Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;10805895. Dice-mandated inability to attack may or may not end up getting narrated as "Adam, you do nothing this turn. Bob you're next." That would be uncinematic. If this would be consistently so and across a high percentage of playing groups, the mechanic would have failed to have the desired effect. However, it seems significantly less likely so with GMs that have specifically opted for a ruleset aimed at cinematic combat.

Part of what I assume to be miscommunication is the (perceived) inconsistency; it seems almost as if you have this mechanism, and you're looking for a reason to implement it; the reasons for needing it change from post to post. Here, you say that it would be uncinematic for the die failure to be interpreted as "you do nothing" and that then the mechanism would be a failure. Yet, one post earlier, you'd said that this was precisely how it should be interpreted, in order to be cinematic:

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1080583Gentle reminder that the characters in the clips shown in this thread who do not attack don't do anything else. They basically waste the 5 seconds (the turn). They choose doing nothing, so-to-speak.

The distinction between preventing unheroic actions, but not caring if the result is heroic seems, from my outside perspective, similar. What becomes the point, then, of preventing unheroic actions if the result is not heroic?

I sort of get that you want to preserve the artifacts of cinematic storytelling that come about only because there is a single vision. What I'm not getting is how--or even whether--you would translate that to a game with multiple players and not just a GM. On the one hand, you want this mechanism precisely because "players should be able to take the optimal decision regarding PC intent." But the mechanism is specifically designed to minimize player intent; if I'm reading you right, they're not even allowed to attempt to improve their chances on the roll through skill or maneuvering or even joint action. You speak of it as a choice by the character ("they choose doing nothing"), but one that is necessarily the opposite of the choice of the player, who, if they interpret the character's choice as doing nothing means that the mechanic has failed.

The role of the player grows thin.

Quote from: S'mon;1080720An individual's OODA loop ("That guy is shooting at me - better shoot/run/hide") is apparently around 3-5 seconds;

What's the average OODA loop of a heroic movie or book character though?

Quote from: capvideo;1080744Part of what I assume to be miscommunication is the (perceived) inconsistency; it seems almost as if you have this mechanism, and you're looking for a reason to implement it;

I think in my above summary my particular implementation played a fairly subdued role. The main point for me is the the need for it, its requirements and its context because that determines the space for alternatives.

Quote from: capvideo;1080744the reasons for needing it change from post to post. Here, you say that it would be uncinematic for the die failure to be interpreted as "you do nothing" and that then the mechanism would be a failure.

Yes, a recap of what was said before.

Quote from: capvideo;1080744Yet, one post earlier, you'd said that this was precisely how it should be interpreted, in order to be cinematic:

Yes, but that is merely an a posteriori summary of the mechanical effect. If you declare that your character wants to attack the lone enemy but he is blocked by an ally, he, in hindsight, essentially wastes his action. After the fact, it is functionally the same as if the player had declared: my PC does nothing this round. The point to my stating the above was to make it clear that characters who intended to attack the lone fighter can't do something else instead if circumstances prevent them from launching an attack.

So the player still declares the intent to attack just like in any other RPG, just like in D&D. Only here there are two points of failure which generate additional information of why the attack failed to do damage: did the attack get launched but missed/was parried OR did the attack never get launched because the character froze/was blocked? That's all. No loss of player agency. Just more information at the price of an additional roll.

Quote from: capvideo;1080744The distinction between preventing unheroic actions, but not caring if the result is heroic seems, from my outside perspective, similar. What becomes the point, then, of preventing unheroic actions if the result is not heroic?

Unheroic or uncinematic gameplay/mental imagery breaks immersion if the game's design goal is heroic/cinematic combat. To retain immersion, reshape the rules so that narration conformant with the desired gameplay gets produced.

Quote from: capvideo;1080744they're not even allowed to attempt to improve their chances on the roll through skill or maneuvering or even joint action.

Well, that would be the purview of Traits ("Feats"). What ways does a 4th level D&D 3.x Rogue have to improve their chances of hitting with an attack? Or a D&D 5E Thief?

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1080760What's the average OODA loop of a heroic movie or book character though?

Going by what you've presented, it seems to be typically 3-5 secs for the heroes and 10-12 secs for the mooks; longer in some of the martial arts stuff. The Tower of Joy fight in Game of Thrones seems to be one of the few cases outside of 1-1 duels where both sides have similar OODA loops, each of a few seconds; the 2 Tagaryen knights & Ed Stark shorter than some of the lesser knights.

There are some films like Jackie Chan stuff where the protagonist has a very short OODA loop; in these cases it can be very hard for the audience to follow the action as they themselves can't re-orient fast enough.

I honestly feel like we LOSE the cinematic Lightning Bug by trying to split the mechanical hairs so fine that we're letting the bug out of the Jar.

Speed of play is a big factor in capturing that feel. It's a hard thing to do with a new system. Any system can be rendered "cinematic" if the GM and Players know the nuances of the system in-and-out. I can run bog-standard 2e D&D and make it feel cinematic, even if the players know nothing. The more mechanical stuff you toss in (which isn't a bad thing) puts more onus on the GM to keep it moving along to get the "tone" they're looking for.

This is partially why I advocate for SW. It has a very cinematic over-the-top feel. You can as a GM describe with enough "cinematic verisimilitude" DOZENS of mooks clambering to stab the shit out of your PC's and still be dangerous, while the allowing the PC to look heroic-as-fuck mowing them down until they get to someone that is truly on their level. At which point the tempo of the fight, naturally changes to match the mechanics *without* stopping the gameplay at all.

It's *very* easy to pick up for newbs. And it has a lot of flexibility for GM's. None of the cinematic fights you've posted are beyond using SW without having to go into teens of rounds. Most I can do within the time-frame of the clips themselves. Or close enough to where it doesn't effectively matter, and certainly the players wouldn't notice.

I could do this with other systems too. But I'm gauging pound-for-pound in terms of mechanical complexity. I'm perfectly confident I could do it in an BESMI rules too.

The OODA loop is largely irrelevant in SW as well outside of spell-durations and stuff. Since if the assumption is combat it an ongoing affair, RAW a round is 6-seconds, but you can make it as long as you damn well like to justify the dozens of mooks vying amongst themselves to get a shot at your PC's, and only describing it within the context of those mooks that do swing, do so because you think they can. This goes back to my response to that 300-clip where in SW *most* of the killing is done ins response to mooks trying in vain to get passed Leonidas who gets free attacks at any knucklehead that comes into range, or *misses* him.

One of the things that goes into making cinematic combat "cinematic" is the GM is the "director" of the shot. Not every mook/npc is a master tactician taking the most optimal choice in each micro-increment of the round. Leave that to the Heroes/Anti-Heroes (i.e. Players and the main-villains).

Quote from: tenbones;1080955I could do this with other systems too.

Well, that goes against your case from my POV.  

Quote from: tenbones;1080958RAW a round is 6-seconds, but you can make it as long as you damn well like to justify the dozens of mooks vying amongst themselves to get a shot at your PC's, and only describing it within the context of those mooks that do swing, do so because you think they can.

See, that's where the problems begin for me. Flowery combat narration, when it doesn't backed up with mechanics, is hollow nonsense. When Mercer describes in Critical Role how a 30 HP damage attack causes the victim to bleed, to get dizzy, etc. ... it's all just empty rhetoric. Sooner or later a growing number of his actively playing fans will come to understand that. The bleeding, the dizzyness, etc. - it means nothing. It's like changing the skin of a 3D model in a video game: it doesn't affect gameplay, it doesn't affect the state of the world, it doesn't affect the physics (the rules of the game world). It's all just flowery talk. Which can be entertaining on its own, especially coming from Mercer. Granted.

But it's not the same when you narrate the dizzyness in a system that models the effects of Stun. Or the effects of bleeding. Then you know it has weight.

And that's why congruence matters to me. Congruence between narration and mechanics. ANd for that, I need detail in mechanics. And mechanics that fit the way I want to narrate fights - in my case in a cinematic manner, closely modeled after examples from film.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1080977Well, that goes against your case from my POV.

My bad - I wasn't clear in my idea. My analogy would be like this:

I can slice this cake with my SW Razorblade. But I can also cut it with my BESMI Katana, and my GURPS Chainsaw, or my FASERIP cake-knife. I.e. I can get the job done in a variety of ways that *will* get the cake cut to the satisfaction of the parameters. But the parameters are dependent on who is eating the damn thing. That's why SW is my cake-slicer of choice for your parameters.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1080977See, that's where the problems begin for me. Flowery combat narration, when it doesn't backed up with mechanics, is hollow nonsense.

Nope. You're looking at the Tree, not the forest. Case in point. In that 300 scene, as I recall I counted 17-kills in "two rounds". Behind them a much larger war was raging - that's all backdrop obviously. But *make no mistake* - those 17 mooks *did* actually attack. They *did* actually do a multitude of types of attacks. They *did* have bonuses for ganging up etc. - so at no point are they not backed up by mechanics.

The issue is that the Hero in question, in this case Leonidas - is so ridiculously badass, that his mechanics that he's working under render him like a God of War in comparison. The *fact* that a round is 6-seconds at least in SW is really irrelevant. Because at no point are the mooks, or the PC's in that clip not getting their *FULL* range of abilities with a full range of options available to them on a given "turn". How would it be different if we said a "Round is 1-second" presuming we're going to let everyone take their normal actions? In SW it's merely a demarcation for when to do "initiative". Seriously, you can make the rounds as long/short as you want. outside of spellcasting duration (and even then it's moot, really), the only point to "rounds" is to shake up the Initiative order. No one gets more or less than anyone else...

... with one exception: Mooks get no Wounds. PC's and Wildcard NPCs do. That's it. In the meantime you, as the GM can describe with as much painstaking detail, every feint, every grunt/groan and screech of those mooks that try to bypass the phenomenal defensive capabilities of the hero. And the Hero can describe how he's impaling and hacking, smashing, skewering, side-stepping, shield-bashing his way to glory - all backed up, action-by-action, die-roll-by-die-roll.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1080977When Mercer describes in Critical Role how a 30 HP damage attack causes the victim to bleed, to get dizzy, etc. ... it's all just empty rhetoric. Sooner or later a growing number of his actively playing fans will come to understand that. The bleeding, the dizzyness, etc. - it means nothing. It's like changing the skin of a 3D model in a video game: it doesn't affect gameplay, it doesn't affect the state of the world, it doesn't affect the physics (the rules of the game world). It's all just flowery talk. Which can be entertaining on its own, especially coming from Mercer. Granted.

But it's not the same when you narrate the dizzyness in a system that models the effects of Stun. Or the effects of bleeding. Then you know it has weight.

Oh I agree. This is why I don't use D&D and don't like HP systems... and why I recommend SW (or if you really want that granular effect in d20 - go Fantasycraft). Should that Hero take a wound ... you bet your ass in SW that matters. That kicks off the Deathspiral and in SW it's no joke. And before you can be wounded, you're Shaken, which is the "dizzyness" effect with mechanics (if you're Shaken, you can't do anything except try and shake it off. Or you can spend a Benny to instantly shake it off). But that deathspiral penalty will eat you up. In Fantasycraft you have Health/Wounds - which is super-lethal too.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1080977And that's why congruence matters to me. Congruence between narration and mechanics. ANd for that, I need detail in mechanics. And mechanics that fit the way I want to narrate fights - in my case in a cinematic manner, closely modeled after examples from film.

When I'm doing cinematic combat - which for me is pretty much most stuff these days since I'm using Savage Worlds for most stuff - I'm wanting the same thing. I want mechanical fidelity to go with the over-the-top dramatic quality of bullshit combat made fun. The closest I've come to easily getting that in a qualitative way is "less-is-more" and letting the players and myself go hog on description *based* on the results of the die-toss. Savage Worlds handles this in spades. Largely because it's insanely customizable. I hold the same view for FASERIP and Fantasycraft but they're different blades for different things in the kitchen.

IF what we're talking about is trying to cut a cake with a baseball-bat (i.e. a system that inherently *doesn't* mechanically do what you want it to do) then you either change systems or modify your pet-system to your desired results.

Well, again not much to disagree with from my POV. The differences between our chosen game systems remain what they were before: KotBL RPG is probably more detailed and more precise but probably a bit slower and less scalable than Savage Worlds. So, it's a trade-off.

Quote from: Skarg;1080118What I wonder, Alexander, is how you feel about the same issue in cinema?  

That is, do you not often find yourself disappointed when a movie shows the foes seeming to be overly incompetent or not trying sometimes, and other times has them be extra-competent, in ways that seem contrived for reasons of the writer, who also didn't bother to set up a reason or circumstances why that was so - he just wanted the protagonists to win in some scenes, and lose in others, and he manipulated what the enemies did without even thinking to provide reasons why?

Because I do, a lot. One of the main reasons I get disgusted and lose interest in cinematic conflicts is because so often they seem lazy and contrived and not interested in providing a situation that makes sense to me.

Which is a big part of why I would tend not to think I wanted to try to emulate cinematic combat in my games.

In my games, I want combat systems that seem to me to make sense, be self-consistent, and try to behave like the situation they represent behaves, or at least have that be the main reason why the game plays the way it does.

And I want by cinema to be the same way. If the author needs a certain outcome for his plot, I want him to at least take the effort to have it happen in a plausible way - hopefully an interesting one that gives an experience that seems like it could really have happened.

I could not agree with you more!

Quote from: capvideo;1080397I think a mechanism whereby players roll to successfully attack before they roll to successfully attack has a sort of catch-22 built in. Those players who would already interpret the current roll as other than a whiff won't change; and those would only see failed rolls as whiffs will still see failed rolls as whiffs.

My thought as well.

Quote from: capvideo;1080397I think that you would be better able to induce true heroism and cool through rewards (you can do more) rather than punishment (you must do less).

Yes, a change to include rewards rather than punishments is more likely to be accepted by the players. Most people over weight punishments over rewards, even when the expected value or outcome is mathematically the same. So I suspect most people are likely to find the punishment of not being able to attack this round to be more annoying than being allowed to attack every round, but with a lower chance to hit such that the net number of successful strikes is the same for an average round.

We're beating up a dead horse. My counterpoints to all 3 remain in order:

1. Show me that movies that only have competent enemies are more successful than movies with mooks. I don't think you can. And in games low risk encounters fullfill a very important purpose.
2. I'm okay if a failed roll to even get to attack is occasionally being glossed over as "You do nothing." Glossing over is bound to happen in combat, possibly a lot. The main point is that it doesn't get narrated/imagined as a "launched but failed attack". And I don't buy that that is going to be the case since you're not making an attack roll in the first place. You're rolling to get to attack.
3. Personally, I suspect that forcibly sitting out is the actual reason for most objections, which is why I alluded to it in the OP. The mechanic is not going to sit well with gamists; they want action instead of boring waiting while not doing anything. That is fine with me, they're not the target audience.

To the last point, it's a bit like saying "Can't we avoid those frustrating missed attack rolls in D&D and instead give the player some XP or something if he chooses to miss?"

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1081204We're beating up a dead horse. My counterpoints to all 3 remain in order:

1. Show me that movies that only have competent enemies are more successful than movies with mooks. I don't think you can. And in games low risk encounters fullfill a very important purpose.
2. I'm okay if a failed roll to even get to attack is occasionally being glossed over as "You do nothing." Glossing over is bound to happen in combat, possibly a lot. The main point is that it doesn't get narrated/imagined as a "launched but failed attack". And I don't buy that that is going to be the case since you're not making an attack roll in the first place. You're rolling to get to attack.
3. Personally, I suspect that forcibly sitting out is the actual reason for most objections, which is why I alluded to it in the OP. The mechanic is not going to sit well with gamists; they want action instead of boring waiting while not doing anything. That is fine with me, they're not the target audience.

You can do what you like, but you can't make players enjoy the experience.

I remember once I developed a mass combat system for 3e D&D. Diceless. It was a thing of beauty... And not fun to play.

Re #3, your 'gamists' are also known as 'people who like playing games' (you certainly aren't using the term in the definition used by GDS or GNS theory).  AFAICS you basically do not have a target audience.

Quote from: S'mon;1081212Re #3, your 'gamists' are also known as 'people who like playing games' (you certainly aren't using the term in the definition used by GDS or GNS theory).  AFAICS you basically do not have a target audience.

Don't worry, I do. The (documented) conflict between gamists and simulationists in games is older than the existence of D&D itself.
How big that target audience is and whether I have found the right mix of abstractions in modeling cinematic combat are different questions. But it's the audience I am aiming at; quite unabashedly so.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1081224Don't worry, I do. The (documented) conflict between gamists and simulationists in games is older than the existence of D&D itself.
How big that target audience is and whether I have found the right mix of abstractions in modeling cinematic combat are different questions. But it's the audience I am aiming at; quite unabashedly so.

You are trying to simulate something that sort-of 'looks like' cinematic combat, but you are not trying to get the 'feel' of cinematic combat from the player POV. If you were doing that you'd be going for something like the WEG d6 System as used in d6 Star Wars.

I'm not too 'worried' as I don't think you are seriously designing for commercial publication, ie to make money from your work. If you were you would have taken on board at least some of the feedback from luminaries like Rob Conley (Estar). You would have taken account of the notable lack of enthusiam for your approach across multiple websites, even from simulationists.

I'm pretty sure this is just a very extensive thought exercise, it may lead to you 'publishing' something but you are clearly not concerned about commercial success, or even interest.

Quote from: S'mon;1081229You are trying to simulate something that sort-of 'looks like' cinematic combat, but you are not trying to get the 'feel' of cinematic combat from the player POV. If you were doing that you'd be going for something like the WEG d6 System as used in d6 Star Wars.

That's curious. And... how many combats have you run in either system before making this assessment if I may ask? If your answer isn't at least in the double-digits for both, you've just disqualified yourself.

However, if the answer is 10+ for each, please share your experiences so far.