I don't think I'm the one that is confused.
Try and look at it this way: the levels of the characters alone is irrelevant to how cinematic - or not - an adventure or style of play is.
Hense, E6 - which is a system primarily defined by its level limitations - cannot be said to be handicapped in producing 'cinematic' adventure or style of play because of its level limitations.
You might not be confused but judging by some of your responses in this thread your comprehension appears to be lacking. I understand English may be your second language so please don't take this the wrong way.
The key to understanding my statement is one little word - "the levels of the characters
alone is irrelevant".
The sentence reads very differently without that word - 'alone' - so its inclusion
should have drawn the reader's atention. Clearly you didn't even notice it and I accept all responsibility.
When I say "the levels of the characters
alone is irrelevant" I mean to say that it is the
relative levels of the characters and the threats arrayed against them.
The implication then is that encounters that are too easy for the PCs, as well as encounters that are too difficult for them, make for other-than-cinematic play.
Another factor, that is related to the first, is that adventures that aren't structured narratively by some external agent (ie. the DM) will only follow cinematic conventions by sheer accident.
It follows then, that E6
will produce cinematic play when it involves mostly level appropriate encounters
and when adventures are written as such, rather than just arising from a freeform sandbox interplay between the PCs and the various world elements.
In my (entirely anecdotal) experience, grim'n'gritty games tend to go hand-in-hand with sandbox play. This means that they involve an amount of too hard/too easy encounters (because the encounters aren't tailored to the party) as well as lacking any kind of adventure structure (because that's the opposite of sandbox play).
Not if the Balrog used its 1st edition stats.
I believe E6 is a D&D 3.x modification.
The Balrog you know is a victim of stat inflation
Even if I was running E6 I would give Durin's Bane over 10HD.
the notion that large scale 'cinematic' play can only be the result of larger numbers
'Cinematic' has nothing to do with scale either. I think the word you're looking for is 'epic'.
or that larger numbers are somehow inherently cooler.
To be honest with you I'm not a fan of the massive numbers either and I was quite impressed with E6 and Wulf Ratbane's Grim'nGritty system before it.
But after leaving 3.x and playing some Exalted I decided that it's just fun to play in games where super powered PCs fight ancient dragons and demiliches and armies of demons.
So you could say I'm a reformed grim'n'gritty snob.
I have no idea what the theoreticals for PC's in 4e are, but I do know that the hit points of the monsters have inflated again and that the number of expected levels have increased yet again.
I think, if you're looking at 30 levels through the 1e paradigm, then it will look overblown and obscene.
Personally I first played BECMI, which went up to 36 levels. After that I played 3.x with its 20 levels and so now I see level 30 in 4e as equal to level 20 in 3.x
The big difference I see between 3.x and 4e (regarding levels) is the levels of 'typical' NPCs. Where in 3.x the typical guardsman was level 1, I now see him as level 3 or higher. Even higher than that using minion rules.
Certainly I don't see 5th level as particularly heroic because that's only halfway through the Heroic tier; that character has 25 levels of potential to fulfill.
Then again, I didn't have my view of character levels set by 1e or 2e, which would admittedly make it hard to cope with the idea of a 9th level fighter that doesn't own a vast swathe of countryside.
Look again at what you just said. Once again you've tied cinematic play to level. Try and look at it this way: the levels of the characters alone is irrelevant to how cinematic - or not - an adventure or style of play is.
Emphasis mine.
Why would you assume that? Do you regularly scale Mt. Everest, or regularly follow the Amazon to its source, or treck out into the Great Erg of the Sahara? Do you regularly descend down the big drop into the depths of Fern Cave (because some of us probably do), and if you do do you consider this your mundane day-to-day troubles? Do you regularly face off against tribes of cannibals, thugs of secret snake cults, incarnated nightmares, insane undead serial killers, and monsters of legend? Is that what you call your mundane day-to-day troubles? Yet, what about that is incompatible with 'grim-and-gritty' roleplaying? In fact, it is precisely capturing those sorts of challenges that 'grim-and-gritty' DMs/players want. It's precisely because in high level play, players don't treck out into the Great Erg of the Sahara - they greater teleport, wind walk, take a flying carpet, etc. - that you do 'grim-and-gritty' play. Not because the adventures are more mundane if they are solved by mundane means, but because they are less mundane and more 'cinematic' when treking out into the Great Erg actually happens and the players are conscious of the great adventure that this represents rather than treating it as a trivial obstacle which is easily put out of the mind.
All those things are cool, I agree, but let me share an anecdote with you.
I am a soldier in the Australian army. When I was in the infantry I pushed my body to extremes and did some insanely cool things. But if I'm honest with you, aside from being shot at from well outside small-arms range, the most serious threats to my health and safety were dehydration, hypothermia, vehicle accidents and snakebite.
None of those things are worthy (in my opinion) of being published in any sort of entertainment medium - only my mother found them interesting. Although if they'd occurred in conjunction with insane undead serial killers I'm sure it'd be a different story.
Put it this way - the Fellowship of the Ring were never going to fail for any reason.
Not if I was running it as an adventure.
Hense, the whole analogy is false, but to the extent that you want to site the LotR as canonical, then I would say that the closest the adventure ever came to failure, the root cause was dehydration. In the last sixth of the book, the overriding concern of the PC's was food and water, and pretty much every chapter is focused on their attempts to overcome the limited water supply.
Yeah?
That's probably why Jackson cut it out of the movie.
Personally I loved the movies but found the books dull and weird - I could never get past the inane Tom Bombadil scene.
Incidentally also cut out of the movies.
First of all, no they wouldn't, because in a good sandbox campaign and unlike a good story, nothing ever happens 'no save'.
Why not? If NPC peasants can be eaten by dragons despite their best efforts, what's stopping the same thing happening to 1st level PCs? DM fiat? So much for letting the dice fall where they may.
In something other than a story, its quite possible to traverse Moria without meeting the Balrog. In fact, within the story, it was also possible, because both Gandalf and Aragorn had done it before and concievably had the party been more stealthy ("Fool of a Took!") they could have done it again. But what does that have to do with anything? If I'm a DM in a sandbox campaign, I probably won't present the hook of an NPC coming to the characters and saying 'You possess the One Ring of Power' until I suspect that some path allows them to accomplish the quest they are likely to take if they bite the hook.
Sounds narrativist to me. Or are certain of your NPCs omniscient?
It's not like you are going to randomly stumble into Moria or Smaug's Lair. There are huge freakin' campaign sign posts in front of Moria and the Lonely Mountain saying, "Beware adventurer!".
Ultimately, how do the PCs know whether they can handle the threat? Honestly, how can they ever truly know unless they face it?
Do they run from every unknown threat? Very heroic.
Do they boldly step up and face the threat? (Because we are all sitting around the table for
something right?) What if the threat is 10 levels above the party? Is it going to offer them a chance to get out alive? What a coincidence.
Why is it only level appropriate enemies that refuse to show the PCs mercy in sandbox campaigns.
However, quite arguably neither the Balrog nor Smaug are level appropriate encounters for 'the party', and quite arguably no truly dramatic conclusion involves a level appropriate encounter regardless of the character's level.
Don't confuse "level appropriate" with "standard difficulty". There are extremely difficult encounters that are still "level appropriate".
But I maintain that an encounter overwhelmingly hard or easy can never be anything but an anticlimax.
Thirdly, what does level have to do with a discussion of 'cinematic' gameplay anyway. Remember, the levels of the characters alone is irrelevant to how cinematic - or not - an adventure or style of play is.
Emphasis mine.