Psi-Wars Gun-Fu: Imperial Marksman Academy Training

Alright, let's draw this out a little longer.  This is another style that came late, mostly as I was working on Undercity Noir and I realized two things: first,  Ultimate Shootist was cool, and second, I needed a contrast between what a rogue Imperial Security Agent who comes from the Undercity might use, and what his "by the book" partner might use.

You can find the style here.

I know that "Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy" is a joke (thus, I had to use a variation of it as a name), but if there was any faction in Psi-Wars that would use highly professional, tacticool style that is becoming increasingly frequent among "agent" characters in our films and TV shows, with the crouching run, the two-handed grip, and "not a movement wasted," it would be the Empire.

What results will no doubt inspire quite some complaints about the GURPS prerequisite system.  There's no practical way to build up two different skills at the same time when they default to one another.  Beam Weapons are both a little more reasonable in this regard (as the -4 is a pretty big gulf), but at the same time, I suspect that several people will complain that -4 is "too much" and that we should use the -2 from Guns.  I look forward to that debate.  I often find that Psi-Wars inspires a lot of debate around GURPS, I think because it confronts the reader with the reality of certain GURPS rules.  It's a debate I definitely want to have, because it's completely reasonable to want to have characters who are well-trained in a variety of weapons, even if those weapons default to one another.  That's what Imperial Marksmanship does, because its agents, fighter aces and commandos are equally at home with any Imperial weapon (and, frankly, any weapon they can get their hands on). It'll also come up with other styles, especially Combat Geometrics, so it's best to get the discussion out of the way now, with a style that people care less about.

In contrast to other styles, there's very little cinematic here.  I do argue in favor of Infinite Ammunition, but more because at some point, the character is "fast-enough" with reloads that it becomes irrelevant to track their loading, and unlike Undercity Noir, imperial marksmen don't use reloading as a moment to impress a girl.  Beyond that, though, this is not a Gunslinger style, but a hard-headed style about the "realities" of blaster combat.  This, paired with its breadth, makes it an expensive style, which ironically makes you, point for point, a worse marksman than other styles have (perhaps better said, it's a more realistic level of marksmanship).

I still feel it's justified as a style, though, because the students all train under a similar regimen and you can readily recognize the "signature" of such combatants, and how they contrast with other gunslingers in the setting.