Cinematic? Honest question...

[rogueattorney]

I've seen the term "cinematic" tossed around with regard to RPG's recently, and I honestly don't know what people are referring to - e.g. "System X is cinematic" or "Rule X makes combat more/less cinematic" etc.

Does it mean that people are comparing RPG's to the movies or to theatre?

R.A.

 

[reveal]

I think "cinematic" means that the game plays more like a movie. For example, some systems allow for combat that plays out like a Hong Kong action flick. Action Points from d20 Modern and Eberron, used properly, can make it more "cinematic."

The BBEG is standing over the hero because the hero is down. BBEG is laughing, mocking our hero. The hero, normally, would be toast. But with a quick fake and final plunge, in other words the player used an Action Point, he miraculously dodges the BBEGs blow and hits a fatal blow of his own.

Things like that, IMHO, make an RPG more "cinematic" and less "I hit the bad guy with my longsword for 3 points of damage." A lot of people have been doing this in their own campaigns for a long time, it's just that the new systems that are coming out seem to foster it rather than hinder it.

 

[der_kluge]

Cinematic refers to the ability to survive long combats. It usually equates to lots of hit points, e.g., D&D.

In D&D, your fighter can go toe to toe with a demon for any number of rounds - survive the fiery breath of a dragon, or get the life sucked out of him by a wraith, and still fight on. That's cinematic.

The opposite - grim-n-gritty is a more realistic approach to combat. Where, you get hit with a dagger, you could become a paraplegic. That's realistic. D&D is not realistic, therefore it is cinematic.

There may be more to it than that, but that's my understanding.

 

[Cam Banks]

I've seen the term "cinematic" tossed around with regard to RPG's recently, and I honestly don't know what people are referring to - e.g. "System X is cinematic" or "Rule X makes combat more/less cinematic" etc.

Does it mean that people are comparing RPG's to the movies or to theatre?

More or less. It's not used quite the way it probably should be used, or rather, it doesn't quite mean what you'd think it would mean if you're a film student or something. Essentially, it means that you play a little faster and looser, the characters are more in the vein of action heroes and the bad guys are often either mooks and thugs or big bads, the system reflects being able to pull of remarkable stunts and feats, and there's some kind of dramatic editing tool, action points, fate points, or whatever that allows the players to affect the game world to a degree.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[WayneLigon]

Yes, indeed. Or, rather, comparing the actions of the PC's to the kinds of free-wheeling action-oriented risk-taking we see in the films. Cinematic rules (action points, for example) generally give you a kind of safety net. It encourages players who've been driven into paranoid little shells by bad GMing (We check this ten feet of corridor for traps. OK, we check the next ten feet of corridor for traps...) to take risks, try new things, go for that really impossible shot.

 

[rogueattorney]

Thanks for the responses.

R.A.

 

[Mallus]

Another key element of 'cinematic' play is greater [though not neccessarily more logical] interaction w/the environment... swinging on chandeliers, hopping up on tables, dropping heavy velvet curtains on pursuing foes. Or using combat moves that are visually striking but not normally optimal, like catching a thrown dagger aimed at you and throwing it back --preferably through the throwers eye socket.

It can also be about granting mechanical bonuses to flashy maneouvers like that, to foster a sense of heroic derring-do, instead of the sense that one is playing a stripped-down tactical minatures game where most of the realistic tactical considerations have been abstracted-out, or de-empasized to the point of uselessness.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Another key element of 'cinematic' play is greater [though not neccessarily more logical] interaction w/the environment... swinging on chandeliers, hopping up on tables, dropping heavy velvet curtains on pursuing foes. Or using combat moves that are visually striking but not normally optimal, like catching a thrown dagger aimed at you and throwing it back --preferably through the throwers eye socket.

I agree. I think I'm going to house-rule my Modern campaign so that you can do things like trip people without drawing an AoO by spending an action point and spend APs to boost Defense... the latter only available at 8th-level to keep Modern' front-loaded Defense in check. I've been reading Princess Bride, watching Jackie Chan and other Hong Kong movies (and not just Legend of Drunken Master) and even seeing a few light-saber videos online.

It occured to me that, especially in the last video, people were doing things the ruleset does not really endorse, such as using unarmed combat in the middle of a swordfight, or tripping, then the trip victim tripped the (upright) tripper (despite the -4 penalty and the drawing of the AoO), and then the two fought, rolling on the ground, with their lightsabers.

IMO cinematic requires characters to learn to dodge, however, and not just be covered by magic items to do that for them.

 

[Desdichado]

So, you were watching Star Wars movies? Or by light saber, do you mean Olympic sport sabre type fencing which features heavily in old fashioned Hollywood swashbuckling movies of the type Errol Flynn used to make?

Just curious; which of those movies were you watching? I have an inordinate fondness for that type of movie.

 

[EricNoah]

Another aspect, in my opinion, is how much time is spent dwelling on "boring stuff" vs. how much is spent on the exciting stuff. For example -- the DM might use brief "cut scenes" to link adventures (or even encounters) together instead of roleplaying out an uneventful journey in between.