Why have dissociated mechanics returned?

[tomBitonti]

My apologies of all of the following has already been said:

...

Doesn't sound too dissociative, though: you can do the things you've trained to do, not the things you haven't.

Many, many examples omitted.

A question: Do you find detail that you provide for the examples to make the abilities more satisfying? Even if not tied tightly to more detailed rules, I find the more detailed explanations which you provided to be immensely helpful. What is disassociative, then, is that we the reader must provide these explanations. Isn't that the responsibility (read "job") of the game designer?

What bugs me most is that the designer has either thought of these details, and has chosen to (or been forced to) omit them, or has made them up as a kind of gamist detail (meaning: defined in terms of the game abstractions as a "kewl ability"; not grounded in an underlying model).

TomB

 

[nightwalker450]

Many, many examples omitted.

A question: Do you find detail that you provide for the examples to make the abilities more satisfying? Even if not tied tightly to more detailed rules, I find the more detailed explanations which you provided to be immensely helpful. What is disassociative, then, is that we the reader must provide these explanations. Isn't that the responsibility (read "job") of the game designer?

What bugs me most is that the designer has either thought of these details, and has chosen to (or been forced to) omit them, or has made them up as a kind of gamist detail (meaning: defined in terms of the game abstractions as a "kewl ability"; not grounded in an underlying model).

TomB

I ignore designer provided fluff. I'm only interested in their mechanics, because frankly we all have imaginations that can handle this. And we all know that once they provide fluff then you run into the complaints of the designers being too restrictive. With minimal fluff CaGI has many scenarios it can be used in. Once the fluff is added, suddenly my challenging taunts are called into question because the enemies are deaf, or don't speak my language. What I expect from a game designer is balanced mechanics to apply to situations. So I'd rather spend $25 for a book of solid mechanics than $100 of space that was wasted on the designer telling me how they imagine it. Their single sentence of fluff on the powers is plenty.

Now if I get an adventure module, then I'm wanting to hear their story. For a monster manual I'd be interested in hearing about how the monster acts (not in terms of powers, but in general). I read pack mentality in their general monster details, and then the savagery power makes a lot of sense. What I don't expect is the designer to hold my hand and explain in small words every detail.

-- On a side note, I think the idea of an "Annotated" Players Handbook would be an awesome idea for those that are more interested in detailed game design philosophy. That would be the place for the designer to explain how and why they did something a particular way.

 

[Ratskinner]

I think D&D, and RPGs in general, suffer problems when modelling forced affects on PC's minds, perceptions and behaviours. Some kind of compromise needs to be reached, because although these effects are fantasy story staples, they break the game contract that the DM controls the NPCs and the players their PCs.

I think FATE suggests a possible answer by using the Fate Point mechanic to partially incentivize player character behavior. So, in this case, the Wight might have some capacity to put a "terrified" aspect on the PC. PCs who react appropriately gain an FP, or you can pay an FP to ignore it.

Of course, that's just one way to do it.

 

[GreyICE]

I think FATE suggests a possible answer by using the Fate Point mechanic to partially incentivize player character behavior. So, in this case, the Wight might have some capacity to put a "terrified" aspect on the PC. PCs who react appropriately gain an FP, or you can pay an FP to ignore it.

Of course, that's just one way to do it.

Or, more likely, in FATE you'd put a Terrified aspect, and then the Wraith would use a Compel to gain a bonus on a Mental attack. Unless the character was particularly strong-minded, they'd either be Taken Out and forced to flee the scene, or have to take an aspect that represented their mental defenses weakening, either short-term, long-term, or permanent.

But FATE focuses on narrative aspects and (okay, I'm drawing from my Dresden Files campaign here) in this case the Wraith is probably less of a 'random encounter' (since those don't happen) and is more likely attacking someone the PCs care about. So unless they have the strength of will to stick around long enough to get the person out of there/defeat the wraith then they'll be faced with that person dying (or, more likely, becoming a mind-blasted slave that they encounter later, to really rub their faces in the consequences of their failure).

So to rescue this person they might even accept drastic long-term consequences, such as an outright phobia towards darkness, or long-lasting paranoia that takes sessions to fade.

 

[tomBitonti]

I ignore designer provided fluff. I'm only interested in their mechanics, because frankly we all have imaginations that can handle this. And we all know that once they provide fluff then you run into the complaints of the designers being too restrictive. With minimal fluff CaGI has many scenarios it can be used in. Once the fluff is added, suddenly my challenging taunts are called into question because the enemies are deaf, or don't speak my language. What I expect from a game designer is balanced mechanics to apply to situations. So I'd rather spend $25 for a book of solid mechanics than $100 of space that was wasted on the designer telling me how they imagine it. Their single sentence of fluff on the powers is plenty.

Ah ... I'm hearing that as a difference of taste, and perhaps of conditional utility. Which is cool.

I myself prefer to see lots of background detail. For example, see the Monsternomicon, the Iron Kingdoms monster book, which has at least two pages for each monster. The additional writing rather helps to enrich the monsters and place them in the Iron Kingdom's setting -- and makes the book very readable. As a very different example, see the 4E Monster Manual I, which is quite sparse, and rather a terrible read, *but*, has more simple utility and quite a few more monsters packed into the same space.

Focusing on the amount of detail provides a way of splitting the issue: Is there a problem because the mechanic is tersely described, but has a sensible explanation, or because the mechanic is tersely described, and is hard to map to a sensible explanation?

Looking at Horrifying Visage, I think the example suffers from the 4E overuse of "Push", along with the missing "Psychic" keyword. Those, plus a simple sentence, "The target reacts in abject terror, springing back from the wight." That, along with a new tone of "hey, these are 90% abilities; according to your players tastes, you will want to adjust these to adapt to particular circumstances" would remove the disassociation from Horrifying Visage.

There are other examples, e.g., Come and Get It, which seem harder to remedy.

Thx!

TomB

 

[keterys]

Looking at Horrifying Visage, I think the example suffers from the 4E overuse of "Push", along with the missing "Psychic" keyword.

It has the Psychic keyword.

And push is better than forcing the target to take a move action away, or shift, since those have unfortunate interactions with other events. It's possible they should have created a tag for mental forced movement, rather than physical forced movement... but at a certain point, adding complexity to the system is just as likely to lower immersion most of the time even as it helps some of the time.

DMs (and players) can always say "But I'm immobilized because of X, so I probably shouldn't move away in fear - makes more sense to, say, fall prone instead". And that applies to pretty much every edition of the game.

 

[tomBitonti]

It has the Psychic keyword.

And push is better than forcing the target to take a move action away, or shift, since those have unfortunate interactions with other events. It's possible they should have created a tag for mental forced movement, rather than physical forced movement... but at a certain point, adding complexity to the system is just as likely to lower immersion most of the time even as it helps some of the time.

DMs (and players) can always say "But I'm immobilized because of X, so I probably shouldn't move away in fear - makes more sense to, say, fall prone instead". And that applies to pretty much every edition of the game.

The addition of the Psychic keyword was made after the example was presented. I agree that once the keyword is added the disassociation lessens. (Hmm, on second read, "Psychic" only tells you about the type of the damage. You have to go back to "Fear" as the effect type to tell where the push is from.)

"Push", without quotes means an actual push. Horrifying Visage does no such thing. Sometimes, a word can be given a new meaning, but in this case I think that the 4E designers went too far. I don't have a better word, but that's not my job to find. I do know from experience and training that word selection matters, and should be made to avoid all possible confusion.

That ability for DMs and players to adjust is covered by my second point. I really don't think the 4E presentation went far enough to describe the limitations of keywords. There is some encouragement, but rather much the policy, as presented, seemed to be to mostly work within the supplied mechanical effect.

Edit:

I'm working from: http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ex/20080425a

Which has:

Flavor Text

A wave of acid dissolves all creatures that stand before you.

The next section of a power description gives a brief explanation of what the power does, sometimes including information about what it looks or sounds like. The flavor text for acid wave appears here as an example. A power’s flavor text helps you understand what happens when you use a power and how you might describe it when you use it. You can alter this description as you like, to fit your own idea of what your power looks like. Your wizard’s magic missile spell, for example, might create phantasmal skulls that howl through the air to strike your opponent, rather than simple bolts of magical energy.

That is, they say to describe the effect however you please, but not on the "the described mechanical application is built to have limited accuracy".

Thx!

TomB

 

[Neonchameleon]

Many, many examples omitted.

A question: Do you find detail that you provide for the examples to make the abilities more satisfying? Even if not tied tightly to more detailed rules, I find the more detailed explanations which you provided to be immensely helpful. What is disassociative, then, is that we the reader must provide these explanations. Isn't that the responsibility (read "job") of the game designer?

What bugs me most is that the designer has either thought of these details, and has chosen to (or been forced to) omit them, or has made them up as a kind of gamist detail (meaning: defined in terms of the game abstractions as a "kewl ability"; not grounded in an underlying model).

TomB

I think we're getting down to a difference in reading styles here. My answers would be almost the same as Tony's to all those questions, for almost exactly the same reasoning. I don't think there was a single one of those cases where the designer didn't think of the fluff, write the mechanical implementation of that fluff down, and convey to both @Tony Vargas and myself what was actually happening in the game world. It was written tersely - but the flavour and the explanation are at the very least implied.

And I find having to wade through so-called associated mechanics such as

Evocation [Fire]
Level: Sor/Wiz 3
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Long (400 ft. + 40 ft./level)
Area: 20-ft.-radius spread
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Reflex half
Spell Resistance: Yes

A fireball spell is an explosion of flame that detonates with a low roar and deals 1d6 points of fire damage per caster level (maximum 10d6) to every creature within the area. Unattended objects also take this damage. The explosion creates almost no pressure.

You point your finger and determine the range (distance and height) at which the fireball is to burst. A glowing, pea-sized bead streaks from the pointing digit and, unless it impacts upon a material body or solid barrier prior to attaining the prescribed range, blossoms into the fireball at that point. (An early impact results in an early detonation.) If you attempt to send the bead through a narrow passage, such as through an arrow slit, you must “hit” the opening with a ranged touch attack, or else the bead strikes the barrier and detonates prematurely.

The fireball sets fire to combustibles and damages objects in the area. It can melt metals with low melting points, such as lead, gold, copper, silver, and bronze. If the damage caused to an interposing barrier shatters or breaks through it, the fireball may continue beyond the barrier if the area permits; otherwise it stops at the barrier just as any other spell effect does.

Material Component

A tiny ball of bat guano and sulfur.
​

to be obnoxious, tedious, and to slow the game down without adding any relevant detail. I need to read the above three paragraph description at least twice to make sure I'm not missing anything.

When the rubber meets the road I just want to be able to glance at the mechanics and read:

Fireball: Level 3 Evocation
You point your finger and a red-gold pea-sized bead of elemental fire shoots out from it, exploding on impact
1 Standard Action.
Range: Long
Area: 20 foot radius Burst (or volume: however many cubic feet)
Target: Everything in burst
Effect: Level*d6 fire damage (max 10d6), reflex save for half.
​

That takes me maybe ten seconds to read, and contains enough material to cover at least 95% of all uses of fireball. The V,S,M parts are implied once we're on spell component pouches - the unusual spells are those that don't have verbal and somatic components. And likewise spell resistance - spells that don't allow spell resistance should need highlighting.

So what's missing? No pressure or force? No keywords for thunder or force. That you can set things on fire or melt metals with low melting points? Fire keyword. (Actually you really shouldn't be able to melt things with a low melting point but that's another story). Feeding the fireball through a small gap? Pea sized bead, explodes on impact. The DM has enough information to make that rules call.

Oh, yes. There's one thing we're actually missing. Bat guano and sulphur. My 4e style spell description didn't include the bat guano or the sulphur.

The designer hasn't omited the details. They are right there, implicit in the text. Literally the only details not implicit in the 4e style statblock are the bat guano and sulphur. The details just aren't painted flourescent orange and getting in the way of me getting on with the interesting parts.

 

[keterys]

Per the rules of keywords, psychic is the damage and fear is the push.

Forced movement is how they chose to handle unwilling movement. It has some flaws, but so does forcing a creature to take move actions on its turn. I've seen several 3e games get more than a little silly after a cone "Frighten"s people for 1d4 rounds.

Much like hit points, initiative, defenses & saves... almost every game decision has a mixture of benefits and penalties for modeling the game world effectively and enjoyably.

 

[The Shadow]

I have to say that I find this thread more and more confusing the more I read of it. There doesn't seem to be any agreed-upon definition of what 'dissociated' actually means.

So I went back and read the Alexandrian's actual article on the subject. And I found it rather enlightening, even if I don't fully agree with him. (This article also helped me.)

According to him, a dissociated mechanic is one in which the player's decision to do something doesn't map onto the character's decision to do something. He gives the example of a football player with an ability called One-Handed Catch, which he can use once per game. The player is not aware that he can only make a one-handed catch once in a game, the player is. He contrasts this with a Vancian wizard casting a Fireball; the wizard does know how many times he can cast the Fireball.

He also states quite clearly that dissociated mechanics are not necessarily bad; they are sometimes necessary (he mentions character creation and many rules for the GM), sometimes helpful, and sometimes fun. He just thinks there is always a tradeoff involved, that such mechanics take one out of playing a role.

From this definition, a "dissociated mechanic" is NOT:

1) A mechanic lacking a Just-So story explaining what such an ability consists of in the game world. There is no such Just-So story for memorizing a Fireball, after all, it basically comes down to, "This is the way magic works, run with it."

2) A clunky or badly-designed or inelegant mechanic. It may be some or all of those things, but then again it may not.

3) A mechanic that threatens suspension of disbelief. Though it bears some superficial resemblance to the definition above, it does not match up, because threatening suspension of disbelief is a matter of taste and of familiarity, while in principle the Alexandrian's definition is not.

I mean, in terms of Just-So stories and suspension of disbelief, surely saving throws as they were known before 4e are incredibly dissociated? 3e gave them a bit of a fig leaf by categorizing them as Fortitude, Reflex, and Will, but still it's seldom clear what my character is *doing* when I roll a save. So why don't we notice this? I submit that it's because we're so used to them, and nothing else. (Ironically, 4e defenses seem more 'associated' in this sense than previous editions' saving throws!)

But in the Alexandrian's definition, there is no problem with saves, because they are involuntary; neither the player nor the character has any choice in making them. Or if the player does opt to forego the save, that just means the character is making no attempt to resist. (Though again, it's seldom clear just what this looks like.)

For myself, I think the Alexandrian takes too narrow a view of 'playing a role'. It's a larger concept, so far as I can see, than simply being immersed in a character; speaking as someone who has done some acting, it also certainly includes portraying a character while also watching yourself do so objectively; and it includes considering the audience's reaction. The actor makes all sorts of decisions that the character he's portraying does not. Now, with experience, no doubt these decisions become more and more instinctive - but that doesn't mean they don't get made.

I also think he gives Vancian magic way too easy a pass in terms of association and suspension of disbelief. He himself explicitly says that (of course) one's character doesn't know how many d6's of damage go into a Fireball, but that he does know that more skilled characters make hotter flames that hurt more. I would ask in the same spirit, do mages in the fantasy world *really* know that they can only cast X 1st level spells in a day? Or is that just a convenient shorthand model, the same way as saying a given Fireball is 8d6? Presumably not, since in the fiction, the mage has to actually memorize each spell... But this is a perilously thin fig leaf, in my considered opinion. It's all too convenient, let's put it that way. (As Xykon put it, "It turns out everything is oddly balanced. Weird, but true.")

(It's especially weird that he says that characters wouldn't know about caster levels any more than d6's... but if they do know how many spells they and others cast in a day, why wouldn't they?)

No doubt the Alexandrian would rebut that I, as a dyed-in-the-wool narrativist player, am exactly the sort of person least able to see the problem with dissociated mechanics. That's certainly convenient for him. I will concede that there may be a type of extremely immersive play for which dissociated mechanics are a problem; I just deny that such play (and I'm pretty darn immersive myself, as readers of my Story Hours know) is the only type that really 'counts' as roleplaying.