Gritty vs. Cinematic (a.k.a. edition war??)

[der_kluge]

I was pondering the idea of a gritty game versus a real cinematic game. In the latter sense, I consider cinematic to be a high magic 3.5, where the PCs are definite heroes, with a lot of abilities and tricks at their disposal - lots of options. I consider gritty to be more like C&C, or earlier editions where things were more carved in stone, and there weren't a lot of individual mechanical options for the PCs.

And then I wondered if "gritty" versus "cinematic" was really another way of describing "1st edition" versus "3rd edition". Is this what people think of when we think of "1st edition feel" or is it something more than that?

Discuss.

 

[Belen]

I think you have things switched around here. 3.5 is a very tactical game with a lot options tied to exclusive use of the battle map. I do not consider moving around my chess piece on a battle map to be very cinematic. There is very little room for flare of cinema in 3.5 because everything is so well-defined.

I consider earlier editions much more cinematic because the players got to use there imagination to come up with exciting things to do in combat. Instead of hearing "I bull rush" or "I grapple" you heard things like, "I try to charge the Orc, sliding between his legs, and stabbing him in the kidney."

These days, we have a bunch of square counting and number crunching. Combat is much less cinematic under 3.5.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

What BelenUmeria said. Cinematic to me is the opposite of tactical, not the opposite of gritty.

EDIT: I take that back. The two are in opposition, but are not mutually exclusive. I've had swashbuckler types do their thing in tactical games in quite the cinematic fashion, using all the skills and feats that one would expect. I've had old-school games that degenerated into 'I swing - he swings' for an hour. A good DM and good players can find the balance that works for them.

A tactical DM that wants a more cinemetic feel just has to let the rules slide when it is approprite. A cinematic DM has accept that the rules are there for consistency and fairness, and that letting things run rampant is only fun as long as every one is on the same page.

 

[Belen]

Oh...and 1e was not gritty. It was more deadly, but not at all what I would term as gritty. They actually had consequences that would go with all of those benefits, such as resurrection requiring a cleric to rest for 7 days after the casting.

For me, that provides a lot more flavor to the spell whereas now it is just a matter of money and someone gets to pop back into action. Right now, they have no consequences for really powerful spells. Before, longer casting times or personal detriment acted as a balance to the spell and made them more rare to balance out the sheer power of them. They do not have that type of coolness these days.

 

[WayneLigon]

Nah, 'Gritty' and 'Cinematic' is something that will be defined by play style. A cinematic game will -- regardless of rules set - be 'looser', more forgiving to the PC's in terms of actions they can attempt without significant penalty or with vastly less drastic consequences of failure than in the real world, faster paced, and several other attriubtes I probably have forgotten. Gritty games will still be ones where there are equally hard choices and neither option is really good for the PC's, where life is hard and short, where greater attention is paid to the real-life limitations of bodies, the scarcity of luck, the inevitability of consequence and other trappings of a more realistic style of gaming.

3rd edition can do gritty perfectly well on it's own with little or no change, depending on how much of a bastard the GM wants to be and how accepting of the inevitability of failure the players are. Maybe a handful of spells could be taken off the lists or made 'rare', but doing a gritty game with the magic system in place is completely possible if the GM is willing to put some work into pacing management and resource management.

 

[Wombat]

I've always found D&D (and, by extension, D20 games) to be highly cinematic. "Gritty", to me, suggests imminent peril & potential loss of life from a single blow in every combat no matter what "level" you are. Therefore something like RuneQuest is gritty, while something like D&D is closer to wu xia films -- lots of coreography and action, most of it quite impossible and outrageous, but whopping great fun as long as you take absolutely none of it seriously.

So all editions of D&D are fun, with lots of high drama, utterly over the top magic, and strange monsters-of-the-week built to get around some aspect of the core rules, but none of them are "realisitc", "gritty", or whatever the term is this week.

 

[Henry]

I think I agree more with BelenUmeria in this than der Kluge. For the epitome of "cinematic" you go to games like Feng Shui -- a game where all actions are described in VERY loose terms, and the goal is to me as much like a movie as possible. The closer a game looks like Feng Shui or a similar product, the more "cinematic" it becomes.

Now here's the kicker -- the way many, many of us played our 1st edition games was to only use part of the rules as it was, and then usually only the parts that pertained to character abilities. More people played using their own grappling, initiative, and encumbrance rules than those who didn't. My personal opinion? If you play using AD&D 1st ed. rules as they actually were, it's less cinematic than the way we (meaning gamers as a whole back then) actually played.

 

[mmadsen]

In my experience, what was gritty about first edition was that we expected PCs to die. Often. Getting to second level was a big deal, and getting to third or fourth level meant you finally didn't expect to die before the end of the adventure.

 

[Aldarc]

Well guess what? The cinematic Iron Heroes was just released today.

I don't think that standard D&D is very cinematic at all. Players are rarely interactive with their environment to the extent that they would try to truly use it to their advantage in battles. Normally it is just, "I attack the X___ with my +4 Flaming Spiked Chain." And then the DM fills in the blanks. It is rather dull.

Gritty implies that the characters are frail and incredibly mortal. Grim Tales is excellent for grim and gritty rules.

Then there is Iron Heroes. Iron Heroes was created for the Sword & Sorcery crowd. Characters can integrate their attacks with stunts, skill checks, and the players have a greater choice as to "how" they attack.

 

[diaglo]

my hat of d02 knows no limits