How one wishes to depict their vision of cinematic many-v-1 combats determines the mechanics they want to use.

If you wish to emulate the group of mooks attacking the hero one at a time, dictate that no more than one mook can attack a PC every round.

If you wish to emulate the hero mowing down multiple mooks at a time, clump them together as one combatant and refer to it as a mook squad. Alternatively, you can give the PCs a circumstantial AoE attack that only applies to mooks (a la Dynasty Warriors). Alternatively, you can allow the PCs to take multiple actions per turn.

For D&D I use Solo Heroes from Sine Nomine.  It does the job I like.

One word in your first post sums up the problem


choreographed


This is quite similar to the problem most RPGs have in simulating fiction, and that is they try to make rules to adjudicate a wide range of actions without greatly limiting player choice, while attempting to simulate the action in a medium where the outcome has been pre-determined by an author (script).

Action sequences in movies are based around what is cool. When it makes for a cool scene all the baddies attack, when it is cooler to have one on one, that is what they do.

Quote from: Toadmaster;1074113One word in your first post sums up the problem


choreographed


This is quite similar to the problem most RPGs have in simulating fiction, and that is they try to make rules to adjudicate a wide range of actions without greatly limiting player choice, while attempting to simulate the action in a medium where the outcome has been pre-determined by an author (script).

Action sequences in movies are based around what is cool. When it makes for a cool scene all the baddies attack, when it is cooler to have one on one, that is what they do.

That is true, but real fighting is not like initiative combat. Even if you are not trying to emulate film, but trying to emulate real life, round robin can fall short. Personally I think there is nothing wrong with genre emulation, trying to be cinematic. I just think it is worth keeping in mind the strengths and weaknesses of the RPG medium when you do those things. The Doctor Who roleplaying game for example does a great job of emulating how the doctor talks his way out of combat by making it the first step of initiative.

Quote from: capvideo;1074089That said, I cringe when I hear words like "recreate" used to describe RPGs in comparison to movies, tv, books. Unless there's a director and writer controlling both the opponents and the PCs, recreating is going to be counterproductive to fun and interesting.

Quote from: Toadmaster;1074113One word in your first post sums up the problem

Such responses have happened in other forums before and it leaves me a bit perplexed every time, I must admit. Above I have pointed out there being demand for cinematic combat. I have also been looking at the thing that is being simulated (actually, emulated) and I am presenting a pattern in it, across various movies and TV shows. Whether the pattern came about due to spontaneous actions by the actors or whether they've been planned by a choreographer doesn't really make a difference with regards to emulation. If the pattern exists and it is relevant enough, try to capture and recreate it - either through rules or through narration.

The term "emulate" (as opposed to "simulate") is key here. HOW the scene came into being is irrelevant to emulation. In simulation, we need to model the inner workings. In emulation, we fashion it after the outwards appearance of the object of emulation.

As to the fun aspect of it, we will have to acknowledge differences in taste. It's clear that some players are going to balk if they're in threat range and are being informed that they can't attack this turn, try again next one. At the same time I have been sitting in RPG sessions, being turned off that everyone, including me, DID get to attack the last bandit which died under a hail of our attacks. It goes counter to MY idea of fun and I would rather have had a ruleset that had possibly forced me to stay out for a turn or two.

Quote from: ronwisegamgee;1074102If you wish to emulate the group of mooks attacking the hero one at a time, dictate that no more than one mook can attack a PC every round.

Well, "being blocked off" or hesitating does not just happen to Mooks, as pointed out further above. And the number of "outnumberers" who can attack can fluctuate between 1 and number of attacks in threat range (see the Tower of Joy fight for the latter).

Quote from: S'mon;1074090Re death of Yoren scene, that reminded me of schoolyard fighting as a child. I remember facing off vs a gang and going for the leader - and as hoped, the 'mooks' actually did just stand there watching while we fought.

That reminds me of another thing that came out of debating the subject in a German RPG forum. We've likened the hesitation part by people on the flanks and in the rear a bit to the situation of a football (soccer) player who's got the ball and runs unopposed at the enemy goalkeeper. It's a huge chance to score a goal and many inexperienced (and sometimes even experienced ones) players can't help but get nervous and get into thinking too much - which, of course, makes them screw up and squander this excellent opportunity.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1074117Such responses have happened in other forums before and it leaves me a bit perplexed every time, I must admit. Above I have pointed out there being demand for cinematic combat.

But that is the problem with trying to simulate, emulate or what ever adjective you choose fiction. The author, or movie director will dictate what is cool in that moment. You act as if cinematic is a single concise style, but it isn't. In one scene it may be the hero facing off one on one, and in the next he is mobbed and overwhelmed by 5 because that is "what the story decides".

Not really sure how you balance the two extremes of what you can find in fiction. I suppose the GM can decide which fits the moment, but I don't expect that to go over well with most groups. "Ok, now we use the screw over the PCs combat system, because you are supposed to get captured here".


If your entire complaint is with everybody having the same number of attacks, lots of games address that point. D&D provides additional attacks as character rise in level, BRP/RQ has strike ranks (actions), HERO has speed, Twilight 2000 has Coolness under fire. Plenty of games have "mook" rules.

Quote from: Toadmaster;1074123But that is the problem with trying to simulate, emulate or what ever adjective you choose fiction. The author, or movie director will dictate what is cool in that moment. You act as if cinematic is a single concise style, but it isn't. In one scene it may be the hero facing off one on one, and in the next he is mobbed and overwhelmed by 5 because that is "what the story decides".

For that objection to be valid, you would have to demonstrate that there is a strong correlation between which side is supposed to win and how many members of the outnumbering side can attack. After having studied a plethora of such combat situations in various fantasy movies and TV shows, I cannot detect any such correlation - much less a strong one. Instead, a 5 or 6 second segment in which every member around a lone fighter attacks (the cinematic equivalent of a round-robin attack) is a complete exception, no matter the final outcome.  Arthur Dayne is supposed to murder Ned Stark's men, yet they largely attack together. Conversely, in the Yoren death scene, there's plenty of outnumbering members who don't attack at times. Same in the Barristan Selmy death scene:

[video=youtube;05Gzy6QSJ2g]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05Gzy6QSJ2g[/youtube]

Quote from: Toadmaster;1074123Not really sure how you balance the two extremes of what you can find in fiction. I suppose the GM can decide which fits the moment, but I don't expect that to go over well with most groups. "Ok, now we use the screw over the PCs combat system, because you are supposed to get captured here".

Well, if the players are supposed to get capture, it's kinda poor form to make that happen in the combat rules. In that case, if you want to run it that way by all means, it's better to just declare what happens and how they get captured. Or present them with such an overwhelming force that they surrender themselves.

Other than that, a combat system or a narration can account for what seems to be the standard model in cinematic combat - that the number of people who can attack at roughly the same time a lone enemy is fairly random. (Also, remember that you don't have to take account of every fight scene - only for the majority of them.)

Quote from: Toadmaster;1074123If your entire complaint is with everybody having the same number of attacks, lots of games address that point. D&D provides additional attacks as character rise in level, BRP/RQ has strike ranks (actions), HERO has speed, Twilight 2000 has Coolness under fire. Plenty of games have "mook" rules.

The complaint is about everyone in threat range getting to roll to attack in each round, at least for 3 to 6 second rounds. It does not naturally evoke the right, cinematic mental imagery. You can still narrate that cinematically by interpreting a missed attack roll as hesitation or getting blocked. But it does not come natural. You first need to be aware of what's cinematic and then you need to do the mental effort of remembering it and doing a reinterpretation, possibly after 7 hours of gaming.

My personal gaming experience tells me (and observing how other people play online has done nothing to dispell that) that round-robin attacks will get narrated this way frequently:
- "Cleetus, your turn. Roll for Attack."
- "Nope, I fail."
" "Alright, you miss. BillyBobJoe, you're next."

It is boardgame-like, it is static and it does not conform the cinematic combat standards.

I actually think round robin init is more likely to create the cinematic result of characters blocking each other and some not being able to attack, than is side based init.

With side based init everyone moves to surround the lone foe then attack together. With round robin combined with limited movement and not being able to move through allies spaces you very likely do get a situation where not everyone can attack, unless the foe just stands in one place round after round.

So I think I recommend:

Round robin init.
Limited move, like 5e dnd 30' move.
Can't move through ally's space.
Can't shoot through ally's space.

You could also give mooks morale check to engage, but once engaged they will normally keep fighting.

To keep the lone hero moving and exploiting the battlefield a 5' step move that does not provoke opp atts as in 3e & 4e dnd may be best. Or 4e style maneuver powers.

I definitely think 4e dnd did the best job of emulating Hollywood combat that I have seen in an RPG and discouraged static battles, so maybe look there for inspiration. This came at the price of fights always taking an hour though.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1074145It is boardgame-like, it is static and it does not conform the cinematic combat standards.

I guess I just haven't really run across this issue, but my preferred games (HERO, BRP) have a speed mechanic so it doesn't usually boil down to you go, I go.

There was another post recently discussing static combat (combatants just standing in place wacking at each other) so you don't seem to be alone in his issue. Again, the games I mostly have played allowed for and even encouraged movement.

Quote from: S'mon;1074150I definitely think 4e dnd did the best job of emulating Hollywood combat that I have seen in an RPG and discouraged static battles, so maybe look there for inspiration. This came at the price of fights always taking an hour though.

I find for me, it tends to feel more cinematic if it is faster. Long combats, especially if it is uses the grid, tends to feel much more gamey to me. I think both 3E and 4E tend to lean on longer fights. I remember some of my 3e combats taking well over an hour.

Isn't 4E more on the gamist end rather than genre simulation?

Anyway, on the issue of dynamic fights: game rules only have so much complexity capital to spend, right? I am not sure if it's wisely spend excessively changing everyone's positioning from round to round. If you're playing with minis, it means you're constantly shuffling minis. If you're playing theatre of the mind, as I do, the GM has to constantly update his behind-the-screen sketch of the scene. So you got to weigh how far you want to take it.

For me, as a GM, the information who can attack in a given round and who cannot is probably sufficient to emulate this aspect of cinematic combat. Because then I can construct a narration out of that for why some characters cannot/do not attack, while their allies' attacks are being resolved. A whole, more dynamic picture of the on-going scene can be formed out of that. Look at the Hound's chicken fight scene above for how that can go.

As for speed, it does have some importance but let's face it - even in a rules-light system you're probably not going anywhere near the speed of an actual movie fight. There will always be some slo-mo factor. So it is important - but not that important to me, personally.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1074117Such responses have happened in other forums before and it leaves me a bit perplexed every time, I must admit.…

The term "emulate" (as opposed to "simulate") is key here. HOW the scene came into being is irrelevant to emulation. In simulation, we need to model the inner workings. In emulation, we fashion it after the outwards appearance of the object of emulation.

Well, that's why we need clarification of terms. In my view, you cannot "emulate" Hollywood-style fictions without how they got that way--with a director/script controlling all contestants. The same seems true to me for the word "fashion"; it conjures all the wrong connotations about GM's wresting control from the players over their characters to fashion the story in their minds.

I think it's great to take inspiration from such fights as exist in Lord of the Rings or The Worm Ouroboros. But the word inspiration is about as far as I'd go, with English the way I know it.

The thing about there being a "demand" for cinematic combat is that if there is a demand, it will mostly happen; D&D--old-school, anyway--certainly allows players to have their characters act that way, and to an extent the rules back them up. They might lose hit points swinging from the chandeliers, but they aren't going to break their legs or knock themselves out. In that sense, players are encouraged to do wild things and are not punished for it.

I think it might help a lot to see some intended play examples--what do the players do, how do they have their characters act, in the hoped-for emulation, and then, consider reasons (rules or guidelines) for why they don't act in other ways counter to the the hoped-for emulation.

This is important because your example of being blocked off, for example, and wanting both options available at different times, highlights the problem. In Hollywood, the reason that sometimes people gang up on opponents and sometimes they don't, often in the same movie in scenes involving the same characters, is because the script demands it. It is often just as arbitrary as that. Cowboys don't pick up the guns in Cowboys vs. Aliens because the script says they don't. There is no in-movie (and thus, in an emulation, no in-game) reason for it. I just watched Lockout a couple of nights ago; the reason Hock is such a complete idiot is that the script said he would be a complete idiot. The writer needed to get to a certain place, and Hock was used as a crude instrument to get there. Why didn't Anakin use alternative firepower to shoot Dooku when they ran out of rockets? We can think up lots of reasons after the fact (and boy, people have), but the real reason is that it would have made the rest of the series unnecessary. The writers put in this cool thing (lasers) and then refused to let the players use that cool thing later when it would have been useful.

The only way Hollywood works in Hollywood is when there are no player characters. So, no need to be perplexed. This is why the perplexing reaction you've noticed happens so often when Hollywood emulation is brought up. One way to avoid that reaction is to provide better examples of what you would expect to happen in play, and how player's retain control over their characters while still emulating a style that requires no players.

Quote from: capvideo;1074208Well, that's why we need clarification of terms. In my view, you cannot "emulate" Hollywood-style fictions without how they got that way--with a director/script controlling all contestants. The same seems true to me for the word "fashion"; it conjures all the wrong connotations about GM's wresting control from the players over their characters to fashion the story in their minds.

This does not lift my confusion. You have been presented a repeat, observable pattern in cinematic combats: not every outnumbering force member attacks every round but a random number between 1 and all of them does. (As far as about 3 to 6 second rounds go.) This is a pattern that's easy to emulate in a combat system. And, I would go so far to assert that any combat system in which only max 1 can attack each round OR another system in which everyone can attack each round is not fully cinematic.
Does that mean we have all of cinematic combat covered? No. But if we want cinematic combat, why wouldn't we want to recreate this pattern in our games?

Quote from: capvideo;1074208I think it might help a lot to see some intended play examples--what do the players do, how do they have their characters act, in the hoped-for emulation, and then, consider reasons (rules or guidelines) for why they don't act in other ways counter to the the hoped-for emulation.

Sure. In the case of "One v Many" with round-robin attacks, generally every character in threat range will attack each round. Especially player characters. Imagine a PC not attacking deliberately and then another PC dying. Hard feelings are bound to ensue. That's why you need a mechanism to keep a random number of "outnumberers" from attacking. Not just a random number but probably a random and each round changing subset of them.
The thing is that we probably don't model the reason for 'not attacking' in our games because it comes from too fine-grain detail. We're probably not modeling movement so closely as to shuffle minis constantly and then have one of the attackers block an ally on the map. We're also not modeling the psychology of everyone in the flank - looking for the right moment to attack, missing an opportunity, then becoming nervous of missing another, etc. That's because we don't model body posture second-by-second, among other things.
So instead we take it to a higher abstraction level: the question of "In which pattern to people attack within 5 seconds?" That's an abstraction level we can probably handle with the complexity budget we have in our combat system.

Quote from: capvideo;1074208This is important because your example of being blocked off, for example, and wanting both options available at different times, highlights the problem. In Hollywood, the reason that sometimes people gang up on opponents and sometimes they don't, often in the same movie in scenes involving the same characters, is because the script demands it.

Sure but you're again looking behind the scenes. If we're just doing emulation, we don't care what has brought the pattern about. We only care that it exists and seek to replicate it.
So any objection can either be:
1. The pattern is not faithfully enough replicated.
2. We shouldn't replicate the pattern to begin with because will do bad thing X to our games.

If the motivation is sound and the execution is as well, it's all peachy. So I am trying to understand where exactly your objection lies.

Quote from: capvideo;1074208The only way Hollywood works in Hollywood is when there are no player characters.

PCs are fashioned after Hollywood's heroes though. And like them, they're destined to win in fights most of the time.

Quote from: capvideo;1074208So, no need to be perplexed. This is why the perplexing reaction you've noticed happens so often when Hollywood emulation is brought up. One way to avoid that reaction is to provide better examples of what you would expect to happen in play, and how player's retain control over their characters while still emulating a style that requires no players.

I think that's a fallacy. Role-playing games have taken cues from Hollywood ever since. The concept of hitpoints itself is an early game design technology to simulate Hollywood-like survivability by characters that are meant to be special.

Your assertion (and it's still confusing to me) seems to be that you need to have a pre-determined outcome, like in a Hollywood script, or else you shouldn't bother with adopting Hollywood's cinematic combat style (which btw is largely informed by heroic bloodshed, let's not forget). I thoroughly disagree. If the players win the fight, as they should in most cases since they are the heroes, then we'll pretend as if it was pre-ordained by a script. If the players suffer a TPK, then we'll pretend as if the adventure was like the script of one of those tragedy movies or like a a Game of Thrones Red Wedding.

This is not about the outcome of combat - it's about how we got there. And unless you can demonstrate a strong link between the predetermined outcome of a choreographed movie fight and the number of "outnumberers" who can attack at roughly the same time during that fight, replicating the observed pattern is just fine. And I don't think anyone can.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1074187Isn't 4E more on the gamist end rather than genre simulation?

It's really a mix of Gamist (challenging the players) and Dramatist (emulating genre tropes) design.

What it's not is world-simulation (BRP Runequest, Chivalry & Sorcery, et al).