D&D 5E With Respect to the Door and Expectations....The REAL Reason 5e Can't Unite the Base

But, Bill91, that's my point. When talking about skills advancing with character levels, we can say, "Hey, I don't like this. It doesn't make sense to me. Here's how I can make it make sense for me." And skills advance based on what the character did in game.

Fantastic.

But, when the same argument is applied to powers, we hit this wall of "Hell no!" Nothing can be done. The mechanics are dissociated and nothing can change that, apparently. Even when ten different ways of associating the mechanics are pointed out, none of them are ever acceptable.

I think the main difference is, back in the day, you had the choice of fix D&D or find a totally new system. Now, the choice is, fix edition X or simply choose edition Y. Which is fine as far as it goes. But, it still remains intellectually dishonest at its heart to blame the notion of dissociation. It's not the dissociation that's the problem, or it would be a problem for the other things as well. It's a problem that the person simply doesn't like a given mechanic and feels some sort of need to justify that dislike in the face of other people who are not having an issue.

Look, if AEDU really bothers you that much, there's 3e right there. Or Pathfinder if that floats your boat. But, I find it laughable when Next comes along, putting dissociated mechanics onto the fighter right at the outset and no one complains and everyone goes, "Yay WOTC for listening to fans!" and then the same people turn around and pooh pooh 4e for having dissociated mechanics attached to fighters.

It's not the dissociation that's the issue. It's that they don't like how fighters look like wizards. Fair enough. I can get behind that. I might not agree, but, at least I can understand. But, pretending that it's an issue that is so vague and undefined and very, very specifically applied when it suits the person, is not helping anything.

Hussar said:

Look, if AEDU really bothers you that much, there's 3e right there. Or Pathfinder if that floats your boat. But, I find it laughable when Next comes along, putting dissociated mechanics onto the fighter right at the outset and no one complains and everyone goes, "Yay WOTC for listening to fans!" and then the same people turn around and pooh pooh 4e for having dissociated mechanics attached to fighters.

It's not the dissociation that's the issue. It's that they don't like how fighters look like wizards. Fair enough. I can get behind that. I might not agree, but, at least I can understand. But, pretending that it's an issue that is so vague and undefined and very, very specifically applied when it suits the person, is not helping anything.

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But from where I'm sitting, the dissociation problem is much reduced. I am not arbitrarily prevented from using a particular maneuver each round if I choose to do so. I am limited in the number of things I can accomplish in a round but that amount increases as I level up and gain more combat skill. That makes sense from the PC's point of view - a comparatively inexperienced character cannot accomplish as much as a more experienced one.

Also, I've seen discussion that the superiority dice are more likely to refresh at the end of the round in the final rather than beginning.

pemerton said:

"Exploring the world" prestige classes might be better if mechanically modelled on something like the ranger's favoured enemy or favoured terrain bonuses, and carved off from level progression. Perhaps they could be a feat, with a prerequisite along the lines that LostSoul describes. Or spells with similar sorts of prerequisites for learning them. Etc. (This might be along the lines of what @Crazy Jerome has described from time to time, of distinguishing multiple dimensions of PC advancement.)

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Yes. That's part of the reason why paragon paths and epic destinies are a somewhat better (but not perfect) replacement for prestige classes in their original purpose--the 4E options do change the character, but aren't so embedded in the math, and add on in almost a separate dimension. For that purpose, it would be better still if the 4E options didn't require a particular level to be reached to activate.

It's my view that character level should be largely about power, not breadth. It's true that a certain amount of flexible power is implied by breadth. So you can't make this an absolute. However, I think the early D&D way of considering such questions is a bit more strict than is absolutely necessary. Such assumptions only started being tentatively questioned with the 3.5 gestalt options. We've really only scratched the surface. Such mechanics would be immensely useful in the kind of thing that [MENTION=81242]Lost Soul[/MENTION] is doing with his hack, I suspect.

billd91 said:

But from where I'm sitting, the dissociation problem is much reduced. I am not arbitrarily prevented from using a particular maneuver each round if I choose to do so. I am limited in the number of things I can accomplish in a round but that amount increases as I level up and gain more combat skill. That makes sense from the PC's point of view - a comparatively inexperienced character cannot accomplish as much as a more experienced one.

Also, I've seen discussion that the superiority dice are more likely to refresh at the end of the round in the final rather than beginning.

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ARRRGHGHGH!

This is what makes this conversation so frustrating.

You admit that the mechanics are dissociated. It's right there. Why can't I stab someone really hard and trip them, but, I can stab them sort of hard and trip them? Whether it refreshes at the beginning or end of your turn isn't really going to change that. And, even giving more dice is still not associated to anything.

But, because you like the mechanic, it's fine. The dissociation is acceptable.

Thus, dissociation ISN'T the problem. The whole dissociated mechanics thing is nothing but a canard and tissue paper thin justification for why you don't like something.

Again, this is why the conversation is so frustrating. A, B and C are acceptable, but D isn't even though there is absolutely NO DIFFERENCE between the four. The only difference is one was written in a 4e book and the others weren't.

It's edition warring with a funny pair of glasses and a fake moustache.

Hussar said:

ARRRGHGHGH!

This is what makes this conversation so frustrating.

You admit that the mechanics are dissociated. It's right there. Why can't I stab someone really hard and trip them, but, I can stab them sort of hard and trip them? Whether it refreshes at the beginning or end of your turn isn't really going to change that. And, even giving more dice is still not associated to anything.

But, because you like the mechanic, it's fine. The dissociation is acceptable.

Thus, dissociation ISN'T the problem. The whole dissociated mechanics thing is nothing but a canard and tissue paper thin justification for why you don't like something.

Again, this is why the conversation is so frustrating. A, B and C are acceptable, but D isn't even though there is absolutely NO DIFFERENCE between the four. The only difference is one was written in a 4e book and the others weren't.

It's edition warring with a funny pair of glasses and a fake moustache.

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Maybe the problem is because you don't listen to anybody. I said the dissociation problem is much reduced because it fits with something that makes sense from a PC POV. Yet there you are telling me I said something else. I know what I said and I know why I said it.

And the reason you can't do both (stabbing really hard and tripping them) is because you're not skilled enough as a 1st level fighter yet. Try again at 5th level when you can manage more special tricks at one time. It's not much of a stretch to recognize that not all lesser skilled characters can do all the things a seasoned warrior can.

billd91 said:

And the reason you can't do both (stabbing really hard and tripping them) is because you're not skilled enough as a 1st level fighter yet.

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Maybe the reason you can't do Rain of Blows more than once per encounter is that you're not skilled enough yet.

I think there is a difference between Combat Superiority and an Encounter or Daily Power.

CS may create nonsensical results in the fiction - "I parry the fireball/psychic attack with my bow" - but nonsensical results don't mean that the mechanic is dissociated. They're simply nonsensical. Your PC can parry fireballs with his bow, somehow, and you must imagine him doing that.

I think that's the key - the mechanics tell you what to imagine. They don't require the player to create or imagine anything in order to connect the mechanics to the game world. They already represent something within the game world. It's not the pull effect of Come and Get It that's dissociated, it's that Come and Get It doesn't tell you what's actually going on in the game world when you use it. (CaGI's pull, in its more absurd uses, makes as much sense as parrying a fireball or falling off a thousand-foot cliff, landing on your feet, and then running a marathon.)

When you're playing 4E, you have to - round-by-round, and sometimes turn-by-turn - make decisions as a player that require you to imagine or create what your PC is doing. The mechanics don't tell you what your PC is doing. You have to provide that context yourself. Which means that, when you're making choices, you can't think in game-world terms. "I swing my sword at the orc" is linked to a specific mechanic in pre-4E D&D, but it isn't in 4E, because that could be any one of a hundred powers in action.

So.

I make a melee attack: Associated, it tells you what to imagine.
I swing at the orc with my sword: Because the mechanics are associated with the game world, we know which mechanic to use to resolve this.

I use Come and Get It: Dissociated, it doesn't tell you what to imagine.
I pull the orcs in with my halberd and follow up with a quick jab from the butt: Because we can't tell if you're using Come and Get It or something else, we don't know which mechanic to use to resolve this.

Some questions & thoughts: Do Feats in 3E cause dissociation problems? I imagine that some do.

D&D combat is so abstract that the player can't make choices that the character should be able to. "I stab the orc in the gut" and "I stab the orc in the face" and "I run the orc through with my sword" and "I attack the orc" are all exactly the same, mechanically, from the point of view of the player. I don't think this means that those mechanics are dissociated, though, just abstract: the mechanics will tell you what to imagine - you must imagine their connection to the game world - once you use them.

(I say "must imagine" because, if you don't need to imagine what the mechanics say are happening in the game world, then those mechanics don't have a connection to the game world. (Well, in as much that you need to imagine anything, I guess.) That connection to the game world is already set, so you can't imagine something else. Shooting a guy with your bow and missing can't mean that you didn't actually fire your bow - the mechanics don't connect to the game world that way.)

My 4E hack works like this:


I'm not sure if those mechanics are connected to the game world or not. I think they are, but I think they cause problems for people who don't like dissociated mechanics because the player is forced to imagine what his character is doing before engaging the mechanics.

That is, you can't say "I attack the orc", engage the mechanics, and have the DM describe what happened in the game world. "I attack the orc" doesn't provide enough information to move on with resolution. You're forced to be a more active participant in creating the fiction.

Libramarian said:

It's basically just the same thing as a metagame mechanic. It's broader, I suppose, in the sense that it includes both metagame mechanics that facilitate a metagame agenda, and metagame mechanics that don't. In other words, it includes both good, useful metagame mechanics and bad, pointless ones.

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Surely, all metagame mechanics facilitate some metagame agenda? You might not agree with the agenda, and you might abhor the fact that specific mechanics screw up another agenda that you happen to pursue, but they all facilitate some agenda or other.

Libramarian said:

From http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/glossary/fulllist.html:
Metagame mechanics: Traditionally, mechanics which are not representative of in-game reality. For example, plot points or Drama Deck cards would be examples. In Ron Edwards' Big Model, this is termed as "where System and Social Contract meet, without Exploration as the medium."

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OK, so, that would include hit points (social contract about when a character is dead) and experience points (social contract about when a character levels up) and so on. But these are "necessary" (despite the fact that several other games seem to do fine without them) and thus acceptable, is that what I'm hearing?

Libramarian said:

I consider martial dailies in 4e to be bad metagame mechanics, because I don't see how they facilitate gamism or narrativism better than associated alternatives. It just seems lazy and unimaginative to me to make martial special attacks function as a daily resource rather than coming up with a different, more associated balancing mechanism.

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Well, they certainly facilitate gamist and narrativist play pretty well, from what I have experienced and read. Whether they do so better than an "associated alternative" I have no idea - Ihaven't seen any associated alternatives that work anywhere near so well, so far. That doesn't mean that they don't exist - just that I haven't seen any, yet.

Libramarian said:

I see dissociated mechanics as a necessary evil. A lot of people don't like them, complaining that they disrupt immersion, so you should only use them when they're really fun to play with. Be wary of them, avoid them when possible. As armchair designer I would never have approved martial dailies for 4e.

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If you think D&D should aspire to be the "one true roleplaying game" that might make sense. I don't believe in the existence of a "one true roleplaying game" (or faeries), so it doesn't make sense to me at all. Is there a potential "alternative" D&D conceivable that pursues an "immersionist" agenda rather than any gamist or narrativist support? Sure - but it, too, would look very different from earlier D&D editions.

billd91 said:

Maybe the problem is because you don't listen to anybody. I said the dissociation problem is much reduced because it fits with something that makes sense from a PC POV. Yet there you are telling me I said something else. I know what I said and I know why I said it.

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It makes sense to you from a PC POV. The idea of a trip-spamming fighter or choosing to swap damage for conditions - even though that is effectively what the player is doing in 4e - would jar massively at my suspension of disbelief. That is just nowhere near what a real fight looks like. The 4e version might not simulate the moment-by-moment decision making of the fighter, but at least the outcome looks vaguely believable. The new CS gives the player of the fighter moment-by-moment decisions to make that are of just the sort that the enemy's actions and stance would dictate in real combat - but it gives them unaffected in the least by the enemy's actions and stance!

The only difference seems to be that the player gets to make decisions for the character at a far finer level of granularity; the decisions are made moment-to-moment, not in the abstract for the situation as a whole. Is that, perhaps, what we are really discussing, here?

billd91 said:

And the reason you can't do both (stabbing really hard and tripping them) is because you're not skilled enough as a 1st level fighter yet. Try again at 5th level when you can manage more special tricks at one time. It's not much of a stretch to recognize that not all lesser skilled characters can do all the things a seasoned warrior can.

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But the 5th level fighter could still hit harder if he didn't choose to trip - and could still trip at any time, regardless of whether his opponent left an opening for such a move or not (or, indeed, whether of not he had just a moment ago tried the same move, thus giving away his intention/technique). I think, as Lost Soul has just said, it is clear that "dissociated" and "nonsensical" are not the same thing at all, since this might not be the first, but it's definitely the second...

LostSoul said:

I make a melee attack: Associated, it tells you what to imagine.
I swing at the orc with my sword: Because the mechanics are associated with the game world, we know which mechanic to use to resolve this.

I use Come and Get It: Dissociated, it doesn't tell you what to imagine.
I pull the orcs in with my halberd and follow up with a quick jab from the butt: Because we can't tell if you're using Come and Get It or something else, we don't know which mechanic to use to resolve this.

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From a long post with interesting thoughts, but I'm going to comment on this bit from two respects.

First is that "I make a melee attack" no more defines an attack explicitly to me than "Come and Get It" does. Making any sort of weapon attack is a skill that involves learned moves, psychological manipulation of your enemy and selection of an attack that suits the stance and actions (i.e. your observations of the habits and capabilities) of your enemy. "Come and Get It" at least says a little about the sphere of techniques you might be aiming to employ.

Second is that this speaks, once again, to the reluctance to treat "fighting" as a skill that I spoke of earlier. Armed combat really does not consist of making clumsy, uncoordinated "swings" with your (clumsy, heavy) weapon at a dim and unresponsive enemy. It is a skill that demands instantaneous selection of techniques and moves that are appropriate to the situation at hand and your intentions and aims in the combat. Age-old concepts such as "tempo" and biodynamic principles (i.e. what a body is capable of and what it isn't) dictate a moving, dangerous dance - a "lethal ballet" - in which wits and speed are as important as training and strength.

If, as I begin to suspect, the demands of "association" and "immersion" are that the player should have moment-to-moment control of every significant action the character selects - in the sequence as they occur in game-time - then I don't really see a good way to make such a system both simple and in any sense believable to anyone who has a vaguely realistic model of "fighting" in their head. It might work - barely - for the old Hollywood model of "let's stand here and take it in turns to whack each others' shield" "combat", but not really for anything beyond that.

Libramarian said:

The concept of disassociated mechanics is not a theory of immersion. It's a type of mechanic that has a notable correlation to people complaining about loss of immersion.

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And yet, without disassociated mechanics I find D&D un-immersive. I find AD&D literally throws out any semblance of possible immersion I had the second we hit one minute combat rounds. I find I am utterly unable to think into the head like a fighter unless I am getting limited and changing opportunities as well as my standard attacks. Spamming a full attack action simply does not cut it for skirmish combat for me.

And other disassociated mechanics are necessary for me to be able to get the outcomes I want.

The concept of dissociated mechanics is extremely useful to the designers of 5e, who want to please people who complain about loss of immersion (and they have mentioned the concept a few times in blogs/articles).

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Some people who complain about loss of immersion. Others find the 4e by far the most immersive edition for playing classes with supposed disassociated mechanics (with one exception; I can play a skirmish fighter in 3.X and not completely lose immersion when I'm doing what I'm meant to be good at under one condition: I'm using the Book of 9 Swords).

JRRNeiklot said:

Well, if they want to make a "cool, interesting new game," they should do it and quit forcing D&D into a mold it's not going to fit. I love new games. Hell, I've played dozens of games. But when I sit down to play D&D - or Monopoly - for that matter, I expect a certain game experience. I haven't gotten that with a WOTC version of D&D.

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But as has been explained in this thread, 4e fulfills one of the two promises D&D has always offered better than any other edition. It's not the game Gygax wrote. But it is the epic dragon-slaying game from the Red Box and 2e tried to promise.

If you want a genuine "back to the dungeon" experience, fine. But you'll have to throw 2e out to do that. Go right back to 1e, B/X, or even Brown or White Box. Or is "promises but fails to deliver" part of the authentic D&D experience to you? It makes "Playing another game that actually does deliver" part of mine...

billd91 said:

That's really only true if you refuse to accept an alternative analysis. Yes, there are and always have been some dissociative mechanics in the game. And for some players, they have always been problematic and for others, there seems to be a threshold on their acceptability.

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And when Mearls announced that 4e was not to be Vancian, Gencon cheered. Can we actually have that promise fulfilled. Wizards no longer auto-lobotomising by having the memories of spells ripped from their brains? And can we end the daily cycle in which casters get literally everything back every day - and fighters are still down their hit points. This is bad from a gamist perspective, a narrativist one, and a simulationist one (Gygax had a no resting in the dungeon addendum that meant that in old school it was the trip that mattered).

Why is it that your problematic should be treated differently from mine? Mysteriously the anti-Vancian contingent are being utterly ignored. The wizard is pure Vancian - despite the only argument I've ever heard for a Vancian wizard on a daily cycle boiling down to tradition.

Also mysteriously the pro-powerful fighter contingent is largely ignored. The first playtest fighter was a bad joke of a class (even if they'd made the fighter a 2e fighter it would have been an improvement). To be fair the new one is better.