Cutscenes in RPGs

I always hate it when players shit up a GM thread. OP calling about 30 seconds of time a cutscene is fine, all GMs say things like "when you walk into a room you spot a statue of a foreign deity and it fills you with dread" which is a pause in the action to say something happened without the player freaking out about a loss of agency. You can also say they find a man dressed in obvious villainous clothes order some henchmen around without the party interrupting it even if it doesn't realistically happen in an instant.

You can have a dramatic murder happen in front of your party without them immediately doing some stupid bullshit, and if your group requires you to create several layers of protections just to have a conversation then they are shitty players.

>You can also say they find a man dressed in obvious villainous clothes order some henchmen around without the party interrupting it even if it doesn't realistically happen in an instant.
>You can have a dramatic murder happen in front of your party without them immediately doing some stupid bullshit
No you can't, asshole. If you're not letting the players play, you're a bad GM.

Write a book fag.

>players shouldn't be expected to sit still for three sentences of dialog because of "muh agency"
>GMs expected to patiently wait as players try to figure out what action to take in an instant or time
>Players should be able to have dialogue in a fight and hatch plans mid-chaos of a scene
I'm pretty sure you are just an obnoxious player.

>if a player wants to do something in my game, he's obnoxious
You're better off writing a book. I'm not even kidding.

Listen, you're making a very basic mistake, dude. RPGs have no "cutscenes" because it's a simulation of another reality, not a simulation of a video game. The PCs are always in control of their characters, and provided they make the rolls, they can, within reason, do whatever at any point.

The point is that there is no way to handle a "Cutscene" because it damages Player Agency, which is super fucking important for a fun campaign.

No. Just no my dude.

Cutscenes have no place in an RPG. I have not experienced one instance where the GM sits down and starts talking about things that the party isn't involved in that ever captured the players' interest. It's just wanking off to our own story and universe. If you want to frame an event that is crucial to the story, it should happen in a way where the characters can only interact with it after it has happened. Don't stop the action to describe how someone is getting murdered, have them enter the room as the murder is happening.

But never - NEVER - take away control from them just so you can start describing a scene. Taking control of the characters is just a sign that you are not good enough on framing a scene well enough for them to be engaged and watch or understand that they can't interfere. From my understanding, you're still new to this and need some experience on the matter. If you start getting control of the PCs and going full video-game, you aren't doing anybody any favors; your story will be weak and you wont get better.

The way I deal with situations necessary to advance the "plot" is either present them far away from the party, to the point where they can't stop it or make them very quick and answer any attempts to interrupt with "you can't yet." And if anybody says that they should be able to do something, just go "yeah, but you can't. Odd, ain't it?"

You do realize that the OP could just contrive a scenario where your bullshit it mitigated the way you insist, but it's a needless chore when you could just use your ears for a few seconds and then react to what happened and not jump into the middle of it constantly. I'm not going to stop you shitting in a bartender's mouth or whatever else you do for jollies in your campaign, but I would expect at least a feigned interest in a cinematic story instead of just a series of vignettes relying on exposition from "safe" NPCs and finding random handouts.

OP here. There are eloquent posts here that contradict me, but I'll consider 'just write a book' shitposts.

My agenda ist simply to infuse more atmospbere into games, as our GMs who took their turn so far were fairly dry in their descriptions and vocabulary. I'd like to present a sandboxy rich world to players with stuff to explore and doing it at their own terms, I know I have to be flexible. But now and then I want to do a more atmospheric scene that will overarch a main plot when the players reach plot-bottlenecks. And not that often, just occasional mid-adventure exposition.

Like when they are approached by riders just after slaying some loud beast, and I take control of that scene to make it possible for the friendly, imposing looking riders to introduce themselves rather than having the players immediately hit some escape spell or something, just for that occasion. After hours of open normal gameplay, mind you. Ideally. Man, I'm new, of course I will botch it up to a degree. I even question my ability to improvise, so that's going to be really challenging, I'm just looking for a way to occasionally play through my strengths of presentation and dramatic reading.

Like In sure my players will bare with me, we're close friends, I want to try something creative here, find a compromise. I don't think it's crazy much to expect some characters be allowed an uninterrupted monologue now and then.

I find 'just write a book'/'go play a videogame' in this context just to be unimaginative conservative bullshit posts, as honest as they might be.

These kinds of RPGs are not for you my man. Write a book.

>I might run the risk of players intervening in events

That is the entire premise of role playing.

Not them, but you do realize that when you GM and don't put any barriers or limitations to your PCs during the important moments, then they will still shit on it, right? Players are mysterious creatures, each of them with a different understanding on how to "enhance" the game. And some of them just want to "win", to kill the big bad and then proceed. These people will do it no matter how much attention they paid to the rest of the campaign. The only way to work around them is with a no-win scenario that proceeds to the actual event you want to happen.

That contrived reason matters more than you think. How am I supposed to hand wave that my character was just standing there doing nothing to prevent a murder? That happened. To my character. It is an event in his life now. How am I supposed to react to it?

You can monologue if they're tied up.

It's your job to contrive a reason for their inaction. It's not a shit post to tell you to write a book. Or run a quest thread. Rpgs do not have the "now you may act: what do you do?" prompt of a quest thread or a text based interactive fiction game. They are people. Why, in your creative masterpiece, did the heroes stand there watching this happen without trying to stop it? Answer that question. Don't say because they didn't want to interrupt or because the monologue goes there. Actually think about the logic of the world.

It'll be useful for when you write a book- because a reader will be scratching their head wondering why the lame hero let the villain go on and on..

What's the issue? Introduce your riders with a description. If someone interrupts through a description you can just override them, it's a description there is nothing happening. Then you resolve their shit once you're done.

If they're interrupting someone mid-speech or mid-action, well too bad for you, learn to improvise. Anything that occurs as a result is handled in the world, people will find it rude if they get cut off, and even more rude if they are attacked when introducing themselves.

If your players are close friends or willing to bear with it, then there is no issue. Have faith in your players to not start pissing in your NPCs faces before they can get out half a sentence.

If you need to introduce seven different actions to describe a murder that the players can't intervene in, even if its ineffectually behind bars or viewing it through dream magic or something, then it's a shit sequence.

>Like when they are approached by riders just after slaying some loud beast, and I take control of that scene to make it possible for the friendly, imposing looking riders to introduce themselves rather than having the players immediately hit some escape spell or something, just for that occasion.

I'll still say don't do it. Just make sure that start out with subtle hints about the riders not coming for trouble
>their horses slow down once closer to you
>they keep their weapons sheathed
That one should be the first clue your players should have that combat isn't afoot. Then describe whatever you've got in mind as a friendly encounter. Their reaction should help paint the scene even better.

From what I gather, you just need to tell your players that the game isn't going to be combat all the time and it's not just madness 24/7 pedal-to-the-metal levels of danger. Again, I think you just need some practice and you'll be fine.

Alright, THANKS. These kind of posts, I can take seriously and work with. I'm getting serious doubts from these now.

I think I will still give it a shot for maybe one little scene, as an experiment, with my players in the know, can look for feedback afterwards. We're all pretty new, except one guy, and he's mediocre at describing stuff and creating atmosphere.

Maybe I should look more into practicing location-description, efficiently with colourful, short speech, maybe short musical cues. I want to experiment a bit.

What I would suggest is to either play a system that has this baked into the rules or create a houserule for it. There are games where the narrative control of the game is negotiated, and rules in these games open up the possibility for you to do what you need to do without interruption, but if you're playing DnD, which is probably what you're playing, there is no such thing.

You're gambling with your players' expectations. You're better off discussing it before you do it.

When contrived shit keeps happening to prevent the players from interacting with scenes, they'll notice the pattern and call you out on your bad GMing. Don't be so afraid of the players interacting with things. It's part of what makes it different from video games.

Reasons why the pcs have to watch a cut scene:
>They are in a cage (They are allowed to speak unless gagged or silenced in some way, and allowed to attempt escape. Progress should be noted. 'You're pretty sure you can kick the door open if you keep trying')
>The villain is far away, the heroes are approaching, climbing a tall flight of stairs while he cackles from above
>The npc has requested the players hear him or her out. They have agreed, and do so.
>The npc acts faster than the players react. They react immediately.

If the thing that they cannot stop is fucking amazing they probably won't mind. But it needs to happen within the story, it needs to happen to them. Their characters couldn't stop it. They had to watch this happen. They had to listen. Had to. In character. Not meta gaming had to.

Read a module for the game you are playing. Especially if you're all new, as it will get them used to how you roll things out.

Most modules will introduce any given scene with a pre-set description. It'll be a good example for you as to your limitations (basically, describing what a character sees is fine, or vague ideas of motion like a crowd milling about is fine. Direct action past a few moments won't feature) and it will also get your players to recognize what you're reading off a page and what is you improvising.

This. Descriptions shouldn't be interrupted. Dialogue can be but then you say "...Is your character literally interrupting him?"

You don't need to take control to play out a situation, it's just lazy and it's not fun for the player.

YOU have the power to set up events and YOU are describing what is happening.

Don't call them raiders to start with, call them mounted horsemen
Don't have the whole group gallop at top speed towards them, have the main force stay back and a few key talkers approach.

Spend some time thinking about these events, and you won't have to force players to stop playing.

In a dissent from most of the anons here - if your group is perfectly A-OK with cutscenes, then they're perfectly A-Ok with cutscenes.

Maybe it's because I tend to play only with pretty close friend-groups, but my bunch have always been very okay with forced cutscenes or even just "hey guys, do you mind letting the villian get away? I've got plans" kind of requests as long as the GM is upfront about them.

Ask them first, tell them why you want to do it, and if they're ok with it that's fine. Just don't spring it on them without warning - that's when your players will really start to rebel.

The closest to a cutscene you can get in rpgs without be a total dick is saying "Blah blah blah some crazy shit happens, you have 10 real life seconds to decide what to do before something happens that can't be undone"

I feel like talking ooc to some degree about this is a good idea, though honestly it would make me miserable because I can't reconcile my character's inaction with the story. It doesn't make sense. Just give the villain a smoke bomb.

However if the players attack a peaceful important npc it's totally fine to stop and say "really? So you're just going full murder hobo? If that's way everybody wants, fine, but let me shelf this game and come up with some trivial bullshit for you to play with if that's what we're doing." And yes, being that condescending is essential.

>Say I have a series of events along a 30sec up to a 1min timeframe that I need to unfold in front of the characters, but I might run risk of them trying to intervene in unforeseen ways that might botch up the scene.

I would try to avoid cut scenes as described. They are really something that was invented in more recent years from video game influence in my opinion.

Instead, take your scene you describe above. split that scene up in to several smaller chunks.

Instead of describing the players entering a dance and a murder playing out in front of them for example. Try describing each step in that scene and letting them react and do stuff. They enter, see the dance, what do they do. They see more people doing things, what do they do. Murder happens, they turn their head, what do they do.

It still goes down as you might have wanted in a 'cut scene', but now the players were part of that scene and had agency.

I would also point out that if the players can perceive that badness and be able to intervene, then logically others should have been able to as well which means your bad guy (or event) was not as well thought out as you might have thought. So consider that.

And if the players DO do something stupid? Hey, go with it. Make that new game work.

Of course, on a side note, when players of mine HAVE jumped the gun with meta game 'oh we know what happens next' I have been known to make it 'nothing' instead. Guy walks towards the prince, players jump and pummel him because they 'know' he must be an assassin cause we are in a game - nope, just the princes buddy walking up to say hello.

best way right here

I'm imagining the in-game discussion that PCs might have with each other after the DM forced their players to sit through a cutscene.

>Did you feel that?
>What?
>Just now, right before that man murdered that other man. It was as though... I tried to move, but I couldn't. I couldn't even speak.
>I felt the same thing!
>Yeah, I tried to throw my axe at him, but I couldn't even move my arm.
>Hmm... sorcery? Perhaps someone cast a spell of holding-
>I thought that, but I can't detect any magic in the area.
>Some form of poison, perhaps? Just enough to paralyze us for a moment or two?

And then the players derailed the murder plotline and spent the rest of the game trying to discover what nefarious power stopped them from interacting with the world during the cutscene.

Exactly this.

"The npc does five things before I give you a chance to act" "I say, 'slow down, you're acting crazy' and grab his wrist" "he shakes you off and keeps walking" "I shout 'Bob?? Bob it's me, come on man, can't you hear me? Oh God, it's like you don't even know me...'"

Seriously tho, the players need to remember that this shit is happening to them. They are people who just fucking watched this happen. They saw their weapons do nothing, their spells fail, etc. Your character is now kneeling before the murdered npc with blood on his hands wondering why his medical treatment didn't work when it should have.

OP here. I'm not trying to get completely away from the fair arguments shooting cutscenes down, just wanted to mention that with the murder, I had more of a sudden unexpected 'that escalated quickly' stabbing between otherwise non-combatant royals on a ceremonial event in mind. Loud argument, things getting heated, hidden knife, never expected since they're brothers, stabby stab, pretty sudden.

This is still not a card blanche for what I had in mind, in context of this threads posted arguments, but I don't want to give the impression of having planned to force-freeze players through a more obvious, drawn out murder-scenario, that telegraphed itself for minutes.

Not a big warrior in red uniform brandishing the axe of his murdered father in front of blue-uniform father-killer, roaring hatespeech about honor and how blues suck.

I have never actually run into this problem as GM at all. I've never had anyone complain that I'm taking agency away from them, I've never had anyone "ruining a scene," but I have seen people doing it when I was a player. I feel like sparing a small amount of time to progress a story is a pretty normal thing to do, and the reverse expectation for the GM to make things fair and interesting is also common. There's an expectation of trust in a regular group. My players know the campaign will be difficult and I won't force them into cages just to talk to them for a minute, and they won't force me to make every intelligent bad guy a paranoid shut-in.

If you can look at your own life and confidently say you never froze up you would be lying. Someone was murdered in front of your character, likely someone they cared about, and you locked up for a few seconds. So how do you deal with that? How does this change the course of what your character does from this point forward? What motivates you now versus before?

I agree that it can happen, and that's my point- you'd feel awkward and guilty and confused, especially if you're a Man of Action who is inexplicably frozen during a moment of panic.

OP, have the murder happen but let the PCs act. They don't have to prevent it, and they likely won't mind too much since they'll get that the story is the guy dies and they can't stop it. But have it happen cinematically and quickly. Perhaps even let them suspect the wrong threats. They are fighting the assassins but little did they know, HIS OWN BROTHER was in on it, stab stab, he dies, they feel helpless... It can't be a situation where you break the rules of the game too much to control them (ie is one of them a healer? Can he get close to the dying npc in time to heal him? Why can't he use his healing spells to save him? You better have a fucking answer or that player will be rolling his eyes pretty hard and be annoyed for the rest of that game about that time you fucked him over so you could write your book...)

Why can't it be poison?

Cutscenes are cancer in video games and cancer in tabletop games. Watching you perform some shit you've written is not a reward you can use to justify taking control away from the players. Railroad if you want, but at least let them play the goddamned game

>Hideo Kojima asks help running his first campaign

>Can I, in one fluent narrative motion, just assume that they're going to check it and just go on describing that they're rolling up their sleeve to get to the source of the itch, taking away the option of them ignoring it?
Short answer: Yes, you can.
Caveat: Some groups will make a fuss.

>Listen, OP. You get exactly one cutscene
Nah, he gets as many as his players will let him get away with.

>Second, you can't exactly tell your players "please don't move" or "no, uh, you can't, uh, there was an invisible wall, and it's unbreakable, and-".
You can tell them that it's a cutscene. If they need an ingame explanation, their characters are surprised by the escalation and frozen in horror.

>And when your players notice, you lose your players.
No, only some players object to that. Other players don't mind cutscenes at all, provided they have choice at other points in the plot.

>If the player's choices don't matter once, you need a REAL FUCKING GOOD reason.
It makes for a good plot development, that's the reason.
>>Luke might have intervened and saved Obi-Wan's life but fortunately the GM had hard-scripted the scene.
If protagonists in movies always acted rationally, or at least like players, a lot of good shit in scripts would never happen. So, you suck a lil bit of scripting up, you little bitch player or I'll go find someone else to play with.

>Whole idea of having cutscenes in your game is horrible.
Another example of how players have grown to be spoiled over the last few decades. They expect to be able to have an impact all the time. When there's a scene where they can't that doesn't take longer than a few minutes (and which sets-up other scenes), they'll kick up dust and call you names.
Complete assholes.

>You want a murder to happen in front of the PCs? Call it a surprise round.
You don't have to express yourself in game mechanic terms though. It's fine to simply narrate what happens cutscene-style.

>First, ask yourself exactly why you need that last part. What's the point? Why can't you have the murder happen offscreen?
This is the only valid objection in the entire thread.

>Another example of how players have grown to be spoiled over the last few decades. They expect to be able to have an impact all the time. When there's a scene where they can't that doesn't take longer than a few minutes (and which sets-up other scenes), they'll kick up dust and call you names.

Wanting to play the actual game isn't 'spoiled', it's the entire fucking reason people show up to tabletop RPGs in the first place. If you want to show people a bunch of bullshit they have no control over, say 'hey, let's watch a movie'

"Cutscenes" are terrible.
Your use of the term explains all the negative reactions.

>Say I have a series of events along a 30sec up to a 1min timeframe that I need to unfold in front of the characters
This is pretty short, but try standing quiet and still for 30 seconds to a minute.

A lengthy description of events happening is fine.
Narrating two npcs having a conversation in front of your PCs requires significant explanation, as others have pointed out, and should be avoided.

Things like villain monologues can be permitted by your group tacitly or explicitly agreeing to su suspend their disbelief in order to allow for a more dramatic narrative, but that is very specific to the group.

>I might run risk of them trying to intervene in unforeseen ways that might botch up the scene.
See
>Afterwards, you should just not write plot that NEEDS them to stand by idly while the action takes place, because they won't.
This.

>Loud argument, things getting heated, hidden knife, never expected since they're brothers, stabby stab, pretty sudden.
This could still work.
An unexpected knife to the jugular could spell death before the PCs could react.
The part that could trip you up is the "things getting heated" part.
The players need a serious reason to sit with their thumbs up their asses while watching "things get heated", like they go into their bosses office to deliver important news and are told to wait while he tries to dismiss his brother, or something.
Don't make them watch things heat. Let them start hot, then explode surprisingly.

Oh, and NEVER take over a PC for a narrative reason.
You can control physical reactions like goosebumps and such, but never conscious actions unless they're under a specific effect that does that.

Not him but I'd prefer to rail against spoiled bitch players instead. If you don't like short cutscenes, feel free to get up and leave. NOW. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Too many might-have-been-good plot developments have been ruined by interrupting players in attempt to act "logical" or "clever", constantly injecting themselves without pause.

This here is good for the plot because I say so and you WILL sit out. Choice will be returned to you shortly - after this cutscene is over. This is not negotiable.

>That happened. To my character. It is an event in his life now. How am I supposed to react to it?
Brilliant! Couldn't have said it any better. This is a good question.

Yes, my cutscene just inflicted that on your character. NOW, you have the choice of how to react to that. If I had let you interfere, you wouldn't have this dilemma, making for far less interesting play.

>It's your job to contrive a reason for their inaction.
Being petrified in surprise. Done.

>Rpgs do not have the "now you may act: what do you do?" prompt of a quest thread or a text based interactive fiction game.
I don't take your word for it.

>Why, in your creative masterpiece,
It's not a creative masterpiece but it might be good for the plot.

>Actually think about the logic of the world.
Because people in LOTR or Star Wars or Conan or Game of Thrones or whatever always act so logical?

>But it needs to happen within the story, it needs to happen to them. Their characters couldn't stop it. They had to watch this happen. They had to listen. Had to. In character. Not meta gaming had to.
This is another line of reasoning that I can accept. HOWEVER, this is easily rationalized (petrified). Again: think about movies, think about novels... these things happen to protagonists, even in good books.

It's simply so that some players adhere to the philsophy that players need to be able to make choices about their PCs and the immediate environment all the fucking time. Nonstop. And I a) consider this attitude spoiled
b) have seen players too often fuck up a scene
to subscribe to the philosophy. To the contrary, I expect my players to trust me that the cutscene is good for the play experience overall.

OP here. But in the way I meant it, I'm thinking of say, one 1minute-scene every two sessions of 4h. Granted, I'm actually trying to get away with a little bit more, but for arguments sake. That's hardly taking away the playing of the actual game away from players.

And it's not like I want to rail all the important, impactful decisions of an adventure away from players influence. They can kill the king, by all means (fuckton of additional work for me though, fingers crossed, god I hope they don't kill the king), but I really wanna drive home the atmosphere of a scene when two crucial NPCs interact.

This is pretty vaguely described by me, but I still gotta say that by most singel-senteced contras, I just feel misunderstood and contered with narrow perspective.

Spoiled.

>Wanting to play the actual game isn't 'spoiled',
Correct. Not being able to stand being sidelined for a 2 minute GM monologue while he narrates skillfully how the conversation heats up and ends in murder IS spoiled. If the session lasts longer than 3.5 hours, that's less than 1%. Players who can't stand that are plain asshats.

> it's the entire fucking reason people show up to tabletop RPGs in the first place. If you want to show people a bunch of bullshit they have no control over, say 'hey, let's watch a movie'
Because a short cutscene is tantamount to watching the GM narrate for 60% of the game session, while his players keep looking bored at their mobile devices, rrrrrright?

No, the real reason is: why do the players need to be present? Even for atmosphere, it could be an NPC who describes the gruesome events in vivid details.

Strangely enough the little bitches who post in this thread wouldn't object to that, even though the tale might take as long OR LONGER than the cutscene. The reason? Because the players have the spoiled attitude of "when something happens in the proximity of MY character I want to be able to influence or stop it ALL THE TIME."

Yeah. Spoiled.

OP, chances are you'll get negative reactions because a lot of players are spoiled. So it's dangerous grounds at this point in RPGing history. The idea of small cutscenes being more than acceptable needs to find wider acceptance.

My advice is to have an NPC narrate the scene to them instead, it's safer. Unless you trust your players, that is.

>this shitter telling a new GM to railroad hard
>making him believe that his plot > players being able to play
>calling people calling him out spoiled

Damn Veeky Forums, we're taking "No Fun Allowed" to a whole new level now, aren't we?

Write a book. It's easier.

What do you want? Permission? Granted, go with God.

The only people who can tell you if your players will mind are the players themselves. I would mind. I've explained that and you chose to cherry pick and hear what you want, so I'm done. Have fun.

Maybe OP is samefagging?

Maybe, but I don't think so. He seemed pretty receptive of advice earlier and now suddenly he makes an 180 and starts going off about spoiled players? It sounds more like a That GM found the perfect outlet to get buttmad about players not appreciating his storytime with also some dice or shit.

OP here. Can't proof, but I'm not. I'm against things getting heated up, some exchange here goes sideways, not in my interest.

I see the two parties here. I think the most problematic comments are "spoiled" vs "write a book", but I try to think of arguments and ideas instead.

Gotta say though. Just write a book guy. You trigger me, I find that very dismissive in an arrogant way, and I don't like it. Just to be honest and say my personal reaction to you, not provoking, just saying I think you could be more substantial in your argument, cause the way you're saying it now doesn't register nicely with me.

More power to outspoken arguments though, so thanks so far in general for participating.

OP, talk to your players. If they are okay with it, go for it. Or, alternatively, do it, and talk to them after the session. Just, if you do care, talk to them, or else a player might dislike what you're doing but not try to talk to you.

Ultimately, I think the biggest issue here is how the world you're playing in works. The world of a book doesn't work solely on its own internal rules (physics), but also external rules (plot). Sometimes things happen or not happen because "it's more interesting that way", and characters in-universe don't even need to notice (example: shitty Stormtrooper aim). It's not simply a question of determinism vs free will (vs compatibilism), it's more like "determinism, but someone made the universe and they have a plan".

Just remember that "not freezing or fleeing" in dangerous situations isn't the standard of normal people, but the standard of action heroes. So if your players are arguing their character are closer to Conan the Barbarian than Bob from Accounting, they are assuming their character works according to the rules of a world ran by "plot", a fictional world. As long as the players believe they actually couldn't stop the scene (perhaps, they did try and fail), whether that's true or not, they won't complain. Unless their complaints are like "hey, why didn't you let my level 2 warrior defeat that 50 foot giant?", which is unreasonable (usually; Idk, in your setting that could be common, but you know what I mean).

This is an unfair characterization of events. Rather, try to stand still and quiet while someone else talks to you for 30 seconds.

Do it in a way that the player's characters wouldn't be able to react. If you want a murder to happen in a town, something like

>While you're all gathered in the tavern you plan to stay the night in, eating dinner, you hear a blood curdling scream and one of the people falls over with a knife in her back, amidst the chaos you see the doors slam open and a hooded figure runs out into the night. What are you all doing?

This is exactly right, and at the beginning of a game or arc I wouldn't think to mind. Only a really pedantic asshole would sit there and say "but I should have had a spot check!" Or "really? Really???"

Los shouldn't forget that no playstyle is exclusive, and dependant on player personality. There's a bunch of lovable fa/tg/uy oldfags in washed out black shirts and the occasional lack of deodorant playing in our store twice weekly. They're pretty comfy, but don't seem like the kind who traveled the world and did much outgoing stuff, so to speak. They have relatively monotone style of speaking, and have a very matter-of-fact problem solving approach. I overhear them having tactical discussions a lot. There's not much drama installed in the GMs presentation or the players role-playing, emotions and fun just come up naturally through amusement over the stuff that happens and making jokes. But it's nowhere hardwired in the prepared missions they encounter.
They seem a little reclusive and dense in the creative and role-playing department, so I'd expect the general idea of 'cutscenes', which are a controlled infusion of emotional drama to a story on the presentation-level, go completely over their logica-oriented heads.

Maybe this will help. If I was going to put a sudden murder of an NPC in a D&D game - a game where the rules explicitly prevent murder, I would ignore the shit out of those rules and have the murder happen when it was meant to happen. If that murder happens in front of the players and I don't want it to be a combat, I would let every roll initiative and then give the villain a surprise round where he breaks lien of sight from spell casters and makes a barrier to get past. Probably knocking over a brazier and starting a fire on the floor and then baring a door he runs through. I would have the path vaguely planned out and in the rules to provide a reasonable amount of time to get away to where when the party finds him just not there anymore they are angry but not questioning if I followed the rules to the T. I don't stand on my chair and give a ten minute speech about the events, they are fast and chaotic like the scene requires.

The only time I've done a murder, we played a Star Wars game where some Mandos sniped a dignitary JFK style in a speeder and my player caught them in the leg before they got away - but even if they caught them in the head it would probably just be a nasty scar or eyepatch later instead of a limp even when the rules would have said it was a death. The events and choices still have an impact later in the game, but that murder was going to happen and the killer was going to get away.

>try to stand still and quiet while someone else talks to you for 30 seconds.
This is also an unfair characterization of events. Rather, try to stand still and quiet while watching someone else talk to another for 30 seconds to a minute.

>Being petrified in surprise
Depending on the the situation, or the duration of inaction, this is a bullshit option and you know it.
Some dude slits his brother's throat? Yeah, that might stun you before you can react to prevent it.
Darth Vader appears in your breakfast nook? You're gonna draw your blaster and shoot, not listen to his monologue first.
Now the GM has to block the blast, take the blaster, surround the party, and force them to sit down to an awkward brunch at gunpoint while the Darth Vader monologues over croissants.
"No, you're 'petrified'." isn't gonna cut it.

Doing this once in a while might work, but too much can feel forced, because it is.

>Because people in LOTR or Star Wars or Conan or Game of Thrones or whatever always act so logical?
I think they meant "logical" as consistently in character.
If it's well written, yes they do.
If it's not, it's not to be emulated unless bad writing is part of the campaign feel, like campy superhero genre where the bad guy gets away or such.

>players need to be able to make choices about their PCs all the time.
Their characters? Hell yes.
The GM controls the entire physical world, up to and including the involuntary physical reactions of the PCs' bodies.
They do not control the PCs heart, mind, soul, psychology, or actions. (Unless a specific effect is in place)

>the immediate environment
Full stop.
I will occasionally allow a player to describe something I'm letting them incorporate from their backstory, otherwise fuck that shit.
No, there is not necessarily a chandelier in the room just because you want to swing from it.

>I consider this attitude spoiled
Clearly. But do you ever question that opinion, or do you just assume any opinion you've formed has been duly considered and is now as good as fact?

>players too often fuck up a scene
How is it possible for a player to fuck up a scene when there is no script to follow and nothing is predetermined before play?

>Being petrified in surprise. Done.
"but I'm playing a paladin, which is literally immune to fear"

Fear and surprise are two different things. You weren't expecting this to happen and it takes you a moment to process what just happened

Pretty sure that's immunity to MAGICAL fear, friend.

>You weren't expecting this to happen and it takes you a moment to process what just happened
And you believe this is an adequate interpretation of the word "petrified"?

>immune to the magical fear induced by the most fearsome undead abominations.
>moderate surprise "petrifies" them

Your God blesses you with protection against the magical fear effects that radiate from their most hated enemies, it doesn't cease your natural human (or elf/dwarf,etc) reactions to things

>making a valid mechanical point that deflates my complaint
I'm mostly just whinging at the hyperbolic use of "petrified".
I feel it's an inappropriate term for the reaction a seasoned adventurer would have to an unexpected surprise.
Being shocked for a couple seconds is not being "petrified".
Being actually petrified would be an extreme response to the scenarios presented.

...

It's immunity to fear, magical and otherwise.

The GM is talking to the players tho, not to some unseen third entity.

I don't know about that user, but I do.

Darth Vader probably has the ability to hold you down while monologuing. Even if he didn't, "oh shit, it's Darth Vader," should be enough to prevent some people from taking immediate action (that is, anyone who didn't have the (will)power to dare challenging Vader).

Different people have different reactions. Some people might have the willpower to flee at the sight of Darth Vader. Others will freeze in place. Some will kneel and beg for mercy. You might be Badass McBadass but you only need to falter for a single moment for Darth Vader do his shit.

The problem of course, is that if you're NOT the main heroes of the original trilogy, and Darth Vader lands on the planet you're on, you are fucked.

Let the characters guide the events of your collaborative story, a story you share with the players.

If you know your players, you can also know their reactions in/out of character, which means you can better orient the scene--not "cut"scene--in anticipation of their behavior/character options.

It is better to be clever with your need-to-happen events than to force their occurrence. If you need to plan everything, consider multiple outcomes per event.
Look at the last part of to understand that the players at least want the illusion of control, though you may propel them using the world itself into certain situations.

But what if OP uses a basalisk?

My favorite cutscenes in video games are the times when an NPC was starting to act but gets caught up in the cutscene and start spazzing out.

What is the equivalent of this in a tabletop RPG

How the players react with snide comments when they see a shit DM who is not only railroading them, but railroading them so hard that he has to add cutscenes into the world as well.

>The GM is talking to the players tho, not to some unseen third entity.
The GM is portraying two non-player characters talking to each other.

>Considers 'just write a book' shitposting because it's phrased in a dismissive way
No dude. If you want to write an entire plot out beforehand in a way that would fall apart if your players touched it: Tabletop RPGs are not the medium you need. It's for collaborative storytelling. It isn't your plot, it's the groups. Games played with this in mind will flourish and produce fucking amazing stories because that's what these games thrive on. Meanwhile books provide a much more structured environment where you can plan out elements like that so those kinds of stories can work well there. 'Cutscenes' for poor GMs that are in the wrong group and are trying to force a playstyle or don't know how to provide good exposition.

The players control how their characters feel and their characters actions, you get literally everything else along with a bunch of people who show up to experience the world you put together and you're saying the players are spoiled? You pretty much just want to tell a story to a captive audience dude. Ego masturbation. Get over yourself and stop acting like a fucking martyr for doing an enjoyable activity with people you enjoy and if neither of those things are true then you should stop GMing immediately. And before you start pissing and moaning about spoiled players: I can and have run games and enjoy it.

th is

my experience with "cutscenes" went like this:
One of my players, out of game, told me he'd like me to be descriptive. I wrote up a few sentences detailing the awakening of a dragon (very important to the plot, it wasn't until this moment the players had any idea it was even a dragon). Couldn't get in more than one sentence.
>"Before you, a chasm begins to open, and-"
>"I draw my weapons and try to find a safe place to hide!"
It was the same player that asked me to be more descriptive.
Last time I did that. Now they just get "a dragon shows up". Fuck em.

Know how everyone complains about stupid shit happening in cutscenes of video games?
Times that by 1000 and thats 1 millionth of how fucking retarded it is to do in p&p

Tell him to shut the fuck up.

Top post

TTRPGs are a give and take coolaborative story. This goes for both GM and Players.

Players, go along with the GM from time to time. You want to do your cool thing with your character, let them have theirs with some scenes. Not everyone can improvise perfectly at a moments notice, and can get really bummed out and lose the the drive to make your game happen. Basically everyone should get a turn in thw spotlight, GM included.

GMs, don't out right rob choices from players. You only get so many scenes before you start infringing. Compromise, and let them wound a villian as he escapes and have it come up later down the line. Youll get to keep your story rolling (in a way you can manage), and they still feel accomplished.

To OP, your royal murder-escalation thing sounds fine, but like other user mentioned the escalation bit will get tricky. I'd say you have absolute max of 3 lines of "heated" before any resonable person would intervene. Maybe do something like start off calm, go to back handed remarks/lowkey insults, then full heated before you stick'm. Again though, time is of the essence. Get that shit on lock before game day.

You want to tell me of ego masturbation and acting like a martyr all along, but all you presented to me at first is a dismissive ' just write a book', and I think it should be clear that I want to play a RPG with friends, and your just presenting a self-conscious, ridiculous non-option (all things considered, being just a guy asking for GM opinions) that just serves you to drive home the point of how ridiculous and silly you find my proposition. You just give sarcastic, around-the corner dismissiveness. Would you have leaded with that post that I'm answering to now, that would have still been much better.

I understand the job and goal of the GM to be: deliver fun. I'm empathic enough to catch the reactions of my friends quickly, and exposing myself with something that would just drag out and bore them would be slightly embarrassing, mostly disappointing to me. I would recheck my methods before I got the idea that my players tastes just sucked. I also want to genuinely try something new, experiment, and yes there's also ego involved, it would thrill me if I could come up with something that would actually work in delivering fun.

I think you just have an anti-special snowflake attitude towards me, based on finding my idea ridiculous and dumb, and not worth a respectable, contributing answer. I have an idea and I want to dabble with it. Not the mere concept of cutscenes, but the finer executions of it in a way that it might be actually become enjoyable. It's tough, but I'm motivated, keeping my dudes in the loop.

I'm not the one calling 'spoiled' though, I'm not picking up on that, and I don't think like that. The productive discussion has other counterpoints.

Then again, how are you going to respond if some of your players want to step in on the argument before it gets more heated? You have a surprising murder scene in your mind but they don't know it, and might want to do the sensible thing and stop the situation from escalating. Thing is, if you stop them from doing that by GM fiat then the resulting shocking murder will ring hollow instead of being a cool ohshit moment. Basically you shouldn't be too married to your story and go where the player actions lead.

this

The GM is still talking to the players. Or do you turn your head away whenever someone else starts telling you a story about something that happened to them, user? "And then he said-" oops, we lost user. Better try again next time.

Ok so the answer to this imo is to have the players be distracted by something else they feel is more important. Someone else they think is dangerous. Then the guy they didn't suspect stabs the king.

The other option is to have them be so far away/low ranking that it would be weird to interject in the argument. Perhaps it's a bigger coup and the princess is also in danger. Two choices: save the king or save the princess he hired toy to protect! Something like that. That way the king is dying but the players are dragging his crying daughter the fuck out of there etc.

Like... Even if the players were down with it I just don't like the idea of Our Intrepid Heroes standing there doing nothing during the action. Like even in a video game that would be stupid. In the Witcher, Geralt doesn't stare blankly as other people take cool actions, he's up there trying to engage in situations etc etc. OP should *want* to contrive a reason why the players don't prevent it. 'They can't' is fine, but 'They have a choice and they choose not to' is better. Better game, better story.

>Not the mere concept of cutscenes, but the finer executions of it in a way that it might be actually become enjoyable.
Look this is not adding a new, interesting feature to TTRPGs, it's completely mishandling a core conceit of the medium. You as GM already have explicit control over how granularly time passes. If you use that power to rob your players of agency because your plot won't survive interaction with them, you're fucking up royally.

This was the entire point I was making the whole time, but it immediately gets shit on by players.

not everyone for always on interaction is a player brah

Then that's just embarrassing because you are probably either breaking their agency by your own rules and don't think you are, or you are running a really watered down and uninteresting story about the players.

>The GM is still talking to the players.
And the PCs are still standing there awkwardly doing nothing for 30 seconds to a minute while the NPCs talk.
30 seconds to a minute is not really that long for a cut scene, but try just standing quiet and still for 30 seconds to a minute while others are talking in a conversation you are not part of.
Hard Mode: Do it without reachng for your cell phone.