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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6883773" data-attributes="member: 4937">I think some definitions are in order.  By definition, if you add the players as actors into the scene, it's no longer a cut scene.A traditional cut scene is when you cut away from the story of the protagonists (the PC's in RPG terms), and tell the story of some other characters.   A cut scene in gaming refers to this and also to situations when the game takes control of the player's avatar and makes choices on the player's behalf and shows things happening to the character without the player's input.  So if the PC's are in the scene and are able to control their characters, then in my opinion we shouldn't call that a cut scene.  When a DM reads a lengthy piece of text describing something that the PC's have become aware of, that's what's called 'Color Text' or 'Scene Framing' (depending on how it is being used).   That really falls into what you'd call 'Expository Narration', where you are giving the players enough details to understand what is happening to their characters.   A cutscene is used instead to either give the players information that their characters don't have - something happening elsewhere or elsewhen - or to temporarily take control of the characters in order to avoid some troublesome hard to simulate aspect of play.  I guess you could consider that 'Expository Narration' as well, but its a different sort of narration than 'Scene Framing'.  Everyone uses some sort of scene framing.  Not everyone uses cut scenes.cRPGs often heavily rely on cut scenes for pacing reasons and to deal with the limitations of their interface.  Mass Effect for example blends cut scenes with participatory play in absolutely brilliant ways.  But IMO, PnP RPGs can be - and should be - far less reliant on cut scenes.  For example, it's less compelling in a PnP RPG for the DM to tell you what you say, as opposed to letting players choose their own words for their characters.  In a game like Mass Effect, obviously that can't work, leading to situations where you direct your character only to hear them say things that you would have never chosen for them to say, and leading to very few options regarding how you'd respond to any conversational overture.Agreed.  RPGs in large part are played by people who have the desire to be inside their favorite stories, or favorite sorts of stories.  So while 'cinematic' as it pertains to RPGs has been defined in different ways, in the sense you mean it, it's usually all to the good to make your game cinematic.</blockquote>

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