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<blockquote data-quote="JohnSnow" data-source="post: 8076088" data-attributes="member: 32164">Personally, I like combat in games. But I like fun, over-the-top, cinematic action combats that feel like they were pulled straight out of a Three Musketeers or Indiana Jones movie. Simply put, combat in D&amp;D doesn't feel like that. Grim and gritty &quot;Realistic&quot; systems also don't generally feel like that, either. What I'm trying to build is a system that allows for the creation of believable, on-the-fly, cinematic combat. It doesn't have to be &quot;real&quot; (because as has been pointed out many times, most realistic combat with weapons is typically nasty, brutish and short). What it has to be is &quot;plausible,&quot; and in order to turn combat into something the protagonists have a reasonable chance of surviving, D&amp;D (and many other systems) tend to sacrifice all the things that make combat interesting in the first place.Trying for &quot;cinematic&quot; is not me saying that there aren't plenty of bad fight scenes in movies and on stage. Fight scenes can seem fake, drag on too long, or have characters get hit in ways that are simply NOT survivable. Or they can be made so realistic that they're unsatisfying. Learning to strike the right balance between believability and theatricality is what some stage combat people (like myself) work really hard for. To draw an analogy, D&amp;D feels like bad theatrical stage combat - lots of &quot;big pirate, little pirate&quot; on a wide open platform that doesn't remotely resemble a real fight. Sure, it's not remotely realistic, but it allows you to play out a fight scene. There is a &quot;sweet spot&quot; in D&amp;D where it can almost start to strike the right balance, as players have enough options to do some interesting stuff in combat, and enough hit points that combats can actually last a few rounds, but then it evaporates into a torrent of slogging through foes via too lengthy attrition and then goes back to the early levels of swingy-ness, this time with magical rocket tag (this is a feature of the hit point system, and why it probably needs to die in a fire, even if it never will).More &quot;realistic&quot; games (like Warhammer), at least in my experience, tend to swing to the other extreme, and drill deep into the nitty gritty of maiming or killing someone in a fight that lasts 8 seconds. It's 30 seconds of whatever realistic meat grinder medieval combat scene you last watched, where none of the PCs are &quot;named characters.&quot; And, to make matters worse, if you have any experience with western martial arts, they often get the nitty gritty stuff wrong. Honestly, I suspect my problem with Mythras would be the same one I always have with games that try to get too simulative, but I'll check it out. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.The problem with getting into something like &quot;swordplay/European martial arts&quot; as a hobby can be the burden of having &quot;too much knowledge&quot; about that topic. Anyone who gets into swordplay has their own &quot;sweet spot&quot; for the exact right combination of &quot;representative&quot; vs. abstract. If it's too simulative, we start seeing it tripping over reality, but if it abstracts things out too much, it doesn't represent the tradeoffs &quot;correctly&quot; (as we see them). And yes, this applies to movie fight scenes too - there's plenty I enjoyed more before I got into this as a hobby. This &quot;burden of knowledge&quot; phenomenon is not unique to swordplay, as I know plenty of people who just about can't watch certain &quot;historical&quot; movies because of how badly they botch period costuming. As an aside, this is why many guys with HEMA as a hobby tend to have such a mad-on for getting rid of &quot;studded leather armor,&quot; or renaming the single-handed cutting sword from Longsword to &quot;Arming Sword&quot; or just &quot;Sword.&quot; Sure, we could just deal with it, but it'd be like asking someone to accept you calling every &quot;car&quot; in a modern game an &quot;SUV.&quot; Sure, an SUV is a car, but not all cars are SUVs, and referring to generic cars as &quot;SUVs&quot; is annoying.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="JohnSnow, post: 8076088, member: 32164"] Personally, I like combat in games. But I like fun, over-the-top, cinematic action combats that feel like they were pulled straight out of a [I]Three Musketeers[/I] or [I]Indiana Jones[/I] movie. Simply put, combat in D&D doesn't feel like that. Grim and gritty "Realistic" systems also don't generally feel like that, either. What I'm trying to build is a system that allows for the creation of believable, on-the-fly, cinematic combat. It doesn't have to be "real" (because as has been pointed out many times, most realistic combat with weapons is typically nasty, brutish and short). What it has to be is "plausible," and in order to turn combat into something the protagonists have a reasonable chance of surviving, D&D (and many other systems) tend to sacrifice all the things that make combat interesting in the first place. Trying for "cinematic" is not me saying that there aren't plenty of bad fight scenes in movies and on stage. Fight scenes can seem fake, drag on too long, or have characters get hit in ways that are simply NOT survivable. Or they can be made so realistic that they're unsatisfying. Learning to strike the right balance between believability and theatricality is what some stage combat people (like myself) work really hard for. To draw an analogy, D&D feels like bad theatrical stage combat - lots of "big pirate, little pirate" on a wide open platform that doesn't remotely resemble a real fight. Sure, it's not remotely realistic, but it allows you to play out a fight scene. There is a "sweet spot" in D&D where it can almost start to strike the right balance, as players have enough options to do some interesting stuff in combat, and enough hit points that combats can actually last a few rounds, but then it evaporates into a torrent of slogging through foes via too lengthy attrition and then goes back to the early levels of swingy-ness, this time with magical rocket tag (this is a feature of the hit point system, and why it probably needs to die in a fire, even if it never will). More "realistic" games (like [I]Warhammer[/I]), at least in my experience, tend to swing to the other extreme, and drill deep into the nitty gritty of maiming or killing someone in a fight that lasts 8 seconds. It's 30 seconds of whatever realistic meat grinder medieval combat scene you last watched, where none of the PCs are "named characters." And, to make matters worse, if you have any experience with western martial arts, they often get the nitty gritty stuff [I]wrong[/I]. Honestly, I suspect my problem with [I]Mythras[/I] would be the same one I always have with games that try to get too simulative, but I'll check it out. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised. The problem with getting into something like "swordplay/European martial arts" as a hobby can be the burden of having "too much knowledge" about that topic. Anyone who gets into swordplay has their own "sweet spot" for the exact right combination of "representative" vs. abstract. If it's too simulative, we start seeing it tripping over reality, but if it abstracts things out too much, it doesn't represent the tradeoffs "correctly" (as we see them). And yes, this applies to movie fight scenes too - there's plenty I enjoyed more before I got into this as a hobby. This "burden of knowledge" phenomenon is not unique to swordplay, as I know plenty of people who just about can't watch certain "historical" movies because of how badly they botch period costuming. As an aside, this is why many guys with HEMA as a hobby tend to have such a mad-on for getting rid of "studded leather armor," or renaming the single-handed cutting sword from Longsword to "Arming Sword" or just "Sword." Sure, we could just deal with it, but it'd be like asking someone to accept you calling every "car" in a modern game an "SUV." Sure, an SUV is a car, but not all cars are SUVs, and referring to generic cars as "SUVs" is annoying. [/QUOTE]

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