampire's heart, or beheading an immortal in the Highlander universe).

Insubstantial creatures are especially worth mention here, as they can be completely immune to all mundane attacks. If only melee weapons exist that can harm them, you'll need to learn to punch ghosts.

An Elegant Weapon For a More Civilized Age

There also may be cultural reasons to choose melee instead of ranged weapons. Dueling culture may eschew pistols for swordsmanship. A warrior may be required to use a special knife against a worthy foe to retain their honor. This is especially likely if some of the above technological or supernatural factors are in play, if a class of people are required to train with melee weapons for war (or monster hunting) then they are also likely to carry them in civilian contexts, especially if this marks them as elites. This is the case with the knights of the Sollan Empire and their highmatter swords in The Sun Eater novels and the lightsabers of Jedi Knights in Star Wars.

Superhumans and Scary Ninjas

If you spend enough points you can always afford to just do things your way. Superhero bricks who shrug off machine gun fire can just fly up and punch people. Ancient space elf murder-clowns can afford to dance and cavort all over the battlefield while mere human riflemen struggle to get a bead on them. Invisible cyber-ninja make every kill close and personal. Player character melee monsters can just be this good, and the same goes for scary melee enemies. This asymmetry is usually countered with superior numbers; superheroes fight dozens of thugs and the legions of mankind are nigh numberless compared to the troupes of a doomed elder race.

Space Bugs, Zombies and Meat Monsters

Conversely there are kinds of very low-tech melee enemies that are threats due to high numbers, extreme durability, cunning stealth, or a combination of these factors. Hordes of mindless zombies can deplete ammunition supplies and make every shot count. Horrible space bugs might be all of armored, fast, stealthy and swarming. Some monsters have Injury Tolerance and/or a ton of hit points and can just absorb a lot of bullets and still be a threat.

Make Everyone Useful (but "No" is a Complete Sentence)

When a GM approves a character concept for their game, there's an implicit social contract that the character will be useful in that game. This means that players and GMs are well served by communicating these expectations. The GM should then try to arrange (or encourage the players to arrange through good planning) situations that allow the characters to shine.

In a game where some characters are good at melee (or unarmed) combat and other players are good at ranged combat, care should be taken to design encounters that make both specialties relevant. This can be achieved by any of the methods discussed above, and generally works best if you employ a variety of them. 

This doesn't mean that every encounter needs to be for both melee and ranged fighters. It's satisfying to have the occasional encounter where the party is required to disarm, giving the unarmed specialist the spotlight, followed by a long-range engagement that lets the sniper save the day.

The converse of this is if you don't want to do this, don't approve the concept you can't make useful. If your campaign is about teleporting psychic ninjas with swords, don't let someone take Gunslinger. 

Maybe Melee is Just Better?

One advantage of firearms historically is they require less training than melee weapons to deploy. You can emphasize this by restricting abilities and chi skills to melee fighters while simultaneously encumbering ranged fighters with harsh realism optional rules. If melee fighters can take Extra Attack, Weapon Master, Enhanced Defenses, Invisibility Art etc. and meanwhile if not only can gunfighters not take Gunslinger they must also use GURPS Tactical Shooting rules, you can go a long way to compensating for the inherent advantages of ranged attacks.

GURPS Monster Hunters

GURPS Monster Hunters 1: Champions has both the guns focused commando and the melee focused warrior intended to be used in the same games. This works because the encounter design advice in Chapter 3 of The Mission (including Making Everyone Useful p. 32)  as well as careful design of the foes in The Enemy mean that not every fight can be won with the rifle or by the axe alone. It's a very good holistic example of how to make this dynamic work and still suspend disbelief.

Example: Xia of the Empire of Heaven

In my new space opera wuxia game Xia of the Empire of Heaven I wanted lots of sword-fighting and kung-fu action, in an far-future setting. I achieved this by:

• Setting it on a massive space megastructure with very strict gun control and ubiquitous surveillance. 
• The law was conversely very permissive of melee weapons like hyperdense swords.
• The PCs were students of the same martial arts school.
• Fights between martial arts schools were allowed due to institutional reasons, as long as they followed certain forms.
• TL 12 superscience medicine meant that even lethal combat wasn't necessarily that lethal. 
• Chi was linked to quantum gravity. FTL wormhole travel required pilots who had cultivated their chi through martial arts discipline.
• The implants that allowed FTL navigation acted as chi-amplifiers that gave martial artists useful abilities as a side effect. This included access to chi-skills and powers but also generated a force field that cost no points. This field granted DR based on levels of Forceful Chi talent and Hardened based on Inner Balance talent levels. When fields touched at melee range they merged allowing two fighters to strike each other while amplifying protection from ranged attacks for both.
• Some of the cinematic rules mentioned above were in effect, although it predated GURPS Action. Had it not, I would definitely have used Some Bulletproof Advice.
• Other sources (like nanotechnology and gravity weapons) existed that could interact with chi (and vice versa) in various ways.