Cinematic Role Playing vs Rules Mechanics

Back to role playing games.

We've all been there. There's something we desperately wanted to do with our character, it would be a great role playing moment, and very cinematic; but there's just one problem, the rules mechanics don't cover it. Its a common problem and not one I really know how to fix, in fact there was only one system I know of, that I actually played, that would let you do cinematic things within the rules of the game.

The company was West End Games and for gamers of my generation it is best remembered for two systems Torg, which I didn't play, and their d6 Star Wars game, which I did. It was a great system in which you rolled multiple dice for an action. You could take more than one action but you lost more dice with each action you took. So say you were playing a gunslinger type character and you wanted to run into a room, step on a chair, step up onto a table and leap across the room shooting at three different people. In that system you could. You'd lose a lot of dice on each action but you could do it, the rules accounted for player creativity. Contrast that to the d20 system. I'm not sure there's a way you can do the same scenario, the rules just don't account for it. The d20 rules, while still good, just don't account much for the players getting flexible and creative with things.

Even my favorite system, Legend of the Five Rings, doesn't account much for player creativity. If someone shoots an arrow at you, you can't just cut it out of the air and look cool. You just get shot. Magic in that system is very limited too, though I can see why they didn't want the casters overshadowing everyone else.

The rules shouldn't get in the way of the players fun, if someone finds a creative use for a skill or a spell that isn't covered by the rules think about how it will affect the situation currently and how it affect future rulings. Be fair. Not everything has to have rigid mechanics, and in fact that's the worst thing possible.

Allow me to elaborate. I used to play in an Organized Play living campaign. I played a table at a convention where I had over a thousand gold. Now the rules say that gold weighs x number of pounds per 50 pieces. I was trying to negotiate to get information that the party needed to progress the plot. When I offered 1000 gold for the information, instead of asking me HOW I was carrying the gold the judge told me that I wasn't carrying it because the rules said it weighed too much. Now I could have argued the point, but I wasn't going to see these people again and I was too mad at the time to trust myself to not say something I would regret. I was basically rules lawyered into being quiet and just letting the mod progress the way it was written. This, by the way, is a problem with some living campaigns. They over compensate by being very formulaic and rules centric with very little actual role playing.

What I'm trying to say is try to be flexible if you can. If you trust your players to not abuse things let them get creative where they can. The rules for a lot of systems are very rigid and players look for ways to shine within the systems they're given. Some players look for loopholes and ways around the rules and those are the players you have to consider when letting people get creative, but don't let rigidity get in the way of fun. Follow the rules, but if there isn't a rule for it you'll have to make one on the fly.

Creativity isn't bad and the rules don't have to be so rigid as to be stifling.