Quick Note – Cinematic vs Tactical Combat
A quick question for the community at large: What do you prefer, fast and loose encounters presented in a cinematic way or more tactical looking at the game like a battle map?
The reason I ask is that I have several ideas floating in my head to make combat feel more cinematic. There would be number crunching and dice rolling of course due to the needed aspect of rules, but fast and cinematic none-the-less.
These ideas range from combat stunts after a critical hit or a “so much higher than AC[ACC]” that would give the player options for special moves to the “dire circumstances” roll I talked about earlier in my Transformers post.
Part of the reason I want to do this is to give back some of the storytelling aspects of combat to the players and relieve the referee from figuring out how to describe the ninety-millionth player attack and damage to the enemy and make combat more interactive between the entire table.
3 thoughts on “Quick Note – Cinematic vs taticial Combat”
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Cinematic all the way. Tactical details can be handled through narration, no need for ton of rules to dictate exactly what happens.
I actually like the slight crunchiness of minis and a battle mat when it comes to combat. The group I play most often with does this and I find it adds a nice contrast with the rest of the more role-play-centric part of the campaign. I think the DM and group can make either work, but I like a combination of the two.
Do they have to be opposites? We play with a battle map and minis, and a session or two back someone had his martial artist backflip over an enemy and attack it from behind. Tactical and cinematic.