For all of my recent talk about the desire to go deeper into the roleplay within my roleplaying games, a curious excitement surfaces every time I contemplate the pros and cons of detailed tactical combat. While working on an forthcoming episode about the benefits of Classic GURPS, I found myself digging back into Man-to-Man.

The basic situation arose from the premise that, although it has a really cool detailed tactical “Advanced Combat” system, at the core GURPS is a game designed to help you roleplay within the context of a grounded, realistic but also playable fantastic Otherworld. There’s something about the basic mechanisms that reinforce this sense of verisimilitude.

Man-to-Man by Steve Jackson Games was published in 1985 as a foretaste of the eventual arrival of GURPS Basic Set in 1986. There is something about that old booklet that inspires in me the desire to knock up a couple of fighters and set-to in the arena with those combat rules. For all my pretensions of being a roleplayer, Man-to-Man exposes my inner wargamer.

Perhaps I should simply accept and yield to the truth: I enjoy small-scale skirmish battle games! In fact, when I reflect back on the roots of my roleplaying experience, my tastes have always carried this dual tension of, on the one hand, a desire to imagine myself a hero within a fantastic Otherworld and, on the other, to triumph in man-to-man combat.

Look at my pedigree: Traveller (1977), yes, with its somewhat abstract combat system but also Runequest (2e) with the introduction of Strike Ranks, Hit Locations, and detailed treatment of Combat Skills. Then on to Rolemaster and Palladium Fantasy. Warhammer. Our long appreciation for Dungeons & Dragons 3e. My arrival with GURPS.

I love the cut-and-thrust of detailed tactical combat, especially when we break out the hex grid and miniatures. It’s no surprise given my former life working with Games Workshop and twelve years painting miniatures, organising Grand Tournaments, and fighting tabletop miniature battles. Wargames are in my blood.

Is there anything wrong with this? Not really. It’s a preference for the kinds of games that I enjoy playing. Except when the act of breaking into combat pushes me to break away from my other deep preference for fantasy roleplay. This is why, through all those years of wargaming, I could never give in to the goal of optimisation over playing the role.

But I don’t quite know how to resolve this tension. Perhaps there is nothing to resolve. It may well be that it’s just loads of fun to break out the miniatures and hexes when combat erupts during the adventure. Switching from deeply immersed imaginary exploration and investigation towards a different form of immersed tactical combat is simply a choice.

One thing is certain: playing the tactical combat system from GURPS is a bucket load of fun! Man-to-Man, while only the first step on the journey GURPS took towards becoming the premier generic and universal role-playing system, is still a heck of a lot more fun that the kind of abstracted and minimalist hedges many other games offer.

Here’s to grabbing a 40-point rookie soldier and having at it against a marauding mob of Goblins in an hour or so of engaging and realistically grounded fantasy combat. One thing I can promise is that you won’t find the warriors standing stock-still in a corridor opposite one another with you trying to roll the same number over and over again on a single die.

Game on!