I like the first half of your cinematic definition - that's the one use I for myself. But the second half feels off to me.
In my mind, it's never going to be the case that a play group can move at the speed of Bruce Lee action scene. Those scenes are so fast! I think RPGs can still emulate them, maybe even taking 5 minutes of mechanics to map onto a 5 minute sequence, but the experience is going to be so radically different. The movie will move at the speed of a fist flying through the air while the game is going to move no faster than the speed of a conversation, and probably a conversation that involves remembering how the rules work.
RPGs feel so often about taking some conversation and mechanics and maybe a little randomization and smooshing it all together until we've all agreed on a piece of fiction that plays like a cinematic sequence in our collective heads. By the time I'm done with a Blades in the Dark score, I can replay the thing in my mind in a way that feels so much like a movie. But the process of getting there, including the speed, feels super different.
Then again, I'm sort of arguing that RPGs move at the speed of bullet time, a uniquely cinematic invention. :)
Thanks for the post! I'm not sure we disagree. I'm not saying a cinematic RPG should take exactly the same time as a movie. I'm saying it should try to - and we can judge it's success by how close it gets (in terms of speed and fidelity). If a game takes 15-20 minutes to play out a 5 minute Bruce Lee fight, that's pretty cinematic to me. If it takes 30-40 minutes, it's less so, and so on. Again, that old adage of "it's not a binary, it's a spectrum".
Hm! Yeah I think we're on the same page here, but maybe with a different idea of the importance of that pacing ingredient.
Like I can think of a session of Agon I played once where we spent like 2 hours on a single character decision that would've taken 3-4 minutes if it lived in a movie. The moment in question is very cinematic in my memory because we spent so much time talking about the space we were in and the character's hesitation and all that good stuff. But maybe there is still a pacing parallel there, because that moment would've taken a whole episode of TV to emotionally build up, and that's basically what we did at the table, even if we didn't get through as much plot or action.
I still think it's more important for me how the memory of the play experience ends up feeling than the route (including pacing) we took to get there, but you're right: pacing is totally an element of how games can try to get there.
That's a really interesting point! I might have inadvertently narrowed the conversation to "pacing action/fights" but I guess it's important to think about how other aspects are paced, including say romance or a climactic decision. I would be also interested in your opinion about whether Agon's design created that situation - or to put it another way, was Agon designed for a climactic decision of that kind to play out that way?
As I think about it, that question about Agon is really interesting.
I think Agon is a game where the design, or at least the prewritten adventures, are very much about leading the players towards making climactic decisions. The adventures almost all follow a pattern of "you show up on an island and something messed up is going on -> you figure out what that messed up thing is -> you decide what to do about it -> you do a big action climax to enact your solution." The action climax rules are inherently include a moment when players must decide whether dealing with unpleasant side effects (i.e. saving a schoolbus full of kids) or taking on their main villain/problem (i.e. capturing the Green Goblin - examples not applicable to Agon) is more important.
But those moments of choice don't always feel cinematic, and the mid-adventure moments of choice feel like they're created because of the adventure writing more than the rules of Agon. I'm now thinking I should GM the game differently to try and make them feel more so, because I think it'd be pretty trivial to do and pretty effective.
Meanwhile, I think the rules ARE super good at creating cinematic scenes, especially action sequences. I wasn't thinking about this when I brought it up, but almost every resolution roll in Agon feels like an epic Fast and the Furious action sequence, and I think it's interesting how they do it: everyone in the party participates in most contests and rolls once, then they go from worst result to best and narrate what happens to them. It means you have a bunch of sitting around while everyone builds a dice pool and rolls, but then you get tons of action narrated back-to-back-to-back with no mechanics getting in the way while people take turns saying what happens. It's maybe the best example of your pacing idea I can think of.
On top of that, I think the way in which the mechanics get out of the way at a certain point and tell people to just narrate whatever they think is cool is a huge part of what makes it end up feeling cinematic. Because engaging with rules doesn't ever feel cinematic to me even when it's going great, but people naturally know how to describe something that feels epic and actiony and cool and, you know, cinematic.
At our table, the idea "cinematic" is used by players & facilitators descriptions. For example, we have a player who enjoys emphasizing how the camera works and frames the picture ( " and as we see the doors close behind him, we fade to black"). So I suggest we use it a tool, a language that helps to conjure specific images - and therefore, a story - to our collective experience.
I like the first half of your cinematic definition - that's the one use I for myself. But the second half feels off to me.
In my mind, it's never going to be the case that a play group can move at the speed of Bruce Lee action scene. Those scenes are so fast! I think RPGs can still emulate them, maybe even taking 5 minutes of mechanics to map onto a 5 minute sequence, but the experience is going to be so radically different. The movie will move at the speed of a fist flying through the air while the game is going to move no faster than the speed of a conversation, and probably a conversation that involves remembering how the rules work.
RPGs feel so often about taking some conversation and mechanics and maybe a little randomization and smooshing it all together until we've all agreed on a piece of fiction that plays like a cinematic sequence in our collective heads. By the time I'm done with a Blades in the Dark score, I can replay the thing in my mind in a way that feels so much like a movie. But the process of getting there, including the speed, feels super different.
Then again, I'm sort of arguing that RPGs move at the speed of bullet time, a uniquely cinematic invention. :)
Thanks for the post! I'm not sure we disagree. I'm not saying a cinematic RPG should take exactly the same time as a movie. I'm saying it should try to - and we can judge it's success by how close it gets (in terms of speed and fidelity). If a game takes 15-20 minutes to play out a 5 minute Bruce Lee fight, that's pretty cinematic to me. If it takes 30-40 minutes, it's less so, and so on. Again, that old adage of "it's not a binary, it's a spectrum".
Hm! Yeah I think we're on the same page here, but maybe with a different idea of the importance of that pacing ingredient.
Like I can think of a session of Agon I played once where we spent like 2 hours on a single character decision that would've taken 3-4 minutes if it lived in a movie. The moment in question is very cinematic in my memory because we spent so much time talking about the space we were in and the character's hesitation and all that good stuff. But maybe there is still a pacing parallel there, because that moment would've taken a whole episode of TV to emotionally build up, and that's basically what we did at the table, even if we didn't get through as much plot or action.
I still think it's more important for me how the memory of the play experience ends up feeling than the route (including pacing) we took to get there, but you're right: pacing is totally an element of how games can try to get there.
That's a really interesting point! I might have inadvertently narrowed the conversation to "pacing action/fights" but I guess it's important to think about how other aspects are paced, including say romance or a climactic decision. I would be also interested in your opinion about whether Agon's design created that situation - or to put it another way, was Agon designed for a climactic decision of that kind to play out that way?
As I think about it, that question about Agon is really interesting.
I think Agon is a game where the design, or at least the prewritten adventures, are very much about leading the players towards making climactic decisions. The adventures almost all follow a pattern of "you show up on an island and something messed up is going on -> you figure out what that messed up thing is -> you decide what to do about it -> you do a big action climax to enact your solution." The action climax rules are inherently include a moment when players must decide whether dealing with unpleasant side effects (i.e. saving a schoolbus full of kids) or taking on their main villain/problem (i.e. capturing the Green Goblin - examples not applicable to Agon) is more important.
But those moments of choice don't always feel cinematic, and the mid-adventure moments of choice feel like they're created because of the adventure writing more than the rules of Agon. I'm now thinking I should GM the game differently to try and make them feel more so, because I think it'd be pretty trivial to do and pretty effective.
Meanwhile, I think the rules ARE super good at creating cinematic scenes, especially action sequences. I wasn't thinking about this when I brought it up, but almost every resolution roll in Agon feels like an epic Fast and the Furious action sequence, and I think it's interesting how they do it: everyone in the party participates in most contests and rolls once, then they go from worst result to best and narrate what happens to them. It means you have a bunch of sitting around while everyone builds a dice pool and rolls, but then you get tons of action narrated back-to-back-to-back with no mechanics getting in the way while people take turns saying what happens. It's maybe the best example of your pacing idea I can think of.
On top of that, I think the way in which the mechanics get out of the way at a certain point and tell people to just narrate whatever they think is cool is a huge part of what makes it end up feeling cinematic. Because engaging with rules doesn't ever feel cinematic to me even when it's going great, but people naturally know how to describe something that feels epic and actiony and cool and, you know, cinematic.
The other Adventure Time official RPG was Spanish, published by Nosolorol!
They did a pretty neat work with it.
Thank you! I saw some article about it and it sounded really cool. Wished I read Spanish!
At our table, the idea "cinematic" is used by players & facilitators descriptions. For example, we have a player who enjoys emphasizing how the camera works and frames the picture ( " and as we see the doors close behind him, we fade to black"). So I suggest we use it a tool, a language that helps to conjure specific images - and therefore, a story - to our collective experience.
Agreed! That makes sense!