The cinematicness of D&D compared to other systems.

[Lago_AM3P]

The title says it all, but I'll open with a quote from elseboard.

It's a private board and there's a lot of NC-17 stuff on there, so I can't post a link, really.

Part of the problem is that the designers never quite climbed out of the wargaming rut. Even 3.5 is still primarily about how hard you are to hit, how long it takes you to break, and how well and how hard you can hit back. They tell you more about how to use minis than how to roleplay. The only reason it isn't a wargame is because the idea is for each player to play a single character rather than his own army.

Their only nod towards roleplay, really, is the concept of balancing. This introduced the other favorite element of D&D play everywhere: the designers' attempts to create spells and magic items that couldn't be viciously abused and the players' attempts to find ways in which they could viciously abuse them. It's also what keeps the foot solidly lodged in the door of the "What the hell? This makes no fucking sense." argument.

Could they have made the game more cinematic? Hell yeah. Just take a quick gander at Star Wars. Mechanics aside, even in that 'Jedi Counseling' column (or whatever it's called), on the WotC website, they keep going on and on how SW is supposed to be heroic and cinematic. D&D, conversely, is all about angles, numbers, and who can move far enough to do what, and when.

I just think it's worth pointing out the difference between a system in which you can /stage/ a cinematic action piece, and a system that /generally encourages/ all action to be cinematic, full of flair, whatnot, etc.

Soforth.

What do you think, gentle reader?

[Draco_Argentum]

Whoever wrote that is dumb.

[RandomCasualty]

I'm not sure I'd call SW, at least not the d20 version any more cinematic than D&D.

The d20 system as a whole is very wargame based, so I don't disagree that the designers never really climbed out of the wargaming style. 3rd edition feels and plays very much like a strategic wargame, especially since buying magical items became commonplace, and we have standardized creation systems like point buy.

As for encouraging cinematic stuff, this once again goes back to the wargaming aspect. Generally creative cinematic stuff, like throwing sand in the enemy's eyes, tends to be very difficult to balance, and so it's pretty much avoided in such a concrete system as D&D.

Though I don't think any of that necessarily makes 3E a bad system.

[Maj]

Cinematic is the flavor text - that's the players' and DM's job.

Personally, I prefer a system that lets me think up the cool stuff. Most of the time I think their ideas are dumb and don't make sense, and while to other people, my ideas might not sound much better, they at least work for me.

[Username17]

Other than being a rambling diatribe, I honestly don't know what to make of it.

D&D did start as a wargame, and this has nothing at all to do with how cinematic it is. Frankly, I can't even tell what the author means by "cinematic" in this case.

Really - I can't. Cinematic can mean a lot of things. It could mean "fantastic" as in rife with fantasy. That things happen which could not happen in the real world. It could mean "over-the-top" in the sense of such pieces of literature as Van Helsing (the story of a Paladin/Ranger and his quest to find the method the DM has house ruled in to allow you to kill vampires). It could mean all kinds of things.

But they seem to mean "scripted" when they say "cinematic" - in which case I'll just read a frickin book, thanks all the same. The article seems to regard things happening in the game which are not governed by rules to be somehow advantageous. I am appalled.

Seriously, if the DM is just going to hack in a "cut-scene" where stuff happens and the DM's favorite plot moves forward and neither I nor the dice have sway - why is the player even there? Couldn't the DM just write a book at that point and hand it out to his friends? Wouldn't that be a whole lot easier on everyone than pretending there's a game going on when there obviously isn't?

-Username17

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I've played wargames. I enjoy wargames.

D20 sure as hell ain't no wargame, there's too much emphasis on roleplaying, the rules are too simple, and the strategy is non-existant past character creation.

[RandomCasualty]

I always got the feeling that cinematic generally meant dynamic combats. Basically you do all sorts of cool manuevers and colorful critical hits. It's not cinematic to do 50 points of damage in one critical with a greatsword, it is cinematic to cut off the guy's hand and cause it drop down into a pit below.

Cinematic is all the cool little tricks people use in movies. Filling your mouth with strong alcohol and holding a torch to breathe fire at someone, kicking up dirt in someone's eyes, dropping a chandelier on them, or something similar. Cinematic is throwing the oxygen tank into Jaw's mouth and killing him by causing that to explode as opposed to just shooting him with a harpoon gun. And the thing is that these tricks are generally meant to be used only once, which is why they're tough to implement in a game format, especially one with rigid rules. Because while breaking someone's sword can be cinematic when used very rarely, if you make a habit of it, then it becomes just the boring same old tactic you've always used.

The hardest thing about having cinematic combats is that it has to be new and different everytime.

With the D&D systems emphasis on specialization, it's very difficult to make a cinematic fighter. Generally if you want to ever use sunder, you better take the feat and if you spend a feat on it you might as well use it alot. And when you use it a lot, the tactic is no longer cinematic because it's old. So in many ways D&D is very anti-cinematic.

[Oberoni]

Yeah, but when you put it like that, it doesn't sound like a bad thing.

D&D is basically the equivalent of a 50-hour movie, if you will--even the most awesome screen-writer could add in only so many chandalier swings and blasts of powder to the face.

I find that a good DM/player combination can actually make a game cinematic--if a guy just took about 30 more damage than he has the HP to survive, go to town. Describe the death-stroke a little bit, especially if this is a BBEG or even just a repeat antagonist.

Beyond that, now that I think about it, the d20 system seems about as easy to ad-lib in some cool combat maneuver as any other system. If you grab the vase on the table next to you to splash water into the eyes of the half-orc barbarian, you could do something simple like use a ranged touch attack (with a -4 penalty). There's precedent for that sort of thing in the rules. If it hits, have the half-orc make a Will saving throw or Concentration check or something to get his act together and wipe the water from his eyes, or else his opponents gain total concealment for 1d4 rounds.

Of course, that's about as cinematic as I would want it to be--"cinematic" and "called shots" can be said in the same breath, if you know what I mean. I'd rather lose some flair if it means that the crazy evil archer can't laugh wickedly and then shoot my eyes or throat out from 50 feet away.

[RandomCasualty]

1084109880[/unixtime]]
Of course, that's about as cinematic as I would want it to be--"cinematic" and "called shots" can be said in the same breath, if you know what I mean. I'd rather lose some flair if it means that the crazy evil archer can't laugh wickedly and then shoot my eyes or throat out from 50 feet away.

Oh definitely, and that's one of the things that makes D&D more wargamish in style. This is because we don't want uber called shots like this, or have any rules that actually do powerful things.

In some cases, it actually hurts the game a bit IMO, especially with the fact that you can't actually stake a vampire in combat.

To actually make something cinematic mechanics wise generally you have to have some kind of rule that makes a certain move less and less effective the more you try to do it. Even then it requires a hell of a lot of ad hoc judgments from the DM.

[Draco_Argentum]

Like Oberon says, its like a 50 hour movie. Just because something is cool dosen't mean it should suddenly stop working so it dosen't become mundane, thats frelling stupid. If a move works it should keep working, given a long enough campaign it'll become old hat.

[RandomCasualty]

1084163731[/unixtime]]Just because something is cool dosen't mean it should suddenly stop working so it dosen't become mundane, thats frelling stupid.

Well this is wargamer thinking. Not that it's necessarily a bad thing, but nonetheless, cinematic style just doesn't think that way.

One style wants stable mechanics and carefully defined probabilities. The other wants unusual stuff happening and being as effective, if not more effective, than just doing standard defined manuevers.

[Draco_Argentum]

No, its flavour text first thinking. If a world has no consistant definition of how things work versimillitude is lost. Particularly when the scource of inconsistancy is a metagame desire.

[Username17]

If you actually want to have some kind of dramatic moves that are rarely performed - just give them mechanics that actually facilitate their use in that manner.

You could slap them on a counter with a limited number of times per day or demand that opponents be down to a certain number of hit points before these finishing moves could be employed - and then they could have dramatic effects.

Sailor Moon's Scepter Elimination fails a grand total of like twice in her entire carrear as a superhero, I think Voltron's Sword attack only fails once. Why is it that they don't just use those attacks at the start of every fight?

Well, if you had a combat delay before they could be used - for instance you had to wait five rounds after an opponent damaged you before you could use your prism punch, that would explain it. If your opponent had to be beaten down to a certain level before you could up and turn them to stone - that would explain it as well.

Don't wave your hands and try to make people play counter to the game mechanics - that's retarded. If you want people to play differently, write different mechanics which encourage that playstyle.

Note: people could go ahead and have a lot of finishing moves, because it makes no functional difference at all whether you transform into a giant panda and eat them in one bite or petrify their gasping and defeated form once you've fulfilled your criteria for finishing move, right? So if you had say 8 of the damn things, you could go through the whole 50 hour movie and only repeat yourself a couple of times.

Finish Him!
Fatality.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1084174665[/unixtime]]its flavour text first thinking.

And that's basically exactly how cinematic style players think. Flavor text first, mechanics second. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that particular viewpoint. Obviously this thinking doesn't fit in a wargame oriented RPG like D&D, but it doesn't mean its an awful point of view.

I've talked to people who think that way, even gamed with them. Some people find defined rules to be boring. They want to do stuff that isn't in the rules. They don't want to have to take a feat or a PrC to throw sand in someone's eyes, or wait until some splat book has a mechanic for it. They want to use it in an actual game and they want it to work reasonably well.

Obviously these people tend not to like D&D.

The tough things to deal with aren't the finishing moves, it's the mid battle manuevers. Cutting a rope and dropping a chandelier on someone, throwing a tapestry onto someone then lighting it on fire, blowing sand in your opponent's eyes or whatever. Even just booting someone in the groin to stun them... you can't do this stuff in D&D without specialized abilities. These are the manuevers that D&D has some big problems with mechanically.

[Draco_Argentum]

But all that stuff could be done if a halfway decent DM was around. Seems the real problem is that these people are paying too much attention to what the book says.

[User3]

As long as your DM is willing to invent a mechnic on the spot, DnD is as cinmatic as you like.

I remember one game with Frank as DM when we defeated a villian with an artifact sword by disarning the sword(when then, on a random roll, went into the range of a disintigrate trap, and thus was out of reach of the enemy). We then bull rushed the enemy into the same trap.

I played one RPGA game with Frank where we defeated a yeth hound as 1st level PCs by lassoing it around the neck with a rope tied to a stone pillar. We then took a few 5, foot steps back and attacked the hound with reach as it tried to chew through the rope.

The complete warrior-type books should be filled with this kind of stuff. It makes the game way more fun.

[Wrenfield]

I've seen quite a few D20 books publish a bunch of "cinematic maneuver" type combat feats, skills, power-plays, and other similar alternative mechanics. From what I recall, a lot of Mongoose Publishings splatbooks provide this sort of thing.

Just thought I would mention it since these books don't need to be used verbatim ... they make great books for plundering of ideas.

[The_Hanged_Man]

Good idea. As long as the DM doesn't jsut say "That's not in the rules," and instead tries to figure something out, everything works.

[Username17]

I still have no idea how a 1st level party was supposed to win that encounter without pulling things out of our asses like that.

Living Greyhawk modules, in general, seem like they are designed to kill PCs left and right unless they min/max themselves like crazy and come up with massive out-of-the-box solutions to things. If you just go through the encounters one after another like they act like you should you're just going to die. I honestly don't get it.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1084289432[/unixtime]]As long as your DM is willing to invent a mechnic on the spot, DnD is as cinmatic as you like.

Well, right. I'm not saying D&D doesn't allow for cinematic manuevers if your DM is willing, but here's the problem.

Say the DM invents something on the spot. Now obviously this is an on the spot ruling and there's a good chance it isn't perfectly balanced. You now have to worry about creating a tactic that is better than all the existing ones and you have little way to control it. It's one main reason why cinematic moves tend to have to get worse if you overuse them, because a lot of the time they end up being too effective.

[Maj]

Generally speaking, a cinematic move loses whatever quality it is that makes it cinematic when it become a regular tactic.

I don't consider Sailor Moon's happy scepter of disintegration to be cinematic. It's her finishing move. If you want your character to have a finishing move, then you ask the DM in advance if the move you want to perform is acceptable. There's no on-the-spot-ness there.

On the other hand, if you want to do something cinematic and outside-the-box, the relative power of the move is irrelevant. Once you perform an outside-the-box move repeatedly, it becomes inside-the-box and something you have to worry about. So long as you're not in the box, you won't see that tactic often enough to disturb game balance.

If the DM isn't capable of handling things like impromptu tactics for unusual situations, then your games are really going to suck. There will never be a book - or set of books - that can contain all the rules for every possible situation that people are capable of coming up with. You need a DM who values creativity and coolness alongside mechanics.

[Username17]

I don't consider Sailor Moon's happy scepter of disintegration to be cinematic. It's her finishing move. If you want your character to have a finishing move, then you ask the DM in advance if the move you want to perform is acceptable. There's no on-the-spot-ness there.

So by "cinematic" you mean "unexpected"?

That's weird, and goes back to my original point which is that people don't mean the same thing when they use that word and therefore it doesn't really mean anything.

In cinema, as in, the movies that people actually make, doing the "unexpected" is generally frowned upon. That is, if someone pulls out a gun and shoots someone, it's generally considered good form to do an "establishing shot" where you demonstrate that the guy has the gun before hand.

People doing things that there is no precedent for is confusing, and risks turning a movie into a jumble of images and sound. For things to be truly "cinematic" in the way that cinema is cinematic, it has to be non-surprising that it is something you could do. You have to announce your possible set of manuvers before you start using them in order to allow the audience to follow the action and suspend disbelief.

To a very real extent, in cinema nothing that characters do is new or unexpected when they do it.

And it is exactly this kind of semantic disagreement that makes discussion of "cinematic action" completely worthless. The term is so loaded with entirely different meanings that it has no unique meaning at all. I'm willing to bet a dollar that no two posters so far on this thread are actually talking about the same thing - which means this thread isn't really communicating at all.

-Username17

[The_Hanged_Man]

I'd say the opposite. In good cinema, most of the things a characters does should be new or unexpected. Setting context for character action is different from having a character actually do something.

For example. Legolas is really good w/ a bow. And agile. That is set up - giving context. But running up the dire elephant and shooting crew, cutting the ropes tieing the deck and sending people to their doom, and then shooting into the brain pan is unexpected. And therefore interesting.

Or even crappy movies like the Hulk. Hulk Strong. Hulk Tough. Context is set. But Hulk jumping onto a plane to push it under a bridge, then holding on as it climbs - is unexpected. And interesting.

* * *

As for cinematic actions, unless we're talking about unusual, unexpected, and interesting things that the game mechanics don't explicity address, we aren't talking about anything.

Everything else is "just" flavor text from the players and DM (IMO, flavor text is the game, so "just" isn't the right word). You want to do a spinning jump over two Ogres, slashing as you go over? Make a tumble check and an attack. The rest is flavor text. Bored w/ the DM saying "hit, 20 damage. Ogre's still alive. Next attack?" Add your own flavor text or DM.

[RandomCasualty]

1084316047[/unixtime]]
As for cinematic actions, unless we're talking about unusual, unexpected, and interesting things that the game mechanics don't explicity address, we aren't talking about anything.

Right, that's why the real stuff doesn't have to do wtih finishing moves or cool ways of killing someone, like decapitation, but rather status style attacks, like punching a guy in the crotch or blinding him with a handful of sand.

[fbmf]

Hanged Man, I don't necessarily think you and Frank are saying different things.

You're saying using a gun to, instead of shoot the BBEG, shoot a chain that was holding up a lighting fixture to make it fall and hit something else that hits something else that somehow impales the BBEG is kewl.

I agree, and I assume Frank does to, but he is saying it needs to be established beforehand that our hero is (a) in possession of a gun, and (b) is a crack shot with it.

Game On,
fbmf