Cinematic combat in fantasy RPGs - end unto itself or driven by other factors?

Without a question, recent fantasy RPGs have made phenomenal progress in codifying combat actions to a greater degree them ever, making their effects versatile in play and interesting to experiment with. Warhammer 3rd or D&D 4E could be referenced as the pristine examples of this design success.

There is, however, the added question on how a RPG which incorporates such combat actions best incorporates them in play.

If you know any helpful pointers on this issue, please quote or link them.

Because I haven't really found them, at least not in the systems I reference. So there's the implied conclusion that the systems actually don't bother that much about contextualising combats. Frankly, in a review about a mega-slaughter 4E module I concluded as much, and praised it for offering so much in the department of extraordinary combat locales. In a nutshell, if this is what the module attempts to do, then it succeeds wildly. (I gave it near maximum rating for that.)

There's an interesting review on a 4E module, incidentally by the same guy who I referenced in the 4E DMG 2 thread. I'm going to quote him again in full.

QuoteSeekers of the Ashen Crown - an Eberron module

It seems to be generally agreed that most of the adventure modules produced thus far for 4E Dungeons and Dragons have suffered from similar problems: sparse roleplaying opportunities, large dungeon crawls, and a kind of oppressively generic sensibility. I mildly disagree in a couple of cases (Keep on the Shadowfell's town of Winterhaven is actually a reasonably robust stage for roleplaying and intrigue, and can be usefully expanded upon with minimal effort) but in general I concur.

That's why it is a pleasure to see a module that seems to have taken these critiques to heart, and that (despite the boilerplate advisory that it can be used in any D&D campaign) strives for, and mostly captures, the combination of high adventure and low intrigue that give the Eberron setting its distinctive texture.

Seekers of the Ashen Crown doesn't begin with a bang - its opening segment is a too-long dungeon crawl through a trap-laden and insect-infested tomb - but does a nice job of escalating the tension as the PCs and players slowly realize the true scope of the challenge before them, building up to a couple of very satisfying climactic encounters. The module is also intended to do double duty as a playable introduction to Eberron, and in my experience has functioned reasonably well in that regard, giving me an excuse to work the Emerald Claw, national politics, and warring goblin clans into my game.

There are a lot of well-made and interesting combats and traps laid out in the module, and enough characters, plot hooks, and little opportunities to branch into and out of the main story that running it has felt, for me, reasonably natural and freeform - there isn't quite as much scope for the PCs to act as in one of my own games, where the PCs are free to ignore or short-circuit entire plot arcs - but the module's progression flows in such a way as to not feel like a railroad. What really helps, I think, is that the game is explicitly paced in such a way as to move from roleplaying/investigation to combat to exploration to roleplaying again. As I said earlier, other modules have supplied interesting NPCs and locales to roleplay with - the Forgotten Realms "Tower of Spellgard" module had a great set of characters to interact with outside of its main dungeon - but the modules are structured in such a way that the roleplay is over here to the left, and the dungeon is over here to the right, and never the twain shall meet. Seekers of the Ashen Crown is more integrated, requiring the PCs to interact with NPCs and conduct investigations and explorations right up until the end, and it gets a big thumbs-up from me for that.

There are downsides, however. The mandate to produce a single adventure to carry PCs from levels 2-5 means the book is packed full of combat encounters; more, perhaps, than the amount of story supplied can reasonably bear. I am pleased to report that, in an improvement over previous modules, most of these combats make sense within the context of the story and don't feel utterly arbitrary - however, there is a glaring percentage that fall outside this and feel like xp-padding wastes of time.

The other issue is dungeon crawling. While there thankfully isn't one mega-dungeon the PCs are expected to hack through, the module instead substitutes a number of smaller ones. It's a step forward in the right direction, but it isn't enough. The big problem is that Fourth Edition really is not about dungeon crawling - period. Older editions of D&D had PCs hack their way from room to room in a series of small skirmishes, killing an orc here, a troll there, and hustling through even a large dungeon in a single night. 4E fights are meant to be big tactical setpieces, life-or-death struggles large and significant enough that a single fight is intended to take characters a tenth of the way to the next level. Filling a dungeon with ten of those epic setpiece battles, one after the other, is a recipe for the most extreme boredom. I like 4E's combat, but since it represents both a large investment of time and a large reward for the PCs, I make sure that every fight feels significant and is set up with a lot of story and characterization and avoid back-to-back encounters. The module designers still haven't fully come to grips with this new form of pacing, unfortunately, so Seekers of the Ashen Crown has a couple of spots where it can begin to feel like a grind. Thankfully much of this can be painlessly shortened, to everyone's benefit.

Overall the module represents a real step in the right direction for Wizards of the Coast, but there's more work to be done.

Emphasis added (source of review: amazon.com).

By way of comparison, watch this clip.

It came from the page limit for the Adventure Paths, and became god of the game designers. A terrible practical joke that time played upon us.

James "Miles Dyson" Jacobs, we hates you so much!!! *shakes fist*

Quote from: Windjammer;363564Without a question, recent fantasy RPGs have made phenomenal progress in codifying combat actions to a greater degree them ever, making their effects versatile in play and interesting to experiment with. Warhammer 3rd or D&D 4E could be referenced as the pristine examples of this design success.

Sorry, Wj, but I have to disagree with your premise right from the start.

Systems which codify too much may work against creating a wide-open combat environment. I recall a thread on another board in which a bunch of 4e D&D players were arguing against allowing a character to throw a handful of sand to distract or blind an opponent because it was a stunt and therefore shouldn't be repeatable unless it was a power.

If I want my character to pick up a mug of beer and throw it in another character's face, I don't want to be told that I'm required to have the Blinding Frothtoss encounter power first, or that it's a one-time only stunt because otherwise it's like having a power I can spam every encounter for 'free.'

This is one of the reasons my interest in d20 games, especially D&D, waned as well: I don't like how feats exert dominance over player choices, in and out of combat. Too much rules-think stifles creativity, which is the antithesis of 'cinematic' combat and gameplay.

The combat systems I like best model the physics of the game-world, permitting the players to decide how to turn this into stunts and tricks, instead of codifying those tricks themselves as character abilities.

Quote from: The Shaman;363583Sorry, Wj, but I have to disagree with your premise right from the start.

Systems which codify too much may work against creating a wide-open combat environment. I recall a thread on another board in which a bunch of 4e D&D players were arguing against allowing a character to throw a handful of sand to distract or blind an opponent because it was a stunt and therefore shouldn't be repeatable unless it was a power.

If I want my character to pick up a mug of beer and throw it in another character's face, I don't want to be told that I'm required to have the Blinding Frothtoss encounter power first, or that it's a one-time only stunt because otherwise it's like having a power I can spam every encounter for 'free.'

This is one of the reasons my interest in d20 games, especially D&D, waned as well: I don't like how feats exert dominance over player choices, in and out of combat. Too much rules-think stifles creativity, which is the antithesis of 'cinematic' combat and gameplay.

The combat systems I like best model the physics of the game-world, permitting the players to decide how to turn this into stunts and tricks, instead of codifying those tricks themselves as character abilities.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Codification of moves and options into game mechanics do not automatically make combats more versatile or descriptive. Indeed, they may actually cast its experience into a mold that is predefined, limited in scope, with a lot of "you can/cannot do this or that because the rules say so".

In this regard, this, to me...

Quote from: WJWithout a question, recent fantasy RPGs have made phenomenal progress in codifying combat actions to a greater degree them ever, making their effects versatile in play and interesting to experiment with. Warhammer 3rd or D&D 4E could be referenced as the pristine examples of this design success.

... is wrong right off the bat. If RPGs indeed made leaps forward into the codification of actions in combat, it does not follow that this makes combat any more versatile or interesting than it otherwise would be through role-playing and adjudication. Which ironically, could be illustrated very efficiently by this video you posted at the end of your OP. I see this less as a "progress", personally, than a shift in focus for the games concerned to the benefit of some players and the detriment of others.

Quote from: Settembrini;363565It came from the page limit for the Adventure Paths, and became god of the game designers.

You still beating this lame-ass drum? Still trying to hitch your broken carriage of a hate-on to any rant that comes along?

In reply to Shaman and Benoist - I agree with your point half-way. Me, I'm of the school that any RPG will go better if the GM allows actions not already covered by (i.e. codified into) the rules. Once that point is granted, the number of codified actions in the game doesn't stifle or straightjacket actual gameplay - which is what you attest happens to gamers using such RPGs.

What I also concede is the psychological effect such RPGs have on the players. If there's a huge swath of shiny options, players will pick one of them rather than cook one up all by themselves. For this reason, I've made a card to remind my 4E players that they always have that option on their hand, literally.

I was massively pleased that Warhammer 3rd already included such a card right out of the box:



I guess this will strike you as a lukewarm compromise - why have such a card in the first place? Wouldn't it be better to create a gaming context in which no such card was needed?

Frankly, no, not for me. See my second sentence above why. I'm interested to hear what you make of that.

I haven't really played much 4E, so I can't comment on how well it deals with this issue. But I think it is worth pointing out codifying combat is nothing new. Plenty of games did it in the past (Runequest is a fantasy game that had tons of combat options, as well as finer details like hit location charts). But my sense is most gamers fell into two camps at the time, those who loved that level of detail, and those who found it cumbersome (the later usually played D&D instead).

Again, not having explored 4E very much myself, I don't know how it fits into this. But if the idea is newer games have rules for every possible action, and old games didn't, I have to disagree. I do think some of the newer games appear to do this in a more streamlined manner than some of the older games.

I would also point out that, at a time when online RPGs are increasingly popular, using platforms where all the rules are automated, creating complicated mechanics may not be the way to go if you want the hobby to grow. Someone who is accustomed to the computer doing all the work, might be intimidated by games that have lots of rule to memorize.

I have to say though, I don't recall 4E having a lot of combat options and mechanics when I played it. Unless the OP is referring to the powers. If anything, the game seemed to cover less ground than the previous edition (particularly with skills---and not saying that is a bad thing).

Quote from: Windjammer;363598In reply to Shaman and Benoist - I agree with your point half-way. Me, I'm of the school that any RPG will go better if the GM allows actions not already covered by (i.e. codified into) the rules. Once that point is granted, the number of codified actions in the game doesn't stifle or straightjacket actual gameplay - which is what you attest happens to gamers using such RPGs.

What I also concede is the psychological effect such RPGs have on the players. If there's a huge swath of shiny options, players will pick one of them rather than cook one up all by themselves. For this reason, I've made a card to remind my 4E players that they always have that option on their hand, literally.

I was massively pleased that Warhammer 3rd already included such a card right out of the box:
(...)

I guess this will strike you as a lukewarm compromise - why have such a card in the first place? Wouldn't it be better to create a gaming context in which no such card was needed?

Frankly, no, not for me. See my second sentence above why. I'm interested to hear what you make of that.

I see where you're coming from, in the sense that I love, say, 3rd edition rules if you take the approach you mention in your second setence right out the gate.

The issue comes from the fact that this is not how these kinds of rules are played by many gaming groups, who, instead, interpret these rules as strict boundaries of what characters in the game world can and can't do. Further down the road, new gamers brought to the game via these designs do not even get to know that the game itself is as wide open and creative and they want it to be, because the design itself obfuscates it through needless rules minutiae.

The issue becomes bothersome to me, personally, when these gaming groups end up being the ones further designs on the game catter to, almost exclusively. The fact that the evolution of the D&D game for instance went the way of ever increasing codification, and on/off "can/can't do" switches by the way of feats, powers and abilities, alter the nature of the game in such a way as to make it anathema to my own expectations regarding game play. If I am fighting against the design of the game to get the experience I want out of it, at some point, I will just decide to play another game that fits my expectations better.

This is what happened to me between 3rd and 4th edition.

This later evolved to the point where I had to ask myself, as you pointed out in your answer, "Why settle for the lukewarm compromise in the first place? Why have such a card in the first place? Wouldn't it be better to create a gaming context in which no such card was needed?" To which my answer, by then, was clearly "Yes".

I still love the basic concept of feats, for instance, but would put them in play in an OD&D game in a widely different way, now, which would completely erase the pitfall of "on/off", "can/can't do" switches which I see as their main design flaw. That's actually exactly what I'm toying with lately, as far as my house rules are concerned.

Quote from: The Shaman;363583I recall a thread on another board in which a bunch of 4e D&D players were arguing against allowing a character to throw a handful of sand to distract or blind an opponent because it was a stunt and therefore shouldn't be repeatable unless it was a power.

If I want my character to pick up a mug of beer and throw it in another character's face, I don't want to be told that I'm required to have the Blinding Frothtoss encounter power first, or that it's a one-time only stunt because otherwise it's like having a power I can spam every encounter for 'free.'

I would laugh players who would even dare to suggest such out of a gaming event.  Or DMs.  You have got to be SHITTING ME.  People ACTUALLY SUGGESTED THROWING SA-

God amighty.

Now I get it.  Or rather, now I get why I get it.  D&D 4 (and to a lesser degree D&D3, and a tiny bit 2e AD&D) aren't "for" me.  They're not for my open mindset. There's a video where some muckety muck from Wotc was running a game for the Robot Chicken potheadsproducers and a player picked up his mini (in a non-combat situation) and counted off the number of squares he was moving...and I couldn't fathom that that could matter except in combat, that otherwise, you'd just say "I'm going to check out the door" and put your mini next to it (if you were using them and if the DM said it'd be needed)...but yeah, people arguing that, that throwing sand was some kind of superpower...I'm starting to grok the mindset.  It's all becoming clear to me now.

It just isn't "for" me.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;363680It just isn't "for" me.

That's the part I could never stand in 3rd ed. It is possible to work your way around it with the right mindset (from players and DM), and then the genius of the system shines through, IMO, but it is generally tiresome to work against so many little annoying details all the time.

With 4e now... forget it. I'm not going through this again, now that it's an integral part of the game's very design.

Give me a creative player over one who knows the rules any day.  New players are oftentimes better at this stuff than old-hands because they don't think in terms of rules, they think in terms of "How is my character going to do this?"

I had thought I had lost my players to the rules a while back, but then one Exalted session last summer they began asking around for barrels of oil, caltrops, and other misc materials.  We never had so much fun in a session.  We were using the rules as guidelines to help do what we wanted rather than doing what we wanted with the rules.  If that makes sense.  I'm kind of tired.  

Quote from: Peregrin;363688I had thought I had lost my players to the rules a while back, but then one Exalted session last summer they began asking around for barrels of oil, caltrops, and other misc materials.  We never had so much fun in a session.  We were using the rules as guidelines to help do what we wanted rather than doing what we wanted with the rules.  If that makes sense.  I'm kind of tired.  

It actually totally makes sense. Never fear.

It's cineastic combat, not cinematic.

Quote from: Benoist;363687That's the part I could never stand in 3rd ed. It is possible to work your way around it with the right mindset (from players and DM), and then the genius of the system shines through, IMO, but it is generally tiresome to work against so many little annoying details all the time.

With 4e now... forget it. I'm not going through this again, now that it's an integral part of the game's very design.

DMG Page 42 (4e) was written to deal with the sand throwing issue.  It's, to me, more integrated into 4e than it was in 3e.

Quote from: Mistwell;363740DMG Page 42 (4e) was written to deal with the sand throwing issue.  It's, to me, more integrated into 4e than it was in 3e.

The problem being that it is in the DMG. It should be a card available to players that they can hold in their hand with their other power cards. WFRP3e learned from 4e failure in this regard.