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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4943444" data-attributes="member: 4937">I said from the first that I thought the problem would be that we couldn't agree on a definition of 'cinematic'.  The problem has since become worse than that though, in that I don't understand the term 'cinematic' as you have been using it.  As you use it, Snoweel, it seems to encompass so many different ideas that it just leaves me confused.For my part, 'cinematic' has a very particular and specific meaning.  A few nights ago I played Settlers of Cataan.  When I remember playing Settler's of Cataan, I remember throwing dice, the position of peices on the board, and talking with my friends.  I remember the actual experience of playing Settler's of Cataan.  This is because Settler's of Cataan is not cinematic.But when I look back at a particularly enjoyable session of playing a role playing game, I don't remember throwing dice or even talking with my friends.  Instead I remember the movie created in my mind by the experience of playing that role playing game.  Instead of remembering the actual experience, it is as as if I instead had watched a movie which I can now remember as vividly as any other movie I have watched.   This is because, when a role playing game is done really well, it is 'cinematic'.  It creates for me the experience of watching a movie, a movie I am creating and sharing with my friends so that, after the movie is over I can talk to them about the movie and (while each of us will have seen a slightly different movie) we will be able to discuss the movie just as if it was any other shared cinematic experience.Thus, to me, the definition is utterly divorced from game elements like 'level'.  I don't believe 4e to be especially cinematic at all, because in my experience the use of minatures is especially crushing to cinematic play.   When you use minatures, you end up creating a separate reality with elmenates the need to create the 'cinematic' experience in order to understand play.   When you look back on the game, you tend to remember looking down on the minatures, moving around the minatures, and the position of minatures on the board.  The game becomes no more cinematic than chess, because the imagined reality which is otherwise necessary to successfully play the game is rendered largely superfluous.  While playing the game what you end up imagining is different board configurations that the board can be in, just as you do when playing chess or Settler's of Cataan.In any event, whether this is the standard definition of 'cinematic' in RPG's (I think it pretty close), this definition has the virtue of speaking concretely about some aspect of the experience of playing RPG's which is completely undependent on 'Epic', 'Dramatic', 'Sand Box', 'Grim-N-Gritty', 'Balanced', or any number of other terms that we could use to describe the experience of playing RPG's.  I don't feel that you've successful disentangled your definition of cinematic from other game concepts, because they keep coming up when you try to describe what you mean.Likewise, you tried to define 'cinematic' by referencing another written work, but you never addressed my (serious but silly sounding) question as to whether that meant you always thought dungeons should be entered from the 'east' or 'left' side of the map to be properly cinematic.</blockquote>

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