Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="takyris" data-source="post: 1580447" data-attributes="member: 5171">Well, if somebody says, "I'm running a game on the 4th -- cinematic action," I don't have to ask what cinematic means.  Neither do I have to ask what "action" means, even though it is possible for action to simply mean "doing something", and examples of actions taken include "doing your taxes", "making a sandwich", and "reminiscing about that sunset you saw last week". Heck, genius that I am, I don't even need to ask what he means by "running" -- through the miracle of understanding, I know that he doesn't mean that he's going to force us to jog while playing his game.  I also don't need to ask what calendar he's using when he says "the 4th".C'mon, people.  Yes, you're all very intelligent.  I can understand the fierce, hawklike joy of taking a term you don't like and declaring that it is meaningless with the old reductio ad absurdum jazz, but really, unless you honestly believe that "I'm running a game on the 4th -- cinematic action" means "We're going to be running alongside the GM's car while re-enacting exciting bits of 'The Color Purple'," then you're just being silly.That said, I don't like applying it to settings.  A system can certainly be cinematic in nature, in terms of what it allows and how it's set up -- any system, for example, that makes the PCs different from ordinary individuals on the street is cinematic to a certain extent, reflecting the PCs' relative importance (for example, the use of NPC classes in D&D, or the use of Ordinaries in d20 Modern, or the fact that mooks don't get Vitality Points in Star Wars).  A setting, however, is probably not inherently cinematic relative to another setting that uses the same rules.  If Eberron adds new rules to make things more cinematic, then calling it such is fine.  The use of Action Points is a step in the cinematic direction -- since, as my players noted, it finally gives them a rule mechanic to use when they really want to get that totally cool action off.  If Eberron does other stuff like this, then it can definitely be considered cinematic -- it's changed the rules of the system.As far as personal tastes go, I like cinematic -- but I also hold that an important element of cinematic action is that the hero is not invincible, even against mooks.  D&D, by the core rules, strikes me as grim & gritty at low level, cinematic at mid-level, and comic-bookish at high level.  In d20 Modern, on the other hand, a high-level character is still just one mook's critical hit away from a massive damage check.  An action-oriented d20 Modern hero can certainly take on a room full of bad guys if he's lucky and well-prepared, but it's not so easy as to be dull.So mark me down as liking it, but with some caveats about what I do and don't consider cinematic. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

Verification