Four-Colour Commentary

RPG Theatre I

I've been noticing over the last few years how much action-movie logic conforms to RPG logic. There are things that we take for granted (generic conventions) in movies that match up perfectly to the rules and conventions of role-playing games. I have compiled a list of the some of the most obvious, but I?m certain there are more?

It's Only a Flesh Wound!
Ever notice how movie bad guys take one punch and fall down but the heroes can keep on trucking despite a huge number of 'grazing' shots, or 'mere flesh wounds'? Well, that's because those hapless bad guys are just minor NPCs. They only have a few hit points each, or an extremely low Challenge Rating, or what have you. They go down like sacks of wheat. However, the heroes/PCs have loads of hit points, dodging bonuses, pools of 'emergency luck,' and all kinds of things that let them avoid being taken down with a single bullet, or one punch.

As Accurate as a Storm Trooper
Much like heroes have way more hit points than minor villains, villains also can't shoot for shit. They might be dressed up as a crack squad of sharp-shooters, born with high-powered rifles in hand, they've been trained up as the elite snipers of the empire (or whatever). Regardless, they couldn't hit the broad side of the Millennium Falcon if Chewy was mooning them. Well, obviously, they're very low-level and they just don't have the THAC0, or the BA, or the appropriate rifle skills, or whatever. The heroes, on the other hand, can run through a complex filled with bad guys and kill three of them for every one bullet. Hello weapon specialisation; how sweet it is.

Last Week, Mild-Mannered? Today, INVINCIBLE!
The training montage was a staple of the 80s movie, and it has been passed down to us almost totally intact. We don?t hear the same rock-ballad power cords anymore, but Spider-man had to swing around New York for a while before he could 'graduate' up to his good costume and learn his powers. The idea that characters gain levels in movies is so intuitive it almost doesn't need explanation. Obviously, people gain experience. This is fact of life. They learn. That's why so many RPGs are level-based. But sometimes the precise logic of experience points and levels is needed to explain why, for example, Alexandro Montoya (Antonio Banderas) is able to go from 'useless thief would couldn't defend himself to save his life' to 'Zorro, master of the gay blade' in a matter of just a few weeks. The reality is that he was already a fairly high-level thief (or 'rogue' if you insist) and picked up a second class as a fighter. Because he's already a high-level PC himself, he gains low levels very, very quickly (hell, it's only 1000 XP to get to second level). This convention is directly related to?

The Heroic Second Wind
It happens in every action movie. Ever. The big final battle is well underway, and we start to notice that the hero is getting his ass handed to him. The villain is a huge, muscle-bound brute, has prepared the site of battle, and/or is using an array of distraction techniques. He is, to put it bluntly, cheating, and the hero just can't take it. Then there's that moment. It's usually a tight shot of the hero's (bloodied) face and it often plays in slow motion. He looks up, grim determination written on his brow, and proceeds to smash the living crap out of the bad guy. This effect is often achieved through a realisation, the gaining of a concrete plot device, or something like that. But just as often, he merely seems to 'turn it on.' What just happened, you think to yourself? Well, our hero just gained himself a level or two. His hit matrix went up, he gained some new tricks (skills, feats, karma, whatever), and he?s now using them to take bloody revenge on El Bad Guy.

Good, Bad, I'm the Guy with the Gun.
The much maligned alignment system from D&D (and many other games) is an extremely useful tool to predict the actions of characters in movies. Today's heroes are most often Chaotic/Good (like Spider-man). This allows them to be somewhat playful, to have some of the charm of the cooler bad guys. Then there's anti-heroes, who are most often Neutral/Evil (e.g., Riddick). A system like this gives characters just enough depth to suspend our disbelief, but also makes them just predictable enough that the audience doesn?t have to face any particularly challenging moral conundra.

Posted by orion at August 17, 2004 2:44 PM