Observations on matching "One vs. Many" combat mechanics to cinematic combat

[jasper]

What do you think?
1.Try to make rpg combat simulate movie has been a waste of time since the ink was first drying on the original D&D books.
2.Two different medias which look like they should taste great together, don't.
3.Trying to build a PC base on the cool moves of movie character, has been a headache for GM and players since 1.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

In spite of many games' promises, combat in RPGs often does not feel all that cinematic. One situation in which this becomes apparent in RPG rulesets are 'One-vs-Many' combat situations. The default solution in role-playing games -round robin-style attacks by the outnumbering force (since everyone can attack once per round)- is boardgame-like and does not correspond to the observable combat dynamics in most choreographed combats. In the worst case scenario, things even turn unheroic: when the last bandit, beset from all sides by PCs, finally collapses under a hail of strikes. This is hardly evocative of glorious movie combat.

So, what's the situation like in movies and TV shows instead?

Unless one of the 'heroes' can be bothered to confront the final enemy alone in an honorable mano-a-mano duel, by no means all members of the outnumbering force each attack in every round. Usually, any given number of them may hesitate instead - or end up being temporarily blocked by their own allies.

One example is the following from HBO's Game of Thrones:
[video=youtube;1gCgeMDj8Rw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gCgeMDj8Rw[/video]

Also, there is this scene from LotR:
[video=youtube;Sk47qO8rW4Y]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk47qO8rW4Y[/video]

And in this scene from Conan the Barbarian simultaneous or coordinated attacks by the outnumbering side remain rare as well:
[video=youtube;Z3kBWP231hI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3kBWP231hI[/video]

Reviewing the above scenes, we got to ask ourselves: is the standard RPG approach of round robin attacks really the proper approach to simulating movie fights? Based on the evidence (and many, many more scenes can be drawn on to confirm that this is, in fact, typical), the answer is probably 'no.'

Bridging this gulf between film and RPGs obviously requires that not every outnumbering force member gets to attack the single combatant in every round - only a subset (minimum: 1) may do so. Of course several other aspects concerning this situation need to be observed (who can attack and parry how often, how does withdrawal from combat work, etc), however the central element for delivering truly cinematic battles here lies in abandoning the concept of 'attacks for everyone in each round.'

Can't we just simulate all of that by applying a negative modifier to attack rolls?
Probably not a good solution, even if it's simpler and faster. Anecdotal evidence teaches that most GMs and players do not interpret failed attack rolls as hesitating or obstruction by allies - but as striking at the enemy and missing ('whiff') - which once again bestows a boardgame-like feel to dynamics of combat. It might be faster but it's just not evocative of cinema action.

What do you think?

As a DM i'm not trying to replicate another medium, I'm trying to make the fight fun in the game system. If I told the players that they couldn't gang stomp the badguy since it wouldn't be cinematic I'd get laughed at and as a player I'd be very unhappy with not getting attacks when I can clearly engage. and as a DM i have my dastardly minions of evil do all kinds of gang attacks and flanks and whatnot. They don't stand around so one can have a glorious single combat...unless there is some character reason to do so. The number of foes who can attack is determined by who can get into a clean engagement with them, and since I use minis that is often 4-8 guys.

Sorry I'm not more help with this. But I don't think D&D is the system for the kind of play you are looking for without major house ruling.

 

[Alexander Kalinowski]

You claim multiple times that you want characters to have the ability to properly assess a situation

Well, here's where I think many combat systems go wrong: let's take the called shot to the head. You can't force that in every situation - it's only a good idea when you catch the enemy not guarding it. We're not simulating this detail in combat. The assessment of the situation is about other aspects of the scene.
As for PbtA, it abstracts some things away that I'd rather not have abstracted away. And for people who rather care about story and/or who look at combat as just a specific part of on-going story, it doing so is just fine.

Two things: Harnmaster is a red herring -- you don't care about designing for Harnmaster, so bringing it up as a counter-example is just chaff. Second, "trad" is doing a lot of work. Let's be clear, you're designing for 5e.

Hell, no. d100 >> d20. Don't hate D&D either, it's an okay game, I occasionally play in its ruleset. These days in the form of Star Wars Saga ed.

Also, there's nothing in 5e that says you fire 2 arrows a round [...] but DW isn't a clueless guessing game on the part of the players.

True

If you climb, you use this set of rules for climbing which don't care about the overall fiction of the climb, just that if you climb this much you use this mechanic to make a succeed/failure check. That's not fiction and mechanics tightly coupled, it's just a process sim.

I find the difference between process and fiction artificial and you probably can't draw a good line between them. In trad games, fiction emerges from the interaction of elements. As soon as something changes in the world, you got story. Whether it's an interesting story or not is a different question.
But I am glad that you're acknowledging the difference in detail and abstraction level. There's a fork in the road here, which is: "I feel I am in the situation if we focus more on the big picture of the scene and its role in the overall story" versus "I feel I am in the situation if the scene is represented in detail in the mechanics". That's probably the diverging underlying philosophies between trad (or rather sim?) and narrative. And that's fine. I don't hate narrative, I merely wouldn't want it to be my daily bread-and-butter games.

But really fights against the idea of cinematic combats and is the direct reason that there are no good systems for cinematic combats in process sims.

That is not something I can agree to, I'm afraid. Speedy combat resolution is good but you're not going to be as fast as actual cinematic fight anyway. And then it becomes, once again, a matter of setting priorities - accurate sim of events versus speed.

What's the difference in 5e? Rhetorical question answer: none.

What's the difference in Shadowrun (+2 Defense), Dark Heresy (-20 BS), GURPS (complicated calculation), etc.? There's one and sometimes a significant one. This matters to some of us gamers out here. In fact, it matters to someof us, that the difference is not expressed in a generic handicap (like Disadvantage) but that different circumstances give different modifiers. Which, again, boils down to how much rules and detail-work you can stomach. But to some of us these modifiers makes the words of the GM alive when he declares: "The orc turns sideways and tries to reach cover but you can shoot before he reaches it." Without such specific modiers some of us don't feel really in the scene.

So far, you've shown very little understanding of other systems and how they work.

You've been arguing against a strawman in the last part of your reply, I'm afraid.

You can't get everything within 5e, for instance, because it's system prioritizes and incentivizes certain themes and design goals. Same with PbtA games: they do some things poorly that 5e does well.

There's a third category of gamers who are not fully happy with either D&D or Dungeon World. People who want detailed process instead but faithful to either realism or whatever genre/IP they try to recreate. These gamers didn't have much of a voice in recent years but they still do exist (I do count many fans of Shadowrun among them, btw).

I can enjoy everything from a hard-math sim wargame, to relatively abstract board games, to trad mechanics, to modern rpgs. They all have strengths and weaknesses for me.

Absolutely. 2 years ago I ran a Trail of Cthulhu one-shot which was better than any CoC adventure I had played till date. But that was mostly because of the uncompromising adherence to puritan Lovecraft, ending in a (more or less) hard-scripted TPK - the monster had no stats, it couldn't be defeated. Everyone had great fun dying or going insane!
While I agree with your general sentiment, I do have a preference for my bread-and-butter games. And for me these do not lie in the D&D-style nor the narrative-style games. They do lie in the Shadowrun/Hârnmaster/etc style of slightly more complex rulesets.

For me, one of the big weaknesses of a system like traditional mechanics is the real-world speed at which it resolves and the focus on the sidecar physics mechanics.

Yes but even in PbtA you're probably not going to reach real world speeds, even if you play it fast. And you're right that if you go into the sim side, you pick very carefully what to model and what to abstract away. Compromises need to be made in any case, no matter the system.
And round-robin style attacks, to return to the topic, put ME into a world of Xs and Os. It's boardgame-like.

Oh I get that. My problem with this idea is that between turn-based action and the weird fuzziness that comes with HP....

The third part of my comparing movie fights with combat rules in RPGs will focus on how damage works in movies.
I'm checking in these threads here if my logic regarding my observations is sound and I'm looking if anyone has suggestions for better/easier/faster/simpler/more accurately capturing the spirit of cinematic combat than the game rules I have come in my own RPG system (no, it's decidedly not a D&D off-shot, unless we consider all RPGs D&D offs-shoots).

 

[Ratskinner]

Yes but even in PbtA you're probably not going to reach real world speeds, even if you play it fast.

Not with a ruleset that is also trying to push cinematics, no. You can beat real-world speeds with some variants that reduce combat to a single roll.

The third part of my comparing movie fights with combat rules in RPGs will focus on how damage works in movies.

Yikes. That's a tough one, because even within some sub genres "Injury" can vary wildly. I cant remember which movie it was, but one guy gets hurt early on, then he later tortures one of the heroes inflicting the same wound. Yet they seemed to have totally different impacts on the characters involved.

I'm checking in these threads here if my logic regarding my observations is sound and I'm looking if anyone has suggestions for better/easier/faster/simpler/more accurately capturing the spirit of cinematic combat than the game rules I have come in my own RPG system (no, it's decidedly not a D&D off-shot, unless we consider all RPGs D&D offs-shoots).

One thing I think you need to consider in many regards here is the "held at gunpoint" problem that trad rpgs have. Movie heroes are constantly held at bay or captured this way, but rpg HP totals often make the guards' crossbows a joke.* Another thing that might help both this and your first problem is some kind of courage/intimidation rolls that have to be made to engage. I'd imagine a ton of situational modifiers, but maybe there's a way to make it easier.

Come to think of it, a running "Courage" score for an action hero might be the answer to a lot of things. So, maybe you must spend courage to make attacks, or other action-y things, but you regain them in those moments when the character talk openly about their emotional needs to save the girlfriend...or whatever. Individual players could choose the recovery methods for their character to reflect their place/motivation. So, for example, a "duty bound" character gets some Courage when he gets his orders, but also when he pauses to restate those orders "I'm taking you in, Mr. Badguy." (Many movie fights involve pauses for the adversaries to talk or trade barbs. Those could just be times when they are pausing to re-charge their Courage stores. Might explain villains monologuing, too. I could easily imagine rules for Protectors, Hunter/Sleuths, Avengers, Zealots, Soldiers, probably more the longer I think about it. Probably should include ways to lose courage as well. Like, if the Protector sees an innocent held at gunpoint, he loses all Courage. Villains, I would think, can only gain courage when they see part of their plan thwarted. Thus, when the hero is first captured, the villain throws him in a tank with laser-armed sharks. Its only after the hero has impacted his plan that the villain can finally just try to straight-up shoot him.

I dunno if that's clear or not, but just having had the idea, its a little muddy yet.


*I'm reminded of an incident in a 1e campaign from years ago. The party is surrounded by badguys with crossbows and they demand surrender:
BARBARIAN: Every single one of them could hit and crit and I would still kill them all.
WIZARD: umm....I think three would kill me.

 

[S'mon]

BTW a system which does actually have mooks standing (or hunkering) around doing nothing is GDW's Twilight: 2000, at least the 1990 version I own. Combat rounds are 30 seconds, divided into I think 5 segments. Characters have Initiative, typically 1-5. Init 5 you act on every segment 5-4-3-2-1. Init 4 you act on 4-3-2-1, down to init 1 you only act on the last segment. So a high Init PCs can mow through low Init mooks not by having tons of hp but by getting 4 segments of attacks before they do anything.

It's actually intended to emulate firefights and the tendency of many combatants to basically just lie there.

I think if you want a heavily simulationist system that gives 'cinematic' results with mooks often not doing much yet still being dangerous, then the best choice is probably BRP (since PCs are inherently vulnerable), and give characters a 'cool' or 'coordination' or 'initiative' attribute which they have to roll against to act, unless they are being directly attacked.

 

[Alexander Kalinowski]

Yikes. That's a tough one, because even within some sub genres "Injury" can vary wildly. I cant remember which movie it was, but one guy gets hurt early on, then he later tortures one of the heroes inflicting the same wound. Yet they seemed to have totally different impacts on the characters involved.

You can't be consistent across all movies and all franchises and all genres. But if you take a look big picture, a few relevations emerge. I'll get back to it.

One thing I think you need to consider in many regards here is the "held at gunpoint" problem that trad rpgs have. Movie heroes are constantly held at bay or captured this way, but rpg HP totals often make the guards' crossbows a joke.* Another thing that might help both this and your first problem is some kind of courage/intimidation rolls that have to be made to engage. I'd imagine a ton of situational modifiers, but maybe there's a way to make it easier.

This is a great point: I'm currently designing a scenario for my system which involves a dragon and so far I have had the fear factor only impact attack/defense, not closing the range. Thanks for pointing this out.
As for the being held at gunpoint, I observed that Mooks are lousy shots unless it becomes too unplausible that they would miss ("held at gunpoint"). So if they don't have a certain "final" percentage to hit, they'll get another -15% (or rather something like that) saddled on top of it, which makes it kinda unlikely for them to hit.

Come to think of it, a running "Courage" score for an action hero might be the answer to a lot of things.

By doing that, you're making the game about Courage. Maybe not as strongly as Vampire made the game about Humanity but you still communicate via the character sheet: Courage is one central theme in this game. We're bothering to giving it a dedicated pool of points. Not a bad idea - but I would use it only if that's the game I wanted to run.

*I'm reminded of an incident in a 1e campaign from years ago. The party is surrounded by badguys with crossbows and they demand surrender:
BARBARIAN: Every single one of them could hit and crit and I would still kill them all.
WIZARD: umm....I think three would kill me.

Yeah, that reminds me that part of my trouble with D&D is that hitpoints easily evoke "being meatpoints". Certainly, you don't have to narrate losing hitpoints as being wounded (and you probably shouldn't) but it's an impulse you consciously have to fight against. I think good dice mechanics are mechanics that evoke the right mental imagery on their own. (But since combat is so complex, you'll always have to make compromises.)

BTW a system which does actually have mooks standing (or hunkering) around doing nothing is GDW's Twilight: 2000

Ah, yes, the original Twilight. "Coolness under Fire", I remember.

I think if you want a heavily simulationist system that gives 'cinematic' results with mooks often not doing much yet still being dangerous, then the best choice is probably BRP (since PCs are inherently vulnerable), and give characters a 'cool' or 'coordination' or 'initiative' attribute which they have to roll against to act, unless they are being directly attacked.

I've developed my own system and I'm doing something like that (but rolling against fighting skill because experienced fighter hesitate less and move so that their allies block them less frequently). I don't like entirely adding another roll and the frustration potential it brings but the it is the most accurate solution I have come up with.

Good discussion, guys!

 

[Bedrockgames]

In spite of many games' promises, combat in RPGs often does not feel all that cinematic. One situation in which this becomes apparent in RPG rulesets are 'One-vs-Many' combat situations. The default solution in role-playing games -round robin-style attacks by the outnumbering force (since everyone can attack once per round)- is boardgame-like and does not correspond to the observable combat dynamics in most choreographed combats. In the worst case scenario, things even turn unheroic: when the last bandit, beset from all sides by PCs, finally collapses under a hail of strikes. This is hardly evocative of glorious movie combat.

So, what's the situation like in movies and TV shows instead?

Unless one of the 'heroes' can be bothered to confront the final enemy alone in an honorable mano-a-mano duel, by no means all members of the outnumbering force each attack in every round. Usually, any given number of them may hesitate instead - or end up being temporarily blocked by their own allies.

One example is the following from HBO's Game of Thrones:
[video=youtube;1gCgeMDj8Rw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gCgeMDj8Rw[/video]

Also, there is this scene from LotR:
[video=youtube;Sk47qO8rW4Y]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk47qO8rW4Y[/video]

And in this scene from Conan the Barbarian simultaneous or coordinated attacks by the outnumbering side remain rare as well:
[video=youtube;Z3kBWP231hI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3kBWP231hI[/video]

Reviewing the above scenes, we got to ask ourselves: is the standard RPG approach of round robin attacks really the proper approach to simulating movie fights? Based on the evidence (and many, many more scenes can be drawn on to confirm that this is, in fact, typical), the answer is probably 'no.'

Bridging this gulf between film and RPGs obviously requires that not every outnumbering force member gets to attack the single combatant in every round - only a subset (minimum: 1) may do so. Of course several other aspects concerning this situation need to be observed (who can attack and parry how often, how does withdrawal from combat work, etc), however the central element for delivering truly cinematic battles here lies in abandoning the concept of 'attacks for everyone in each round.'

Can't we just simulate all of that by applying a negative modifier to attack rolls?
Probably not a good solution, even if it's simpler and faster. Anecdotal evidence teaches that most GMs and players do not interpret failed attack rolls as hesitating or obstruction by allies - but as striking at the enemy and missing ('whiff') - which once again bestows a boardgame-like feel to dynamics of combat. It might be faster but it's just not evocative of cinema action.

What do you think?

My view is either freeform or standard initiative systems are the way to go (actually quite like how the savage worlds use of cards keeps things pretty easy to track, which I find helps the game move faster). For me the key is speed. Movie fighting occurs pretty quickly. So I like games that can keep combat to under a few rounds, and where rounds don't take forever. But it depends on what you are emulating. I don't mind slowing down to emulate certain things. I think honestly there are tradeoffs with pretty much any approach.

 

[pemerton]

I find the difference between process and fiction artificial and you probably can't draw a good line between them. In trad games, fiction emerges from the interaction of elements. As soon as something changes in the world, you got story. Whether it's an interesting story or not is a different question.

The point about hit points, as I understand it, is that the mechanical changes - like deducting hp from a running tally - don't correlate to any particular fictional change - like some sort of injury.

D&D and its offshoots are the worst culprits in this respect, but it can be found in other systems too: Classic Traveller has "abstract" damage, though deducted from physical stats rather than a distinct pool. Prince Valiant also has injury = stat reduction; so does Tunnels & Trolls. Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic has a Physical Stress/Trauma rating that doesn't correspond to any particular form of injury. Etc

I think this either puts some pressure on your claim about fiction/mechanics interaction, or on your category of "trad games".

Come to think of it, a running "Courage" score for an action hero might be the answer to a lot of things. So, maybe you must spend courage to make attacks, or other action-y things, but you regain them in those moments when the character talk openly about their emotional needs to save the girlfriend...or whatever.

Burning Wheel has a Steel mechanic that can serve some of these purposes, but it is not a resource and so doesn't work quite like what you describe here.

 

[S'mon]

The point about hit points, as I understand it, is that the mechanical changes - like deducting hp from a running tally - don't correlate to any particular fictional change - like some sort of injury.

Loss of hp normally correlates to an attack causing loss of stamina - may have been parried, deflected by armour, glancing blow, scratch, etc. Whereas a miss means no loss of stamina.

Thinking of hp as stamina (as per old Fighting Fantasy!) rather than meat tends to work pretty well, especially with the old approach to poison saves which didn't relate them to CON and resisting the poison, rather Gygax said that the save was to determine whether the character actually got scratched - failed save = yes = death.

 

[Alexander Kalinowski]

For me the key is speed. Movie fighting occurs pretty quickly.

Speed is good but you're never going to be anywhere near movie speed anyway. So what we're discussing is the difference in slo-mo factor. If a movie fights takes 1 minute, then resolving it in 15 minutes versus 45 minutes is (imho) not that important for the cinematic factor. That said, I like to seeing players take decisions under time pressure.

I think this either puts some pressure on your claim about fiction/mechanics interaction, or on your category of "trad games".

I don't see that, to be honest. You have to look at the rationalization that each game gives to understand what the damage represents. In the case of hitpoints, it is in a number of D&D editions a mix of meatpoints and luck. (Part of why my feelings towards D&D are lukewarm is the lack of distinction between these two separate resources.)
So, if a D&D GM wants to narrate the effect of a combatant losing 12 HPs, he'll either describe some kind of injury or he'll describe narrowly escaping injury, thus escaping luck. (As an aside, I find that Matt Mercer, as far as I have observed his GMing style, pretty much always does the former and I suspect many D&D GMs do. Hitpoints are not an evocative mechanic, they do not conjure the right imagery by themselves, as far as mixing meatpoints and fortune goes.)

In the case of Traveller it represents the effects of injury as well. The loss in physical stats represents injury. It's the ruleset's way of saying: you've been wounded. Therefore you narrate this event as GM as some character getting wounded.

Some damage abstractions are not very evocative of the fictional events associated with them (but they're associated nonetheless through the game's rules). If we conversely determine a wound in Hârnmaster, we have a pretty good idea of what just happened - it evokes fairly detailed mental imagery.