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Pen & Paper Roleplaying Central => Pen and Paper Roleplaying Games (RPGs) Discussion => Topic started by: Alexander Kalinowski on February 08, 2019, 06:50:38 PM

Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on February 08, 2019, 06:50:38 PM
CAVEAT: The below is primarily aimed at traditional games with 3 to 6 second rounds. If you have a different round length, this does not necessarily apply. And if you're playing games with more abstract or narrative mechanics, these observations might be less interesting mechanically but in making your narrations more closely aligned with the visual story-telling of cinematic fights.

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:



Also, there is this scene from LotR:


And in this scene from Conan the Barbarian simultaneous or coordinated attacks by the outnumbering side remain rare as well:



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?
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: S'mon on February 08, 2019, 06:57:26 PM
I think my comments here (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?656624-Observations-on-matching-quot-One-vs-Many-quot-combat-mechanics-to-cinematic-combat) stand. :p

Edit: My actual comments at http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?656624-Observations-on-matching-quot-One-vs-Many-quot-combat-mechanics-to-cinematic-combat&p=7555290&viewfull=1#post7555290
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: jhkim on February 08, 2019, 07:53:47 PM
S'mon's comments are about D&D - but I think the OP question is more general.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1074016
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.

I think the penalty can be flexible here - particularly because cinema does vary. In action films, there is a common sequence where a hero is mobbed by a large number of foes. The hero is lost from sight for a moment, then they surge up and all of the foes are pushed back.

In 3rd edition Hero System, the Ninja Hero supplement suggested a rule of -1 attack roll for each attacker beyond the first. Especially if they were attacking hard-to-hit foe, this could mean that it makes sense for mooks to approach one at a time. Alternatively, they could try all rushing together - in which case they are less effective. It helps if there is a move that lets a skilled hero attack everyone around them at some penalty ("whirlwind attack" or similar).

This also gives attackers good reason to split up and attack all of the opponents. (Using hit point rules, it tends to be better to all concentrate on a single opponent until they are down and then move on to another.)
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on February 08, 2019, 08:27:13 PM
The closest I've gotten to this is using free form initiative, where you speak, you act. Basically it isn't all that different from out of combat stuff that happens. But it can break down if the players feel awkward engaging in this way (if someone is too reticent, if people develop a chaotic rhythm, etc). When it works, it works. But I think standard initiative systems are just so much easier on most days of the week.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: JeremyR on February 08, 2019, 11:30:50 PM
This sounds like it's built upon two questionable premises.

Do RPGs strive to reproduce "cinematic" combat (which is after all scripted and choreographed)?

And do all RPGs let all opponents attack at once? Even theatre of the mind ones limit the number of attacks to those that can plausibly make an attack.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: mAcular Chaotic on February 09, 2019, 12:16:18 AM
I use "swarms" for this kind of effect and then just narrate the swarm as if it's made up of individual enemies getting KO'd by attacks.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Kyle Aaron on February 09, 2019, 01:57:50 AM
Of course there is the old rule (https://songoftheblade.wordpress.com/2016/10/13/a-history-of-the-fighters-extra-attacks-versus-low-level-monsters/) that an X level fighter gets X attacks per round against 0-level foes... So for example in many movies we get the thing of the Hero and the Villain casually hacking their way across a battlefield to get to each-other to duel. If they are both (for example) 3rd level fighters and everyone else is a 0-level man-at-arms (or 1-1HD humanoid, etc) this works fairly well.

Now, with multiple attacks vs <1HD creatures, are we to suppose that the fighter suddenly becomes faster? It makes more sense to suppose that... the foes hesitate before the might of the fighter.

And there were surprise rules, too, where one side could end up standing helplessly for a number of combat rounds (or segments) while the other lot pounded them. "Surprise" was not necessarily an ambush situation, it was quite possible to just walk in the room and for one side not to be ready to fight at that instant, to mill about in confusion for a bit. If you do surprise for each combatant separately, then this can explain things a bit, too.

As usual with such things, looking back to the earlier versions of the games is instructive.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: jhkim on February 09, 2019, 02:30:39 AM
Quote from: JeremyR;1074048
This sounds like it's built upon two questionable premises.

Do RPGs strive to reproduce "cinematic" combat (which is after all scripted and choreographed)?

And do all RPGs let all opponents attack at once? Even theatre of the mind ones limit the number of attacks to those that can plausibly make an attack.

I read it as "I'd like to do cinematic combat in an RPG - what are good ways to achieve that" rather than "All RPGs should be like X".  Looking back, I can see reading the OP as "all RPGs should be cinematic" - but that's a dumb point, and the former is more interesting.

Just to be clear, though, not all RPGs should have cinematic combat.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: S'mon on February 09, 2019, 02:56:42 AM
Quote from: jhkim;1074026
S'mon's comments are about D&D - but I think the OP question is more general.

Well it was ENW. :)

I address a couple other systems later - http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?656624-Observations-on-matching-quot-One-vs-Many-quot-combat-mechanics-to-cinematic-combat&p=7556659&viewfull=1#post7556659
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on February 09, 2019, 03:38:40 AM
Quote from: S'mon;1074017
I think my comments here (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?656624-Observations-on-matching-quot-One-vs-Many-quot-combat-mechanics-to-cinematic-combat) stand. :p
I remembered your name. ;) But did you see the companion thread,as well: https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/attack-sequences-further-considerations-for-cinematic-fantasy-combat-potential-spoilers.841316/page-2?
If you could reply to that thread and bump it for me, it would be very much appreciated. I'll post it here sometime soon as well to see what people here think.

That being said, I've had further discussions in other forums and more time for reflection, so the debate evolved a bit. Here's where I am currently add:
The question to me is what combat mechanics are just evocative enough (that also goes for the new thread above). By which I mean: sometimes a GM doesn't have to narrate much to convey how cool a combat event is. Example: you roll in Hârnmaster a head hit against a major enemy and the hit resolution determines he dies (possibly even due to head amputation). When a player rolls that result and the dice confirm the head goes off, this automatically creates some kind of epic badass imagery in the head of the players. It all originates from the pure dice rolling and the GM rather is facing the threat of over-narrating here. Like in literature, too much narrated detail might be counter-productive.

This line of thought applied to the subject of cinematic "One v Many" means to me that the usual model of round-robin attacks by all "outnumberers" every round does not create the right imagery on its own at all. You have to  make the conscious effort of creating a more cinematic interpretation because the natural and lazy imagery it evokes is 4 people statically standing around a poor guy and beating on him from all sides. That dice mechanic isn't very evocative of cinematic combat.

On the other hand, if only a random (and changing!) subset of all outnumberers gets to attack each round, it creates a more dynamic mental imagery of battle on its own. Some attackers possibly don't get to attack because they're being outmaneuvered by the single fighter, some hesitate or might tie their shoelaces - or whatever.

And, yes, cinematic combat is choreographed. But that does not necessarily mean we cannot deduce combat dynamics common to various fights in cinema and TV - and try to recreate them if we want our combats in games to be more cinematic.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: S'mon on February 09, 2019, 08:33:28 AM
There are systems like 4e dnd that encourage movement every round. In the Conan orgy scene arguably it's a case of fast acting pcs and staggered reinforcements coming in. Also an initial surprise round. The guards have trouble locating and getting to the pcs in the complex environment with drugged revellers and lots of terrain. Even the two bbegs aren't really ready for a fight.

It works great in context. As does the Battle of the Mounds where the pcs work hard to split up the attackers and stop them concentrating forces. Like I said this is different from mobs just standing there while heroes cleave through them.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: spon on February 09, 2019, 11:21:59 AM
Thing is, early RPGs were based on wargames, not films. So things like armour type, weapon used and morale were considered important, whereas recreating action film "coolness" wasn't. The newer RPGs try to have more cinematic action, not sure whether they succeed though as they are trying to "simulate" combat, not films about combat.  Maybe Feng Shui captured the essence of cinematic action? I know it tried to, but I never actually played a game!
More modern games (Pbta games , for instance) put job onto the GM (and the players to some extent) to be as cinematic as they wish. But it's not baked into the system, it's left to the players to describe their successes/failures/partial failures in the game and the GM to manage the game in such a way as to encourage cinematic action.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on February 09, 2019, 11:40:47 AM
Quote from: JeremyR;1074048
Do RPGs strive to reproduce "cinematic" combat (which is after all scripted and choreographed)?
And do all RPGs let all opponents attack at once? Even theatre of the mind ones limit the number of attacks to those that can plausibly make an attack.


Well, yes, these are the questions with which to begin:
Not all RPGs strive to do that. But for at least 20 years I have heard various publishers advertise their games as having cinematic combat rules. And there is no shortage of gamers on the internet inquiring about such systems in various places. Not to mention countless of RPGs based on movie or TV show IPs. So it's probably a legitimate question that affects either game design and/or GM narration.
And various rulesets surely have different rules. Round-robin style attacks each round from anyone in threat range (in initiative order) is probably the de facto standard in trad games though.


Quote from: jhkim;1074026

In 3rd edition Hero System, the Ninja Hero supplement suggested a rule of -1 attack roll for each attacker beyond the first. [...] This also gives attackers good reason to split up and attack all of the opponents.


Sure. But it renders the combat still static, mental imagery-wise. A few more examples how dynamic things should be,

This one is very fluid. The King's men almost never get to attack in parallel:



And here the protagonists don't all attack simultaneously either (just as in the OP Thorgrim and Rexor hardly attack Conan simulataneously and in a coordinated fashion):



Sometimes all outnumberers do get to attack at once here (but then later one of them is completely blocked for more than 5 seconds):



If people prefer the simplicity of modifying the attack roll, more power to them. Personally, it's a dissatisfying solution for me for all the reasons mentioned.



Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1074051
I use "swarms" for this kind of effect and then just narrate the swarm as if it's made up of individual enemies getting KO'd by attacks.

Swarms or hordes are good rules. However, some of the above videos seem to suggest to me that even non-mooks are prone to getting blocked by an ally or straight hesitation. It's not just limited to Orc #46, I think.


Quote from: S'mon;1074074
There are systems like 4e dnd that encourage movement every round.

I don't think the Ringwraiths were split nor the Game of Thrones party going beyond the wall. In the scene in which Yoren dies you can see Lannister mooks standing 2 steps back, doing nothing:

Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: capvideo on February 09, 2019, 12:04:36 PM
I generally handle this by allowing both PCs and opponents to combine into a group effort, like a swarm, although mostly it is only used for their opponents. I mainly made it up to make things easier for me, but also to make PCs fighting hordes more interesting. The basic rule is that if 2, 4, 8, 16, etc., opponents combine into a group effort they gain a bonus of 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. This bonus applies to attack rolls, AC, saves, and increases the number of attacks per round by the bonus. It also increases hit points by the bonus times whatever the median hit points are, and increases movement by the median movement. All of this makes it easier to handle a larger group that can spread over a wider area, can't focus all attacks on one target but can move in and out so that the opponent hit one round isn't the opponent hit the next, and so on.

PCs don't usually do this as they are more effective on their own, but they can use it if they're leading, say, a unit in an army.

That 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.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: S'mon on February 09, 2019, 12:19:15 PM
Re 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. :)
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: ronwisegamgee on February 09, 2019, 02:35:59 PM
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.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Christopher Brady on February 09, 2019, 03:49:38 PM
For D&D I use Solo Heroes  (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/114895/Black-Streams-Solo-Heroes?site=&manufacturers_id=3482#_=_) from Sine Nomine.  It does the job I like.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Toadmaster on February 09, 2019, 05:23:14 PM
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.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on February 09, 2019, 06:35:50 PM
Quote from: Toadmaster;1074113
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.


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.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on February 09, 2019, 06:36:32 PM
Quote from: capvideo;1074089

That 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;1074113
One 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;1074102
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.

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;1074090
Re 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.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Toadmaster on February 09, 2019, 09:57:03 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1074117
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.

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.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on February 10, 2019, 02:10:25 AM
Quote from: Toadmaster;1074123
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".

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:




Quote from: Toadmaster;1074123
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".
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;1074123
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.
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.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: S'mon on February 10, 2019, 02:35:55 AM
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.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: S'mon on February 10, 2019, 02:41:46 AM
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.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Toadmaster on February 10, 2019, 04:02:01 AM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1074145

It 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.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on February 10, 2019, 07:18:30 AM
Quote from: S'mon;1074150
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.


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.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on February 10, 2019, 09:57:02 AM
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.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: capvideo on February 10, 2019, 01:06:39 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1074117
Such 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 (http://www.godsmonsters.com/Reviews/cowboys-aliens-and-expectations-role-players/) 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.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on February 10, 2019, 02:18:24 PM
Quote from: capvideo;1074208
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.

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;1074208
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.

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;1074208
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.

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;1074208
The 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;1074208
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.

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.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: S'mon on February 10, 2019, 02:28:17 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1074187
Isn'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).
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: mAcular Chaotic on February 10, 2019, 04:18:27 PM
Gamist doesn't have to oppose genre simulation. The rules just have to push the gaming in a way that emulates a genre.

Like you could easily think of a Wild West type of gamey-game that has the rules set up so you end up doing "fast draw" style shootouts.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on February 11, 2019, 06:11:29 AM
Boy, I hope this doesn't become a GNS thread.

I kinda think that if we're talking about these modes of play, we're talking priorities. So, if you build a system and you've got this fun mechanic but it's kinda unrealistic, you got to decide what you prefer. So, yeah, you can definitely combine various modes in your games/game design, for example if you can add a narrative element into your rules without conflict to your otherwise gamist goals. But you will probably repeatedly come to situations where you need to prioritize. And I think that's where the true colors emerge.
Just my 2 cents.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on February 11, 2019, 06:48:28 AM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1074292
Boy, I hope this doesn't become a GNS thread.

I kinda think that if we're talking about these modes of play, we're talking priorities. So, if you build a system and you've got this fun mechanic but it's kinda unrealistic, you got to decide what you prefer. So, yeah, you can definitely combine various modes in your games/game design, for example if you can add a narrative element into your rules without conflict to your otherwise gamist goals. But you will probably repeatedly come to situations where you need to prioritize. And I think that's where the true colors emerge.
Just my 2 cents.


Not necessarily. You can be interested in cinematic stuff without making it the single overidingbpriority in every design decision (especially if you are operating under an assumption that most players don't play with a single overriding priority). I don't think most players really are focused on G, N or S.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on February 11, 2019, 09:49:03 AM
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1074293
Not necessarily. You can be interested in cinematic stuff without making it the single overidingbpriority in every design decision (especially if you are operating under an assumption that most players don't play with a single overriding priority). I don't think most players really are focused on G, N or S.


Not disagreeing - most RPGs combine elements that cater to more than one style. I would call Shadowrun simulationist-gamist, for example.
But we can also look at which style gets preferential treatment, when in doubt. And I think that's where the order in "simulationist-gamist" comes in. Shadowrun doesn't do much to simplify ranged combat for the sake of ease of play, for example.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on February 11, 2019, 09:58:06 AM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1074307
Not disagreeing - most RPGs combine elements that cater to more than one style. I would call Shadowrun simulationist-gamist, for example.
But we can also look at which style gets preferential treatment, when in doubt. And I think that's where the order in "simulationist-gamist" comes in. Shadowrun doesn't do much to simplify ranged combat for the sake of ease of play, for example.

I think my issue with the triple division is it glosses over so many other important aspects of gaming (or packages them into those categories, when I think there is actually tremendous spill over).
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: capvideo on February 11, 2019, 02:10:07 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1074220
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.


I think this is part of the problem of our miscommunication. It is not a random number. It is exactly the number that the director/writer wants. That is not a pattern that's easy to emulate in a game. And the answer to why we wouldn't becomes obvious at that point: it's not a game any more.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1074220
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.


I understand that it's completely unnatural not to attack when you could, and when it makes sense to do so. What I'm not understanding is what this mechanism would look like. That's the kind of example I'd like to see.

1. GM: You are attacked by a giant killer robot.
2. Fred: I attack the giant killer robot with my shield and magic helmet.
3. Barney: I watch Fred attack the giant killer robot. I'd rather wait until Fred is defeated, that way I can be defeated myself. I've seen this happen in movies, and it's cool.
4. ???
5. Profit!

(3) is mostly a joke, although I've certainly seen GMs think players ought to act that way. The question is, why would they? They can act that way now if they want, but of course they don't want to, thus this thread; and as you said, there are going to be hard feelings if they do. So I want to see your example that rewrites (3) in a way that is actually fun or at least interesting, and puts in (4). Then we can get to Profit!

I'm assuming for the moment, but you can correct that assumption if I'm wrong, that your mechanic isn't simply roll a random number from one to the number of player characters; that would not just force some players to not attack, but would also force other players to attack. Somehow this mechanism needs to make the game fun not just for the players to sit it out, or split to have their characters do something else, but also for the players who do not.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1074220
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.


Right, and that's the problem. As I see it, the more faithfully you replicate Hollywood cinematics, the less agency the players have over their characters. That's the bad thing that will happen. In Hollywood cinematics, we're mostly expected to ignore that the characters are just puppets held on chains by a single individual. The cinematics you think are cool seem to me to be exactly those places where this is hardest to ignore. And in a game, it seems to me impossible to ignore. So that's why I need to see you give some example of a mechanic that you think will actually do what you want. It's also why when actual examples are not forthcoming, you get the reaction you say you often get. Because the only way to get what you want is to take control from the players and give it to the GM. So far, the terms you've used to describe what you want are emulating actual scenes, fashioning a particular outcome, and choreographing the moves of the player characters.

To relieve your confusion: I am in fact saying that in order to get the Hollywood cinematics you want, it looks to me as though you need to have a script. I'm asking for some sort of real example to show me that I am wrong. It could be mechanics, it could be a fake play example like above, or something else. But so far, the more you've described what you want, the more it seems that the only way to get it is to have a script, possibly generated randomly just-in-time, that the players must have their characters follow.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on February 11, 2019, 04:49:25 PM
Quote from: capvideo;1074354
I think this is part of the problem of our miscommunication. It is not a random number. It is exactly the number that the director/writer wants. That is not a pattern that's easy to emulate in a game. And the answer to why we wouldn't becomes obvious at that point: it's not a game any more.

From an emulation standpoint only what's visible on screen exists. It's a black box. It's opaque. There is no director or script writer. Just the scenes.
That's where my confuson comes from.

Quote from: capvideo;1074354

I understand that it's completely unnatural not to attack when you could, and when it makes sense to do so. What I'm not understanding is what this mechanism would look like. That's the kind of example I'd like to see.


1. GM: You are attacked by a giant killer robot.
2. Fred: I attack the giant killer robot with my shield and magic helmet.
3. Barney: I join Fred!
4. GM: Barney, you have the higher initiative and can roll to attack. Fred, you need to make test,
5. Fred: I fail!
6. GM: I'm sorry but as you stand in the robot's flank your character looks for the right moment to catch the giant robot unaware. But being intimidated by it's huge af size you hesitate until the round's over. Now to you Barney...

Quote from: capvideo;1074354

Somehow this mechanism needs to make the game fun not just for the players to sit it out, or split to have their characters do something else, but also for the players who do not.


The fun part is in the flow of battle that evolves and the dynamic, cinematic imagery evoked. I think I said it before but I guess I need to stress it again: I have been in battles where our party attacked the final orc or whatever from all sides. And I wish there had been a rule in place that had kept me from attacking. I am fully aware that there will plenty of players balking at the idea of not being able to roll for attack. That's alright. But for some of us this is not a bug, it's a feature. (And as an aside, it makes it easier for PCs to cut their swath through crowdsfon Mooks while the BBEG has better survivability against the party.)

The desires of people like me, who want cinematic combat, even if it means being sidelined for a turn and the desires of more gamist players who'll think it is retarded to keep them from attacking cannot necessarily be reconciled.
It's specifically not for people who prefer how D&D is resolved.

Quote from: capvideo;1074354

Right, and that's the problem. As I see it, the more faithfully you replicate Hollywood cinematics, the less agency the players have over their characters.

Well, it's not agency that is restricted. The player can still try to attack. They just have to face a specific obstacle in doing so.

Quote from: capvideo;1074354

And in a game, it seems to me impossible to ignore.

And that's alright. But I do hope you understand how passionately I feel about it from the other side. The idea of "it's no fun if a random pattern of players gets sidelined for a turn" is anathema to my idea of fun. As a player I want to be possibly sidelined, if that evokes mental imagery of the fight that isn't nonsense, from a cinematic viewpoint.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: S'mon on February 11, 2019, 04:56:50 PM
Quote from: capvideo;1074354
The cinematics you think are cool seem to me to be exactly those places where this is hardest to ignore. And in a game, it seems to me impossible to ignore.

I think the Conan Orgy battle is done well enough to look plausible, there are lots of reasons in-universe for it developing the way it does. By contrast I remember thinking Aragorn vs the Ringwraiths on Weathertop looked very lame, it looked just like the GM setting up an obvious TPK encounter, then fudging like crazy to avoid that result.

Re mechanics - how about "1d6 opponents may attack an unsupported single opponent each round"? Or if you insist on mapping 6 second combat rounds to Hollywood action, it could be "1d6 initially, +/- 1d3 per round, minimum 1".

With enough tweaking you can get a result that resembles the numbers in a Hollywood fight scene. I doubt this will feel any more exciting at table, though. Like I said on ENW, if you want it to actually play out in an exciting manner you need a cinematic-emulation combat system like 4e - but be prepared to have a huge focus on lengthy combats.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on February 11, 2019, 05:22:14 PM
Quote from: S'mon;1074412
I think the Conan Orgy battle is done well enough to look plausible, there are lots of reasons in-universe for it developing the way it does. By contrast I remember thinking Aragorn vs the Ringwraiths on Weathertop looked very lame, it looked just like the GM setting up an obvious TPK encounter, then fudging like crazy to avoid that result.

Well, I guess there's plenty of intimidation factor about Aragorn. The battle of Amon Henm btw, is much worse, where only a cut of the scene saves Aragorn from being swamped and brutally murdered by orcs.

Quote from: S'mon;1074412

Re mechanics - how about "1d6 opponents may attack an unsupported single opponent each round"? Or if you insist on mapping 6 second combat rounds to Hollywood action, it could be "1d6 initially, +/- 1d3 per round, minimum 1".

But then you need to randomly determine which of those can attack as well. That's a bit inconvenient. Plus, it's better if each player themselves has it in their own hands if they spot an opportunity for an attack or not, don't you think?
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: S'mon on February 11, 2019, 05:44:12 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1074421
But then you need to randomly determine which of those can attack as well. That's a bit inconvenient. Plus, it's better if each player themselves has it in their own hands if they spot an opportunity for an attack or not, don't you think?

I was thinking for PCs you'd go in their initiative order, until all the slots vs that opponent for the round are full.

You could give Will tests to attack, but I don't see how that is any different from making Attack rolls - indeed I'll often narrate a failed attack roll as "you don't get an opening".
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on February 12, 2019, 01:16:34 PM
Quote from: S'mon;1074428
I was thinking for PCs you'd go in their initiative order, until all the slots vs that opponent for the round are full.

That's an idea that never occured to me. It's actually pretty viable. The price is of course that you need initiative determination each round (which I am at minimizing). And the distribution is different: more swingy from 1 to max attackers. Whether that's more desirable (simulation- and/or game-wise) needs some contemplation.

Quote from: S'mon;1074428
You could give Will tests to attack, but I don't see how that is any different from making Attack rolls - indeed I'll often narrate a failed attack roll as "you don't get an opening".


Well, a two-step process represents two different stages - whether you actually commit to going forward and manage to enter weapon range at the first stage and how the actual attack plays out at the second stage.
It's also noteworthy that if the defender can only defend against one attacker each round, the closing-in roll of the attacker actually takes sort of the place of a parry roll of the defender in other systems; it's two chances for the intention to attack to fall short.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: capvideo on February 12, 2019, 04:10:53 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1074410

1. GM: You are attacked by a giant killer robot.
2. Fred: I attack the giant killer robot with my shield and magic helmet.
3. Barney: I join Fred!
4. GM: Barney, you have the higher initiative and can roll to attack. Fred, you need to make test,
5. Fred: I fail!
6. GM: I'm sorry but as you stand in the robot's flank your character looks for the right moment to catch the giant robot unaware. But being intimidated by it's huge af size you hesitate until the round's over. Now to you Barney...


Interesting. So let me see if I understand this from a mechanism standpoint.

1. The first person always gets in.
2. Everyone else must make some sort of a random check, probably a die roll in most games, to see if they can successfully attempt to join in the attack.
3. If the check is failed, the character is unavailable for other actions.
4. (guessing from your other comments) Each player gets to check every round to change their character's status as onlooker or participant.

Have I understood it correctly?
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on February 13, 2019, 04:14:38 AM
Well, that's pretty much the solution I have come up with but as S'mon sugggested above, other models are possible. Technically, the other attackers, the supporters, do count as being in melee though - for the purpose of shooting at them, the whole scene being dynamic and in motion and all. That supporter status doesn't change round-by-round (except in some interplay with the attack sequences mechanic of 1-on-1 fights, but that's a future thread). What does change though is if a supporter gets to roll to attack or not. If you don't, it means your character doesn't make that half-step (or 2-step or whatever) forward into his weapon's range - either the PC himself chooses not to or it's because the character's blocked.

As mentioned above, the defender usually gets only 1 parry per round, so it remains a 2-step failure process overall, common enough to plenty non-D&D RPGs.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: capvideo on February 13, 2019, 12:01:03 PM
1. The first person always gets in, and is the main attacker for the rest of the fight.
2. Everyone else, if they choose to try to join the fight, is support for the main attacker.
3. Supporters must make a check each round to see if they can successfully attempt an attack.
4. If the check is failed, the character is also unavailable for other actions.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on February 13, 2019, 04:09:36 PM
Quote from: capvideo;1074781
1. The first person always gets in, and is the main attacker for the rest of the fight.

As mentioned before it's possible that a supporter forms the new combat pair with the lone fighter, under some somewhat specific conditions that tie into the attack sequences part of the system.

Quote from: capvideo;1074781
If the check is failed, the character is also unavailable for other actions.

Correct. He is fully intending to attack but either doesn't follow through after all or is kept from doing so due to external circumstances.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: nDervish on February 14, 2019, 10:11:49 AM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1074067
On the other hand, if only a random (and changing!) subset of all outnumberers gets to attack each round, it creates a more dynamic mental imagery of battle on its own. Some attackers possibly don't get to attack because they're being outmaneuvered by the single fighter, some hesitate or might tie their shoelaces - or whatever.


"Outmaneuvered", you say?

Funny you should use that word, as the Mythras combat actions include:

Quote from: Mythras
Outmanoeuvre
The character can engage multiple opponents in a group opposed roll of Evade skills. Those who fail to beat his roll cannot attack him that Combat Round.


Quote from: Mythras
A character facing multiple opponents can use movement to limit the number which can attack him at any one moment in time. This works by constantly shifting position, forcing some foes to start running around the flanks of their companions to re-establish reach or lines of attack, generally causing them to interfere with one another. Outmanoeuvring requires that the character has room to move about, and is not pinned in a confining area. It also assumes that the character is engaged with the entire group of foes, rather than a specific individual.

An example of outmanoeuvring in action would be a group of guards trying to arrest a drunken barbarian in a tavern. The warrior could manoeuvre around the tables, chairs, and roof supports to block the majority of his foes whilst he whittles them down one by one.

Outmanoeuvring requires that the character engages his opponents in a group opposed roll of Evade skills. Every participant, both the manoeuvring character and those foes who wish to corner him, must spend an Action Point. Then they each roll once, and those who fail to beat the manoeuvring character's roll cannot attack him for the remainder of that Combat Round, being blocked by their allies or terrain features.

If the manoeuvring character beats all of his opponents he has the choice of safely engaging a single foe for the rest of the round or Withdrawing from the fight completely.


As you can probably guess from how this rule is written, Mythras is primarily designed as a TOTM system; I'm not sure how you would easily handle this in a map-and-minis combat.

For background on the general rules involved, Mythras uses a round-robin initiative system with each character getting (INT+DEX)/12, rounded up, Action Points per round, so 2 for an average person, but most PCs will have 3 AP/round and you must spend 1 AP to attack or to defend against an incoming attack.  Thus, attempting to outmaneuver, or pursuing someone who it outmaneuvering, requires you to give up one of 2 or 3 opportunities to attack or defend in that round, so there's some benefit to it even if you completely blow your Evade roll.  (If you're outmaneuvering 6 foes and they all beat your Evade, that still leaves them with 6 fewer AP to spend on attacking you.)

Characters on the losing side of an Evade contest for Outmaneuvering still have their remaining AP available and can use them for actions other than attacking the outmaneuvering character, so (if it's a PC who gets outmaneuvered) they're still not completely sidelined.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Steven Mitchell on February 14, 2019, 10:50:43 AM
Trying to solve a similar (but not identical) issue that bugs me in typical RPG combat, I've been experimenting with an alternate form of "initiative" where the "initiative" roll is a mix of the usual readiness to act and also awareness of the full situation and navigating the numbers of foes and allies in the environment.  (My primary interest is having a great deal of uncertainty as to when a character would be able to resolve an action.  Necessarily, such a goal related to a combat is going to hit some of the same problems you are dealing with.)

For your purposes, I would describe the relevant pieces as it being possible for an initiative roll to leave a person unable to act in a given round.  Since it is somewhat of a declare, roll, resolve sequence, a person that fails "initiative" is in the midst of attempting whatever action they have selected, and thus if not interfered with, may continue next round with a bonus.  Number of allies attacking a given target is a penalty to this initiative, if you decide to do a direct attack, but may not be if you choose an indirect, supporting action.  ("I'll run to the doorway, turn, and block it with readied axe, to cut off his escape route."  There is no direct effect on the target this round, but may be in his choice of actions and success chances next round.)

Though I have to say that there are player handling time and sequencing issues that make me question whether the approach will be worth the cost or not.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on February 14, 2019, 01:09:17 PM
Quote from: nDervish;1074988

As you can probably guess from how this rule is written, Mythras is primarily designed as a TOTM system; I'm not sure how you would easily handle this in a map-and-minis combat.


I am somewhat aware of Mythras, having done some research. Also, I am a big fan of all things d100, especially CoC, which is the best RPG overall, imho. But I'm pursuing a bit of a different philosophy: that the players generally (but not entirely) can't choose specific maneuvers or outcomes because it is assumed their character will choose the best move and you can't force any move if the opportunity isn't there anyway. So most things are subsumed under the attack roll.

But nothing wrong with Mythras whatsoever. I think it's a bit slower than my game but more detailed - so it's a trade-off, making it solely a matter of personal preference.


Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1075002
Trying to solve a similar (but not identical) issue that bugs me in typical RPG combat, I've been experimenting with an alternate form of "initiative" where the "initiative" roll is a mix of the usual readiness to act and also awareness of the full situation and navigating the numbers of foes and allies in the environment.  (My primary interest is having a great deal of uncertainty as to when a character would be able to resolve an action.  Necessarily, such a goal related to a combat is going to hit some of the same problems you are dealing with.)


Didn't want to touch on it since it doesn't have anything to do with the topic of the thread but what bothered me always about initiative is that some actions should always be faster than others. CoC/BRP does something like that but it wasn't consequent enough for me. I basically have 3 types actions/action speeds: action that can be reliably interrupted by the strike of a sword (ex: running the whole round), actions that can be reliable interrupted with a readied arrow/gun (ex: melee attack) and action that CANNOT be reliably interrupted with a readied gun (ex: another readied gun).

I add uncertainty to that through metacurrency where a protagonist's fist punch suddenly can be as fast as someone holding a readied gun to his head (fist punch bumped up one category). But not necessarily.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Bren on February 14, 2019, 04:38:05 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1074410
I think I said it before but I guess I need to stress it again: I have been in battles where our party attacked the final orc or whatever from all sides. And I wish there had been a rule in place that had kept me from attacking.
Well you could just choose not to attack the orc.

Do you really need a rule to prevent you from doing the thing that you say you don't actually want to do in the first place?
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on February 15, 2019, 01:51:50 AM
That won't work well, I'm afraid. A substantial part of the trad games community wants to take the optimal tactical decision and I largely share that sentiment. Suppose a player was to hold back deliberately and a fellow PC was to die over it.. that would make for great feelings at the table... no, the design challenge is to skillfully create a system that still produces cinematic results (as much as possible) when players take the optimum tactical decisions.

Also, I can't simulate the decision not to attack because an RPG generally doesn't model all the details that could make a melee participant (supporter) hesitate for a round. It's not a decision that a player can take; it's a decision that the PC has to take.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: nDervish on February 15, 2019, 06:11:13 AM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1075038
I am somewhat aware of Mythras, having done some research. Also, I am a big fan of all things d100, especially CoC, which is the best RPG overall, imho. But I'm pursuing a bit of a different philosophy: that the players generally (but not entirely) can't choose specific maneuvers or outcomes because it is assumed their character will choose the best move and you can't force any move if the opportunity isn't there anyway. So most things are subsumed under the attack roll.

Definitely a reasonable (and faster-playing!) approach.  I tend to think that the combat Special Effects are a bit too open as well, and have theorized about things like randomly selecting three SEs for the player to choose from, as the ones which the situation presents openings for, rather than allowing any SE at any time.  But that's largely tangential to the topic at hand - you could implement a mechanic similar to the Mythras "Outmaneuver" (which strikes me as being intended to produce exactly the kind of effects you're asking about in this thread) without needing to do anything remotely resembling its combat Special Effects.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Bren on February 15, 2019, 08:29:04 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1075142
That won't work well, I'm afraid.
Certainly if you can't stop yourself from attacking even when some part of you wishes you wouldn't or couldn't attack then no, it won't work.

Quote
Also, I can't simulate the decision not to attack because an RPG generally doesn't model all the details that could make a melee participant (supporter) hesitate for a round. It's not a decision that a player can take; it's a decision that the PC has to take.
You will have to unpack this. I don't follow how you the player can't decide to hesitate. Just don't declare an action that round.

Here's an example of how that could work in most game systems. If I as the GM don't allow you more than a few seconds to declare an action then any hesitation in you the player declaring an action equals (and results in) a hesitation in PC action. Player hesitation can map quite nicely to character hesitation.

As far as trying to get combat to simulate what happens in fiction, in my experience many systems generate output results much like fiction. But the process doesn't necessarily feel like fiction. One major reason for this is that when a player rolls the dice to attack and a miss feels to most players like their guy swung and missed rather than that their guy was prevented from getting an opportunity to attack by being blocked by another character, by hesitating as they look for an opening, etc. The problem isn't generating a result similar to fiction. The problem is creating a system that makes combat feel to a player like some specific type of fiction. To my mind this is as much (and probably more) an issue of how the player conceives of their character's actions and the results thereof than it is of how the system manages combat.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on February 16, 2019, 03:09:47 AM
Quote from: nDervish;1075155
Definitely a reasonable (and faster-playing!) approach.  I tend to think that the combat Special Effects are a bit too open as well, and have theorized about things like randomly selecting three SEs for the player to choose from, as the ones which the situation presents openings for, rather than allowing any SE at any time.  But that's largely tangential to the topic at hand - you could implement a mechanic similar to the Mythras "Outmaneuver" (which strikes me as being intended to produce exactly the kind of effects you're asking about in this thread) without needing to do anything remotely resembling its combat Special Effects.

We'll talk about this more in future threads on cinematic combat, which I structure as Attack Sequences (1 v 1), 1 v Many and hits/general combat events.
I should add that I do have a finished system already, the Quickstart is on my game's website (http://www.knightsoftheblacklily.com/downloads/). Since it's in BETA state, however, I'm presenting the underlying logic to see which holes people can poke in it and see if (better) alternative solutions exist. I still got some time left to do heavy tinkering before starting the crowdfunding phase in earnest. But if there's going to be a bigger rewrite, it's got to start soon because there's implications for testing, etc.



Quote from: Bren;1075219
Certainly if you can't stop yourself from attacking even when some part of you wishes you wouldn't or couldn't attack then no, it won't work.

Well, you don't have like the underlying logic but it is what it is. The design challenge for me is the publish a combat system that produces the most cinematic results (in somewhat detailed, mechanics-generated results as opposed to narrative games) under optimal tactical choices.

Quote from: Bren;1075219
You will have to unpack this. I don't follow how you the player can't decide to hesitate. Just don't declare an action that round.

Suppose the reasons for not attacking are fear of getting in your allies way depending on his stance or based on a brief side-step he made (small enough to not be represented change square/hexfield). Suppose you hesitate because the lone enemy has given you a brief glance that tells you to be careful. Or suppose it depends on enemy body tension. Suppose the enemy just made a side-step and now the angle between you and your ally is less favorable now. Suppose an ally next makes a motion that he's about to attack but it turns out to be a feint only. Suppose your character thinks about some tactic to get into the enemy's back.

Just a few details that come to mind that might make a character hesitate which we don't model in our combat rules. We're abstracting out so many things that impact the decision not to attack. That's why I am abstracting out why a character chooses not to attack this turn, I only model whether he does or not.

Quote from: Bren;1075219
Here's an example of how that could work in most game systems. If I as the GM don't allow you more than a few seconds to declare an action then any hesitation in you the player declaring an action equals (and results in) a hesitation in PC action. Player hesitation can map quite nicely to character hesitation.

I don't think that's much of a challenge though, I'm afraid. Once the players get used to it, they will always declare an attack unless there is something to lose for them by doing so. Also, how would this work with GM's mooks surrounding a lone PC? It doesn't seem like a viable solution.

Quote from: Bren;1075219
As far as trying to get combat to simulate what happens in fiction, in my experience many systems generate output results much like fiction. But the process doesn't necessarily feel like fiction.

Process is definitely a factor and you could say that this thread is about process in 1 v Many situations. Yes. But it's not just process. It's also a question of which details are mechanically-driven and which ones are filled in by the GM. In both D&D and PbtA, although very different approaches, the details are left to the GM. Okay, your PC just lost 12 hitpoints - what does that even mean? It's not very evocative of specific imagery. Compare that to Hârnmaster or the Criticals in, say, Rolemaster or WFRP. These provide detail to varying degrees.

Quote from: Bren;1075219
One major reason for this is that when a player rolls the dice to attack and a miss feels to most players like their guy swung and missed rather than that their guy was prevented from getting an opportunity to attack by being blocked by another character, by hesitating as they look for an opening, etc.

Absolutely but I don't know of any good way to do this. Sure, you can put players under time pressure and say they're hesitating if they don't declare quickly enough and I have done so in games. But in a 1-on-1 it's pretty clear what the action is. You could ask for attack specifics but that would call for special rules for each attack type with all its associated complexity/speed issues.

And, btw, part of the feel of combat is the characters feeling the pressure to take the optimal tactical choice, so the players should face the same challenge.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Bren on February 17, 2019, 04:42:13 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1075238
Just a few details that come to mind that might make a character hesitate which we don't model in our combat rules. We're abstracting out so many things that impact the decision not to attack. That's why I am abstracting out why a character chooses not to attack this turn, I only model whether he does or not.
I'm hesitant about whether you can get the correct player feel of combat with a heavily abstracted system.

Quote
I don't think that's much of a challenge though, I'm afraid. Once the players get used to it, they will always declare an attack unless there is something to lose for them by doing so.
That's not been my experience as a GM. Obviously some of that will depend on how tactically minded one's players are and whether they are dedicated or casual gamers, but another important factor is how abstract is the combat system in use. Especially whether or not "attack"or "don't attack" is a binary decision. Now I haven't played a system that abstract in a long, long time. A number of systems provide more tactical variety (and hence non-binary choices) in the type of attack and defense available. I'm sure one reason I see pretty significant player hesitation is that I use systems with non-binary combat choices, hence the players need to consider more options when deciding on an action.

Quote
Also, how would this work with GM's mooks surrounding a lone PC? It doesn't seem like a viable solution.[/quote}That's a different issue. And, depending on the system, potentially a non-issue. Several systems allow combined actions so that multiple attackers only require a single attack roll (e.g. any of the various D6 systems or Barbarians of Lemuria and its off-shoot Honor & Intrigue).

A second solution is for the GM to do the rolling for the "mooks" behind a screen and narrate the outcome e.g. 6 mooks "attack" but it turns out that only one hits. The GM might narrate that as 4 mooks hesitating, 2 mooks attacking in sequence with only one mook hitting. Thus avoiding the narration of a round robin of six attacks, most of which are likely to miss anyhow since the attackers are mooks. (Obviously this method won't work if the GM practice is to roll all attacks in the open.)

Quote
Process is definitely a factor and you could say that this thread is about process in 1 v Many situations. Yes. But it's not just process. It's also a question of which details are mechanically-driven and which ones are filled in by the GM. In both D&D and PbtA, although very different approaches, the details are left to the GM. Okay, your PC just lost 12 hitpoints - what does that even mean? It's not very evocative of specific imagery. Compare that to Hârnmaster or the Criticals in, say, Rolemaster or WFRP. These provide detail to varying degrees.
I'm curious what the mechanically driven details will look like and whether that provides any difference in the player experience. Without knowing what sort of detail you expect to output I can't tell whether the process might significantly change or improve anything from a player look and feel perspective.

Quote
Absolutely but I don't know of any good way to do this. Sure, you can put players under time pressure and say they're hesitating if they don't declare quickly enough and I have done so in games. But in a 1-on-1 it's pretty clear what the action is.
As I said, this is heavily system dependent. Honor & Intrigue, for example, has well over a dozen possible attack maneuvers with various pros, cons, and effects for each maneuver.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on February 18, 2019, 03:13:05 AM
Quote from: Bren;1075361

That's not been my experience as a GM. Obviously some of that will depend on how tactically minded one's players are and whether they are dedicated or casual gamers, but another important factor is how abstract is the combat system in use. Especially whether or not "attack"or "don't attack" is a binary decision. Now I haven't played a system that abstract in a long, long time. A number of systems provide more tactical variety (and hence non-binary choices) in the type of attack and defense available. I'm sure one reason I see pretty significant player hesitation is that I use systems with non-binary combat choices, hence the players need to consider more options when deciding on an action.


My experience with combat systems with tactical options is that either one or two best-of-breed options become quickly apparent or a couple of rules of thumb regarding which option to use when do.

Quote from: Bren;1075361

That's a different issue. And, depending on the system, potentially a non-issue. Several systems allow combined actions so that multiple attackers only require a single attack roll (e.g. any of the various D6 systems or Barbarians of Lemuria and its off-shoot Honor & Intrigue).


Sure but then you're relegating who of them gets to attack to narration based on GM discretion, similar to what's done narrative games with their higher abstraction level.

Quote from: Bren;1075361

A second solution is for the GM to do the rolling for the "mooks" behind a screen and narrate the outcome e.g. 6 mooks "attack" but it turns out that only one hits. The GM might narrate that as 4 mooks hesitating, 2 mooks attacking in sequence with only one mook hitting. Thus avoiding the narration of a round robin of six attacks, most of which are likely to miss anyhow since the attackers are mooks. (Obviously this method won't work if the GM practice is to roll all attacks in the open.)


Well, this is pretty much the standard RPG solution, like in D&D (for example), except behind the screen. And sure, it could be done to speed up combat against mooks/minions/rabble, I suppose. I'll consider that as an optional rule.

Quote from: Bren;1075361

I'm curious what the mechanically driven details will look like and whether that provides any difference in the player experience. Without knowing what sort of detail you expect to output I can't tell whether the process might significantly change or improve anything from a player look and feel perspective.


The link to my game's website is in my signature. ;) That said, different players have different preferences so there's probably a variety of responses.

Quote from: Bren;1075361

As I said, this is heavily system dependent. Honor & Intrigue, for example, has well over a dozen possible attack maneuvers with various pros, cons, and effects for each maneuver.


Sure but we're talking a different (still viable) game philosophy here. What I aim at in my game instead is less tactical options (though there will be more to come via the Traits subsystem) for the sake of speedier resolution and instead mechanically generated outcomes that are typical for cinematic combat (losing initiative, stun, getting under pressure by the attacker, counterattacking, etc.). The ebb and flow of attacks plus these outcomes then creates a mechanically generated story of the battle, to be narrated by the GM.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Bren on February 18, 2019, 04:07:21 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1075450
My experience with combat systems with tactical options is that either one or two best-of-breed options become quickly apparent or a couple of rules of thumb regarding which option to use when do.
That has not been at all been my experience in Honor & Intrigue nor has it usually been the case in Star Wars D6. I agree for low level characters in Runequest, though not for Rune Level characters.

Quote
Sure but then you're relegating who of them gets to attack to narration based on GM discretion, similar to what's done narrative games with their higher abstraction level.
No, not really. The group makes a single attack. That is rules based, not narrative. The GM may narrate who hit, but for true mooks it's irrelevant whether mook #3 or mook #2 was the one that actually hit you. If fact in most cinematic action, the audience frequently can't even tell which mook was the one that made the hit. (Unless they rewatch the scene or use freeze frame or slow motion). They only see how many hits were made.

Quote
Well, this is pretty much the standard RPG solution, like in D&D (for example), except behind the screen. And sure, it could be done to speed up combat against mooks/minions/rabble, I suppose. I'll consider that as an optional rule.
I agree it is neither a novel nor an earthshaking solution.

Quote
The link to my game's website is in my signature. ;) That said, different players have different preferences so there's probably a variety of responses.
Yeah, personally I'm not sure I really feel that there is a problem that needs to be solved. Which may mean I'm not the target audience for your mechanics.

Quote
Sure but we're talking a different (still viable) game philosophy here. What I aim at in my game instead is less tactical options (though there will be more to come via the Traits subsystem) for the sake of speedier resolution and instead mechanically generated outcomes that are typical for cinematic combat (losing initiative, stun, getting under pressure by the attacker, counterattacking, etc.). The ebb and flow of attacks plus these outcomes then creates a mechanically generated story of the battle, to be narrated by the GM.
The highlighted outcome are all or mostly present in the systems I typically run. Possibly one reason I'm not really seeing the problem that you are seeing. I do agree with you that I want my combat system to output results that tell me how the winning side won rather than simply (as some narrative systems do) telling me that the winning side one and then leaving the how to narration by GM or player(s). That is probably the main reason I've never warmed up to the Robin Laws/Greg Stafford HeroQuest system.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Skarg on February 18, 2019, 07:43:01 PM
My personal view is:

1. To heck with most movies and even more of most TV shows' combat choreography. It mostly sucks and is stupid and dumb, mostly. I don't want to emulate it. I wish instead that they did a better job more often of doing scenes that made some sense.

2. Being cinematic is a dumb goal. Being dramatic is a slightly less dumb goal, but still kind of dumb unless the game situation calls for it. Many people in a game world may actually enjoy dramatics themselves, in some cases even with a worthwhile intelligent purpose and effect. After all, if you as leader challenge or accept challenges with dangerous-looking foes and beat them in dramatic single combat, you're liable to reap much reward in terms of reputation, respect, morale, etc.

3. Your comments about gamey-ness and round-robin actions by foes, and foes hesitating and getting in each others' way, I think are good points but to me are not about "not feeling cinematic" but are about making sense and having the game do a good job giving the experience of the situation that's supposedly happening in the game world.

4. The main thing that seems to me to be missing from the experiences as you mentioned it would be a map and good tactical rules where foes do in fact get in each other's way due to the map and the rules for movement, facing, terrain and reach and limits on what you can do and move at the same time, etc. The Fantasy Trip has a good simple-ish combat system that does a decent job of that. (GURPS does an even better job but is also rather more detailed and uses 1-second turns.)

5. The part about delays and hesitation may be more up to the GM roleplaying the NPCs appropriately, taking into consideration what they are aware of, how brave they are, how coordinated and quick all be leaping into action all the time, etc. I actually try to model that as GM, but GM discretion can also do it, if you have a good GM who is sensitive to such things.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: S'mon on February 19, 2019, 03:13:22 AM
Quote from: Skarg;1075565
My personal view is:

1. To heck with most movies and even more of most TV shows' combat choreography. It mostly sucks and is stupid and dumb, mostly. I don't want to emulate it. I wish instead that they did a better job more often of doing scenes that made some sense.

Good fight choreography is so rare - like effective armour - that I really notice and appreciate it when I see it.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on February 19, 2019, 03:52:04 AM
Quote from: Bren;1075529

No, not really. The group makes a single attack. That is rules based, not narrative. The GM may narrate who hit, but for true mooks it's irrelevant whether mook #3 or mook #2 was the one that actually hit you. If fact in most cinematic action, the audience frequently can't even tell which mook was the one that made the hit. (Unless they rewatch the scene or use freeze frame or slow motion). They only see how many hits were made.


In many entertaining mook fights, however, some or all mooks are visually distinct. It helps to tell a unique story.

Quote from: Bren;1075529

The highlighted outcome are all or mostly present in the systems I typically run. Possibly one reason I'm not really seeing the problem that you are seeing.


The difference is in the overall faithfulness in recreation, which might become more clear in parts 2 and 3 of my observations of cinematic combat.

Quote from: Bren;1075529

I do agree with you that I want my combat system to output results that tell me how the winning side won rather than simply (as some narrative systems do) telling me that the winning side one and then leaving the how to narration by GM or player(s). That is probably the main reason I've never warmed up to the Robin Laws/Greg Stafford HeroQuest system.


Yeah, it's part of why I could never get into D&D. That and a few other things like static defense (AC), hitpoints conflating luck and health, etc.



Quote from: Skarg;1075565
My personal view is:

1. To heck with most movies and even more of most TV shows' combat choreography. It mostly sucks and is stupid and dumb, mostly. I don't want to emulate it. I wish instead that they did a better job more often of doing scenes that made some sense.

2. Being cinematic is a dumb goal. Being dramatic is a slightly less dumb goal, but still kind of dumb unless the game situation calls for it. Many people in a game world may actually enjoy dramatics themselves, in some cases even with a worthwhile intelligent purpose and effect. After all, if you as leader challenge or accept challenges with dangerous-looking foes and beat them in dramatic single combat, you're liable to reap much reward in terms of reputation, respect, morale, etc.


'Dem are fighting words, dear sir. I would like you to realize that Star Wars hasn't become so popular because its space combat (and, actually, its physical combat) was so realistic. It hasn't even become so popular in spite of it.
And clearly, the Lord of the Rings movies contain plenty of "dumb" fighting scenes too. The genre is called (sci-)fantasy and it's way more popular than realistic hard sci-fi or medieval historical drama.
The same goes, btw, for realistic RPG systems - which remain a niche.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: crkrueger on February 19, 2019, 11:31:58 AM
I couldn't care less about cinematic combat.

However, not everyone being able to attack a lone opponent is realistic/verisimilar as well.  It just makes sense.

Mythras has the Outmaneuvre action which allows a combatant to move in such a way that opponents must win in an opposed roll if they want to attack the combatant that round.

Should be easy to implement in D&D or other systems.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on February 19, 2019, 02:41:51 PM
Quote from: CRKrueger;1075685
I couldn't care less about cinematic combat.


Might be the wrong thread for you, friendo.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1075685

Mythras has the Outmaneuvre action which allows a combatant to move in such a way that opponents must win in an opposed roll if they want to attack the combatant that round.

Should be easy to implement in D&D or other systems.


The question is why anyone has to choose that consciously. Why is my little man not doing that automatically whenever he sees an opportunity to do so? Do we need this micromanagement in combat?

On the question of
abstract combat results versus detailed combat results, I come out more towards the detailed end. (That's where evocative combat mechanisms come into play.)

But on the question of
plethora of player-selected tactical options versus PC-selected (and thus abstracted away) tactical behaviour, I lean towards the latter.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Armchair Gamer on February 19, 2019, 03:21:13 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1075717
Might be the wrong thread for you, friendo.


   You're new here, so you may not have picked up on this, but TheRPGSite has a long and venerable tradition of everyone telling everyone else that they're playing wrong. For the most part, it's best to just let it roll off your back. :)

  On-topic, the forthcoming Zorro D6 game from Gallant Knight Games is supposed to have rules and guidelines for this kind of thing, along with some simple but nifty-sounding fencing rules.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Rhedyn on February 19, 2019, 03:52:16 PM
For RPGs you need AOE options and NPCs have to surrender/run (so moral mechanics). With both you can get the one v many down easily.

Guy-with-a-sword needs to be able to hit more than one creature per round. How you get that done will influence your success.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: tenbones on February 19, 2019, 05:06:12 PM
I hope this is germane to your thread...

On the other forum this question was asked a few months ago -

How certain systems could handle the Spartan Test which would emulate this scene...

http://youtu.be/SMw4ChpMM3Y (http://youtu.be/SMw4ChpMM3Y)

I responded...

Okay in Savage Worlds this scene should be fairly easy. (please note this is pre-SWADE rules- with the new rules things may have changed).

Setup - 300 Leonidas in SW rules would at LEAST be Heroic Rank (probably Legendary)- but for the purposes of the video I'm willing to bet we could do that scene with less than Heroic Rank. I'll spitball working backwards these stats. No magic. The only books I'll use are the core book, maybe fantasy companion, and Savage Worlds Mythos - which covers Greek historical/mythological characters.

Physical Stats - Agility d10, Smarts d8, Spirit d10, Strength d10, Vigor d12
Relevant skills: Fighting d12, Intimidation d10, Throwing d12
Parry: 10(2). Toughness: 13(5),
Gear - Corinthean Helmet(+3) Greaves and Bracers (+2), Round Shield (+1/+2 ranged) Soldiers Spear (Str +d8), Long Blade (Str. +d8)
Edges - First Strike, Improved First Strike, Counter Attack, Two-Fisted, Quick Draw, Sweep, Trademark Weapon Soldier Spear, Improved Trademark Weapon: Soldier Spear, Dypholos(Florentine fighting),


IMMORTAL – PERSIAN ELITE SOLDIER Agility d8, Smarts d6, Spirit d6, Strength d8, Vigor d8 Charisma: 0; Pace: 6;
Parry: 7; Toughness: 8 (2) Skills: Fighting d10, Intimidation d6, Notice d6(+2), Shooting d6, Throwing d6 Edges: Alertness, Combat Reflexes Armor: Leather cuirass (Torso +2), Weapons: Long sword (Str+d8), spear (Str+d6)

Okay... this is basic.

Fight starts - Leonidas has won initiative based on the video. I've made a huge mistake immediately. These are not Immortals he's facing... LOLOLOLOL. These are piss-ant levies in the video. But fuck it - I'm going to give them Immortal stats -minus shields since they're not using them.

Round 1
First Persian - Runs up on Leonidas. This activates his Improved First Strike with his spear that has reach. Leonidas's average attack (8) will be enough to bypass the Persians's 7 Parry. His minimum damage is 11 - which bypasses their Toughness. These are minions, so he drops.

Second Persian runs up and swings - their average roll is a 5. They need to explode in order to actually bypass Leonidas's Parry rating. It dings off Leonidas shield, Leonidas sweeps him for free with Improved First Strike.

Third Persian runs up on Leonidas, Improved First Strike with Spear - Same result as the first. He gets mowed down.
4th and 5th Persians run *past* Leonidas - but they're in range of his spear - Improved First Strike - he sweeps both of them.
6th Persian runs up the middle - Leonidas First Strikes his dumb ass, dead too.

Leonidas makes his first attack which he's been holding all this time! He throws his spear... average roll is an 8. But the target Persian has no shield and no cover - so this is an actual Raise due to lack of ranged defense (Target is a 4) with an average roll from Leonidas. This kills the Persian instantly.

End of Round 1

Round 2
Leonidas wins initiative.
Leonidas uses Quickdraw to pull his sword... free action. He holds his attacks.
First Persian engages him in melee - Improved First Strike. Because Leonidas is fighting Dympholus-style (Florentine) and the Persians only have swords and no shields, Leonidas going to have the basic same stat bonuses as with his spear-and-shield in melee. He chooses to Shield Bash, average damage for Leonidas is 7. So for purposes of the Shield Bash he's choosing to knock him prone which is an option and the Spartan behind him gets a nice prone bonus to finish him off.

Second Persian engages - Improved First Strike - he kills the Persian instantly.
Third Persian - Comes into range. Leonidas rolls low for damage, doesn't kill him with an Improved First Strike shield-bash, but does knock him prone
Fourth Persian charges into range. Improved First Strike kills him
Fifth Persian charges, Improved First Strike doesn't kill him, but sweeps his leg off. Leonidas takes his first attack to kill him in mid-air.
Sixth Persian enters melee. Improved First Strike kills him.
Seventh Persian enters melee - Leonidas takes his second action with his off-hand and Shield Bashes him prone stunning him.

Now keep in mind, that if any non-mook characters were in play... this fight would be very different.

Some notes on my breakdown using Savage Worlds
The premise of Savage Worlds is to make their fights cinematic. Mook rules can still be dangerous, as they can gang up. But consider this isn't just your average warrior, this goddamn 300's Leonidas. I could have made him *far* more dangerous at Heroic, and truthfully he'd be Legendary (the movie version of Leonidas, mind you). This was just a quick-and-dirty stat-bloc.

The movie clip illustrates this notion perfectly - these are not Immortals, they're just the rank-and-file charging up to a serious badass in small numbers. The primary mechanic I leveraged was Improved First Strike, which for this situation is *extremely* useful. To be honest, I could have replicated this with a radically less experienced warrior and not Leonidas, I might not have killed every single one of them, but there's a good chance I would have.

If these had been Immortals - they would have advanced as a group. Leonidas would have had a much harder time as his First Strike would not necessarily have killed every single one of them (they have shields - so I wouldn't have been able to just take 'average rolls' to know for sure). If any of them survived that initial salvo, things would have gotten interesting as once engaged, he'd have been forced to deal with Gang Up rules which can definitely turn the tide of a fight. Ironically this is why Spartans fight in formation... right? LOL

But otherwise, yeah - that whole scene would have been a two-round slaughterfest for the Leonidas PC. Being all badass and glorious all at once. Quick, fun, dirty and awesome.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Jaeger on February 19, 2019, 05:11:05 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1075717
...
The question is why anyone has to choose that consciously. Why is my little man not doing that automatically whenever he sees an opportunity to do so? Do we need this micromanagement in combat?
....

Well, you can only abstract things down so much.

You can make a situational rule stating that if possible the PC will automatically maneuver so he can only be attacked one at a time by the enemy. But then you have to have a rule or two for when the PC can get surrounded as well.

Much easier from my point of view for a player to just have one rule: the "outmaneuver" action, that you have to roll. Rather than having to remember 2-3 situational rules just to avoid an extra die roll.

What's easier in actual play with your system? This is something that can only really be resolved in play testing.


Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1075719
You're new here, so you may not have picked up on this, but TheRPGSite has a long and venerable tradition of everyone telling everyone else that they're playing wrong. For the most part, it's best to just let it roll off your back. :)
....

Rule one of posting on The RPG Site: Get a thicker skin.

Of course once in a while, every now and then, someone actually is literally doing it wrong.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Skarg on February 19, 2019, 07:22:39 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1075637
'Dem are fighting words, dear sir. I would like you to realize that Star Wars hasn't become so popular because its space combat (and, actually, its physical combat) was so realistic. It hasn't even become so popular in spite of it.
And clearly, the Lord of the Rings movies contain plenty of "dumb" fighting scenes too. The genre is called (sci-)fantasy and it's way more popular than realistic hard sci-fi or medieval historical drama.
The same goes, btw, for realistic RPG systems - which remain a niche.

That's why I preceded my comment with "my personal view is".

I don't care what's popular.

People with terrible taste, few critical thinking skills, and/or no sense of what combat is like, proportions, or what makes sense, may vastly outnumber people with taste and who care about making sense, but to me that's more a point of pride and certainly not a reason to emulate things that don't make sense.

I think that the latest Disney Star Wars films (ep VII and VIII) were so atrociously bad (https://youtu.be/sXNc-5X6xpw), that I'm amazed anyone tries to make any sense of them.

Many parts of the LotR films I like, but they (not to mention the Hobbit films which I found mostly a great waste of resources due to their video-game action nonsense) also have intensely dumb parts, such as "goblins can climb walls and ceilings as easily and quickly as walking" and "y'know that long siege battle you've been watching - it's now irrelevant because ghost army CGI smart bomb kills all foes in about 60 seconds" and other bits of excessive nonsense that undermined the attention to detail that was sometimes good.

As for "cinematic", it seems to me that the films which actually have the highest quality and the most ability to grip the intention and convey an authentic powerful experience, are ones that do a good job of doing things authentically, even when they are action scenes. The "yo ho ho we do whatever's flashy" films aren't very good cinema either... again, in my personal view.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on February 20, 2019, 02:45:25 AM
Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1075719
You're new here, so you may not have picked up on this, but TheRPGSite has a long and venerable tradition of everyone telling everyone else that they're playing wrong. For the most part, it's best to just let it roll off your back. :)


I've been writing to unmoderated forums for more than 20 years now, I think I can handle it. ;)

Quote from: Rhedyn;1075725
For RPGs you need AOE options and NPCs have to surrender/run (so moral mechanics). With both you can get the one v many down easily.


There isn't that much fleeing of mooks in cinematic combat (though it does exist). Most happily run towards their slaughter.

Quote from: tenbones;1075737


How certain systems could handle the Spartan Test which would emulate this scene...


Well, this is great and I would like to challenge you to compare my system and Savage Worlds (or any other system) across a number of movie combat scenes, so that we're not cherry-picking. The one you posted does not fit the theme of the thread a 100%, I'm afraid, because the outnumbering side more or less comes in sequentially. Also, the slow motion effect makes it hard to determine how much time actually was spent and therefore how many rounds the fight should fit in. (A more relevant segment would be 1:20 to 2:00 right here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05Gzy6QSJ2g).)

I'll pick up on the challenge with my Knights of the Black Lily system in a seperate post but it's a bit of doubtful use since it's not a full system yet but in a state of being a Quickstart BETA. Also, the 300 battle scene is not really made to showcase its strengths due to the sequential nature of incoming mooks. But we'll see.

Quote from: Jaeger;1075739
You can make a situational rule stating that if possible the PC will automatically maneuver so he can only be attacked one at a time by the enemy. But then you have to have a rule or two for when the PC can get surrounded as well.

Much easier from my point of view for a player to just have one rule: the "outmaneuver" action, that you have to roll. Rather than having to remember 2-3 situational rules just to avoid an extra die roll.


We've discussed further above in the thread. What analysis of the linked clips shows is that between "one of them attacks" and "all attack" within a 3 to 6 second span everything is possible in movie combat. We've come up with 2 solutions so far:
1. Roll the number of outnumbering attackers that can attack the lone guy randomly, and then go down the initiative order. The rest looks for an opportunity to attack but doesn't.
2. If you declare that you want to attack the lone guy, you automatically need to take a test whether you get close enough to do so. This comes before the actual attack roll. Since the defender has only one parry roll per turn overall and one of the attackers is guaranteed to be able to attack each turn, hit determination remains a two-step process as is common in many games - the closing-in roll of the attacker just replaces the parry roll of the defender. (This is what I have implemented in my game.)

No matter which implementation, the player of the loner fighter does not have to choose Outmaneuver under #1 or #2 - it has been assumed automatically and whether he does or not depends on how many people get to attack that turn. And it also determines how the GM narrates the scene, of course.


Quote from: Skarg;1075757
That's why I preceded my comment with "my personal view is".

I don't care what's popular.


That's certainly your prerogative, sir. But the genre we're dealing with in this thread is called fantasy for a reason. It is about the impossible made probable, if I was to draw on Rod Sterling. Not being strictly limited to realism is what inspires people. Sometimes to dumb and ridiculous things. And occasionally, very rarely, the dumb and ridiculous is actually quite cool and nobody cares that it's unrealistic.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: S'mon on February 20, 2019, 03:53:26 AM
Quote from: tenbones;1075737

The movie clip illustrates this notion perfectly - these are not Immortals, they're just the rank-and-file charging up to a serious badass in small numbers.


I found some of the 300 fights (that one, and the katana-wielding Immortals) to be at the extreme end of cinematic silliness, enough that it did dampen my enjoyment. Levy troops don't ever run around with swords like that, you give them spears and (especially) shields, and they advance in a solid bloc. The actual problem with undisciplined levy is that they tend to cluster so tightly, they end up unable to move or use their weapons! But I guess that's less dynamic on screen.

Or if they're skirmishers in loose formation then they throw darts or javelins at the heavy infantry, and run away when the Sparteatei get close. The battle depicted just didn't make any sense at all.

I do love '300', but there is good cinematic (1982 Conan) and then there is bad cinematic (Eyes passim). They could have given the Persians their wicker shields and shown the Spartan heavy hoplite spears *punch through them* - which would have been both a lot more realistic/historical AND even more badass!
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: tenbones on February 20, 2019, 11:53:48 AM
Quote from: S'mon;1075823
I found some of the 300 fights (that one, and the katana-wielding Immortals) to be at the extreme end of cinematic silliness, enough that it did dampen my enjoyment. Levy troops don't ever run around with swords like that, you give them spears and (especially) shields, and they advance in a solid bloc. The actual problem with undisciplined levy is that they tend to cluster so tightly, they end up unable to move or use their weapons! But I guess that's less dynamic on screen.

Or if they're skirmishers in loose formation then they throw darts or javelins at the heavy infantry, and run away when the Sparteatei get close. The battle depicted just didn't make any sense at all.

I do love '300', but there is good cinematic (1982 Conan) and then there is bad cinematic (Eyes passim). They could have given the Persians their wicker shields and shown the Spartan heavy hoplite spears *punch through them* - which would have been both a lot more realistic/historical AND even more badass!

LOL of course it's over-the-top silliness.

I'm trying to "get" what precisely Alexander is aiming for (which I'll discuss below). I completely agree with you in terms of realism how it *should* go. But once people say "cinematic" - my expectations of realism go flying out the window (though the more realism you inject into the cinematic style - the more cool it is).

Conan's Battle of the Mounds for instance is glorious. Cinematic, with a whiff of "realism". 300 is pure high-octane movie-fun. When I'm playing such games to emulate that - I want my warrior to be heroic-fraying all slobs in his path, I want blood shooting 30-ft into the air, and if given the chance, the ability to do a Manuever where I can blind aerial targets from the crimson geysers in my wake.


Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski
Well, this is great and I would like to challenge you to compare my system and Savage Worlds (or any other system) across a number of movie combat scenes, so that we're not cherry-picking. The one you posted does not fit the theme of the thread a 100%, I'm afraid, because the outnumbering side more or less comes in sequentially. Also, the slow motion effect makes it hard to determine how much time actually was spent and therefore how many rounds the fight should fit in. (A more relevant segment would be 1:20 to 2:00 right here.)

I'll pick up on the challenge with my Knights of the Black Lily system in a seperate post but it's a bit of doubtful use since it's not a full system yet but in a state of being a Quickstart BETA. Also, the 300 battle scene is not really made to showcase its strengths due to the sequential nature of incoming mooks. But we'll see.

Fair enough. Well when I look at that scene - Barristan is, in relative terms, also a Heroic Ranked (if not Legendary) warrior. In Savage Worlds much of the defense is passive and that defense rating is based purely on the character's fighting skill alone (gear and Edges can boost that a bit). I can parse that in SW pretty easily...

If we make a couple of assumptions that these are skilled mooks, much like the Persian Levies in the 300 clip - their ability to hit Barristan is going to be *difficult*. A simple Edge like Improved Counter Attack which Barristan would definitely have - would allow him to attack up to three opponents for free as long as they missed him. And that's a very safe bet.

Round 1
Opponent #1 gets First Striked. That's free. Barristan would likely one-shot any mook at his skill-level.
Opponent #2 gets parried. Counter Strike #1.
Opponent #3 gets parried. He does a Fighting Trick (Action #1) to manuever the opponent into the attack of Opponent #4.
Opponent #4 he hacks down (Action #2)
Opponent #5 he hacks down (Action #3 - these are the maximum number of attacks he can make)
Opponent #6 gets parried. Counter Strike #2
Opponent #7 gets parried? Hard to tell - he looks like he feints to attack. I'll chalk this up to a miss - Counter Strike #3.

End of Round #1

Round #2
The Bad Guys Win - they hold their action because Barristan just killed half of them - caution is key! Right? WRONG! This is Muthafuckin Barristan the BOLD!

Barristan attacks (Action #1) and kills Opponent #1
Opponent #2 gets parried. Counter Strike #1
Opponent #3 gets a raise and shoves Barristan
Barristan attacks (Action #2) and kills Opponent #3
Opponent #4 gets parried? Hard to tell. Counter Strike #2
Opponent #5 Aces a huge attack. Sticks Barristan from behind. Looks like WOUNDS!!! OHHH SNAP!
Barristan thinks "fuck you" and even with his Wound penalties attacks Opponent #5 and guts him like sweaty pig. He probably blows a Benny (Action #3)
Opponent #6 - okay here I'm just going to say this is a dramatic narrative event... he kicks Barristan for no real effect. You could narratively say that it's a "miss" and say this is Barristan's final Counterstrike if only to fit the video scene.
Opponent #7 runs Barristan through - he's prone, wounded and pretty much done.

End of Round #2.


So with a little fudgery at the end. I could model that fight with SW in two rounds of high-level combat glory. In actual play it would go *pretty* fast since assuming those guys as skilled mooks, they'd get blasted pretty fast (yet still be dangerous in such numbers) to someone very highly skilled like Barristan. I'd say even this breakdown would be pushing Barristan to his limits within the context of the rules.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: crkrueger on February 20, 2019, 12:28:04 PM
Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1075719
You're new here, so you may not have picked up on this, but TheRPGSite has a long and venerable tradition of everyone telling everyone else that they're playing wrong. For the most part, it's best to just let it roll off your back. :)

  On-topic, the forthcoming Zorro D6 game from Gallant Knight Games is supposed to have rules and guidelines for this kind of thing, along with some simple but nifty-sounding fencing rules.

Some people also tend to cry and make themselves play the idiot screaming accusations of BadWrongFun at everything for some unfathomable reason. :rolleyes:
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: crkrueger on February 20, 2019, 12:38:47 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1075717
Might be the wrong thread for you, friendo.



The question is why anyone has to choose that consciously. Why is my little man not doing that automatically whenever he sees an opportunity to do so? Do we need this micromanagement in combat?

On the question of
abstract combat results versus detailed combat results, I come out more towards the detailed end. (That's where evocative combat mechanisms come into play.)

But on the question of
plethora of player-selected tactical options versus PC-selected (and thus abstracted away) tactical behaviour, I lean towards the latter.


Hmm, it's odd that you say you want detailed and PC-focused moves yet don't want Outmaneuver, because that's exactly what it is.

When faced with multiple foes you can try to move so that they can't all attack you at once.  If you want, you could use acrobatics to vault over tables, etc.  If you are looking for cinematic, the hero Outmaneuvering to get to the exit, to fight multiple foes, to pick up a weapon, is in, oh every pirate and swashbuckling movie. Ever.

Why wouldn't you always be doing it?
Because you don't need to.
Because you don't want to based on the tactics on the ground.

Saying you want detailed character choices while eliminating tactical movement choices is going to leave you way more abstract than what you say you're shooting for.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: tenbones on February 20, 2019, 01:35:06 PM
I think the issue here is as Big Green is saying - how tactical vs. abstract do you want to cook this beast?

You're either abstracting the mooks as a "swarm" amalgamation creature which you narratively describe via gross levels of task-resolution.

Or you get very tactical with tic-by-tic moves/counter-moves that can potentially really bog the fight down.

Or you find some system with a happy medium that gives you tactical options that represent the Mook-swarm through individual actions that can be conglomerated as necessary.

I'm sure there are other systems that do this. The latest edition of SWADE does this via Gang-Up rules, and Support rules. Technically a mooks get bonuses to hit individuals based on their number, which abstracts a lot of the swarming and poking that can allow lesser mooks actually nickel-and-dime PC's/Wildcards. More importantly these rules ALSO apply to PC's. Likewise you have options to allow individuals make Support rolls to help mook attackers get extra bonuses (on a good roll). Or they can try to Test the targets with a fake-out, or acrobatic maneuver or whatever they dream up in order to Distract the target.

As the GM you're making those calls and describing it. Mechanically the task-resolution remains and clean or crunchy as you want it to be. You can send them in one at a time. Or one, then two/three/four working in concert etc. The impact is entirely dependent on how you want to present it, obviously. I think all of these are mechanically meaningful.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Skarg on February 20, 2019, 03:18:48 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1075812
... But the genre we're dealing with in this thread is called fantasy for a reason. It is about the impossible made probable, if I was to draw on Rod Sterling. Not being strictly limited to realism is what inspires people. Sometimes to dumb and ridiculous things. And occasionally, very rarely, the dumb and ridiculous is actually quite cool and nobody cares that it's unrealistic.
I'm interested in fantasy, and sometimes in dumb and ridiculous things.

But when I'm interested in something fantastic, it tends to make me interested in "what if some fantastic things existed?" I find that interesting. But I don't find it very interesting when it starts to become more like "what if everything was gonzo and almost nothing worked as expected" especially when it's "what if normal things don't work in ways that make sense any more" which is what I think most exaggerated cinematic action scenes are like. "What if we ignore rate x time = distance?" or "what if we ignore physics?" or "what if we ignore what humans are really like?" are not fantasies I often want to play.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on February 20, 2019, 03:50:58 PM
So, let's address the 300 test. As mentioned, my game is in a Beta Quickstart phase, so I'll have to cheat and create Traits that both capture the scene as well as serve general usage (aka not specifically tailored to the scene only).

Leonidas
STR 8, TOUGH 9, AGI 7, DEX 6
Spear 9, Sword 9, Spear (Thrown) 8
INIT 9, DAM 1, SOAK 2, DC idr... maybe 4?
Gear: Spear (L I9 Dam M), Sword(S I7 Dam M), Shield, Helmet/Braces/Boots (probably S9 B3)
Traits:
Mook-Killer - After killing/incapacitating a Mook, the character can move up to 1.5 (??? this needs to be thought through) m and attack another Mook as part of the same melee action. Up to 3 Mooks can be dispatched this way per round.
Quick Draw

Persian Soldiers

STR 6, TOUGH 6, AGI 6, DEX 5
Melee 7, Thrown 5
Gear: various - Spear (L I9 Dam M), Sword(S I7 Dam M), Shield
Traits:
Total Mooks - These guys look and sound impressive but are worse than regular mooks and serve only to get slaughtered. ANY Daze, Stun or even Off-Guard result takes them out permanently (up to attacker whether KO or Dead). Additionally, don't roll for attack, assume a SL 0 for the attack roll instead (simple failure aka only hits if the defender defends and fumbles).

Okay, ignoring the spear kill at 0:00, I'll assume 5 rounds. The varying round times are because of the slo-mo of the video and Knights of the Black Lily assumes "roughly" 5 second rounds, so there's some leeway in interpretation.

Round 1 (0:01 - 0:14)
Leo ignores the first attacker who has announced to attack him as he runs by. The attack ends in a stand-off as both auto-fail. With the first attacker moving out of Threat Range, Leo engages the next attacker against whom he wins Initiative easily (+60 on d100). He has 81% to hit and must avoid rolling 98+ on the damage roll to take him out. He manages that and can engage two more the same way in this round due to his special trait. (The second one probably received a critical hit but has luck in being downed only.)

Round 2 (0:14-0:24)
Leo throws spear (2 AP) and has a 81% base chance to hit. Any hit means auto-kill for the Total Mook. I will grant you that the system does not model in its base construct a Mook getting taken down by a thrown spear and Mook next to him falling down as well. Leo follows that up by a Quick Draw of the sword (1 AP, 3 of 3 AP spent).

Round 3 (0:24-0:31)
Similar to Round 1, Leo gets to attack 3 Mooks, the first one being lucky to getting downed, the following ones killed.

Round 4 (0:31-0:42)

First a Mook gets attacked and ignored who continues, then Leo downs a Mook and kills 2 more, as before. The last one messily, probably with a Crit.

Round 5: (0:42-0:52)
Leo ignores the first attack, kills another Mook and then downs or K.O.s the last one.

END

I would say it's enormous accuracy, even with on-the-fly made-up rules for Traits. More precisely designed Traits would yield even greater precision.

Here's the fun part: in normal RPGs such a scene would be somewhat boring because there's not really any risk involved for Leo. He's supposed to win!

But in Knights of the Black Lily you can set up challenges so that he needs to take down X Mooks in Y rounds or that he needs to get through X rounds without getting wounded, being able to turn Y wounding hits into misses. If the character succeeds the challenge, then the party's Fortune Points pool gets one point from the GM's pool. At the end of scenario, the FP pool gets used to gauge how good or bad the party has gone through the adventure (how much they relied on the help of the gods) - and then the end of the scenario may play out very differently according to that final tally. If they played badly (most of the Fortune is with the GM and their pool drained), then the BBEG might escape and become recurring. Or a dear NPC might die. Otoh, if the tally is positive because they mastered the preceding challenges well, then fate might smile on them and they might find special treasure or something in the game world shifts in their favor on a campaign level.

By doing so you take some important matters out of the GM's capricious hands and make it dependent on player performance (and dice luck).
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Bren on February 20, 2019, 04:23:06 PM
Quote from: Skarg;1075565
1. To heck with most movies and even more of most TV shows' combat choreography. It mostly sucks and is stupid and dumb, mostly. I don't want to emulate it. I wish instead that they did a better job more often of doing scenes that made some sense.
Not disagreeing, but riffing off what you posted...

It could just be age and get-off-my-lawn crankiness, but it seems like action TV shows these days are especially bad at having combat make sense or maintaining any consistency in the relative combat expertise of villains and heroes. Instead the shows seem to be all about the drama and the angst.

And consistency about who is tougher than whom is a different issue than crazy over the top maneuvers like Legolas X-treme skateboarding down the stairs on a shield or gliding down a Mumak's trunk. One can have crazy Wuxia moves and still have consistent A > B > C among combatants A, B, and C. IIR, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon had the crazy moves, but was pretty consistent about the skill and toughness of the various characters.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Bren on February 20, 2019, 04:37:46 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1075637
In many entertaining mook fights, however, some or all mooks are visually distinct. It helps to tell a unique story.
And in many fights they are indistinct. Sometimes, like with Star Wars Stormtroopers, they are visually identical.

But in an RPG the mooks are mechanically identical. (That's part of what being a mook in an RPG means.) So practically speaking it is mechanically irrelevant if mook #2 (the guy with blond hair and a furry vest) hits or mook #5 (the guy with brown hair and the leather cross belts) hits. At that point, instead of adding additional mechanics that don't involve actual player tactical choices, it seems simple enough for the GM to decide who was in the best position to make the hit or simply roll 1D6 to figure out which mook hit.

Alexander, my sense is that you and I don't enjoy quite the same things in the media we consume, we are playing using significantly different types of combat systems, and we want different kinds of play experiences. Given that, I suspect my suggestions or criticisms aren't likely to help you get what you want. So I'll try to avoid pissing on your parade.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: S'mon on February 20, 2019, 04:48:11 PM
Quote from: Bren;1075889

It could just be age and get-off-my-lawn crankiness, but it seems like action TV shows these days are especially bad at having combat make sense or maintaining any consistency in the relative combat expertise of villains and heroes. Instead the shows seem to be all about the drama and the angst.


Oddly enough I think it was in the 1990s that fight choreography & consistency peaked with TV shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and to a lesser extent other shows like Xena/Hercules and Stargate-SG1. Stargate had a strong 'villain decay' tendency but they justified it with tech talk.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on February 20, 2019, 05:26:01 PM
Alright, let's have a look at the death of Ser Barristan Selmy. In response to your post: I have ignored the time issue on the 300 video because of the slo-mo but in SW a round is 6 seconds. So, with Barristan Selmy you need to go at least 2 rounds before the cut to Greyworm and 3 rounds afterwards (+ 1 round where Greyworm kills the final attacker). This is VERY important here. Only then we can see how faithful SW is.


Ser Barristan
STR 6, TOUGH 6, AGI 6, DEX 5
Sword 8 (he's growing old, 9 is normal human max)
INIT 8, DAM 0, SOAK 0, Damage Capacity 3 (I counted 3 serious wounds before he was taken out - so it's not an arbitrary number but directly derived from what we can observe.)
Gear: Sword (M I8)
Traits:
Mook-Killer - After killing/incapacitating a Mook, the character can move up to 1.5 m and attack another Mook as part of the same melee action. Up to 3 Mooks can be dispatched this way per round. Same as Leo above.
Expert in Counter-Attack: +2 Defend against Mooks. Can Defend against Mooks an unlimited number of times per round.
Human Shield - Once per battle on a successful counterattack the character can instead grab an enemy Mook for a turn and direct the next successful enemy attack against him.

Sons of Harpy
All attributes 5 (human average)
Melee 5
Init 5, DAM 0, SOAK 0
Gear: Shortsword (S I7 Dam M) or Dagger (S I6 -1 Def)


Round 1: (1:20-1:24)
Mook 1 attacks and gets counterattacked, going down. The other Mooks count as Supporters and must therefore test against Melee (Closing Roll) to see if they get to attack. One of them passes and rolls for attack and gets countered by Ser Barristan as well. Ser Barristan has the Init.

Round 2: (1:24-1:28)
Barristan gives up the Init again, gets attacked, rolls a counter once more and triggers his Human Shield special ability. Another Supporter attacks and the attack gets misdirected to his ally who goes down. Nobody has the initiative.

Round 3: (1:28-1:32)
Barristan wins initiative and attacks one Mook. The Mook goes down (which is very likely), enabling him to trigger his Mook-Killer ability - taking down in the following 2 more.

CUT TO GREYWORM, SELMY CUTS A KNEELING SoH

Round 4: (1:37-1:43)
Barristan counters and kills a Son of Harpy attacker. A supporter kicks him in the back (Fumble Barristan or Crit by SoH?) and he loses a bit balance (probably counts as Stun) and gets tossed back once more (another Stun result but it's NOT cumulative). The SoH dude has init.

Round 5: (1:43-1:49)
The stunned Barristan counters one attack (main atttacker), parries the second (supporter) and then gets hit by a 3rd attack (another supporter who passed his Melee skill test). And here's where the KotBL system begins to break down: Selmy kills the attacker who wounded him in return. But there is no simultaneous wounding each other in the Quickstart BETA. Under KotBL at present only he would get wounded.

Round 6: (1:49-1:55)
Barristan gets kicked (which doesn't do anything except as a cosmetic effect because then the attacker gets killed by him). In that round Selmy receives 2 hits (the last one fatal, even if not immediately so, as it reaches his Damage Capacity) and takes down 2 himself. So the breakdown of the KotBL rules continues here with more simultaneous attacks.

END

So, I am not going to sugarcoat it: there is one(!) major deviation, the lack of naturally occurring simultaneous wounds. But then again it's only Quickstart rules and I know exactly how and where one would build such a rare event into the system. A full ruleset would probably be VERY accurate here. Also, nice to see that the Mook-Killer Trait from the Leonidas fight finds use here again as Selmy proactively cuts down 3 Mooks in short order within one round. So the limit of 3 per round is about right and the rule not specifically tailored to the 300 scene.

This is very satisfying, especially with the One-against-Many combat rules discussed here. You have a lot of Sons of Harpy fighters not attacking (they do not pass their Closing Roll and hang back) and always 1 to 3 which make it each round and attack. In the beginning they get countered but then Selmy loses his balance for a turn, which sets him up for defeat. That's exactly how it could occur in a KotBL fight.

And now I am looking forward to the explanation why not all the attackers that could be attacking Selmy are doing so each round under SW rules (my guess: they failed their attack roll?). Remember: we have at least 5 rounds of attacks, not 2, as you originally suggested. 2 rounds would circumvent the issue raised in this thread: outnumbering attackers in cinematic combats NOT attacking each round but often hesitating or beign outmaneuvered.
In KotBL, it is mandated by the mechanics, depending on how the Closing Rolls.

I have found the clearest example of this hesitation yet - in chanbara. Look at 5:40 here:




Compare these staggered atatcks to how each outnumbering character attacks each round in RPGs. THAT is the main issue of this thread. I hope it's clear to everyone now what I think the key to cinematic One v Many is.



PS I read through your interpretation only after writing this down. I am glad that we both came to the conclusion that Selmy is an expert at counter-attack here and that the final kick to Selmy did really NOTHING.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: RosenMcStern on February 21, 2019, 05:00:43 AM
AK, it would have been fairer if you had explained from the start that you have a ready prototype which shows your personal solution to the problem(s), and wanted feedback, not just a theoretical discussion. I see that SolidTom designed your logo: did you ask for his advice, too? He is a very tactically-minded player, not just a RoleMaster fan and a good artist. He is making a RM clone with my friend Max and others, at the moment.

Some of the solutions you instrumented are interesting, and certainly you have tackled the problem of interrupting actions in a detailed and thoughtful way. I need a closer look at the flow of events to give an opinion on the subject, though.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1075038
I am somewhat aware of Mythras, having done some research. Also, I am a big fan of all things d100, especially CoC, which is the best RPG overall, imho. But I'm pursuing a bit of a different philosophy: that the players generally (but not entirely) can't choose specific maneuvers or outcomes because it is assumed their character will choose the best move and you can't force any move if the opportunity isn't there anyway. So most things are subsumed under the attack roll.


There is a problem here - manoeuvres represent a tactical choice which implements a strategic decision (kill or disable? maximum damage or tactical advantage? take a risk and finish quickly or be more prudent and risk dragging the combat for a long time?) which only the player can take on behalf of the character. Letting the die roll decide this would take away too much agency from the players. Thus, in any case, there should be moments where the player makes a conscious choice - the die roll representing how well he implemented that choice, but not being able to change that decision for him.

Honestly, I think that the simplest way forward then is to let the player decide everything, instead of telling him "ok, you determine your strategy, but what specific tactics you use to achieve it are determined by the character operating on autopilot". Handling every decision in the same way is more streamlined, and sooner or later you will hit a spot where the decision is more strategic than tactical and the system tries to handle it for the player - thus robbing him of some fun.

The "outmanoeuvre" of Mythras, which you do not like, and neither do I, is a specific example of this : it is not a combat effect but a pre-roll decision the character can make, depending on his specific strategy to face a superior number of opponents. It would be easier if Lawrence and Peter had implemented it as a combat effect, as you would have one less rule to remember and one less decision the player must make before rolling, when he does not know whether he won the exchange or not.

As for not all options being realistically available when winning an exchange, it is rather easy to design the manoeuvres as being dependant on the die roll (even 13th Age does this with its flexible attacks for fighters) and thus not applicable in certain cases, regardless of the fighter's will.

Quote
But nothing wrong with Mythras whatsoever. I think it's a bit slower than my game but more detailed - so it's a trade-off, making it solely a matter of personal preference.


Did you check the speeds in practice ? Because only the table can give a verdict about the required time.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on February 21, 2019, 10:58:32 AM
Quote from: CRKrueger;1075855
Hmm, it's odd that you say you want detailed and PC-focused moves yet don't want Outmaneuver, because that's exactly what it is.


PC-selected. That means "not player-selected" aka abstracted away behind some dice mechanic - like an Attack roll, which might subsume a range of feints, maneuvers and assorted trickery.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1075855

Why wouldn't you always be doing it?
Because you don't need to.
Because you don't want to based on the tactics on the ground.

Exactly. And some crucial factors that impact that are not covered by game rules, usually. A moment of insecurity on the defender. A brief opportunity to triangulate him. A brief window in time (2s?) where he adopts a stance that leaves him open to a specific attack. We don't track the flux of such states, that's why players can't take the decision. It's the PC that needs to take these decisions which may get summarized by a plain attack or parry roll.


Quote from: Skarg;1075875
"What if we ignore rate x time = distance?" or "what if we ignore physics?" or "what if we ignore what humans are really like?" are not fantasies I often want to play.

What do you think about the Star Wars OT?


Quote from: S'mon;1075898
Oddly enough I think it was in the 1990s that fight choreography & consistency peaked with TV shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and to a lesser extent other shows like Xena/Hercules and Stargate-SG1. Stargate had a strong 'villain decay' tendency but they justified it with tech talk.

In the late 90s Hollywood discovered Heroic Bloodshed and its highly choreographed fight scenes. A water-shed moment was Romeo Must Die or roundabout that time at least, if my memory doesn't fail me.


Quote from: RosenMcStern;1075999
AK, it would have been fairer if you had explained from the start that you have a ready prototype which shows your personal solution to the problem(s), and wanted feedback, not just a theoretical discussion.


I would however prefer not to debate my actual implementation (or at least as little as possible) - but it grows harder to not get sucked into that as a thread goes on. I would prefer to analyze scenes more open-mindedly and debate underlying design choices. That way I both get my logic examined indepedently and there's a floating of ideas regarding how to implement that. That said, I believe I have mentioned that I do have an existing system before in this thread but since it's still in a BETA state and there's no on-going crowdfunding preparation yet, I have a brief window of time left to do major rewiring. So I am quite curious about alternative approaches and viewpoints.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;1075999

I see that SolidTom designed your logo: did you ask for his advice, too? He is a very tactically-minded player, not just a RoleMaster fan and a good artist. He is making a RM clone with my friend Max and others, at the moment.


Oh yeah, he did, pretty happy with it. :) I made the PDF available to him a while before public release but I didn't ask specifically for his opinion because I see him and his crew being quite busy with Against the Darkmaster (https://www.vsdarkmaster.com/) and reading into a new system can consume time and energy that might better be spend on your own game. I only glanced through AtD myself because I got so much on my plate - and I have the advantage of being familiar with Rolemaster/MERP so... much less work for me. Everybody who likes the basic approach of Rolemaster/MERP but thinks it could be modernized, however, please go ahead and check it out.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;1075999

The "outmanoeuvre" of Mythras, which you do not like, and neither do I, is a specific example of this : it is not a combat effect but a pre-roll decision the character can make, depending on his specific strategy to face a superior number of opponents. It would be easier if Lawrence and Peter had implemented it as a combat effect, as you would have one less rule to remember and one less decision the player must make before rolling, when he does not know whether he won the exchange or not.


Exactly! In my case the outmanoeuvre isn't a hit result but implied based on how many and which attackers get to roll to attack. If they don't, they have either been outmanoeuvre'd or (more likely) they hesitated, as shown in the Lone Wolf with Cub clip. It's nothing the player can decide - his PC is assumed to outmanoeuvre his attackers whenever he can and thinks it's best.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;1075999

As for not all options being realistically available when winning an exchange, it is rather easy to design the manoeuvres as being dependant on the die roll (even 13th Age does this with its flexible attacks for fighters) and thus not applicable in certain cases, regardless of the fighter's will.

Oh, that's a good one. This one has escaped my attention so far, I need to check it out. Thanks for the tip.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;1075999

Did you check the speeds in practice ? Because only the table can give a verdict about the required time.

No, not specifically. Testing and comparing various systems is time-consuming, especially if you want to compare the speeds of people who have actually mastered a system. But I am familiar with both CoC/BRP and tactical options-rich systems, so I feel like I can take an educated guess. I mean you just have to look at the Special Effects summary page. The problem that I have with so much player choice is this: either an option is clearly the best, then you select it. And possibly select it as often as possible. Or there are multiple options that are roughly equally viable and then you're risking slowing down the action through analysis paralysis. Especially when a player has quite a list to choose from. Plus then he needs to know the rules for each from the top of his head to make a selection, etc.

That said, being a d100 fan, I'd love to play RQ6/Mythras.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: RosenMcStern on February 21, 2019, 12:21:21 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1076020
Oh yeah, he did, pretty happy with it. :) I made the PDF available to him a while before public release but I didn't ask specifically for his opinion because I see him and his crew being quite busy with Against the Darkmaster (https://www.vsdarkmaster.com/) and reading into a new system can consume time and energy that might better be spend on your own game. I only glanced through AtD myself because I got so much on my plate - and I have the advantage of being familiar with Rolemaster/MERP so... much less work for me. Everybody who likes the basic approach of Rolemaster/MERP but thinks it could be modernized, however, please go ahead and check it out.

Yeah, definitely. When it comes to Rolemaster, Max and Tom have "done their homework" :)

Quote
I mean you just have to look at the Special Effects summary page. The problem that I have with so much player choice is this: either an option is clearly the best, then you select it. And possibly select it as often as possible. Or there are multiple options that are roughly equally viable and then you're risking slowing down the action through analysis paralysis. Especially when a player has quite a list to choose from. Plus then he needs to know the rules for each from the top of his head to make a selection, etc.

The problem is exactly this, i.e. being afraid of the "best manoeuvre" syndrome or the "decision paralysis" one. Both situations can happen, but a good design of the combat effect and usage of combat cards for unexperienced players avoids it.

I will speculate on the subject later, when I have more time.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: tenbones on February 21, 2019, 12:33:22 PM
Whenever I see high Round-Counts I get wary when they get "too high" - because it's an inevitable time-eater. It sounds to me like you're wanting a very tic-tac style of combat (which is fine) that resembles a fast pace hand of Magic to determine the outcomes within a certain set of parameterized maneuvers?
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: RosenMcStern on February 22, 2019, 06:38:47 AM
Okay, more on "Why special effects do not overcomplicate a detailed combat simulation".

The first point is to clearly label the effects so that you know when you are supposed to use them. Some effects are defensive, some are offensive, some are both. Others are critical only. Yet others are possible only with certain weapons (entangle, impale, sunder...). Finally, some effects are damage effects (they only apply if you strike for damage) while others are tactical (they also apply when the attack was stopped). There is no situation when you can choose among the whole list of 30+ effects. With a little practice and with the help of combat effect cards for newbies ( the GM selects the most useful cards for the player, who picks among them and not from the full list when he or she succeeds in a roll ), the choices are restricted to two or three per roll. Very often, a best possible choice is available, which usually corresponds to the fulfillment of the overall strategy the combatant was pursuing.

The second point is to link the effectiveness of the combat effect to the die roll, so that common options become useless or non-applicable in some situations. In 13th Age, some effects are only available if your attack roll is odd or even. In Mythras, some effects can be countered with an opposed roll, so if you succeeded with a very low roll you better not pick that option, as the enemy will most likely negate it with a saving throw; on the contrary, if you rolled very high you should favour that option, as the opponent must roll a critical to negate the effect. In Revolution D100, some effects depend on the number shown by either the tens or the units die: if that die shows a zero, then the option has no effect if you pick it; on the other hand, if the die shows a nine then the tactical situation at hand is the one when that specific manoeuvre can have a truly devastating effect.

It is clearly possible to obtain similar results with a system that does not require player agency, but there is no way you are going to obtain this without complex calculations or a further roll on an additional table (à la RoleMaster). And it is virtually impossible to design the system in such a way that you do not end up with the dice suggesting some implausible result which requires plenty GM handwaiving, and contradicts the principle that "the character is supposed to be competent enough to pick the optimal effect".
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: nDervish on February 22, 2019, 07:36:57 AM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1076020
PC-selected. That means "not player-selected" aka abstracted away behind some dice mechanic - like an Attack roll, which might subsume a range of feints, maneuvers and assorted trickery.


This discussion of Mythras' Outmaneuver option seems to have concluded that you want to leave the decision of "I'm being attacked by too many people; I should try to get into a position where only some of them can attack" in the PC's hands and abstract it out of the player's control.  Fair enough.  But, to me, that seems like a pretty broad tactical decision, rather than a moment-by-moment response to immediate opportunities, so it makes me wonder...  What level of tactical decision-making do you want to leave in the player's hands?  I'm kind of getting a "no player tactical involvement; just roll dice and assume the PC made the appropriate decisions without player input" vibe, but the very fact that you've started this thread seems to imply that you want the player to be more hands-on than that.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on February 22, 2019, 10:22:39 AM
LOL, for almost 2 weeks I am trying to let the thread die because I want to start a new thread on One-on-One cinematic combat (I'll address some issues, like # of rounds, there) - but at they same time I don't wanna spam the forum with my stuff. Still, this thread keeps raising interesting points, so on it goes:

A bit of my philoshophy in designing Knights of the Black Lily was indeed "We roll to find out what happens to my little guy." This, of course, deemphasizes player decisions during combat at least to some degree. Suppose in Red Viper v Mountain, Prince Oberyn was your little guy. Just rolling the dice and observing how the battle swings back-and-forth can be a lot of fun by all itself. Now, without any player options during any fight it's kinda boring too, so there need to be some.

Also, just rolling dice to see what happens can be kinda boring when you have old-school combat systems and all that happens is whittling down each others hitpoints. But when the dice generate a plausible sequence of cinematic events, it's a bit different. The dice begin to tell a story that is easy to visualize. That reduces a bit the need for a plethora of tactical options (albeit without eliminating it).


As for the outmaneuvering, we have to agree to disagree. I see it more as an instinctive decision, where you take the opportunity if it presents itself to you rather than a tactical, intellectual decision. And that leaves out the issue that sometimes an enemy cannot attack because an ally gets in the way, not because the lone fighter has you outmaneuver'd. Look at the guy in the lower left corner in the Lone Wolf with Cub clip at 5:55  - he tries to attack but his ally blocks him. Plus, often enemies don't attack due to hesitation. So the Outmaneuver action (or special effect) covers only part of the combat dynamics.

We got to ask at this point: what is really the relevant information we need in cinematic 1 v Many situations? For me, it's who attacks this round. The reason why someone cannot/does not attack - I am comfortable with leaving that up to GM narration. Because 1 v Many is a more complex situation with many variables, it leaves much creative space for the GM to interpret the dice rolls in varied ways.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: tenbones on February 22, 2019, 11:26:36 AM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1076178
We got to ask at this point: what is really the relevant information we need in cinematic 1 v Many situations? For me, it's who attacks this round. The reason why someone cannot/does not attack - I am comfortable with leaving that up to GM narration. Because 1 v Many is a more complex situation with many variables, it leaves much creative space for the GM to interpret the dice rolls in varied ways.

No, I get you! I'm very much into "cinematic" combat. Ideally I want my options to matter as both a player and GM without bogging down play. There is a sweet spot to hit.

My Want List:

1) I want characters to be able to mechanically emphasize a "style" of combat. Not all styles needs to be equal - but where they're situational they should shine.
2) I want weapon types to matter on some mechanical level. Armor types should as well.
3) Characters should have skill-based options AND/OR mechanics based on choices during progression. Whether this is Talents/Edges/Feats or simply Skill progression that opens up access during progression - or a hybrid of those is is fine.
4) Equally meaningful defense choices.
5) These subsystems must plug into the core combat mechanics as seamlessly as possible - this is the rub.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: RosenMcStern on February 22, 2019, 11:41:13 AM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1076178
This, of course, deemphasizes player decisions during combat at least to some degree. Suppose in Red Viper v Mountain, Prince Oberyn was your little guy. Just rolling the dice and observing how the battle swings back-and-forth can be a lot of fun by all itself. Now, without any player options during any fight it's kinda boring too, so there need to be some.

Also, just rolling dice to see what happens can be kinda boring when you have old-school combat systems and all that happens is whittling down each others hitpoints. But when the dice generate a plausible sequence of cinematic events, it's a bit different. The dice begin to tell a story that is easy to visualize. That reduces a bit the need for a plethora of tactical options (albeit without eliminating it).

There are two problems here.
1. Why have detailed events if you have no control over them ? It is a bit boring even in PC games when at least they show you a rendering of the action on-screen. In theatre of the mind, I would not find this exciting.
2. What exactly is the effect of a "cinematic event" ? When "Cinematic Event A" happens, how does it differ from "Cinematic Event B" happening? If all of the difference is in the narration, then you could just go back to HP attrition and force players to narrate what happened. If instead there is a mechanical difference between A and B, then everything makes sense.

However, for the difference to be present, then A must leave the player with a different set of options left than B does. In other words, player agenda is still at the centre of the system.

If that is not true, could you show us an example of a die-generated cinematic event and how this affects the outcome of the round without the player making any decisions ?
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Skarg on February 22, 2019, 12:45:09 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1076020
What do you think about the Star Wars OT?
I like most of it, with a few exceptions such as most of the Ewok combat.

On the other hand, it does have some apparent rate/time/distance problems especially in the first Death Star battle, though those problems are more conceptual than right there blatantly in your face (the way so many things are in the later more hyperactive SW films).

I feel the OT succeeds in having most of its space opera dramatic action look and feel fairly real, while the prequels and especially the Disney SW films range from semi-plausible to utterly fake and wrong-looking to me.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Bren on February 22, 2019, 02:01:33 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1076178
LOL, for almost 2 weeks I am trying to let the thread die because I want to start a new thread on One-on-One cinematic combat (I'll address some issues, like # of rounds, there) - but at they same time I don't wanna spam the forum with my stuff. Still, this thread keeps raising interesting points, so on it goes:
That is the nature of forum threads.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;1076191
If that is not true, could you show us an example of a die-generated cinematic event and how this affects the outcome of the round without the player making any decisions ?
I would also like to see an example of a die-generated cinematic event. It would help me to (a) get a sense of what [strike]your[/strike] his Beta does and (b) get a better sense of whether the solution would have any appeal to me or my current players.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: RPGPundit on March 04, 2019, 12:55:01 AM
In Lion & Dragon, fighters get multiple attacks if they're fighting against several foes of 1hd or less.  Many OSR games have a similar rule.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Christopher Brady on March 04, 2019, 05:00:02 AM
Quote from: RPGPundit;1077559
In Lion & Dragon, fighters get multiple attacks if they're fighting against several foes of 1hd or less.  Many OSR games have a similar rule.

Honest question, I was under the impression that AD&D wasn't OSR?  Or is that 'Old School'?  I honestly don't remember.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on March 04, 2019, 06:55:13 AM
Quote from: RPGPundit;1077559
In Lion & Dragon, fighters get multiple attacks if they're fighting against several foes of 1hd or less.  Many OSR games have a similar rule.


This is good and me and tenbones have recreated that in our comparisons with special traits/advantages. However, as a gentle reminder, the main issue in this thread is this:

In most RPGs, 1 v Many looks like this, all the time:

(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/3b/66/2e/3b662e1013d3b9f9c642f8825f71372a.gif)


When in many rounds, it should look like this:

(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/63/82/22/63822218fd6603260e9f616fdd5d24a5.gif)


Hope this clears things up!
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Bren on March 04, 2019, 11:01:14 AM
Both scenes seem to be about 10 seconds* in real time which is roughly 1-2 rounds in many systems and 1/6 of a single one-minute round in original D&D. And the net effect of bunch of guys fighting one guy in clip #1 is nobody is visibly hit and damaged whereas in clip #2 four mooks get hit and damaged.

Many combat systems will output similar results in a 1 or 2 round interval. The problem with narration lies in an assumption that each roll of the dice corresponds to a single swing of the weapon. Rather most combat systems subsume what occurs in the round (various feints, missed or blocked attacks, and the occasional actual hit) with a single die roll (or a single die roll per opponent). The assumption is natural, at least it is certainly very, very common. That doesn't make it correct** though.

* The second clip seems a bit shorter than the first clip, but they seem to be roughly similar in length.

** Correct here means, in accord with the meaning of an attack in an RPG combat system.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on March 04, 2019, 11:11:57 AM
Quote from: Bren;1077590
The assumption is natural, at least it is certainly very, very common. That doesn't make it correct** though.

But it makes the mechanics that lead to such very, very common wrong assumptions very, very unevocative/unintuitive. Or misleading, if you'd prefer to frame it that way. Discussing the situation in cinematic combat and how it could be captured in a more evocative way has been the main body of this thread.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Christopher Brady on March 04, 2019, 01:25:29 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1077578
This is good and me and tenbones have recreated that in our comparisons with special traits/advantages. However, as a gentle reminder, the main issue in this thread is this:

In most RPGs, 1 v Many looks like this, all the time:

(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/3b/66/2e/3b662e1013d3b9f9c642f8825f71372a.gif)

In D&D every attacker misses, OR they didn't get the Knight down to 0 HP.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1077578
When in many rounds, it should look like this:

(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/63/82/22/63822218fd6603260e9f616fdd5d24a5.gif)

Hope this clears things up!

In D&D, high level fighter, with multiple attacks.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Bren on March 04, 2019, 01:47:58 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1077591
But it makes the mechanics that lead to such very, very common wrong assumptions very, very unevocative/unintuitive. Or misleading, if you'd prefer to frame it that way. Discussing the situation in cinematic combat and how it could be captured in a more evocative way has been the main body of this thread.
I wouldn't prefer to frame it as misleading. I suspect that the kinesthesic connection between the player rolling dice in the real world and the player's character doing or not doing something in the game world based on the roll lends itself to think of one roll as one action. Even though in many or most systems it isn't because the minutia of the round is abstracted to one (or a few) rolls.

If there is no roll that round (because for reasons my character is hesitating or blocked) for me, and likely for many players, not being able to roll that round is evocative of standing around doing nothing. (Thumb insertion optional.) That is part of why I'm not convinced that the problem you have is solvable in a way that won't create problems that are at least as bad. And that's why I asked for an example of "more evocative."
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Skarg on March 04, 2019, 06:17:03 PM
The GM can also roleplay or model hesitation, cowardice, confusion, lack of initiative, shock, surprise, etc (whether for notions of "cinematicity" or realism or whatever), and just have some people choose not to attack, and/or take defensive or "waiting for an opening" actions. Personally I think that works better with a mapped system, but then I think practically everything works better with a mapped system... ;-)
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on March 05, 2019, 05:40:17 AM
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1077602
In D&D every attacker misses, OR they didn't get the Knight down to 0 HP.
In D&D, high level fighter, with multiple attacks.


Sadly the issue at the center of discussion is still not clear then: in the top image, every member of the outnumbering force makes an attack within a 5 or 6 second round. In the bottom GIF, they don't. And "not everyone attacking every round" is the norm rather than the exception in cinematic combat. In most RPGs, however, the dice mechanics do not intuitively evoke this imagery - they evoke everyone attacking (and some missing) each round instead.

Quote from: Skarg;1077620
The GM can also roleplay or model hesitation, cowardice, confusion, lack of initiative, shock, surprise, etc (whether for notions of "cinematicity" or realism or whatever), and just have some people choose not to attack, and/or take defensive or "waiting for an opening" actions. Personally I think that works better with a mapped system, but then I think practically everything works better with a mapped system... ;-)


Sure and in more abstract systems (say, Dungeon World) that's what you got to do - narrate it as such. But look at Critical Role: it commonly doesn't get interpreted as such in trad games like D&D. It could but it doesn't because it's not an evocative mechanic. It doesn't naturally/intuitively evoke the images it should evoke to make the combat cinematic. That's why we're searching for mechanics that do evoke the appropriate mental imagery to translate cinematic action to game.

Quote from: Bren;1077607
If there is no roll that round (because for reasons my character is hesitating or blocked) for me, and likely for many players, not being able to roll that round is evocative of standing around doing nothing. (Thumb insertion optional.) That is part of why I'm not convinced that the problem you have is solvable in a way that won't create problems that are at least as bad. And that's why I asked for an example of "more evocative."


Hold on: there is a roll taking place under two solutions that have been proposed here (#1: roll a random max number of "outnumberers" who can attack this round, handle in initiative order; #2: make a seperate test for each attacker to see if he can move into position and doesnt hesitate). Now, you raise a very valid issue here: it's possible that when not being able to attack here it feels like standing around in a casual/disinterested manner. I cannot dismiss this concern out of hand; nor can I assume it to happen like that. Only time will tell which imagery will be evoked in the players' mind. I have to point out though that this makes #2 look like the stronger mechanic of the two: here every attacker gets to roll for himself to see if he gets into position and spots an opportunity for attack. The player alone is in charge of his own fate by rolling well enough. But you're right - there's not necessarily an attack roll.

So, yeah, only one way to find out for sure: publish the rules and study how gamers run it.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: S'mon on March 05, 2019, 07:10:29 AM
Not really sure why you want to evoke the bad martial arts movie trope of "Mooks standing around doing nothing so as not to overwhelm protagonist" - unless you are definitely going for that particular genre and its tropes. To me the more realistic Death of Arthur Dane fight seems a much better one to seek to emulate.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on March 05, 2019, 08:24:11 AM
You can do that but it wouldn't be very cinematic if everyone would attack every round in every fight. The videos posted earlier in this thread demonstrate that. Not everyone involved attacks every round. They're hesitating like a Sons of Harpy or blocked like a Nazgul. Or like one of Ned's men in the Tower of Joy fight itself:

(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/20/a3/db/20a3db0cf2d03f09a16cf81af0cf9874.gif)
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Bren on March 05, 2019, 03:06:00 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1077673
In most RPGs, however, the dice mechanics do not intuitively evoke this imagery - they evoke everyone attacking (and some missing) each round instead.
That's a problem with what's in the player's head, not the mechanics per se. If one can break the tie that some players have in their heads that the attack roll = a swing of the sword, then this problem recedes.

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Sure and in more abstract systems (say, Dungeon World) that's what you got to do - narrate it as such. But look at Critical Role: it commonly doesn't get interpreted as such in trad games like D&D.
Skarg can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe he is talking about traditional games of the GURPS or Fantasy Hero/Melee/Wizard variety. He isn't talking about narrating a GM story to explain missed attack rolls, he is talking about running the NPCs in a logical fashion, in a rational world setup, with position indicated on a map that has hexes or squares and counters or minis to mark position. So it is visually apparent which attackers are physically blocked from attacking. And he uses some type of morale, or a good GM knowledge of the NPCs in question, to indicate which attackers hesitate because they are nervous or afraid.

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It could but it doesn't because it's not an evocative mechanic. It doesn't naturally/intuitively evoke the images it should evoke to make the combat cinematic. That's why we're searching for mechanics that do evoke the appropriate mental imagery to translate cinematic action to game.
I'm wondering if it would be more effective to change the idea in the GM's and the players' heads of what an attack roll means rather than redesigning the system.

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Hold on: there is a roll taking place under two solutions that have been proposed here (#1: roll a random max number of "outnumberers" who can attack this round, handle in initiative order; #2: make a seperate test for each attacker to see if he can move into position and doesnt hesitate). Now, you raise a very valid issue here: it's possible that when not being able to attack here it feels like standing around in a casual/disinterested manner. I cannot dismiss this concern out of hand; nor can I assume it to happen like that.
I can tell you right now that that is what no roll currently evokes in my mind. My experience as a GM and player tells me that I won't be alone in that feeling.

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I have to point out though that this makes #2 look like the stronger mechanic of the two: here every attacker gets to roll for himself to see if he gets into position and spots an opportunity for attack.
The determination of getting an opening and spotting an opportunity is already subsumed* in the single attack roll for virtually every RPG I've ever played. You seem to advocating two rolls (one to determine opportunity to attack and a second roll to make the attack given a successful opportunity) whereas most RPG systems include the determination of opportunity as part and parcel of the single attack roll.

I think you may be missing another problem with what an attack roll evokes for many players. But more on that in another post.

Let me see if I grasp the difficulty you have with the existing system. I think there are two issues.

1)   You find that a single attack roll evokes in your mind everybody (PC, important NPCs, and mook NPCs) attacking their target by swinging their sword every round. This doesn't match up in your imagination with the visual media you enjoy and want to emulate in your gaming.

2)   In the event that an attacker does not hit this round you want the system to output the answer to the question, did the attacker not hit because he never got a clear opportunity to attack or did he get an opportunity to attack and just failed to solidly hit the target. You don't want that question unanswered by the system output or left to GM fiat.

Did I summarize your two concerns correctly?


* Play that is not theater of the mind also uses actual movement and position (on a map, a sketch, or grid/hex layout) to determine part of the answer to the question of whether the attacker is in the proper position to get an opening.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on March 05, 2019, 06:23:41 PM
Quote from: Bren;1077745
That's a problem with what's in the player's head, not the mechanics per se. If one can break the tie that some players have in their heads that the attack roll = a swing of the sword, then this problem recedes.


Still the players will have to go consciously against their natural impulse. And the more a roll subsumes, the more vague it is, the more room is left to the GM interpretation - which carries somewhat less weight than impartial, hard, cold mechanics. It's not because the GM felt like you didn't make it into attack position - the dice determined it. So it's an abstraction level too high in my estimation.

Quote from: Bren;1077745

So it is visually apparent which attackers are physically blocked from attacking. And he uses some type of morale, or a good GM knowledge of the NPCs in question, to indicate which attackers hesitate because they are nervous or afraid.


Hesitation isn't necessarily due to fear of getting hit. It's also about looking for the optimal moment to go forward. And then there is cases in which an ally makes a motion to attack but breaks off - yet his twitching forward momentarily breaks your determination to go forward. Or what if an attacker gets the impression that the long character specifically waits for him to make his move and that makes him wait? You can't model everything, not even in GURPS. At least not if you want to keep it playable.

So what is the right abstraction level? For me it's: who can attack this round? It solves the problem of failed attack = missed swing and as a GM I get explain why the character could not attack. To me, it's unlikely that a GM will intuitively say "Bob, you failed. You just stand around not knowing what to do" all the time. But - time will tell.

Quote from: Bren;1077745

I'm wondering if it would be more effective to change the idea in the GM's and the players' heads of what an attack roll means rather than redesigning the system.


Changing the rules not only keeps players from having to go against their natural inclination, it makes the scene also seem more dynamics, less static - as the pattern of attackers changes each round.

Quote from: Bren;1077745

I can tell you right now that that is what no roll currently evokes in my mind. My experience as a GM and player tells me that I won't be alone in that feeling.


Well, I've put it into the fire of publication to see if it will hold. But to be honest my bigger concern is that it demands more patience from gamers than what gamers might be used to from other games.

Quote from: Bren;1077745

The determination of getting an opening and spotting an opportunity is already subsumed* in the single attack roll for virtually every RPG I've ever played.


...and tends to get narrated as: "You failed your roll? You strike but miss. Who's next?"

Quote from: Bren;1077745

You seem to advocating two rolls (one to determine opportunity to attack and a second roll to make the attack given a successful opportunity) whereas most RPG systems include the determination of opportunity as part and parcel of the single attack roll.


Yes but since the defender normally doesn't get to parry the additional defenders, it's still 2 rolls per attack, comparable to other systems with active defense.

Quote from: Bren;1077745

2)   In the event that an attacker does not hit this round you want the system to output the answer to the question, did the attacker not hit because he never got a clear opportunity to attack or did he get an opportunity to attack and just failed to solidly hit the target. You don't want that question unanswered by the system output or left to GM fiat.


It's important to me that the attacker does not necessarily get to roll to attack. Because that signals clearly that he hasn't had the opportunity for a good swing. And then the GM can narrate why, piece it together out of the information of who gets to attack and who doesn't.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Bren on March 05, 2019, 08:45:38 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1077767
Still the players will have to go consciously against their natural impulse.
Yes, to an extent that is correct. But every roleplaying game has a certain amount of this. Its certainly not like levels and increasing hit point are intuitively obvious. They are just now so commonly known that gamers understand the mechanic (at least to an extent) even if they don't like the mechanic.

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Hesitation isn't necessarily due to fear of getting hit. It's also about looking for the optimal moment to go forward. And then there is cases in which an ally makes a motion to attack but breaks off - yet his twitching forward momentarily breaks your determination to go forward. Or what if an attacker gets the impression that the long character specifically waits for him to make his move and that makes him wait? You can't model everything, not even in GURPS. At least not if you want to keep it playable.
What I think you are proposing maintains the same level of abstraction it just divides a failed attack into "you didn't have an opportunity" and "you had an opportunity but you failed to hit for unspecified reasons." The reason why you didn't have an opportunity is still abstracted away and has no relation in the system to previous actions that the player chose.

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So what is the right abstraction level? For me it's: who can attack this round? It solves the problem of failed attack = missed swing and as a GM I get explain why the character could not attack.
It's the same level of abstraction. But instead of using one roll you are now using two rolls. It doesn't seem like you get much for the addition of the extra die roll. I think there is a better way to get the same information.
 
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To me, it's unlikely that a GM will intuitively say "Bob, you failed. You just stand around not knowing what to do" all the time. But - time will tell.
"Bob you failed " is the equivalent of the GM saying "Bob you missed" when an attack roll which simulates the back and forth, feints, and minor motions of a multi-second combat round fails to succeed. If GMs say that now. They will say something like "Bob you failed to get an attack this round" under your proposed system. Which will probably then evoke for the player, "your guy stood around doing nothing this round."

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Changing the rules not only keeps players from having to go against their natural inclination, it makes the scene also seem more dynamics, less static - as the pattern of attackers changes each round.
The number of attack rolls made isn't static. because some combatants will fail their opportunity to attack roll. The actual outcome of how many attacks actually succeed is the effectively the same, so that is static. All you are adding is a mechanical determination of when a failed attack is due to "you had no good chance to attack" or "you had a chance to attack but you failed."

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...and tends to get narrated as: "You failed your roll? You strike but miss. Who's next?"
As opposed to "You don't get to attack. Who's next?"

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Yes but since the defender normally doesn't get to parry the additional defenders, it's still 2 rolls per attack, comparable to other systems with active defense.
That is true. But systems with active defenses are doing something different than single roll systems by including a defense roll. I'm really not seeing why knowing whether a failure to hit this round was due to a lost opportunity or some other unspecified reason is an improvement on knowing whether at failure to hit this round was due to a failure by the attacker for unspecified reasons or a success by the attacker due to a parry or dodge. But I guess you want what you want.

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It's important to me that the attacker does not necessarily get to roll to attack. Because that signals clearly that he hasn't had the opportunity for a good swing. And then the GM can narrate why, piece it together out of the information of who gets to attack and who doesn't.
Yeah I guess I don't understand why knowing that is more important to you than knowing if the attack was parried or dodged by the defender. But I confess I'm partial to systems with active defense. It feels much more natural or evocative of a combat where both sides are doing something than single roll systems.

Be that as it may, you aren't me and I'm not you. So if what you want is the system to determine whether a combatant had an opportunity to attack. You can get that and also generate a reason why an attacker didn't get an opportunity to attack (i.e. player got to make an attack roll)you can do that with the existing attack roll. All you need to do is add on a table for misses to the existing single attack roll e.g.

D10………Reason Your Attack Failed
1………………Another combatant blocked your path or swing
2………………An object (tree, wall, wagon, horse) blocked your path or swing.
3………………You are still waiting for the right opportunity for an attack.
4………………Your opponent moved so that he was no longer in position for you to attack.
5………………You moved such that you were no longer in position for you to attack.
6-7…….……Your opponent parried you blow.
8-9………….Your opponent dodged your blow.
10……………Your simply missed with your attack.

In fact if you used a D100 attack roll you could simply use the tens digit on a failed roll to determine the reason why the attack failed. This way you only need a single die roll to determine significantly more about the combat instead of just two things. I think this would evoke a less static combat round. With a single die roll you get...

  • Whether you had an opportunity to attack and if not why not.
  • Whether you had an attack opportunity but your attack failed to land and why.
  • Whether you had an attack opportunity and your attack succeeded.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: amacris on March 05, 2019, 10:04:46 PM
I think Adventurer Conqueror King System handles this sort of issue very well.
1) Every fighter has the ability to cleave after each kill, up to a number of times equal to his level. Each time he cleaves he is permitted a 5' step.
2) A fighter with a long weapon (spear) ready can attack an enemy with higher initiative simultaneously with being attacked, because of his advantage of reach.
3) A fighter can do a sweeping attack that forces all enemies within 5' to disengage unless they wish to risk being hit. If all of them disengage, the fighter can withdraw but retains the ability to attack if anyone re-engages him.
4) A fighter gets +2 bonus to hit if attacking from flank or rear.
5) A fighter deals double damage on a charge or set for charge with spear.
6) Fighter damage increases with level, so high level fighters cleave more often.

How does this play out in practice?
1) If mooks all swarm a hero at once (all on the same initiative count), they will be able to get the flank and rear bonuses, but they will also be in range of the hero on his initiative, and on a good series of attack rolls, he can wipe out a number of mooks equal to his level.
2) If mooks hang back separately and move to attack the hero one at a time, then they will not be able to get flank and rear bonuses, but the hero will not be able to cleave through them all on his turn because they're not near each other.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Bren on March 05, 2019, 11:47:00 PM
Quote from: amacris;1077799
2) If mooks hang back separately and move to attack the hero one at a time, then they will not be able to get flank and rear bonuses, but the hero will not be able to cleave through them all on his turn because they're not near each other.
This emulates what I've seen in a lot of Samurai flicks and would replicate the style of combat seen in the Samurai vs. minions clip that Alexander posted. (Clearly the katana wielding minions are hesitating so not all are in range some of the time. And other times we see more than one get in range to get flanking bonuses and the hero ends up cleaving more than one minion.)
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on March 06, 2019, 06:07:23 AM
Quote from: Bren;1077792
Yes, to an extent that is correct. But every roleplaying game has a certain amount of this. Its certainly not like levels and increasing hit point are intuitively obvious. They are just now so commonly known that gamers understand the mechanic (at least to an extent) even if they don't like the mechanic.


D&D is 40+ years old. People are still commonly handling the situation in D&D and other RPGs: "Roll for attack. Missed? Alright, your attack gets parried. Who's next?"

Quote from: Bren;1077792

What I think you are proposing maintains the same level of abstraction it just divides a failed attack into "you didn't have an opportunity" and "you had an opportunity but you failed to hit for unspecified reasons." The reason why you didn't have an opportunity is still abstracted away and has no relation in the system to previous actions that the player chose.


Yes. But that is less abstraction. And more importantly: it's the kind of reduction in abstraction that prevents the above scenario.

Quote from: Bren;1077792

It's the same level of abstraction. But instead of using one roll you are now using two rolls. It doesn't seem like you get much for the addition of the extra die roll. I think there is a better way to get the same information.


You admit that there is more information but you say that it's the same level of abstraction.

Quote from: Bren;1077792

"Bob you failed " is the equivalent of the GM saying "Bob you missed" when an attack roll which simulates the back and forth, feints, and minor motions of a multi-second combat round fails to succeed. If GMs say that now. They will say something like "Bob you failed to get an attack this round" under your proposed system. Which will probably then evoke for the player, "your guy stood around doing nothing this round."


You'll have to excuse me if I don't just take your word on it and proceed to take it out to the world to see how people play it. ;) Maybe you're right! Then this attempt would be a failure. But maybe you're not.

Quote from: Bren;1077792

The number of attack rolls made isn't static. because some combatants will fail their opportunity to attack roll. The actual outcome of how many attacks actually succeed is the effectively the same, so that is static. All you are adding is a mechanical determination of when a failed attack is due to "you had no good chance to attack" or "you had a chance to attack but you failed."


Yes and you can then craft dynamic narration based on what the dice have been telling you.

Quote from: Bren;1077792

As opposed to "You don't get to attack. Who's next?"


It's possible, we'll see. And if it occasionally happens it's no big deal. Every gamer can choose the imagery for why someone doesn't attack in their mind. We'll see if they default to "I stand around picking my nose." ;)
A GM like Matt Mercer, on the other hand, might describe in flowery detail how the battle rages back and forth and who gets outmaneuvered (dynamic!) and who hesitates too long.

The thing is: we have experience with the old approach. So we can make somewhat definite statements about that. With the proposed approach here, time will tell.

Quote from: Bren;1077792

That is true. But systems with active defenses are doing something different than single roll systems by including a defense roll. I'm really not seeing why knowing whether a failure to hit this round was due to a lost opportunity or some other unspecified reason is an improvement on knowing whether at failure to hit this round was due to a failure by the attacker for unspecified reasons or a success by the attacker due to a parry or dodge. But I guess you want what you want.


I want to avoid the mental image of the last enemy being surrounded by 4 PCs and hacked at from all sides each round. And, conversely, I want the mental imagery of a PC surrounded by mooks who attack in waves (changing patterns). And I want this to be dictated by the dice, instead of just making a single attack roll and then the GM making these details up by whatever he feels like. I am okay with him making up why someone does not get to attack because I don't want to add more complexity other than that. If I break up the static mental imagery and provide more dynamic imagery that is more in line with cinematic combat, I am fine with that. That's enough for me to solve this particular problem I have with other systems.

Quote from: Bren;1077792

Yeah I guess I don't understand why knowing that is more important to you than knowing if the attack was parried or dodged by the defender. But I confess I'm partial to systems with active defense. It feels much more natural or evocative of a combat where both sides are doing something than single roll systems.


I didn't say that there is no active defense. I am saying that everyone who needs to roll for position to attack will not be opposed by an active defense. As a baseline scenario, the active defense of the lone fighter goes against the one attacker who doesn't have to roll to get close. So there is a main combat pair with all additional attackers having to roll to see if they can chime in this turn.

Quote from: Bren;1077792

Be that as it may, you aren't me and I'm not you. So if what you want is the system to determine whether a combatant had an opportunity to attack. You can get that and also generate a reason why an attacker didn't get an opportunity to attack (i.e. player got to make an attack roll)you can do that with the existing attack roll. All you need to do is add on a table for misses to the existing single attack roll e.g.


Yes but if the active defense in a 1-on-1 works, the game rules don't tell me whether the attack was blocked, deflected or dodged either. That is the room for narration I give to the GM. And the other thing is that you're adding a table lookup to each such occasion, which is bound to come up a lot. It's much easier to add a roll (against courage or agility or fighting skill or whatever) to see if you can attack and leave the rest to narration. Rolling is easy, rolling is fast.
Or should I make an equivalent table for each time an active defense succeeds as well?
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on March 06, 2019, 06:11:15 AM
Quote from: amacris;1077799
How does this play out in practice?
1) If mooks all swarm a hero at once

Non-mooks also can't attack every turn in One v Many. How does this system hold up when your Conan PC is faced with both Rexor and Thorgrim?
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Bren on March 06, 2019, 02:10:02 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1077832
You admit that there is more information but you say that it's the same level of abstraction.
Because it is the same level of abstraction. In the D&D single roll to hit model you find out if the target was hit or not hit. But you don't know why because it abstracts the details. In your one roll to get an opportunity and a second roll to hit if you make the first roll. You still don't know why there was no opportunity nor why, given an opportunity, an attack was unsuccessful because you have abstracted the details of the why. Same level of abstraction.

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You'll have to excuse me if I don't just take your word on it and proceed to take it out to the world to see how people play it. ;) Maybe you're right! Then this attempt would be a failure. But maybe you're not.
By all means test your premise.

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Yes and you can then craft dynamic narration based on what the dice have been telling you.
The GM could do that already. Some do. Some don't. I'll be very surprised if adding one extra bit of information changes the some do, some don't dynamic.

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I want to avoid the mental image of the last enemy being surrounded by 4 PCs and hacked at from all sides each round.
I know. You made that clear. I've tried to make my understanding of what you want equally clear. I've then used that understanding to suggest other ways to achieve what you want with only a single die roll instead of multiple rolls. Let me know if I have misunderstood what you want.

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Yes but if the active defense in a 1-on-1 works, the game rules don't tell me whether the attack was blocked, deflected or dodged either.
Well that depends on the game rules. Runequest and Honor + Intrigue do tell you whether the attack was parried or dodged because those are separate skills (in RQ) or different maneuvers (in H+I).

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That is the room for narration I give to the GM.
What you want to leave up to GM narration and what you don't strikes me as unusual. If I want the system to determine by one die roll whether the attacker gets a chance to make a second die roll to attack, I'd want more information output from the system rather than leaving all of the why up to GM fiat. If I'm OK with the GM deciding the why by fiat, then I'd be OK with leaving why the attack failed (blocked, no clear shot, etc.) up to GM narration rather than separating no clear shot out from all the other reasons. I guess we want different things from a game system.

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And the other thing is that you're adding a table lookup to each such occasion, which is bound to come up a lot. It's much easier to add a roll (against courage or agility or fighting skill or whatever) to see if you can attack and leave the rest to narration. Rolling is easy, rolling is fast.
Which is easier and which is faster is debatable. We can measure speed in actual practice. Ease of use is more subjective.

As far as speed, I find that players tend to take significant time to pick up, shake, roll, and read the dice. And often they wait to see the first result before rolling the next result. Every additional die roll they need to make increasing the handling time in the round. In practice 2 die rolls isn't going to be faster. That's one reason some people dislike systems with active defenses. They take longer to resolve combat because more die rolling is required. What you propose (2 die rolls to attack) will be significantly slower than a single die roll to attack.

As far as ease of use and lookup tables, the to hit-table vs AC in D&D was a lookup table. But it's only a lookup table until the GM memorizes it. GM's memorized the table. What I proposed is an even simpler table. Memorizing it should take very little time.

But you don't even need a table. If you don't care at all about the reasons why the opportunity was lost you just need a single attack roll just like in D&D. All we need to do is look at the failed attack rolls. If the failed roll is odd, then the attacker didn't have an opportunity to strike. If it was even he did, but the target blocked or avoided the blow. No second die roll or lookup table needed and you get the same information as your new system.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: amacris on March 06, 2019, 06:17:25 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1077833
Non-mooks also can't attack every turn in One v Many. How does this system hold up when your Conan PC is faced with both Rexor and Thorgrim?


I didn't understand your comment "non-mooks can't attack every turn in One v. Many". In ACKS, at least, a fighter can attack every combat round. If Conan had to fight both Rexor and Thorgrim at the exact same time he would likely lose, based on them getting two attacks to his one (assuming they are competitively-leveled and statted). With good use of terrain and tactics, Rexor or Thorgrim might get a bonus for getting to Conan's flank or rear.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Skarg on March 06, 2019, 06:37:11 PM
In GURPS (with one-second turns and maps that explicitly represent where people are standing and each attack & defense action etc) such scenes have pretty direct representations. All that's missing to limit how many foes attack at once is GM roleplaying the NPCs' moves, and/or a system like I use that limits what people do based on their combat sense and the situation. It doesn't limit playability at least with me as GM, and other GMs can do it by roleplaying the NPCs and limiting how concentratedly they attack.

I can do something similar in TFT with its 5-second turns, though it's a little rougher due to the larger time scale. But the combat example in TFT's RP book (In The Labyrinth) actually has an example of a PC doing this - on multiple turns he finds ways to not actually manage to engage, by taking off his pack first, standing just out of range like the adversaries in the samurai video, and even pretending to attack at a range that's actually too distant for his weapon.

I think it may get a bit harder with more abstract combat systems that lack explicit mechanics for limits on attacks by large numbers of foes. But that's likely just my inexpertise due to rarely playing such games - it sounds like others have their ways of handling or rationalizing things in more abstract game systems. (One of the reasons I avoid abstract combat systems though is that I like playing a tactical game about explicit tactical details, and so I tend to get frustrated and/or disinterested when combat is abstract.)
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on March 07, 2019, 07:44:14 AM
Quote from: amacris;1077904
I didn't understand your comment "non-mooks can't attack every turn in One v. Many".
It's hard to see in the Palace Battle/Conan versus Thorgrim and Rexor. But even in a 2 versus 1 with named characters, it occasionally turns into 1-on-1 for a round or two before the 3rd guy rejoins. (If anyone has any good examples for 2 named characters taking on 1 named character in fantasy films/shows, please let me know.)

You can see that a bit here at 3:16:
https://www.nsfwyoutube.com/watch?v=AC30A6lmug0 (https://www.nsfwyoutube.com/watch?v=AC30A6lmug0)

(We haven't talked about the critical importance for the lone fighter to get some space by driving back, stunning or knocking down one of the attackers yet, making that attacker miss a round or two.]



Quote from: Bren;1077868
Because it is the same level of abstraction. In the D&D single roll to hit model you find out if the target was hit or not hit. But you don't know why because it abstracts the details. In your one roll to get an opportunity and a second roll to hit if you make the first roll. You still don't know why there was no opportunity nor why, given an opportunity, an attack was unsuccessful because you have abstracted the details of the why. Same level of abstraction.

If I have under one system the additional information that attacker A didn't get into hitting range (for whatever reason) while attacker B did and his efforts were successfuly blocked/defended against, then this is less abstract than making only a single roll and the GM being able to freely decide at which point the attack failed (moving into range or the actual attack itself).


Quote from: Bren;1077868
The GM could do that already. Some do. Some don't. I'll be very surprised if adding one extra bit of information changes the some do, some don't dynamic.

Well, the point of the mechanic is to enforce the "no attack this round" for some attackers. The GM (unless he misunderstands the system) can't narrate it as a missed attack. The mechanic accomplishes what it sets out to do: to break the metal imagery of everyone attacking every round.

You claim it causes another problem by evoking people standing around idly. It might but, you see, one reason why an attacker might not attack in a round is hesitation. So if occasional hesitation is cinematic than there is NO WAY you can circumvent the possibility of it being narrated or imagined as disinterested standing around. (Although even that is mitigated since the attacker can't do anything else so his attention is on the fight.)
If oen GM describes inactivity in a properly cinematic way and another doesn't - what you gonna do about it? Result 3 on your d10 table might be narrated/imagined the same way. It will be less frequent since it's only 1 chart result but it's still there.

The nice thing about the closing-in roll is that if you fail it, you don't get to roll for attack at all this round. So it feels like not being able to attack. This will put gamers who care less about the right cinematic feel off but I'm okay with that. I'm put off by everyone being able to roll for attack every round just the same after all.


Quote from: Bren;1077868
Which is easier and which is faster is debatable. We can measure speed in actual practice. Ease of use is more subjective.

As far as speed, I find that players tend to take significant time to pick up, shake, roll, and read the dice. And often they wait to see the first result before rolling the next result. Every additional die roll they need to make increasing the handling time in the round. In practice 2 die rolls isn't going to be faster. That's one reason some people dislike systems with active defenses. They take longer to resolve combat because more die rolling is required. What you propose (2 die rolls to attack) will be significantly slower than a single die roll to attack.

Before I address this and the following, I would like to state this: I don't want to dive too deep into my own game system. This isn't supposed to be a shill thread, I don't think many people here would be interested in discussing specifically my game. If that was all, I don't think this thread would have gone beyond page 1. By keeping it generic enough and debating underlying principles instead, I can still get my ideas being poked at and I get to debate alternatives, like your d10 table. People can bring up their favorite system and we can look at how that game is doing it. This is far more valuable to me than talking specifically about my game. So, I'd like to keep the discussion of my particular implementation brief, if you don't mind.

I have studied Critical Role specifically to evaluate how long a test (not just for this specific application) takes from the moment it was announced to the moment the dice roll results are feed back to the GM. It's fast enough. However, if you're up for attack and you need to preface your attack roll with a closing-in roll, it's extra-fast. You're going to roll dice anyway, 2 successive d100 rolls are practically as speedy as a single roll. The only potentially time-consuming factor then left is interpreting the result of the first (closing-in) roll. I have chosen for that the one value almost every gamer knows from the top of their head about their character: the level of their relevant fighting skill, which is the basis value for the following attack roll anyway.
It's very fast.

Quote from: Bren;1077868
As far as ease of use and lookup tables, the to hit-table vs AC in D&D was a lookup table. But it's only a lookup table until the GM memorizes it. GM's memorized the table. What I proposed is an even simpler table. Memorizing it should take very little time.

This is where it goes to deep into my system. In a vacuum, you're right. But I already have a very brief 5-entry lookup table to determine melee results (switch of initiative, counterattacks, attacker getting through, etc) and I don't want to add a second one nor expand it. So, that's the context. And, as mentioned, I like players feeling that their PCs didn't even get to attack - through not even being able to roll for attack. That's a feature for me.


Quote from: Bren;1077868
But you don't even need a table. If you don't care at all about the reasons why the opportunity was lost you just need a single attack roll just like in D&D. All we need to do is look at the failed attack rolls. If the failed roll is odd, then the attacker didn't have an opportunity to strike. If it was even he did, but the target blocked or avoided the blow. No second die roll or lookup table needed and you get the same information as your new system.

That's easily ignored by GMs and players. Also, expert fighters are less likely to freeze or be outmaneuvered. See the video above. ;)
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on March 07, 2019, 09:55:53 AM
Just a point worth mentioning about the one attacker at a time trope. That makes sense in a martial arts or action movie because in real life, when people are fighting in real time, they get swarmed and it is not visually entertaining. So there needs to be a visual excuse for why this isn't happening. Attackers taking turns is one approach (guy slicing through five men as they swarm with one stroke is another). But in a game there are already things baked into systems to make it entirely feasible for one person to take on multiple opponents. Most systems with mooks, makes them weak enough, and the PCs strong enough, that this isn't usually too big of an issue. I think if it is still a problem, throwing in a damage reduction against mooks would be an easier method than trying to emulate staggered real time fighting.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: tenbones on March 07, 2019, 12:10:49 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1078013
It's hard to see in the Palace Battle/Conan versus Thorgrim and Rexor. But even in a 2 versus 1 with named characters, it occasionally turns into 1-on-1 for a round or two before the 3rd guy rejoins. (If anyone has any good examples for 2 named characters taking on 1 named character in fantasy films/shows, please let me know.)

That's easily ignored by GMs and players. Also, expert fighters are less likely to freeze or be outmaneuvered. See the video above. ;)

I snipped the rest of your post because I think this is the germane part that need to be answered. I'm going to stick with Savage Worlds for my example because you're looking for explicit mechanics that emulate this cinematic trope.

In Savage Worlds the Shaken rule does exactly this. You can do a variety of maneuvers (including just straight up attacking) that establishes the Shaken condition. You can do this through a skill-Test like a Intimidate, Feint, Taunt, or almost anything you can imagine applying a skill towards and opponent as an action, and force them to be Shaken. The Shaken target can take no action other than trying to shake off the Shaken condition (or spend a Benny to do it automatically).

Tactically in SW this does give your single combatant some breathing room if they use such tactics (and are good at them). Most players aren't this cagey. But it definitely works. If you use the old SW Deluxe Shaken rules, you can almost keep someone stun-locked for quite a while, so much so, they changed the rule in the new edition.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Bren on March 07, 2019, 05:42:53 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1078013
If I have under one system the additional information that attacker A didn't get into hitting range (for whatever reason) while attacker B did and his efforts were successfuly blocked/defended against, then this is less abstract than making only a single roll and the GM being able to freely decide at which point the attack failed (moving into range or the actual attack itself).
I'll agree it's more information. But that information seems trivial to me. It is essentially just vaguely defined color (the why they can't attack is indeterminate) and it has no impact in theater of the mind (TotM) combat other than no rolling for an attack this round. And the only practical effect of that is that the damage per round is less with your addition than without (all else being equal). But you can get the exact same effect by simply lower the chance for the attacker to hit. The outcome is the same with or without the determination. That's why I said it's the same level of abstraction, because you could do without the roll, tweak the attack chances and end up with the exact same outcome.

Quote
Well, the point of the mechanic is to enforce the "no attack this round" for some attackers. GM (unless he misunderstands the system) can't narrate it as a missed attack.
I wasn't suggesting the GM would do so. I suggest that GMs who choose not to add or are unable to add some color to their description beyond "you miss" for an attack roll will probably say something similarly bland under your system. It won't be the bland "you missed" it will be something like "you can't attack this round."  

Quote
The mechanic accomplishes what it sets out to do: to break the metal imagery of everyone attacking every round.
Maybe the problem is the word choice you are making. I think of an attack roll as the character tries to hit this round. He may succeed. He may fail. Generally I don't think of an attack roll as the character making a single swing or attack with everyone in the round all swinging all the time like that frenetic clip of the guys in armor that you showed. Attack rolls seem to evoke something different for you than for me.

Quote
You claim it causes another problem by evoking people standing around idly. It might but, you see, one reason why an attacker might not attack in a round is hesitation. So if occasional hesitation is cinematic than there is NO WAY you can circumvent the possibility of it being narrated or imagined as disinterested standing around.
The problem I see is not the narration. It's that the player will feel like his character is standing around dumbly. Narrating his character as hesitating is unlikely to make most players feel any better. Many will feel worse since the GM saying "you hesitate and can't attack this round" can sound like the GM has taken over choosing what actions the character attempts.

Quote
The nice thing about the closing-in roll is that if you fail it, you don't get to roll for attack at all this round. So it feels like not being able to attack. This will put gamers who care less about the right cinematic feel off but I'm okay with that. I'm put off by everyone being able to roll for attack every round just the same after all.
I think it will put off a lot of gamers, especially those who are used to their character having a chance to try to do something useful every round in melee.  One or more PCs hesitating on the edges of a melee may be something you would enjoy (either as the GM or the player), but my guess is a lot of other players won't enjoy it.


Quote
I don't want to dive too deep into my own game system. This isn't supposed to be a shill thread, I don't think many people here would be interested in discussing specifically my game. If that was all, I don't think this thread would have gone beyond page 1. By keeping it generic enough and debating underlying principles instead, I can still get my ideas being poked at and I get to debate alternatives, like your d10 table. People can bring up their favorite system and we can look at how that game is doing it. This is far more valuable to me than talking specifically about my game. So, I'd like to keep the discussion of my particular implementation brief, if you don't mind.
Well the downside (for me) is that it took many pages for me to terase out and understand what you wanted the outcome of a different system to be. For quite awhile I thought you wanted to know the reason why someone didn't have an attack opportunity rather than just wanting a way to prevent having to roll an attack for everyone in a melee who is near an opponent.

Quote
I have studied Critical Role specifically to evaluate how long a test (not just for this specific application) takes from the moment it was announced to the moment the dice roll results are feed back to the GM.
I could not care less how long it takes the players on Critical Role to roll their dice. My concern is how long it will take players in general, but especially how long it would take my players and players like my players to make and assess the result of an additional roll in a combat round. I have a lot of experience with running players with one roll vs. two or more rolls in combat. Two rolls is not quite twice as time consuming for most players, but it's darn close. And while they could roll both dice at the same time and ignore that attack roll if the opportunity roll fails. Generally players don't like to do that, in part because they find it very unsatisfying when their attack roll is good while their opportunity roll is bad. So they tend to wait to see if they have an opportunity before they roll to see if they hit.

Quote
I like players feeling that their PCs didn't even get to attack - through not even being able to roll for attack. That's a feature for me.
And that is where we most differ, I suspect. I don't see missed opportunity rolls as adding anything I'm missing to an abstract, theater of the mind style of combat.

If I want that extra level of detail then I want actual tactical choices (like the various major and minor combat maneuvers in H+I) to accompany that detail. If I don't want extra tactical choices, then I don't need to differentiate "the character missed their attack roll" from the two equivalent outcomes in your system of "the character missed their opportunity roll" or "the character made their opportunity roll but they still failed their to hit roll." If there isn't a tactical, functional, systematic difference between the two outcomes I don't need the extra color. I can add (or not add) that easily on my own.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: moonsweeper on March 07, 2019, 06:32:48 PM
Quote from: Bren;1078093


I think it will put off a lot of gamers, especially those who are used to their character having a chance to try to do something useful every round in melee.  One or more PCs hesitating on the edges of a melee may be something you would enjoy (either as the GM or the player), but my guess is a lot of other players won't enjoy it.


I don't know if I have ever met a player who would enjoy that.

Quote from: Bren;1078093


And that is where we most differ, I suspect. I don't see missed opportunity rolls as adding anything I'm missing to an abstract, theater of the mind style of combat.

If I want that extra level of detail then I want actual tactical choices (like the various major and minor combat maneuvers in H+I) to accompany that detail. If I don't want extra tactical choices, then I don't need to differentiate "the character missed their attack roll" from the two equivalent outcomes in your system of "the character missed their opportunity roll" or "the character made their opportunity roll but they still failed their to hit roll." If there isn't a tactical, functional, systematic difference between the two outcomes I don't need the extra color. I can add (or not add) that easily on my own.


This (x1000)
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: S'mon on March 07, 2019, 06:36:16 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1078013
And, as mentioned, I like players feeling that their PCs didn't even get to attack - through not even being able to roll for attack. That's a feature for me.


Try it out with your players and see how they react.

...You do have players, right? :D
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on March 07, 2019, 07:29:35 PM
Yes, but they are gamists, just like you guys. ;) At least to some degree. This thread, however, is about prioritizing simulation of cinematic combat, if necessary at the expense of gamism. So, I'm not afraid putting off those gamers who won't accept that they can't attack. They are outside of the target audience.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Trond on March 07, 2019, 09:57:07 PM
For some reason, I think this is remarkably easy to do with the Stormbringer 5 (or tweaked BRP) rules. For cinematic effects, use the major wound table whenever appropriate, make sure the villains are low in skill (but don't let the players know), while the fighter PCs are around 90% or above in weapon skills. Villains miss rounds simply because of the whiff factor, but occasionally they do get in a hit. We played a R.E.Howard-style swords and sorcery game doing this. It was awesome.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: S'mon on March 08, 2019, 03:28:30 AM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1078112
Yes, but they are gamists, just like you guys. ;) At least to some degree. This thread, however, is about prioritizing simulation of cinematic combat, if necessary at the expense of gamism. So, I'm not afraid putting off those gamers who won't accept that they can't attack. They are outside of the target audience.

Who is your target audience?
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on March 08, 2019, 04:11:05 AM
Pedants. :D

But seriously... most of the alternatives suggested here break down unless you squint your eyes and don't look too closely. (The best imho being Savage Worlds - which also lacks detail in smaller combats but compensates for that with being able to run mass combat more efficiently.) It's the same with using D&D hitpoints for luck. The mechanics are generally of the "sorta, kinda, roughly, yeah"-type. Some of us can't keep our eyes squinted all the time and when they pop wide, some of us go "Hold on, this isn't right. That's not what I saw on TV or read in that book." Or: "Hold on, the GM is making the narration up entirely. The dice didn't tell him that is the case. All of this is just empty window dressing!"

That's why I cannot take up Bren's advice either, well intended as it may be. It's the same as telling Vincent Baker: "I like your Dogs in the Vinyard rules but can't you make it more like Deadlands?" Or: "I like Apocalypse World but you need a long list of futuristic weapons with unique stats. Gamers love this kind of shit." Doing so would be self-defeating; it would be missing the point of why these rulesets were created to begin with.

The split between gamism and narrativism is real. And so is the split between gamism and simulationism, even though it takes on a different form. A gamist gives preference to fun tactical options. A simulationist seeks fun tactical options within a framework that doesn't break his immersion (notice the order of priotities!) into whatever is being simulated. That thing is in this case: cinematic combat.

I am not doing a single thing to please gamers who'd think a game that doesn't allow for an attack roll every round sucks. Except maybe point out that it's easy to houserule: you just leave out the closing-in roll.
That's all you'll get. ;)
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: S'mon on March 08, 2019, 05:02:01 AM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1078164
Pedants. :D

Are you writing/designing for publication? Or your own sense of personal satisfaction ("white room theorycrafting")? I've tended to give you fairly harsh advice on the assumption you were intending to publish something for money, so that audience reaction would be a concern.

Edit: You seem to have a very limited target audience, since you aren't interested in realistic combat, but in emulating the appearance of cinematic combat. But cinematic combat looks that way (mooks standing around) because of limitations in the medium, especially in the hands of less skilled directors. Most simulationists are looking for realism or at least versimilitude.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on March 08, 2019, 07:33:51 AM
Well, I'm just throwing it out there and then we'll see how well it does or doesn't do. ;)
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: OmSwaOperations on March 10, 2019, 12:11:47 PM
I was once thinking of modelling a system for cinematic combat, which tends to oscillate between fighting swarms of mooks and fighting single elites.

1. When attacking a swarm of mooks, you roll 1d20+strength+weapon strength rating, then divide the total by mook defence (which might be 4 for an average mook, lets say), and then kill the resulting number of mooks.
2. When attacking an elite, you roll 1d20+finesse+weapon finesse rating, then check the total against the elite's defence. If you roll higher, you hit.

I was thinking the system might be quite cool, because you could have a division between big beefy characters who would carve through swarms of nobodies, but lose to elites VS more subtle agile fighters, who would get swarmed by mooks, but could have epic duels with their elite counterparts.

Not much versimilitude, I know, but I was thinking it could do a decent job modelling martial arts film type combat.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Bren on March 12, 2019, 02:59:59 PM
That would be one way to rationalize why some suave, elegant, and debonair character hangs out with a muscular, smelly brute...and vice versa. :D
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Steven Mitchell on March 12, 2019, 06:36:35 PM
Quick aside on the "level of abstraction" thing:  The reason "more information" does not necessarily change the level of abstraction, is because the idea of "level of abstraction" is referring to a rough hierarchy of different kinds of information.

A typical example is trying to talk, all at the same time, about "building materials at the molecular level" along with complete buildings and everything in between.  The incoherency problem with a statement that "my house is made of wood particles, siding, and rooms" is that it muddies several levels of abstraction.  Whereas, if I say my house is made of wood, then correct it to say it is made of wood and brick, I've provided more information on the same level.

Will leave it to Bren to correct if this is not what he meant.  Incoherent abstraction levels in game design are one of my pet peeves, though that has nothing to do with this discussion. :)
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on March 12, 2019, 07:47:35 PM
Well, would you say the following combat events are on the same abstraction level:


I think they are!
My mechanic groups the first two as "wood" and the second pair as "brick". A higher level, right? But both groups operate on the same higher level.
How about D&D? All gets subsumed under one attack roll. There's no brick, no elm and no cedar wood. It's all "building materials." Higher abstraction.
But what if we'd add an active parry to D&D? The two "Brick" options generally get subsumed under elm wood ("missed") by most GMs.  This new grouping "Harder materials" is of a higher abstraction level than the remaining "parried" event. In fact you could say that the two subsumed events vanish in most GM's narrations, just like under D&D above. Which is at the heart of the problem in this thread.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Bren on March 16, 2019, 11:57:08 PM
Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1078768
Will leave it to Bren to correct if this is not what he meant.
You got it.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: estar on March 19, 2019, 01:39:08 PM
Quote from: S'mon;1078168
Edit: You seem to have a very limited target audience, since you aren't interested in realistic combat, but in emulating the appearance of cinematic combat. But cinematic combat looks that way (mooks standing around) because of limitations in the medium, especially in the hands of less skilled directors. Most simulationists are looking for realism or at least versimilitude.


You know the solution may be a simple as having the "mooks stand around". If you want to your combat to feel cinematic just stage it like the films one likes. Look at the placement and movement of the non-protagonists involved in the scene and replicate that. Which could very well lead to a Kill Bill situation were there is a bunch of Crazy 88s standing around waiting their turn to come at the Bride character.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Bren on March 19, 2019, 11:36:36 PM
Quote from: estar;1079809
You know the solution may be a simple as having the "mooks stand around". If you want to your combat to feel cinematic just stage it like the films one likes. Look at the placement and movement of the non-protagonists involved in the scene and replicate that. Which could very well lead to a Kill Bill situation were there is a bunch of Crazy 88s standing around waiting their turn to come at the Bride character.
That was suggested, but it won't work for Alexander since he wants some sort of die roll or other mechanic to determine which NPCs stand around and which don't. He doesn't want to leave that up to a decision or ruling made by the GM.

EDIT: Of course a simple mechanic would be any one of the following:

1) If there are N mooks, use a N-sided die to determine how many can attack. So if there are six mooks, roll 1d6 to determine how many can attack each round. On average a little over half the mooks would be able to attack each round. If you want to mechanically determine which mooks, just use a second die roll to see if any given mook attacks.

2) If you want a non linear distribution, one could roll two N sided dice and have the number of mooks who can attack is M = the first die roll minus the second die roll +1. That way M is between 1 and N mooks that can attack each turn.

3) If an N-sided die seems like it results in too many mooks attacking (on average), find M as above and then roll an M-sided die to generate the number of attackers.

1) Is essentially one of the procedures I've used for decades to figure out which character gets attacked or hit by an arrow or spell if there wasn't a clear and obvious target.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on March 20, 2019, 06:26:46 AM
Why do we even roll for attack in games? Why not just let the GM decide if an attack hits and what damage it does based on whatever he feels like?
We don't want events based entirely on flights of fancy. It has more gravity if we defeat an enemy statblock within a pre-established set of rules, usually involving a randomizer like dice. If the mooks don't attack based solely on GM fiat and the PCs win, how do you avoid feeling that the GM has let you win? If they all attack and your players lose, how do you avoid bitter complaints about unfairness by them?

There's a certain neutrality to cold, hard dice-rolling that is desirable.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Skarg on March 21, 2019, 12:32:39 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1079950
Why do we even roll for attack in games? Why not just let the GM decide if an attack hits and what damage it does based on whatever he feels like?
Some of us like to feel like our physical action of rolling the dice means that we are determining the outcome, even though the result should be random so we shouldn't have any control over the roll. Some of us have notions about luck/fate/karma, or just enjoy such ideas, or just like the physical connection, or the sound and feel, or the ritual of it.

Some of us are trying to cheat by using loaded dice or dice throwing techniques or whatever.

Some of us suspect (or know) that some GMs tend to fudge or fake results or cheat or whatever, and want to try to limit that.

Some of us don't have any problem with GMs rolling the dice and resolving things, for various reasons.

Some of us prefer the GM roll the dice and resolve things, for various reasons.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1079950
If the mooks don't attack based solely on GM fiat and the PCs win, how do you avoid feeling that the GM has let you win? If they all attack and your players lose, how do you avoid bitter complaints about unfairness by them?

There's a certain neutrality to cold, hard dice-rolling that is desirable.
That's a good point.

And as a GM who generally doesn't relate to GM'ing as being "against" the players except as limited to roleplaying the perspectives of their adversaries, I do value and use dice and their stats and my assessments of the NPCs' abilities to help determine what they do or don't do or think of, how quickly they respond, etc. Mainly to help the effort of doing that, and to check my own assessments of how fair I'm being, and to make it not just about what goes on in my head.

I also don't mind if/when GMs do do most/all of such things in their heads, as long as it feels appropriate during play.

Those kinds of GM restraint and balance/proportion issues exist in many, many other areas, too, of course. (How strong or numerous the adversaries are, whether there are appropriate chances to spot and do something smart about them or not, whether the authorities hunt down adventurers or not, whether wounds get infected, etc ad infinitum). Often GMs get one or more of them wrong, and it messes with the game. How well the adversaries use their time and coordinate their actions etc is just one of them.


What 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.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: capvideo on March 21, 2019, 02:49:42 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1074016
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')


I will provide anecdotal evidence of the opposite; players in games I run very often would, after a miss (especially a far miss) announce that their character was staring into space, or holding a conversation with another character who missed, or had misinterpreted the dynamics of the combat and was in completely the wrong place. (Roll. Miss. "This is a very interesting painting. First Oberian Renaissance?") I don't think that it is natural for players to assume their characters are failures; and it is very easy to convince them to interpret their failed rolls as the result of something their character is doing rather than just a "whiff".
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on March 21, 2019, 06:56:05 PM
Quote from: Skarg;1080118

Those kinds of GM restraint and balance/proportion issues exist in many, many other areas, too, of course. (How strong or numerous the adversaries are, whether there are appropriate chances to spot and do something smart about them or not, whether the authorities hunt down adventurers or not, whether wounds get infected, etc ad infinitum). Often GMs get one or more of them wrong, and it messes with the game. How well the adversaries use their time and coordinate their actions etc is just one of them.


I agree. But as a GM, I generally want to decide on NPC intent, not on NPC success. The intent is to go forward into striking range and attack the PC. If there's another NPC next to him wanting to do the same, how do I decide in which rounds they block each other? Do I keep reshuffling positions every round? This seems like a hassle. For me, the most important parts are: does the NPC get the opportunity to make an attack at all (whether it's hesitation, getting blocked by an ally or getting outmaneuvered by the enemy)? And if so, what is the result of that attack? What trad games normally do (only roll for attack) does not provide enough information for me; I would like more dice-generated information to steer the direction of my fight narration here.

Quote from: Skarg;1080118

What 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?


It varies! I do mind it in the 300 scene we analyzed previously, as it is too much fantasy superhero for me. But I have no problem with named characters being much better than mooks/extras in Game of Thrones or Conan the Barbarian.  And in Game of Thrones, there's shades. The hound had to struggle quite a bit to win the "chicken fight" while he curbstomped his opposition in others. That might be calculation by the author but in a way it also represents that even mooks pose varying levels of threat. Sometimes mooks go down 3 per round. Sometimes a protagonist struggles against 3 no names for a minute before he can win.

This kind of unpredictability is good and what I am aiming at.


Quote from: Skarg;1080118

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.


This is very abstract. Which of the well-known nerdish pieces of fiction have lazy writing? Star Wars with their incompetent Stormtroopers? Star Trek Redshirts? Aragorn taking on 80 orcs all by himself in the the movies and surviving?
My point being that it's hard to understand what you consider a bad combat as opposed to a good combat and in a second consideration whether this is relevant to any significant portion of people out there.


Quote from: capvideo;1080136
I will provide anecdotal evidence of the opposite; players in games I run very often would, after a miss (especially a far miss) announce that their character was staring into space, or holding a conversation with another character who missed, or had misinterpreted the dynamics of the combat and was in completely the wrong place. (Roll. Miss. "This is a very interesting painting. First Oberian Renaissance?") I don't think that it is natural for players to assume their characters are failures; and it is very easy to convince them to interpret their failed rolls as the result of something their character is doing rather than just a "whiff".


That interpretation strikes me as failure though. More like comic relief (which is a big part in many games)?
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Blink_Dog on March 22, 2019, 12:46:45 AM
System I'm working on uses a 1e type hit matrix, multiple attacks are gained at higher levels as characters gain confidence and skill. A character chooses how many attacks they want to do at the beginning of the round and this is divides the character level, then you refer on the matrix the roll needed for the attack. Example a level 30 fighter wishes to do 10 attacks (yes he can do this, he's close to godhood at this point) so all 10 attacks are conducted as if he were level 3, this would be useful in a mass battle against lightly armoured opponents but against a high AC creature not so good.

This also applies to missile weapons but most missile weapons have a reload count and this is added together along with the attacks. So that same fighter could fire an arquebus, reload it (6 attacks) and fire again (total of 8), but both shots would be done as if he were level 4 (3.75 rounded up). If he did just the shot it would be at level 30 since he spends more time aiming and steadying the weapon.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: capvideo on March 22, 2019, 11:19:55 AM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1080176
That interpretation strikes me as failure though. More like comic relief (which is a big part in many games)?

It does seem as though you're very invested in an extra roll to control player actions :)

Seriously, though, comic relief or not it shows a natural tendency on the part of players to interpret results in any way but failure. The responses would even come despite my own occasional descriptions of the rolls as a "miss". This natural tendency could easily be exploited, if your goal is to switch the interpretation of non-hits from misses to other actions.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: estar on March 22, 2019, 12:03:43 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1079950
Why do we even roll for attack in games?


Verisimilitude, as swinging a sword at somebody's body and inflicting injury is uncertain. The exact odds dependent on a variety of factors.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1079950
There's a certain neutrality to cold, hard dice-rolling that is desirable.
Rolling dice is an important factor in what make tabletop roleplaying something fun one can do within the time one has for a hobby. But it not required. As diceless RPGs show, there are other paths to represent the uncertainty of combat.

In addition the referee reputation could be such that the players trust that they considered all the factors including their input and made a fair ruling. The problem is that referees that disciplined, knowledgeable, and respected are few and far between. Nearly all of them got that way through experience making this approach problematic for a novice to tabletop roleplaying.

While I agree dice is an important factor it has to be tempered with the knowledge that what make RPGs works is not the game but the interaction between the human referee and the players. The rules are a tool to make this easier. And if it is not needed, it is not required.

Finally it K to continue to be using various rules and system even if one don't need them. This is a leisure activity and part of the enjoyment stems from using a specific set of rules.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on March 22, 2019, 01:56:20 PM
Quote from: capvideo;1080264
It does seem as though you're very invested in an extra roll to control player actions :)

Seriously, though, comic relief or not it shows a natural tendency on the part of players to interpret results in any way but failure. The responses would even come despite my own occasional descriptions of the rolls as a "miss". This natural tendency could easily be exploited, if your goal is to switch the interpretation of non-hits from misses to other actions.


If you look closely, it's not about controlling player actions. The player still announces the intention for his character to attack. I'm merely introducing an additional point of failure in the resolution of that - for the sake of inspiring cinematic mental imagery through additional dice-generated information. If you only have a single attack roll, you don't have the distinction between "The attack was launched but failed to do any damage for one reason or another" and "The character didn't even get into striking range for one reason or another." But for cinematic combat, I need the imagery of staggered attacks by the outnumbering force.

And it helps stabilize this game too: many times, in various game systems, I have epxerienced in published scenarios that the author has underestimated the weight of the numerical advantage against a single boss enemy, making those fights way too easy. This approach makes it a bit harder for them to gang-up on the boss. Conversely, it's much harder for Mooks, cannon-fodder, that come in numbers to seriously challenge our PCs. I like it that way.

But I don't want it all to be prone to GM fiat who can attack or not - as the GM traditionally also doesn't determine whether a regular attack succeeds or not. It's got to come down to game mechanics.


Quote from: estar;1080267
As diceless RPGs show, there are other paths to represent the uncertainty of combat.


Yeah, I won't insist on dice - it's just that it's the most commonly used resolution tool. I played Marvel Universe RPG back then, which was alright. Not as good as Marvel Superheroes, imho, but still fun. So, diceless games can work indeed.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Skarg on March 22, 2019, 03:01:04 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1080176
I agree. But as a GM, I generally want to decide on NPC intent, not on NPC success. The intent is to go forward into striking range and attack the PC. If there's another NPC next to him wanting to do the same, how do I decide in which rounds they block each other? Do I keep reshuffling positions every round? This seems like a hassle. For me, the most important parts are: does the NPC get the opportunity to make an attack at all (whether it's hesitation, getting blocked by an ally or getting outmaneuvered by the enemy)? And if so, what is the result of that attack? What trad games normally do (only roll for attack) does not provide enough information for me; I would like more dice-generated information to steer the direction of my fight narration here.
I quite agree, even though I say I'm a simulationist doing it for reasons of making sense and verisimilitude.

I'm quite satisfied with running GURPS (hexmap & counters, 1-second turns) and adding a house rule where characters have a Combat Sense skill they roll against to determine what their options are.


Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1080176
It varies! I do mind it in the 300 scene we analyzed previously, as it is too much fantasy superhero for me. But I have no problem with named characters being much better than mooks/extras in Game of Thrones or Conan the Barbarian.  And in Game of Thrones, there's shades. The hound had to struggle quite a bit to win the "chicken fight" while he curbstomped his opposition in others. That might be calculation by the author but in a way it also represents that even mooks pose varying levels of threat. Sometimes mooks go down 3 per round. Sometimes a protagonist struggles against 3 no names for a minute before he can win.

This kind of unpredictability is good and what I am aiming at.
I agree on this too.



Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1080176
This is very abstract. Which of the well-known nerdish pieces of fiction have lazy writing? Star Wars with their incompetent Stormtroopers? Star Trek Redshirts? Aragorn taking on 80 orcs all by himself in the the movies and surviving?
My point being that it's hard to understand what you consider a bad combat as opposed to a good combat and in a second consideration whether this is relevant to any significant portion of people out there.
It would take quite a while to list the examples of what I'd call lazy writing, and different people will have different opinions on each, but lately most of the modern cinema and TV stuff I've seen has suffered heavily from lazy writing in action and other situation resolution - the writers and/or producers and/or choreographersclearly either don't know/care or think their audience doesn't know/care about making sense or being at all realistic, and prefer cheaply-produced "cool-looking" nonsense or dramatic sacrifices of characters without any good reason, or their plot calls for a hero to be captured and they don't bother to show a circumstance that makes sense, or whatever other nonsense.

Star Wars incompetent Stormtroopers? In IV and V, they're deadly except when under Vader's orders to let the main characters escape to lead them to the Rebel Base, or to help Vader take prisoners. In VI, yes, the defeat by Ewoks is stupid as sin. I-III I find mostly gawd awful. VII and VIII I find even worse.

Everything directed by JJ Abrams (e.g. Star Wars VII) is pretty much guaranteed not to care about action situation details making any sense. The gaming equivalent would be a GM who decides every combat outcome by what he thinks is cool and dramatic at the moment.

Star Trek seem to be using a game system where redshirts and unnamed characters take damage first. And many situations are overcome by Kirk getting into a fist fight. Kirk has hundreds of hitpoints and damage is revealed by how torn his shirt gets, and little drips of blood. But if it's early enough in the episode, he can be knocked out or captured. Also, even though the Enterprise comes with nearly unlimited abilities, the GM regularly disables most or all of them at will. In contrast, I would run Star Fleet Battles. (https://cf.geekdo-images.com/camo/45ff4f9cf11f36cafd7768931af1b600df61a1ad/687474703a2f2f7366622e7377612d67616d696e672e6f72672f737364732f46656465726174696f6e416476616e63656443412e6a7067)

In the LOTR films, I think there are some well-done scenes, and many that are silly up to the point of ridiculous and undermining the continuity of the whole series. Goblins which can pointlessly travel along walls, pillars and ceilings as quickly as they can run along the floor? That's lazy CGI and lazy direction to accept it, because it's B.S. Then there are the Legolas CGI stunts that are only possible because CGI ("let's make the Oiliphants 30 x the size of an elephant and then have Legolas video-game it..." sigh). The worst in my opinion is having us watch an hour of the siege of Gondor, and then showing the CGI ghost army move from the shore up through the whole city in a matter of seconds, completely reversing the battle and rendering all of the action to that point essentially a waste of attention.

I'm not interested in all the "people out there" nor even the majority of people here (since most people here are non-simulationists and D&D fans, and that's not the preferred flavor of me or the people I want to game with).
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on March 23, 2019, 04:31:52 AM
I struggle to find disagreement with what you wrote above. I would like to add this though: I care about proper, skillful dramatization and exaggeration.  I have seen HEMA duels, I don't want anything like that in my fantasy games. So realism is not one of my aims - it just needs to be plausible enough so as to not induce eye-rolling.

The problem I have with standard role-playing games (where everyone gets to attack every round) in these One v Many situation is that it evokes in me imagery that is unheroic and uncool. It's not that I think it's necessarily unrealistic. But when the enemies come in in waves and the PCs cut them down one after another, possibly with counterattacks, that's pretty good imagery. That's what I want in my games. Same with that single boss enemy that dances among their ranks and they struggle to mount a coordinated offense against him.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: capvideo on March 23, 2019, 11:04:13 AM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1080383
The problem I have with standard role-playing games (where everyone gets to attack every round) in these One v Many situation is that it evokes in me imagery that is unheroic and uncool.

I think your proposed mechanism of blocking players is counterproductive, then. Because it hasn't actually changed anything: you still have players directing their characters to attack, and then failing to attack. I 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). More experience points for one-on-one combat, or bonuses to actions for everyone proportional to those who choose to allow the fight to be one-on-one, or some other reward; and some mechanism for noncombatants to still act (whether it be through non-combat assistance or furthering the game somewhere other than the combat) during the one-on-one fight.

I 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. Action forced by die roll isn't likely to be seen as a heroic or cool choice. It's still going to be a failure. A reward mechanism puts the heroic choice back on the players.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Skarg on March 23, 2019, 04:47:54 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1080383
I struggle to find disagreement with what you wrote above. I would like to add this though: I care about proper, skillful dramatization and exaggeration.  I have seen HEMA duels, I don't want anything like that in my fantasy games. So realism is not one of my aims - it just needs to be plausible enough so as to not induce eye-rolling.
You mean the aspect that most people are encased in metal armor and unable to cut the flesh and kill their opponents with weapon hits?

(I tend to find that heavy armor in GURPS tends to be unpopular with PCs, mainly because it means it's harder to move around, be quiet, run away when outnumbered etc.)


Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1080383
The problem I have with standard role-playing games (where everyone gets to attack every round) in these One v Many situation is that it evokes in me imagery that is unheroic and uncool. It's not that I think it's necessarily unrealistic. But when the enemies come in in waves and the PCs cut them down one after another, possibly with counterattacks, that's pretty good imagery. That's what I want in my games. Same with that single boss enemy that dances among their ranks and they struggle to mount a coordinated offense against him.
I tend to think that's accomplished well in TFT and GURPS by the aspect of the game I like which is about having a hex map and rules where that tension (trying to avoid getting mobbed by tactical movement and action) is a central part of gameplay.

I mean, you're sort of talking about one of the main things I love about mapped tactical combat with a good rule set: the game is often about whether or not you can manage to maneuver effectively and (in an outnumbered situation) manage to survive, generally by managing to not get mobbed (e.g., you use terrain, fallen bodies, your own mobility, and comrades to move so that you don't get mobbed, and attack in ways so that you have local superiority and take down foes before they can do the same to you - that's usually the crux of effective gameplay and isn't just rolled for, but arises from your character's stats and equipment and resulting mobility and reach etc, and the rules which make the moves interesting in ways that make sense and represent the situation well).
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on March 24, 2019, 05:31:56 AM
Quote from: capvideo;1080397
I think your proposed mechanism of blocking players is counterproductive, then. Because it hasn't actually changed anything: you still have players directing their characters to attack, and then failing to attack.


...or failing to even get to roll to attack. The roll for whether you can attack in the first place is similar to an attack roll but distinct. I rate the chance of "Sorry, you don't get to roll for attack this round" being interpreted as "You strike but miss/it gets parried" as low. Swords that give a bonus to attack won't give a bonus to closing-in either. It's a similar but separate test.

Quote from: capvideo;1080397

 I 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). More experience points for one-on-one combat, or bonuses to actions for everyone proportional to those who choose to allow the fight to be one-on-one, or some other reward; and some mechanism for noncombatants to still act (whether it be through non-combat assistance or furthering the game somewhere other than the combat) during the one-on-one fight.

I 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. Action forced by die roll isn't likely to be seen as a heroic or cool choice. It's still going to be a failure. A reward mechanism puts the heroic choice back on the players.


Rewards, punishment... this sounds very gamist to my ear. From a standpoint of genre simulation, avoiding the "everyone gets to attack everyone round" is the reward. I'll happily sit out a round or two to avoid that. And it's not about giving incentive for more one-on-one fights (though that is a valid other concern), it's about how to structure the One-on-Many fights that do take place eventually. About how to structure them so that they resemble more closely the kind of fights we see on TV and in cinema.

As such, INaction forced by dice roll isn't necessarily meant to be heroic on its own - but rather to prevent the kind of UNheroic play we have in your average fantasy game. (Though if the enemies come in in waves rather than all at once, it does have some appeal to me, imagination-wise.)



Quote from: Skarg;1080439
You mean the aspect that most people are encased in metal armor and unable to cut the flesh and kill their opponents with weapon hits?


Both fully armored Battle of Nations-style combat, just as unarmored sparring with training swords. I don't want combat in my fantasy games anything to look like that. In a medieval-authentic game, it'd be a different thing though.


Quote from: Skarg;1080439

I tend to think that's accomplished well in TFT and GURPS by the aspect of the game I like which is about having a hex map and rules where that tension (trying to avoid getting mobbed by tactical movement and action) is a central part of gameplay.

I mean, you're sort of talking about one of the main things I love about mapped tactical combat with a good rule set: the game is often about whether or not you can manage to maneuver effectively and (in an outnumbered situation) manage to survive, generally by managing to not get mobbed (e.g., you use terrain, fallen bodies, your own mobility, and comrades to move so that you don't get mobbed, and attack in ways so that you have local superiority and take down foes before they can do the same to you - that's usually the crux of effective gameplay and isn't just rolled for, but arises from your character's stats and equipment and resulting mobility and reach etc, and the rules which make the moves interesting in ways that make sense and represent the situation well).


I don't have an issue with that, although I am a pure theatre-of-the-mind GM myself. But things work very differently with 1 second rounds anyway (and we run into gameplay issues with emulating extended attack sequences - but that's another thread). If we have roughly 5 second rounds and we seek to emulate cinematic combat, then, whether mooks or PCs or otherwise, some attackers frequently can't launch an attack within that time span.

How you want bring that about is an implementation issue.

And if you want to bring it about in the first place, whether you consider that as too punishing or not, is a question of what you want from your games.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: capvideo on March 24, 2019, 02:21:10 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1080515
Rewards, punishment... this sounds very gamist to my ear. From a standpoint of genre simulation, avoiding the "everyone gets to attack everyone round" is the reward. I'll happily sit out a round or two to avoid that. And it's not about giving incentive for more one-on-one fights (though that is a valid other concern), it's about how to structure the One-on-Many fights that do take place eventually. About how to structure them so that they resemble more closely the kind of fights we see on TV and in cinema.


Well, we've come full circle, then; I'd like to think there's some higher meaning to all this. It would certainly reflect well on us. Again, this sounds like some serious miscommunication; if avoiding the situation were the reward, you wouldn't need rules to block players from choosing it; you would need rules to keep players from choosing it. That--choice--is the point of whether something is heroic or unheroic, cool or not cool. These things can be heroic, or cool, in a movie because of the illusion that the protagonists have free will, imbued in them by the writer and director. In a role-playing game that can only come from the player. Whether because they choose to fight one-on-one, or because they must strive to surpass some obstacle in order to join the fight, the reason it's cool and/or heroic is because of actions being chosen.

Your method has none of that. It jettisons the role-playing; there is neither a choice, nor a striving. It's just randomness. By that definition of cool, the coolest and most heroic game would be one where all character actions are chosen by die roll.

But I'm pretty sure that's not what you mean. No one ever says Candyland or Chutes and Ladders is heroic.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on March 24, 2019, 03:40:53 PM
Quote from: capvideo;1080565
if avoiding the situation were the reward, you wouldn't need rules to block players from choosing it; you would need rules to keep players from choosing it.


Gentle 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.

Quote from: capvideo;1080565

Your method has none of that. It jettisons the role-playing; there is neither a choice, nor a striving. It's just randomness. By that definition of cool, the coolest and most heroic game would be one where all character actions are chosen by die roll.

But I'm pretty sure that's not what you mean. No one ever says Candyland or Chutes and Ladders is heroic.


In the passage you snipped out I specifically said that it's not about making something heroic. It's about preventing something UNheroic. Or better: UNcinematic. The first task in creating a simulationist/immersive ruleset is to avoid situations that break immersion. In this case, the situation is seemingly everyone attacking every round from all sides - common to many other RPGs I have been in. It has to go.

Now, the reasons for not attacking in the clips discussed here are external and internal. External reasons is getting outmaneuvered by the lone enemy or being blocked by an advancing ally. Internal reasons could be fear or just waiting too long for the right moment - we can only speculate. While the former could be simulated with a map, as it relates to positioning/stance, the latter would ask for a psychology test - similar to a fear roll common to many RPGs. Either way, this does not lie within the realm of players determining PC intent. The intent is to attack when a good enough opportunity presents itself.

When we're making an attack roll, we don't take a plethora of smaller factors into account either. We abstract it into the attack roll to see how well the character can translate intent into action.

So it all follows established RPG traditions of rolling to see how intent translates into action (or inaction). It's just bound to meet resistance from gamist gamers who value being able to attack every round more than cinematic accuracy. But they're not the target audience to begin with. The target audience is gamers who want greater accuracy in emulating cinematic combat, if necessary at the price of missing a turn. However big that audience may or may not be.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on March 24, 2019, 04:12:42 PM
Quote from: capvideo;1080565
Well, we've come full circle, then; I'd like to think there's some higher meaning to all this. It would certainly reflect well on us.


So, to avoid arguing in circles, I feel a summary of the objections raised in this thread and my responses is necessary.

1. In cinematic combat, not every member of the outnumbering force attacks in every ~5 second round. The number seems to fluctuate turn-by-turn between 1 and all of them. This is most commonly the case with mooks, but named villains and heroes aren't above it either. See the clips above. So, the main point is avoiding that every outnumbering attacker can attack every round. The main reasons for not attacking are: hesitation of the attacker, outmanevuered by the defender, blocked by an ally.
2a. To gamist Roleplayers, this is bound to seem unfun because you get sidelined for a turn repeatedly and combats might take longer. For someone who wants cinematic combat, however, this is not a bug but a feature. If you don't want cinematic combat, you're not in the target audience.
2b. The purpose from a genre sim mindset is NOT to create heroic action by itself, but to prevent UNcinematic narration (every failed attack roll gets narrated as missing, leading to unheroic, uncinematic mental imagery of everyone striking from all sides at all times) that is bound to arise in most games using existing rulesets instead. And it's not about giving the lone fighter more attacks compared to the opponents or something like that. It's specifically about making some outnumbering fighters not being able to even roll for attack in some rounds.
3. Relying on GMs/players to deliberately give up on attacking in a given turn instead of mandating it through dice rolls is not a good option: players should be able to take the optimal decision regarding PC intent. Instead, we use the dice to see if positioning (blocked) or psychology (hesitation; compare with fear rules in other games, for example) keeps the PC from getting into striking range. For positioning, actual position on some kind of battle map may or may not be used instead (for now unsure if that would work well but it's a possible alternative).
4. There are various ways this could be implemented. The variant I have chosen (and there are other valid ones) is having each outnumbering attacker roll a test to see if he manages to get into position to strike this turn. If failed, he spends his turn looking for an opportunity that never comes or that the PC never takes. Thus pausing for a turn in random patterns, just like in the movies.
5. 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.

So the main thing to take away from this is: in a ~5 second timespan of cinematic combat, you can't necessarily attack, whether you're Mook or hero, if you're fighting with allies against a single (human-sized) enemy. And this isn't a conscious choice by the player/GM, it comes due to specific cirumstances that are external or internal to their character and which keep him from even launching an effective attack.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: S'mon on March 24, 2019, 08:59:22 PM
I think modern combat rounds are too short. Should be more like 12 seconds. Enough time to move and attack.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Christopher Brady on March 25, 2019, 04:25:54 AM
Quote from: S'mon;1080644
I think modern combat rounds are too short. Should be more like 12 seconds. Enough time to move and attack.

O.o, what kind of slow ass swing are you assuming?  The average archer could loose about 8-12 arrows in that amount of time.  Most swordsmen can hit a target 6.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: S'mon on March 25, 2019, 04:33:54 AM
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1080694
O.o, what kind of slow ass swing are you assuming?  The average archer could loose about 8-12 arrows in that amount of time.  Most swordsmen can hit a target 6.

An archer with a real bow certainly isn't loosing 8-12 arrows. You been watching dumbass Youtube videos.

My point is that a combat round should cover the OODA loop for the combatants - so everyone normally gets an attack in, rather than the situation AK describes where some combatants never act - they haven't completed their OODA loop within the 6 second time frame.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on March 25, 2019, 04:59:38 AM
A discussion of the impact of different round length (say GURPS' 1 second or the suggested 10-15 seconds) is surely worth having. We got to be mindful though that the context is cinematic combat. If we aim at realism, we'd have to study entirely different sources for accuracy. And if we don't care about either, if we're approaching it from a gamist mindset, we don't have to bother about accuracy to begin with and might as well stick with 6 second rounds.

So what would change with 12 second rounds? Someone not attacking within a 12 second timespan would only happen if they were kicked off-screen (see the Hound chicken fight, I think). That would be rare. Stun would rarely cause anyone to skip a turn as well. Prone participants probably would be back on their feet at the end of the turn. Combats overall should last between 3 and 7 rounds. 10 round tops, unless it's the finale of the campaign perhaps.

The downside is that 3 to 6 seconds is approximately the length in which there's maybe an equal likelihood between "A change of state (stun, wound, change of initiative, etc) has happened" and "No change of state has happened." Maybe a bit slanted towards the former even. With 12 seconds, you're hiding some of the back-and-forth. Initiative might have changed several times within that time span. A combatant might have fallen down and is back up again. Stun might have faded. A combatant might have been wounded several times within that time span (see the death of Rexor). Position on the battlefield can have changed greatly. You need to impose stricter limits of how long an attack sequence can be. anything longer than 3 or 4 rounds would be extremely unusual as that translates into 30 to 50 seconds screentime of one party driving the other in a one-on-one.

So it has its advantages and disadvantages. One can say that, in general, if you favor a more abstract system which comes down to the GM filling in more details, then longer rounds are better. You're taking a step away from modern D&D and a step towards Dungeon World, purely in terms of abstraction level (but not necessarily playstyle).

PS English medieval requirements were, at least according to legend, about 10 arrow shots per minute. We're talking warbows here and not bows with 35 lbs draw weight. So about 1 arrow shot in a 5 second round and about 2 in a 12 second round.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: S'mon on March 25, 2019, 08:43:29 AM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1080698
A discussion of the impact of different round length (say GURPS' 1 second or the suggested 10-15 seconds) is surely worth having. We got to be mindful though that the context is cinematic combat. If we aim at realism, we'd have to study entirely different sources for accuracy. And if we don't care about either, if we're approaching it from a gamist mindset, we don't have to bother about accuracy to begin with and might as well stick with 6 second rounds.

So what would change with 12 second rounds? Someone not attacking within a 12 second timespan would only happen if they were kicked off-screen (see the Hound chicken fight, I think). That would be rare. Stun would rarely cause anyone to skip a turn as well. Prone participants probably would be back on their feet at the end of the turn. Combats overall should last between 3 and 7 rounds. 10 round tops, unless it's the finale of the campaign perhaps.

The downside is that 3 to 6 seconds is approximately the length in which there's maybe an equal likelihood between "A change of state (stun, wound, change of initiative, etc) has happened" and "No change of state has happened." Maybe a bit slanted towards the former even. With 12 seconds, you're hiding some of the back-and-forth. Initiative might have changed several times within that time span. A combatant might have fallen down and is back up again. Stun might have faded. A combatant might have been wounded several times within that time span (see the death of Rexor). Position on the battlefield can have changed greatly. You need to impose stricter limits of how long an attack sequence can be. anything longer than 3 or 4 rounds would be extremely unusual as that translates into 30 to 50 seconds screentime of one party driving the other in a one-on-one.

So it has its advantages and disadvantages. One can say that, in general, if you favor a more abstract system which comes down to the GM filling in more details, then longer rounds are better. You're taking a step away from modern D&D and a step towards Dungeon World, purely in terms of abstraction level (but not necessarily playstyle).

PS English medieval requirements were, at least according to legend, about 10 arrow shots per minute. We're talking warbows here and not bows with 35 lbs draw weight. So about 1 arrow shot in a 5 second round and about 2 in a 12 second round.

Yeah, a 100lb draw weight long bow shooting rapidly at target would be ca 10/minute, given optimal conditions (such as on a training range). Trick shooting a dozen arrows with ca 25-35 lb trick bows is completely irrelevant to warfare.

If your analysis of cinematic combats is accurate, that further convinces me that 10-12 seconds is the right duration for a D&D combat round. When Conan hacks up Rexxor he's finishing off (CDGing, in D&D terms) a defeated enemy no longer able to defend himself.

An individual's OODA loop ("That guy is shooting at me - better shoot/run/hide") is apparently around 3-5 seconds; for a 1 on 1 duel system 3 second rounds make sense, perhaps even GURPS' 1 second round. For D&D or most RPGs, a round assumes situational awareness of a battlefield with typically 4-8 or so combatants per side; ie squad level combat. For squad-level awareness, IRL as I recall the OODA is around 10-12 seconds. People rarely spend the whole time shooting/hacking, a lot of time is spent in the Observe-Orient-Decide stages before they Act. Individual re-acts within that are best represented by the out-of-sequence Reaction such as an Opportunity Attack.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: capvideo on March 25, 2019, 11:50:33 AM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1080589
5. 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;1080583
Gentle 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.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on March 25, 2019, 02:04:39 PM
Quote from: S'mon;1080720

An 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;1080744
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;


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;1080744

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.


Yes, a recap of what was said before.

Quote from: capvideo;1080744
Yet, 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;1080744

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?


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;1080744

they'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?
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: S'mon on March 25, 2019, 04:13:25 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1080760
What'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.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: tenbones on March 26, 2019, 03:44:07 PM
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.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: tenbones on March 26, 2019, 03:49:05 PM
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).
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on March 26, 2019, 05:42:39 PM
Quote from: tenbones;1080955

I could do this with other systems too.


Well, that goes against your case from my POV.  

Quote from: tenbones;1080958
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.


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.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: tenbones on March 26, 2019, 06:32:53 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1080977
Well, 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;1080977
See, 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;1080977
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.

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;1080977
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.

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.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on March 27, 2019, 04:35:35 PM
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.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Bren on March 27, 2019, 07:12:00 PM
Quote from: Skarg;1080118
What 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;1080397
I 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;1080397
I 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.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on March 28, 2019, 03:19:39 AM
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.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on March 28, 2019, 03:38:59 AM
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?"
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: S'mon on March 28, 2019, 05:01:58 AM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1081204
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.

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.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on March 28, 2019, 06:24:59 AM
Quote from: S'mon;1081212
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.

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.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: S'mon on March 28, 2019, 06:58:57 AM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1081224
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.

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.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on March 28, 2019, 07:34:53 AM
Quote from: S'mon;1081229
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.


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.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: S'mon on March 28, 2019, 08:46:57 AM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1081232
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.

Are you asking me about the WEG d6 system? I ran d6 Star Wars for a couple years in the late 1980s, a few dozen combats.

What I recall was that it did a good job in getting players to feel like they were the protagonists in a Star Wars film. The Force Points were overpowered if their use was min-maxed (a group all spent FPs at once and wiped out a Stormtrooper platoon in one round, more Rogue One than episode IV), but it worked very well overall in genre emulation.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on March 28, 2019, 04:24:11 PM
And now please share your play experience with the thing you claimed only looks like cinematic combat but doesn't feel like it. And which should be more like d6 Star Wars. In some hitherto unspecified way.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Bren on March 28, 2019, 04:28:23 PM
Quote from: S'mon;1081229
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.
To my mind the problem in emulating the outcome of the sort of cinematic combat that Alexander prefers is not that every character* in range is allowed an attack roll. The problem is how he sees the attack roll, i.e. in his interpretation of what an attack roll means.

I don't have the problem he has because in my mind rolling to attack and succeeding with the attack roll means that the attacker had an opportunity to attack. Succeeding with an attack roll means that attacker had an opportunity to attack and succeeded in connecting.**

If one cares why an attacker was unable to connect (i.e. what a missed roll means), there is a simpler way to mechanically determine whether the attack failed due to lack of opportunity (due to hesitation or position) vs. lack of connecting given an opportunity. And that method doesn't introduce a second failure point for players. And sometimes explaining a failure of an attack roll as "the move and flow of combat didn't allow you to get a clear shot at the defender" may actually make the player feel better about a missed die roll.

Quote from: S'mon;1081242
Are you asking me about the WEG d6 system? I ran d6 Star Wars for a couple years in the late 1980s, a few dozen combats.
I concur with your experience that D6 Star Wars emulates the feel of being a character in a setting like the original Star Wars trilogy. And I've played and GMed WEG D6 Star Wars for over ten years and over one hundred combats.


* Here "every character" means every character who might reasonably get in range during a 5-6 second round. If twenty or thirty people attack one or two, not all of the attackers will get to make an attack roll and reasonable GMs and players don't allow all of the attackers to get a roll.

** In systems where armor blocks damage (e.g. Runequest, GURPS, Barbarians of Lemuria) a successful roll to hit may not penetrate armor and thus does no damage. In systems with increasing hit points like D&D a successful attack may not do damage but may cause fatigue, use up luck, create minor nicks and scrapes or whatever the players think "damage" means in that system.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: S'mon on March 28, 2019, 06:21:32 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1081311
And now please share your play experience with the thing you claimed only looks like cinematic combat but doesn't feel like it. And which should be more like d6 Star Wars. In some hitherto unspecified way.


I'm putting you on Ignore now.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on March 29, 2019, 02:51:40 AM
Quote from: S'mon;1081332
I'm putting you on Ignore now.

As you wish. But let me just wrap this up by briefly pointing out that there is a name for when you judge before ever having tried ; it's called bias.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on March 29, 2019, 03:12:35 AM
Quote from: Bren;1081312

If one cares why an attacker was unable to connect (i.e. what a missed roll means), there is a simpler way to mechanically determine whether the attack failed due to lack of opportunity (due to hesitation or position) vs. lack of connecting given an opportunity. And that method doesn't introduce a second failure point for players. And sometimes explaining a failure of an attack roll as "the move and flow of combat didn't allow you to get a clear shot at the defender" may actually make the player feel better about a missed die roll.


So I have to come clean first that I need to move goalposts here. Previously in this thread I was talking about generating additional information through dice-rolling. However, on second thought that is a necessary but not a sufficient condition. The information needs to be given mechanical weight as well. Here's why:

Suppose we take up the earlier suggestion that on odd attack roll results, you didn't get to launch the attack and on even results you did launch it but you didn't connect. This is bound to get ignored by gamers. Similarly in D&D, you CAN use the AC modifiers from armor and Dexterity to determine whether an attack was dodged or rather deflected by armor. I have seen nothing so far to indicate that this available information sees widespread(!) use in the narration of combat. Most GMs can't be bothered to do the math on each attack roll. Certainly none of my d20 GMs ever did. And I don't think Mercer does routinely either.

Gamers can afford to ignore such information because it is of no consequence to the fight. And gamers being lazy they do just that.

Instead, your game rules need to underscore that this is not something to be glossed over or else you're ending up with the same narration and combat dynamics as before.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Bren on March 29, 2019, 02:43:57 PM
Alexander the more I read, the more it looks like you are trying to solve people problems with new rules mechanics. In my somewhat considerable experience that seldom works out well. But best of luck anyway.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on March 29, 2019, 03:08:29 PM
Thanks. Well, what can I say? If I look at the story of Luke Crane or Vincent Baker in "Designers & Dragons" - they were unhappy with how existing games worked and so they designed games that fixed what they saw as lacking in other games. Of course for each of them, there are countless other designers who did the same and whose ideas did not resonate enough with others. There's no telling in advance what will work; I would have never thought myself that a game more or less without circumstantial modifiers (Apocalypse World) would find as many interested gamers as it did. In hindsight, it makes sense though.

I appreciate your input, I hope I was able to convey that I've been considering all your suggestions so far. It's of course a little more difficult for you to give helpful suggestions if you don't feel bothered the same way I do by existing games.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: tenbones on March 29, 2019, 03:19:24 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1081369
As you wish. But let me just wrap this up by briefly pointing out that there is a name for when you judge before ever having tried ; it's called bias.

I've run probably conservatively 75-100 combats in d6 WeG Star Wars. *Easily*. And I agree with S'mon it does a very good job of letting players feel like it's Star Wars cinematic combat. My eyebrow raises a bit when you say this...


Quote from: Alexander Kalinowsk
And now please share your play experience with the thing you claimed only looks like cinematic combat but doesn't feel like it. And which should be more like d6 Star Wars. In some hitherto unspecified way.

We are players and developers of RPG's in this forum... I don't think it's a stretch to ask you what *you* mean by by "looking" and "feeling". Because in all the decades I've been doing this, never once has throwing dice and describing what I and my players were doing has *ever* LOOKED like anything other than a bunch of people sitting around a room rolling dice and playing game. How it *feels* is precisely what I suspect the one-hundred+ years of gaming experience, professional/amateur game design and publishing experience, have been relaying to you for 18-pages worth of posts in good faith - have been trying to convey to you.

I'd never speak for others here - but I don't run games for the appearances of things. I don't write or design for the *appearance* of anything. I write for what works towards my intentions. And for it to be successful - it HAS to be fun. It has to make my players have a good time. Hopefully with my design elements producing the desired results.

You're claim of bias is one made against something so blatantly obvious it didn't need to be said. No one is questioning that *anyone* has bias. We're merely discussing what is proving to be an admittedly goal-post changing target on a topic I'm not sure you quite understand your own needs vs. what we're answering to you. To dismiss those opinions in this manner is to undermine your entire intent.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on March 29, 2019, 06:29:03 PM
1. I have not said a single thing about d6 Star Wars.
2. Invocation of authority only reveals that one's argument cannot stand on its own.
3. I have no interest in debating this particular issue, given S'mon's absence from the conversation, other than repeating my position very clearly and unequivocally: anybody who makes a comparison between thing A and thing B without knowing thing B and claims in the same breath that thing B doesn't feel like the real thing (in this case: cinematic combat) is automatically disqualifying himself from being a good faith actor.

I have to say, this is a very unpleasant turn of events.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: tenbones on March 31, 2019, 06:02:58 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1081232
1. I have not said a single thing about d6 Star Wars.
No one is accusing you of saying anything about d6 Star Wars. You made a proclamation based on someone using Star Wars d6 as an *example* to your very claim -

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1081232
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.

to which you made the authoritative claims about the requirements to even *answer* your apparently rhetorical question. The conclusion must be therefore, that you're not really interested in *any* answer to your actual question. Because *I* happen to fit the very requirements YOU outlined. And I answered them. Now you say this little gem...

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1081232
2. Invocation of authority only reveals that one's argument cannot stand on its own.

Which is directly in relation to YOUR own criteria. Once again you move the goal-post. Because I HAVE run these systems for over a decade. TWO decades to be precise. And I've run many many combats. You're *asking* for us to prove YOUR requirements in order to merely speak to your own questions and claims. Who is the one being dishonest here?

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1081232
3. I have no interest in debating this particular issue, given S'mon's absence from the conversation, other than repeating my position very clearly and unequivocally: anybody who makes a comparison between thing A and thing B without knowing thing B and claims in the same breath that thing B doesn't feel like the real thing (in this case: cinematic combat) is automatically disqualifying himself from being a good faith actor.

Well it's a good thing - because *I* am the one making the claim, now, that you're not *discussing* in good faith. I've been involved in the coversation and everytime I or anyone else responds, you are the one that changes the criteria of the discussion then *you* start making assumptions about us that are flat out untrue, or you're not speaking in good faith on these goals. Which is it? Nevermind - I don't think it matters.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1081232
I have to say, this is a very unpleasant turn of events.

I don't think you really care.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: tenbones on March 31, 2019, 06:05:27 PM
All you had to say was "Okay guys, thanks for the input."

And we'd all have dropped the subject.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on March 31, 2019, 07:36:16 PM
I feel I have to requote the relevant passage, the origin of contention which you seem to be missing out on, in the name of clarity here:

Quote from: S'mon;1081229
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.


Some "requirements" of mine have nothing to do with it other than my requirement that if someone compares two things and is being dismissive of one of those two things, then that person should at least have some personal experience with the thing they're being dismissive of. Actually, they should have sufficient familiarity with both objects (in this case the two things being the approach I am pursuing and d6 Star Wars). Something like 10+ combats run prior in both systems would have been nice, for starters, especially when it concerns something like the feeling of a system - which comes down to experiencing it in actual play.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: tenbones on April 01, 2019, 01:35:08 AM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1081676
Some "requirements" of mine have nothing to do with it other than my requirement that if someone compares two things and is being dismissive of one of those two things, then that person should at least have some personal experience with the thing they're being dismissive of. Actually, they should have sufficient familiarity with both objects (in this case the two things being the approach I am pursuing and d6 Star Wars). Something like 10+ combats run prior in both systems would have been nice, for starters, especially when it concerns something like the feeling of a system - which comes down to experiencing it in actual play.


I responded to your quote. It changes *nothing* about your position, correct? So you have some unstated criteria. And that seems to be the direction this "discussion" has gone for many pages. That S'mon doesn't rise to your "level of qualification" - for whatever reason, and as totally arbitrary as it is, *I* do actually qualify. And I agree with him. Which changes nothing for you. So now what? Maybe S'mon is 20-times smarter than me, and he grasped the value of d6 Star Wars in less time. The fact we both have the same basic ideas of the system seems to be of no value. Which is odd logic.

So if the "approach of what you're pursuing" is not being well communicated by you - to us, when we're tossing out systems that do the things we *think* you're trying to convey, based solely on your attempts at explaining them - which in my opinion seems to change every time we try to address it, then you "disqualify" people trying to talk in good faith... it's pretty clear that you're either not conveying what you really want. Or you don't quite know yourself. Maybe there is no real solution to your "problem".
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on April 01, 2019, 02:17:20 AM
Quote from: tenbones;1081705
I responded to your quote. It changes *nothing* about your position, correct? So you have some unstated criteria. And that seems to be the direction this "discussion" has gone for many pages. That S'mon doesn't rise to your "level of qualification" - for whatever reason, and as totally arbitrary as it is, *I* do actually qualify. And I agree with him. Which changes nothing for you. So now what? Maybe S'mon is 20-times smarter than me, and he grasped the value of d6 Star Wars in less time. The fact we both have the same basic ideas of the system seems to be of no value. Which is odd logic.

I have no idea why you keep bringing up your familiarity of d6 Star Wars. It seems to indicate that you continue to not understand the nature of the contention.

Let me reiterate it for you one more time:
S'mon indirectly compared my approach, which he has clearly never played, with what d6 Star Wars has been doing and claimed that, unlike d6 Star Wars, my approach may look like cinematic combat but doesn't feel like it. But to make this claim, he'd need some familiarity with both my approach and d6 Star Wars via actual play. I have never had any doubts about his nor your experience with d6 Star Wars. That's not the issue and hasn't been.

I doubt that S'mon (or you for that matter) have any idea of what I am proposing here feels(!) like in actual play. Thus there was no basis for him to make that claim, thus he's been putting himself as a good faith actor in doubt. Plus he couldn't even be bothered to elaborate why my approach doesn't "feel" like cinematic nor what d6 Star Wars does right in comparison. It was just a cheap shot.

Hope this helps. This conversation has become tiresome.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Trond on April 01, 2019, 11:31:32 AM
Quote from: Trond;1078133
For some reason, I think this is remarkably easy to do with the Stormbringer 5 (or tweaked BRP) rules. For cinematic effects, use the major wound table whenever appropriate, make sure the villains are low in skill (but don't let the players know), while the fighter PCs are around 90% or above in weapon skills. Villains miss rounds simply because of the whiff factor, but occasionally they do get in a hit. We played a R.E.Howard-style swords and sorcery game doing this. It was awesome.

Alexander, did you look into this? I feel I have done what the OP is asking for. I also think that this thread is a bit too deeply steeped in D&D-isms, which do not necessarily fit the outcome you want, since in the past I felt that our AD&D 2nd ed games were among the least cinematic (though maybe some other editions would work). Use a system that encourages easy and descriptive gameplay. I have found that BRP is so straightforward that it works, and you can easily use the major wounds table to add flavor. Rolemaster might also work if you have a quick way to look up tables (I have done this in the past too, but I am familiar with the flaws of RM and simplified the rules, it is probably too confusing for a newbie).  Also, if PCs are outnumbered make sure the skills of the PCs are much higher than the opponents (in RM don't even bother with starting at lower levels), but make sure they feel the situation is dangerous. On top of that, add your own descriptions to flesh out everything that happens, rather than just talking about the rolls. Any rule that does not add to the fun and the cinematic effect? Drop it like a hot potato.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on April 01, 2019, 12:09:35 PM
Trond,

I don't doubt that your approach works. Ultimately, it's not so different from what I am doing. However, I think I would like to see even greater accuracy. Have a look at this fight - it's not classic fantasy but science fantasy... it should still work:





Note how Darth Maul manages to repeatedly break up the double-teaming, even if only for a round. This is why I have been maintaining throughout this thread that even highly skilled fighters need to occasionally pause when ganging up against a lone enemy. Also here:



It's not just mooks that don't even get to attack, occasionally. I am aiming at this effect where some attackers can't attack in a given round, it makes the lone fighter feel more like he's dancing through his opponents' ranks. That both looks and feels cinematic to me - at the expense of occasionally not being able to attack in a round.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Bren on April 01, 2019, 02:37:19 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1081676
Some "requirements" of mine have nothing to do with it other than my requirement that if someone compares two things and is being dismissive of one of those two things, then that person should at least have some personal experience with the thing they're being dismissive of. Actually, they should have sufficient familiarity with both objects (in this case the two things being the approach I am pursuing and d6 Star Wars). Something like 10+ combats run prior in both systems would have been nice, for starters, especially when it concerns something like the feeling of a system - which comes down to experiencing it in actual play.
I don't think you are going to find very many people who are willing to devote the time and effort to learn your new system and run 10+ combats using that system simply so that they can provide some initial feedback on your proposed new system.

Put yourself in their shoes for a minute. Are you going to go get a copy of Star Wars D6 (or download the free D6 Space version), learn that system, and then run 10+ combats with it just so you can compare what you are creating to the D6 system?
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Trond on April 01, 2019, 09:27:49 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1081741
Trond,

I don't doubt that your approach works. Ultimately, it's not so different from what I am doing. However, I think I would like to see even greater accuracy. Have a look at this fight - it's not classic fantasy but science fantasy... it should still work:





Note how Darth Maul manages to repeatedly break up the double-teaming, even if only for a round. This is why I have been maintaining throughout this thread that even highly skilled fighters need to occasionally pause when ganging up against a lone enemy. Also here:



It's not just mooks that don't even get to attack, occasionally. I am aiming at this effect where some attackers can't attack in a given round, it makes the lone fighter feel more like he's dancing through his opponents' ranks. That both looks and feels cinematic to me - at the expense of occasionally not being able to attack in a round.

Not so sure about this. One problem here is that you're basing it off of movies, while the way RPGs usually go, with verbal communication, the feel is more like reading a book. Perhaps go for the best action sequences you can find in books, and see if you can get something out of that.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on April 02, 2019, 03:24:27 AM
Bren, I agree that it would be unreasonable to expect anyone to try my game rules (which are still in a BETA state at that and the next update will speed them up, make them more precise and clearer ad well) - that's why I made the thread about a general comparison of movie fights and fights in existing games... and about different alternatives on how to fix any significant differences. I don't think merely providing additional information will be enough to fix the existing differences as they are bound to get ignored. I think the rules need to enforce the non-attacking part to convey the right imagery.

That being said, I would hopefully refrain from making any such comments as S'mon's if I have never even played a game once. "Hey, Vincent Baker, even though I have never played it and even read the rules myself, your Apocalypse World may look like post-apocalypse role-playing but it doesn't feel like it... why don't you make it more like Palladium's After the Bomb RPG, which I last played 30 years ago? It's really feels post-apocalypse."

That wouldn't sound right.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Alexander Kalinowski on April 02, 2019, 03:39:01 AM
Quote from: Trond;1081803
Not so sure about this. One problem here is that you're basing it off of movies, while the way RPGs usually go, with verbal communication, the feel is more like reading a book. Perhaps go for the best action sequences you can find in books, and see if you can get something out of that.

I have been re-reading LotR and reading partially Game of Thrones (and the Conan stories) because of that, plus a few smaller properties. I also looked at Savage Sword of Conan comics. It does not have the same amount of information on what's really happening as cinematic combat (unless it's badly edited cinematic combat). Plus, I think we're all more influenced in our imagination and narration of what we have have seen on the screen. Matt Mercer certainly is. ;)

I think what's really rubbing people the wrong way is the thought of players having to sit out a round. I don't think there would be much of a fuss if only NPCs had to occasionally spend a turn not being able to do anything other than waiting for an opportunity to strike. It's less dramatic than it sounds though if a lone NPC that your party gangs up on doesn't get to roll for parry against any additional PC attackers. So, if your PC has a 60% chance of launching an attack and a 66.6% of hitting with that attack, the 60% chance for the PC attacker is the functional equivalent of the defender having a 40% parry chance.

I recommend that only Elite-/Boss-level NPCs get to have a trait that allows them to parry more of the outnumbering force's attacks. In that case, yes, you have 3 points of failure (launch attack, attack roll, parry) instead of 2. I can live with that as it makes these special NPCs seem tough as nails and swarming them isn't quite as effective as in other RPGs. I like that.
Title: Cinematic Combat: One-versus-Many in Film and RPGs
Post by: Bren on April 02, 2019, 05:38:27 PM
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1081849
I think what's really rubbing people the wrong way is the thought of players having to sit out a round. I don't think there would be much of a fuss if only NPCs had to occasionally spend a turn not being able to do anything other than waiting for an opportunity to strike.
We don't know your players, but I've certainly GMed for players where randomly not being allowed to make an attack roll would be a concern so it seems reasonable that the same thing might apply to your players or to any prospective players you are looking to attract. Personally that isn't the major issue for me.

As I've said, I don't interpret a failed attack roll the same way you do. And in addition, I've used systems like Runequest and Honor + Intrigue where a character sitting out is already a possible combat result. H+I for example, has defensive maneuvers that can result in an attacker missing or even not getting to attack and maneuvers for the attacker that can result in the attacker missing an attack roll that round.

As far as the NPCs, I don't need a roll to prevent them from getting to make an attack roll since that is already covered by other aspects of how I GM. Morale rules and rolls cover fear and hesitation for the NPCs. Blocking is covered by positional movement, which is something I prefer to include in play. Both of the first two things as well as waiting for a better opening are covered by my interpretation and description of what an NPC missing an attack roll actually means. So for me, adding in another roll to determine opportunity separate from the attack roll doesn't add anything I'm missing.