“Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix Cinematic system is. You have to see it for yourself. – Morpheous.
The Cinematic System began in 2006 with an anthropological research project I conducted, an ethnography of tabletop role-playing games (TRPGs) in Flagstaff, AZ. The primary methodology I used was participant observation – I ran 3.5 D&D games, I played in 3.5 games, I made videos of the game sessions and recorded extensive fieldnotes. At the time, I had a lot of experience with Second Edition D&D – it was comfy, familiar, and I had developed enough house rules to confound even the most devout student of Gygax/Arneson. I think I even swore never to”get into” 3.5 D&D before the research project…
However, guided by anthropological relativity, I found a real opportunity with 3.5 D&D – it was obviously designed to be modular, open-ended, easily customizable and readily tweaked…and I found it a curious irony that most of the 3.5 gamers I ran into treated it as such a rigid and inflexible playground. I immediately started “adjusting” the game, adding and modifying rules, sprinkling-in the best parts of earlier editions of the game. The Cinematic System was born…
