User commentary on Technical Grappling

Writes like feedback. Even negative feedback, constructively given, is useful.

While I’m still waiting for +Erik Tenkar to review Technical Grappling (hey! where’d that bus come from?), I got a pleasant surprise when +Mitch French over at Don’t Forget Your Boots spent about 1,750 words talking about his impressions of my book.

Highlights:

• He likes enough of the concepts that he can’t use ’em all. That’s cool; I don’t use ’em all either.
• He finds the basic conceit of the book, that Control Points express how well someone is grappled, both mechanically and narratively compelling.
• He likes how Trained ST gives the highly skilled “light fighter” a much-needed boost. If he wants to double down, he should apply Trained ST to striking, too!
• The rules for armed grappling are usefully simplified by making them not a special case of other rules
• He likes the concept of spending CP to improve certain things, and wonders if they could be more broadly applied. Yes. Yes they can. I didn’t do it in the manuscript because we didn’t have that many test-fights going on in the actual playtest, and some of that sort of stuff needs thorough in-play experience.

Read the entire thing. Then, of course, go buy the book!

Note: When I wrote the thing, and when sales figures were easily available on e23, my hope was that about half the people who purchased the digital version of GURPS Martial Arts would buy my book, which would put my target at 400-500 copies sold. I’m within that range, about in the middle, on this book.

Certainly there are many more who bought the hardback of Martial Arts who can use TG. But I’m pleased to at least have hit about 50% penetration of those who bought the digital version of Martial Arts. And you have to have the book to use TG. Even if it’s not a perfect Venn diagram, that 450 number was my target, and I’m about there. Woo hoo!