1. I think everyone (including Justin) "admits" that every version of D&D has had dissociated mechanics.
2. I don't think the distinction "unfairly targets non-magical characters." I prefer non-magical characters and also prefer associated mechanics for them.
3. My preference for associated mechanics is a preference. Justin allows that it's a preference and states explicitly that players can have a variety of good reasons for enjoying dissociated mechanics.
4. I think it's very useful as an "analysis tool" despite being a preference. I don't know what you mean by "objectivity" in this context or why it would be important.
(1) I have yet to see anything that indicates that "dissociated" mechanics are acceptable to him to any degree, and have seen numerous things where he explicitly rejects them as unacceptable components of roleplaying games. Indeed, IIRC, he said something to the effect of "dissociated" mechanics being
antithetical to roleplay itself: "All of this is important, because roleplaying games are ultimately
defined by mechanics which are associated with the game world." (Emphasis
in original, section "What is a roleplaying game?") And a bit later: "If you are manipulating mechanics which are dissociated from your character – which have no meaning to your character – then you are not engaged in the process of playing a role."
(2) Sure it does. As I said, magical things
literally cannot, even in principle, be "dissociated," because there's nothing to "dissociate"
from. Magic works the way the author tells you, you have no grounds for disputing it--even if the rules fail to be consistent, because "it's magic." The article makes a token effort to deny it, but it's clearly right there. He literally only uses the words "magic" and "magical" once each, the former when using the spell name
magic missile, the latter to say, "Conversely, of course, just because something is magical doesn’t mean that the mechanic will automatically be associated."
My argument is: by what metric could you possibly make these mechanics
not "associated"? Magic works the way magic works. It's only non-magical things, like his "one-handed catch" pseudo-example, that permit an argument derived from practical analysis of how real people take actions--or in your own example, spending that bennie token to reveal a previously non-existent
non-magical relationship to an NPC. Magic is by definition "associated" because the only information you
and your character could have about it is exactly the same. I think it's extremely telling that no one ever presents examples of "dissociated" magic mechanics.
(3) Sure he does. He denies that "dissociated" mechanics can exist in a
roleplaying game: the instant you're using them you aren't roleplaying. As already quoted, he explicitly says that to use "dissociated" mechanics is to cease roleplaying completely. That's very clearly more than just a preference: he is declaring people who enjoy "dissociated" mechanics don't enjoy roleplay, period. He allows a carve-out exception before play (such as character creation), but as soon as play has begun, they are verboten.
(4) How can it possibly be an analysis tool if understood as merely a matter of taste? Such a thing does not aid in the identification of effective design. At
absolute best all it does is give a label. It does not help us to determine whether a particular mechanic actually achieves the goals for which it was designed. But it is masquerading as such a thing! It is openly declaring that the goal of
all RPG design--not just D&D, but literally anything purporting to let one play a role--requires mechanical "association." From this, he concludes that games which feature "dissociated" mechanics in the course of play are not merely not to his taste, they are
badly-made roleplaying games. That's what I mean by my references to claims of objectivity. His claim is not, and never was, a simple expression of taste. It is not, and never was, a claim about his sentiments, of the form, "I don't like 'dissociated' mechanics." Instead, it is, and has always been, a claim about the inherent nature and character of "dissociated" mechanics: "'Dissociated' mechanics contradict roleplay." That is a claim about an objective fact, an inherent logical relation between "dissociated" mechanics and roleplaying games.
It's not that complicated. When I play RPGs, I enjoy being immersed in my character's PoV. I'm not all woo-woo about it, but I enjoy immersion. Mechanics that map what I'm doing as a player to what my character is thinking/doing/experiencing "in the fiction" (to borrow a phrase) are a better fit for how I like to play than mechanics that require me to engage with the game in a way that doesn't map to my character.
Sure. They fit your taste, and you front-and-center make that clear. "I like cake, and don't much care for cupcakes." You aren't engaging in critique or analysis: neither looking for design errors (critique) nor evaluating a design for how effectively it achieves its goals (analysis). In which case, I'm not talking about people like you, and never have been. I have been
very specifically talking about cake-lovers
who are trying to critique cupcakes for not being cakes.
By contrast, I can enjoy highly abstracted mechanics just fine, because none of this has anything to do with abstraction.
That there is mapping is how it has to do with abstraction. Mapping
of any kind, whether to the character or not to the character, IS abstraction. That's quite literally what abstraction
is. But "dissociation" relies on a selective set of abstraction's elements, chosen in a pretty arbitrary way to exclude some things that are (as stated) familiar or accepted but not include other things that aren't.