Independent from author/actor/ect stance is effect vs process based resolution.
Yes. This is what I've been saying for some time in multiple threads. The "dissociation" issue is not particularly about stance (although some stance issues may be relevant on the margins). It's mostly about metagame mechanics, which require the player to make choices that don't correspond to choices made by the PC.
If you build a 4e fighter who has no director-stance powers like CaGI, you could play the whole game in actor stance, but you'd still have to make decisions about when to use your best attacks (ie in effect, when to weight the "crit dice" in your favour, to borrow [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s analogy from upthread). This would still be "dissociative", I believe.
I guess my playstyle is process-actor. I'm guessing though that if you are process your pretty actor based too.
Huh? Rolemaster, classic Runequest and classic Traveller are the most process games I know, and are very frequently played in author stance: players make choices for their PCs because the
player thinks it would be a cool or worthwhile thing to have the PC do whatever is chosen; and then retroactively narrates the appropriate motivation on the PC's part.
Agreeing to join the party would be just one example of this (given that all 3 RPGs are generally intended to be used in a party-based style).
Conversely, orthodox 2nd ed AD&D seems aimed at actor-stance play (immerse yourself in character and make decisions from that point of view) even though it has very many non-process mechanics: saving throws; XP and levels; hit points; 1 minute attack rounds; etc.
Mostly true, but with one huge exception. Strong immersionists were always vehemently against it, to the point that anything smacking of author stance was supposed to be subsumed into the characterization.
I don't disagree with this at all. I'm not saying that actor stance hasn't been an ideal for some players, and stated as such by some rules text, for a long time. I'm just saying that stances other than actor stance are hardly some radical innovation.
I'm also, secondarily, agreeing with thecasualoblivion that it is a mistake to run together issues of stance and metagame mechanics. They are significantly (maye not completely - I'm not sure of that) distinct.
It's not that 4e has zillions of metagame "artifacts" poking through the shingles and no other D&D edition does. It's (as I've said before in other threads), it's that the most visible, obvious metagame mechanics (AEDU and the powers system) differ in degree, nature, frequency, kind, and principle from prior editions, thus making them that much more scrutinized. If I were to pinpoint the most glaring change, it would be in kind and frequency---the powers system makes the metagame aspects of 4e jump straight to the forefront, in actual play, in the heart of the action. They're just obviously, natively there.
I agree with this.
My agenda, in participating in this discussion of metagame mechanics and stances, is not to deny the obvious features of 4e. Rather, it is to contest a view expressed by some posters (not innerdude) that, because
they find certain mechanics jarring or disruptive of immersion, others must likewise; or that those who don't mind them must therefore be playing in some shallow or superficial ("boardgame", "beer and pretzels") fashion.
This is why I brought up the paladin-polymorph example in the earlier thread, and restated it in this thread.
That example shows a player, in the course of playing his PC in the first person, casually slipping into the director stance permitted by the metagame duration mechanic and bringing the gameworld into conformity with the religious convictions possessed by his PC. He did not lose immersion, or cease to inhabit his PC: in fact, the player's declaration, in character,
that the gameworld was as his PC's religious conviction dictated that it must be reinforced immersion and inhabitation of the PC.
And the mechanics of the game did not present any obstacle to this expression, by the player, of the PC's character. Rather, they permitted it in a way that process mechanics would not have.
I don't want to head too far towards territory that the board rules forbid, but I'm not 100% sure how you could have a
more immersive experience of playing a PC with religious conviction if you lacked the director stance powers that this player exercised, and therefore were always hostage - in professing your PC's faith - to the possibility that the GM sees the gameworld differently.
Of course, this alternative set up for play could facilitate the playing of religous
doubt: I've played PCs in such a fashion, exploiting my lack of director stance powers, as a player, to help reinforce my in character doubts about the reality of divine providence
I want to develop this thought via a hypothetical example: the player of a religious PC, who rolls a natural 20 on an attack or check, in a game that permits director stance around metagame mechanics can always narrate that good fortune as divine providence, and the mechanics will not prohibit that or tell him/her that the PC's faith and conviction are in fact mistaken. Whereas a game that treats the d20 roll as some sort of process simulation, and that prohibits director-stance declarations by players, seems to mean that any time a PC forms the view that good luck (as mechanically achieved via the player's lucky die roll) is a gift from the gods
is in fact mistaken - deluded even - because the good luck was simply a function of the ingame causal process, in which no god was a participant, modelled or abstracted by the d20 roll.
How can you immerse in a religious PC when the mechanics you are using for every PC action tell you (on a process-simulation interpretation) that the world is a godless causal system dictated by cold Lovecraftian logic plus mere chance? (When I played my religious doubt PC, it was ambiguous whether the dice were a process mechanic or not - hence the room for doubt between confident director-stance divine providence, and unarguable process-simulation lifeless causality.)
To make sure we are on the same page, "deep immersion" is something that I'm postulating as the roleplaying equivalent of method acting.
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I also think this necessarily implies some kind of unconscious or partially conscious absorption of the background/personality of the character, as a hedge against outside stimulus that doesn't fit (e.g. rolling dice).
I don't know if I entirely grasp the deep/shallow immersion divide as you deploy it, though elements of the distinction you are drawing make sense.
I GM more than I play, but I have played games where internalisation of the emotions of the PC have been part of my play techniques. Some of this has been freeform: in a Cthulhu-esque convetion game I played the ex-wife of a cultist whose son had been taken by my ex-husband to hell, as a sacrifice, and I remember at one stage I (the player, but also the PC) was kneeling on the ground crying (both in real life, and in character - my tears were modest, whereas I think the PC was weeping) while reciting the Lord's Prayer, clasping an imaginary crucifix worn around my neck.
The culmination of one of the sessions of this freeform involved the possibility of one PC being turned into an angel, but only if all the PCs could reach consensus on which of them it would be. Of course, the scenario writer had written up the PCs so that each had a reason to want to transform, and each also had a reason to object to at least one other PC transforming. Playing out this scene took about two hours: just as it seemed that a consensus might have been reached, the GM would come along and whisper something in your ear, reminding you of some (incharacter) though or emotion that gave you a reason to choose otherwise.
I, and I think most of the other players, were playing this out in actor stance, although from time to time - when the focus was on some other players - a couple of us might step back and fall out of character (as it was emotionally fairly intense, and "breathers" helped). But it wasn't as if there was any confusion that we were playing a game: I've already mentioned the taking of breather, and the metagame rationale of the GM's interventions were crystal clear - likewise that, towards the end of the alloted session time, he let the final consensus that emerged remain stable.
I've played PCs in a similarly immersive way in non-freeform games, both convention and campaign. It's never particularly bothered me that there are trappings and conventions that are to be explained only by reference to it being a game. I'm not sure if, from that, I should infer that (i) I internalised those trapping in some fashion, or (ii) was a shallow immersionist who didn't mind the evident existence of the curtain. But I am pretty sure that I'm not deluding myself when I say that internalising the PC's emotions was part of the technique of play.
Just because it's been around for a long time, it doesn't mean it'll be wanted in the game.
Sure. But it does mean that 4e - which has not been around for all that long - didn't invent it, or introduce it into fantasy RPGing.
Initiative is how fast I react in relation to others
Why, then, does it not give you more actions? Or affect others' ability to parry or dodge or otherwise defend?
Perhaps this is why there's such a huge disagreement over hit points represent, or what they should represent, or how they should be altered
Of course. But those disagreements predate 4e by over 30 years. Which is my point. 4e is not novel in using mechanics that not everyone like, in part becaue of their metagame character.
Oh, is your objection that this style of play is more strict than other styles?
I don't object to the style at all. I object to practitioners of the style writing about other styles as if (i) those who play in those other ways are spoilers of the game who sprang suddenly from nowhere and ruined the poster's fun, and/or (ii) are not really playing D&D, or RPGs, but are rather tactical skirmish players engaging in the occasional bit of freeform improv.
I'm missing why "there are other ways to play the game" needs to be established
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I'm still missing the "why" of why "it" needs to be expressed.
Because there are some posters who are saying that 4e is some radical, tradition-destroying game simply because it has metagame abilities and some mechanics that don't particulalry faciliate actor stance. And some of those posters are citing, with approval, a blog that argues that, because of this, 4e is a tactical skirmish game linked by freeform improv.
From my point of view ( [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] can speak for himself if he is coming from a different direction), the example of "stunting" as author stance is intended to remind everyone that author stance is not some radical or disruptive thing, but a part of the game every time a player decides to have his/her PC do things not because it would be in character, but because s/he thinks it would contribute to the experience at the table. Which, in my experience, is a lot of the time.
Stunting is far from the only example of this. In my game, for example, it's common for players to play PCs who resort easily to violence when angry (that's a pretty common trope in fantasy RPGing). They also play PCs who come into disagreement quite often, often about quite important moral, theological or cosmological issues. These disagreements get expressed in various ways in play, but generally (not always) the players deliberately refrain from having their PCs come into violent conflict with one another - not because such restraint is in character, but because the players recognise that intraparty conflict of that sort can seriously undermine play in what is, in certain fundamental ways, a party-based game. That's author stance used to express the social contract. And, at least for me, it doesn't remotely disrupt immersion of verisimilitude.
I know that other groups have different ways of handling this - for example, some use strong alignment mechanics, together with stipluations like "no evil PCs", to suppress or eliminate intraparty conflicts on important matters. I personally find that sort of play a bit bland, but don't feel any need to go around telling those who engage in it that they're "ruining D&D" or not really roleplaying.
