Nagol, again, I appreciate you taking the time to scrutinize my survey and thoughtfully answer. I've taken the liberty of numbering these so I can ask a few questions about them to clarify my understanding of your thoughts. If you wish to continue, you can just use the number as a short-hand reference for the example you're answering.
What would it take to turn this gamist abstraction of modelling of physical attributes into a "dissociative" element? The science of kinesiology is well understood in our world and this gamist abstraction is apparently not dissociated even though it is not just abstract, but specifically incorrect. One would presume that the PC doesn't understand this. However, we do. So it seems that incoherency within the marriage of our meta-understanding as a real world person and our in-character actor-stance perspective does not, by itself, create a dissociated element. Let us say your character becomes a biophysicist and develops the science of bio-mechanics and kinesiology (absurd, I know...but reading the dissociative thread it seems that bridging the sublime to the ridiculous well traveled route). Given the incorrect nature of the model, and your PC's "front row seat" to it in the pioneering of the discipline, would this then create a dissociation?
I not sure you could turn it into a disassociated element. The very nature of characteristics is based upon in-game expression. Perhaps something along the lines of "A character can roll 1d12, 1d10, 1d8, 1d6, and 1d4 as checks against attributes over the course of the adventure. The player may assign dice as desired as each check comes up. Any further checks are assigned a result of '1'."
Is this because the "Target" line does not stipulate "Each enemy wielding a melee weapon or whose primary fighting style is melee based" (ranged characters are unaffected or perhaps get a bonus to save)? Is this because the Attack line stipulates "Strength" as the active attacking attribute and also has the keyword "Weapon" attached to it while the initial resolution is a "goad/trick"? Couldn't this just be an NGABND for expediency of handling considering what else we've allotted NGABND? It attacks Will. That seems correct. Is it the word "pull"? Pull is just an NGABND. It does not mean literally "pull by way of exerting physical force". It is just a gamist term meaning that the pulled creature moves in a direct linear path to the nearest available square toward the "puller". Is it all of the above and is just too much of a gamist abstraction with all of the elements?
No. It's because the character (humanish, martial power) has no ability to rely upon to move any and every enemy regardless of size, intellect, range preference, ability to recognise a taunt, or any other criteria we care to categorise by. Additionally, the fluff regarding the powers (as I have been told many times by 4e players) is really there as inspriation and the players are expected/encouraged to reskin as needed. It would become associated if the affected targets were narrowed -- say to a mind-affecting ability (so mindless enemies ignore the taunt) or to melee preference (which could be lulled into such an assault) or through choosing any other set of circumstances that help define the power in the game world or by granting the Martial power set "the ability to cloud minds".
What if it was this?
Come and Get It
You brandish your weapon and call out to your foes, luring them close through their overconfidence, and then deliver a spinning strike against them all.
Encounter Martial
Standard Action Close burst 3
Target: Each enemy you can see in the burst
Attack: Charisma vs. Will
Hit: You trick/goad each target to moving up to 2 squares nearer to you to a square adjacent to you.
Secondary Effect: You make a Melee Basic Attack against each adjacent enemy.
Is that ok or still dissociated?
Not much different, but a little more attached to the world. Some types of creatures (like mindless ones) should be immune, but I don't know 4e well enough to know if that's the case.
I'm really not sure why this is dissociated. Fluff text aside and disregarding the interests of "Outcome-based-Sim" over "Process-Sim", I'm certain that we've all seen genre tropes of allies fighting directly adjacent to one another (Melee 1) and a subtle manipulation of the positioning by one ally or the other pulls an ally out of danger or gives them an advantage against an unwary foe. This could be footwork-driven or an overt "grab the back of the shirt and tug" or "shoulder your ally out of danger" or a subtle "hip knock" or a "nod"...etc. Could you explain your thinking on this?
Unless Get Over Here is using the Voice a la Bene Gesserit, I don't understand why the target is forced to move. Perhaps,the character doesn't want to get over here? Perhaps the target is vehemently opposed to get over here? Where is the compulsion coming from? Is there anything in-game to explain why the people are forced to shift around the grid? If the power is directed at a different PC, it does not appear resistable (though I could be wrong). You can't even use the "I haul him over" since the effect has more range than the character's reach.
I've seen a lot of issues with Martial Dailies and Encounter Powers cited. Specifically they are brought up because, upon post-hoc examination by the PC who is the acting conduit for the Martial Exploit within the fiction, he cannot understand why he cannot attempt this Encounter Exploit more often than once per battle and Daily Exploit more than once per day. The affect of this being to cause "dissociation" and thus being such a mechanic. Now, I would think that the inverse would happen in this case as the PC attempts an examining thought experiment by way of reverse-engineering "what just happened?" If his STvsBW is exceedingly low he could go out and become a Chuck Norris-like circus performer. He could be chained to the ground in an open field and they could have an elephant with a tub of water. The elephant could suck up the water and spray it at him point-blank and he could "dodge" it with pretty close to perfect proficiency, RaW. It could be the "Water Gets Chuck Norrissed" attraction. I would pay a ticket to see that. That would seem very Houdini-like.
The world moves of an accord that seems detached from the standard expectations of reality...and the PC experiences this regularly. Does the PC or the player who is playing him experience dissociation? If not, then why?
The player can be distracted -- it's often referred to a breaking the suspension of disbelief, but if there is an in-game expression, it's not disassociation.
Let us say that at some point in the future of our D&D world, our cavemen come out of their caves and begin to understand that the Sun-God is actually a giant ball of hydrogen perpetually in nuclear fusion and creating heavier elements (helium on down). So here we have the defiance of the mundane laws of gravity, friction, drag, lift (etc) and musculo-skeletal system/kinesiology locomotion (and mere existence) at work here. Later, our cavemen begin to understand these scientific principles as well and they become mathematical constructs rather than mere abstract principles ("what goes up, must come down"). Let us say our Fighter is one such "warrior-scientist". He is in a dance of death with a colossal dragon and down drops two giant spiders from their webs. He says to himself "Huh? Must be magic. Yo, Bob the Wizard-Guy. Detect Magic. Something is funny here." Bob casts Detect Magic. "Nope, Sciencey-Fighter-Guy. All clear." Sciencey-Fighter-Guy says: "Uh. Why can't I defy gravity and leap up and grab that flying dragon...and how do those spiders breathe?...move?...why aren't they crushed under all of that weight? How is any of this possible? Some cruel God is at work here restricting me by gravity, encumbrance (rules), etc while allowing them impossible, physic-circumventing capabilities. I should have stuck to Chuck Norrising Water in the circus."
The world moves of an accord that seems detached from the standard expectations of reality...and the PC experiences this. Does Sciencey-Fighter-Guy then experience dissociation? Is he only dissociated when he doesn't understand the scientific principles that underwrite the movement of particles within a medium and biophysics and gravity? Does the player who is playing him experience it? If not, then why?
Certainly, if scientific laws do function for our heroes, they differ at least in detail and in some cases in gross. But in fairness to the scientificy Fighter he too takes advantage of the details -- like falling 200+ feet and walking away, consistently.
Players get distracted by elements too far from expectation -- see suspension of disbelief, above. Normal genre tropes usually don't cause this because they are part of the implicit contract for playing in that genre. Poor mechanical representations can cause distraction and the worse the mechanic the more likely such distraction is. But a simulation need not be perfect -- in fact can't be perfect and should only be good enough to get the desired range of outcomes in the simplest way.
For clarirty, I'll repeat. Disassociation is when a game element has no in-game rationale. For myself as a player, this means when I choose to affect the game environment in ways other than through my character's choice or when a game element's mechanics so very poorly represent the desired outcomes that I can't find an in-game rationale that fits the problem space.
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