Elephant in the room: rogue and fighter dailies.

[Hussar]

An interesting comment, could you expand upon it?

Well, the cleric has at will and daily abilities. Four Channel Divinities per day is close enough to an encounter power. The Dwarven Fighter has an at will bonus to damage on a miss, and gains a twice per day surge power.

That's just off the top of my head. So, I'd say that yes, AEDU, while perhaps changed, will certainly be in the game.

When you use dissociated mechanics, on the other hand, you aren't roleplaying. You're making decisions which are dissociated from your character's decisions. Which is fine. They can satisfy other creative desires or gamist preferences.

Ballocks. Complete and utter, 100% ballocks. It might not be a form of roleplaying that you like, but, it IS roleplaying and gamism has absolutely NOTHING to do with it.

This is nothing other than a onetruewayism attempt. "Not roleplaying" indeed.

 

[pemerton]

I've never been convinced by the essays on dissociated mechanics at the Alexandrian

Agreed.

And may I draw your attention to this epic thread on the topic.

 

[Minigiant]

In another topic, I noticed that the Times per Day of Fight's Surge, Knack, and Channnel Divinity are the same as The Fighter's CON, The Rogue's INT, and Both Cleric's WIS respectively.

 

[DEFCON 1]

In another topic, I noticed that the Times per Day of Fight's Surge, Knack, and Channnel Divinity are the same as The Fighter's CON, The Rogue's INT, and Both Cleric's WIS respectively.

Now that's interesting! And to my mind, a good idea. If that in fact was intentional and not just luckily random in how it worked out... I might suggest if/when we get those rules given to us that Channel Divinity be based off of Charisma rather than Wisdom... just so all these "extra abilities" that the Fighter / Rogue / Cleric are getting are based off secondary stats. Makes more of an impetus to buy your scores a certain way.

That being said... I'd also love it if there were a couple different features for each class that were based upon modifier, and each one was tied to a different ability. So that rather than having a set DEX primary / INT secondary for every Rogue we ever find for example (if Knack is based off INT)... some players might value feature #2 based on CON, and feature #3 that is based on CHA, and then Knack based on INT. This was you didn't feel like ever Rogue HAD to be built DEX/INT to be good... but some players might make DEX/CON, or DEX/CHA.

 

[I'm A Banana]

In the How to Play document and DM's Guidelines I didn't see a whole lot. There's the "improvisation" action, that tells players that the GM will adjudicate. And then there is advice to GM's to not grant advantage to attacks based on colourful description - which seems opposite to what you're saying.

It encourages the DM not to reward verbose attack descriptions, but it DOES tell the DM to reward descriptions in pretty much any other area.

Fighter's already the Best At Killin', and probably doesn't need much of a boost in terms of that.

Though what I wouldn't give for a Page 42 up in this thing...I guess the fact that they're still futzing with the numbers prevents that.

 

[Siberys]

Martial dailies aren't "I have this one cool trick, but for some unknown reason I can only use it once per extended rest"; they're "There's this one cool trick I know, but it's hard to pull off. I need just the right opportunity for it to work". It's just that the player - not the character - gets to choose the opportunity. It makes perfect sense in the fiction - your character saw his opportunity and took it. it won't show up again, but it's a rare occurence anyways, so no biggie.

Even when mechanics are dissociated, they aren't really - not if you're willing to put a modicum of thought into how something might make sense. Some mechanics would definitely be harder to justify, but Martial Dailies aren't one of those things. :/

 

[Obryn]

When you use dissociated mechanics, on the other hand, you aren't roleplaying. You're making decisions which are dissociated from your character's decisions. Which is fine. They can satisfy other creative desires or gamist preferences.

This is straight-up BS. I am glad you've found a style of play you like, but calling games you don't like "not RPGs" is edition war nonsense.

Here's the thing... You're proposing that these two examples are different in some sort of fundamental, absolute way...

(1) A game of where everyone at the table is running normal characters, exploring dungeons, crawling around the wilderness, and so on. One is a fighter-type character has powers that he can only use a few times per day.

(2) The same game, but the fighter's player thinks of his character as a member of a mystic order, and he's invented some magic mumbo-jumbo about the 1/day abilities.

...and (1) is not an RPG, while (2) is. And the same holds true if the Fighter player never once mentions his justifications or reasons to the table. Heck; in (1) the other players may not even be aware that, according to this standard, they're not even actually playing a roleplaying game.

Heck; even picking a longsword instead of a battleaxe in 1e because the former rolls a d12 vs. Large creatures; or picking chain instead of scale because of the AC table instead of which allows for better maneuverability is a "dissociated" decision.

It's fine to have a preferred play-style, but the "not an RPG" nonsense is needlessly divisive. Not only does it rule out 4e, but also 3.5's Eberron (action points), Arcana Evolved (hero points), and so on.

-O

 

[nnms]

I went and read the link RogueAgent provided, and now that I understand the nuances of the position expounded there, I can see why people get so up and arms over it.

I do see his point though. For the first decade and a half of RPG history, games were about the GM describing a situation, players making descriptions about what their characters do and the GM using the system to determine the results when they are in question and then describing the new situation that arises.

It creates an endless circuit of description, dialogue, etc., where the system comes up to provide "what happens?" answers when needed.

If a player ends up making decisions not based on the described situation, but based on a robust mechanical framework, they might be doing something different than the games that started the hobby.

I happen to like the broad-to-the-point-of-uselessness definition of roleplaying game. So I don't find the "that's not an rpg!" statement to be helpful.

But I do see his point. There are a lot of modern game designs that have departed from the circuit of described changing situations model that dominated the hobby's early years. And if you make that the definition of a game centred around playing a role, it would be easy to conclude that games that don't do that don't fit the definition.

I don't like the middle ground games unless they do a really good job of getting it right. I like my out there story games like In A Wicked Age, Polaris, etc., and I like my trad games. For middle ground games, I like Strands of Fate, HeroQuest, and the like. But one could easily argue that those are not middle ground games at all, but belong in the story games category.

EDIT: So how does that connect with Fighter and Rogue dailies?

He's right, in a way.

They're based off of an artificial resource mechanic with no consistent explanation in the fiction other than you have to describe it after the fact and not describe the situation before the fact.

But when you are looking for the "describe the situation and have the players describe their response" approach, it falls apart because you can't describe it in advance. As the use of the power necessitates the situation that allows for its setup, you can't use the currently described situation to explain how it happens. You essentially use the power and retcon the situation to fit.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

This is straight-up BS. I am glad you've found a style of play you like, but calling games you don't like "not RPGs" is edition war nonsense.

Here's the thing... You're proposing that these two examples are different in some sort of fundamental, absolute way...

(1) A game of where everyone at the table is running normal characters, exploring dungeons, crawling around the wilderness, and so on. One is a fighter-type character has powers that he can only use a few times per day.

(2) The same game, but the fighter's player thinks of his character as a member of a mystic order, and he's invented some magic mumbo-jumbo about the 1/day abilities.

...and (1) is not an RPG, while (2) is. And the same holds true if the Fighter player never once mentions his justifications or reasons to the table. Heck; in (1) the other players may not even be aware that, according to this standard, they're not even actually playing a roleplaying game.

Heck; even picking a longsword instead of a battleaxe in 1e because the former rolls a d12 vs. Large creatures; or picking chain instead of scale because of the AC table instead of which allows for better maneuverability is a "dissociated" decision.

It's fine to have a preferred play-style, but the "not an RPG" nonsense is needlessly divisive. Not only does it rule out 4e, but also 3.5's Eberron (action points), Arcana Evolved (hero points), and so on.

-O

You're exaggerating what he said. He didn't claim that a game that uses disassociated mechanics isn't an RPG. He said that you aren't roleplaying when you use a disassociated mechanic. That means, at that exact moment, the rule you are using does not represent the perspective of the character, and so that rule isn't roleplaying.

Is this true? Sortof. When you use a disassociated mechanic, you must alter an aspect of the world around the character in order for your character to do what he's about to do.

For example, an encounter power that lets you trip an opponent is essentially making the claim that an opportunity to trip someone generally only occurs once per fight. Using the power generates the opportunity, and then your character takes it. The aspect of the power that generates the opportunity is not roleplaying. It's game mastering. But, the followup where you trip the opponent is roleplaying.

At the same time, if martial maneuvers are all wrapped up in disassociated mechanics, this limits roleplaying. Specifically, it limits your capacity to react as your character would react to situations that present themselves. You have to alter the world in order to trip someone. You can't make the attempt in any other way, even though your character should be able to. And, thus, you can't roleplay your character.

 

[nnms]

At the same time, if martial maneuvers are all wrapped up in disassociated mechanics, this limits roleplaying. Specifically, it limits your capacity to react as your character would react to situations that present themselves. You have to alter the world in order to trip someone. You can't make the attempt in any other way, even though your character should be able to. And, thus, you can't roleplay your character.

This is a really good example. You are faced with a situation where your character would like to trip someone, but because either you don't have an ability that lets you do so or have already expended it, you can't.

GM: "He steps onto the foot wide rock bridge and draws his sword. 'Today you die and tomorrow the king!"
Player: "Pride comes before a FALL!' I trip him!"
GM: "I'm sorry, but you already used "trip" on the guards, remember?"
Player: "So instead of going with a description you gave, I should make decisions based on which of these power cards aren't turned over yet because I can still use them?"
GM: "Yes."

It's a caricature, but I think it's still illustrative.