Do You Prefer a Cinematic Combat System?

[Mark]

Do You Prefer a Cinematic Combat System?



Don't forget to chime in on the entire RPG Survey Round-Up!

 

[The_Gneech]

As opposed to what? Define your terms, man! Is D&D cinematic? Certainly I assume Feng Shui is.

-The Gneech

 

[Havlo]

Which sounds cooler to tell people: "I confirm the crit and do 18 damage," or "I slash the foul creature's arm, slicing through tendons and muscle, rendering the arm useless."

As you can tell, I voted yes. Now if I could just get my players on the same page....

 

[ThirdWizard]

I'm with The_Gneech.

Is this cinematic as opposed to tactical? Or cinematic as opposed to metagamey? Or cinematic as opposed to highly restrictive? Or cinematic as opposed to grim and gritty? Because all of these are quite different. Cinematic means nothing without context.

This is the poorest qualified of your polls yet. I still say this is a psych experiment.

 

[Mark]

If someone feels they need to qualify their answer further, beyond the poll, by narrowing the general definition of a particular term, they are free to do so in a post.

 

[Crothian]

Yes, as long as I'm playing a game that warrants it.

 

[ThirdWizard]

It makes a great discussion, but a poor poll...

Personally when someone says cinematic, I think of a game in which a DM encourages the PCs to do Over The Top action. Think Iron Heroes with its skill challenges. The PCs do all kinds of stunts in order to gain bonuses to attacks and such. So if my PC wants to run up a wall and do a flip over the bad guy to sneak attack him from behind, that's cinematic, and if I make a Jump check the DM allows it.

Others might describe it as something opposed to tactical mini-based combat. Cinematic means descriptions. You describe the combat and what's going on like it were a move, visualizing ala camera angles without any real physical representation in play. It's free form and constantly shifting. People are moving around the battlefield constantly and things shift.

Another way might be D&D itself, with its hit point system as opposed to a system in which you can die from a single sword blow. There its compared to something like Die Hard as opposed to realistic combat. Gun-fu versus realistic kills. Wuxia versus medeival combat.

 

[el-remmen]

Depends on the game and the genre.

 

[Umbran]

If someone feels they need to qualify their answer further, beyond the poll, by narrowing the general definition of a particular term, they are free to do so in a post.

Thus making the point of the poll to generate discussion about the definition of "cinematic", more than anything else.

"Cinematic" means "like in the movies". Not all good fiction is like the movies. So, it depends upon what I want the resulting fiction to be like. Sometimes I want cinematic, sometimes not.

 

[ForceUser]

Do You Prefer a Cinematic Combat System?

What is a cinematic system? My players and I take pains to describe our D&D combats cinematically. Is that the same thing?