Quote from: CRKrueger;1075685I couldn't care less about cinematic combat.

Might be the wrong thread for you, friendo.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1075685Mythras 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.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1075717Might 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.

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.

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

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 ( 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.

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;1075719You'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.

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, 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.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1075719You'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;1075725For 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;1075737How 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.)

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;1075739You 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;1075757That'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.

Quote from: tenbones;1075737The 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!

Quote from: S'mon;1075823I 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 KalinowskiWell, 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.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1075719You'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:

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1075717Might 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.

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.

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.

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).

Quote from: Skarg;10755651. 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.