Why have dissociated mechanics returned?

[FireLance]

Why am I suddenly reminded of the following sketch:

"A disassociated mechanic! We've got a disassociated mechanic!"
"Burn it! Burn!"
"How do you know it is a disassociated mechanic?"
"It looks like one."
"I'm not a disassociated mechanic."
"But there's no clear description of what you actually do."
"I'm an abstraction! There are many ways in which you can tailor the in-game description of events to fit the mechanical effect."
"It knocked a gelatinous cube prone."
"It turned me into a newt."
"A newt?"
"It got retconned."
"Burn it!"

 

[F700]

There is no single game that do not have dissociated rules. You can argue about how *much* is *too much*, but all of them have.

To point one: initiative. The fact a character acts, then freezes for 6 seconds while other guys move and do things he can´t answer to, is dissociative.

Everything is happening simultaneously, so no character is standing around for 36 seconds waiting for the other 5 members and the monster to do their thing.

If you meant he does his thing in the first second of his turn and then waits for everyone else to complete their action - no, whatever any character does fills their entire 6 seconds.

 

[LostSoul]

Everything is happening simultaneously, so no character is standing around for 36 seconds waiting for the other 5 members and the monster to do their thing.

If you meant he does his thing in the first second of his turn and then waits for everyone else to complete their action - no, whatever any character does fills their entire 6 seconds.

The headscratcher comes when you make your decisions for the round. You're reacting to what the other characters have spent their 6 seconds doing. You see what has happened to everyone who goes before you during the round, and you react to that, but somehow you're acting at the same time as they are.

e.g. You're locked in melee combat with a wolf. It decides to withdraw. Before you can make any decisions about what to do next, the wolf is 120 feet away.

I don't think this is dissociated. I think it is absurd. Associated mechanics don't prevent absurdity.

 

[triqui]

Everything is happening simultaneously, so no character is standing around for 36 seconds waiting for the other 5 members and the monster to do their thing.

If you meant he does his thing in the first second of his turn and then waits for everyone else to complete their action - no, whatever any character does fills their entire 6 seconds.

That's how it *should* reads, but it's not how it happens.

Two characters, armed with bows, roll for initiative. Both roll 15, so the one with higher dexterity goes *slightly* faster, just a split of a second. He starts firing, and manage to launch his four arrows (high level, rapid shot, and all that stuff) before the other guy even blinks (he is flatfooted, because he doesn't have dexterity yet until he acts). Once it is his turn, he realizes he will lose in the next volley (he already has 4 arrows stuck in his chest, as all of them where crits, and he couldnt "dodge" or "turn them into mnor blows" as he was flatfooted and denied to use dex or dodge bonuses). So he knows what he has to do:

As free action he shouts "I'm going to cut your bow!". Then he proceeds to move 30', drawing his weapon as part of his movemnt. As his standard action, he sunders the bow. The other guy *would* had retreated, but he couldn't, despise knowing what's going to happen (because of the shout), but it wasn´t his turn, so he couldn´t flee. The player *knows* why this happen (not his turn), but the character does not.

Same goes with, say, a guardian trying to block a corridor. When it's the other guy turn, he can just move diagonally, and run past him, without him being able to block, because it´s not his turn, so he is freezed. He can´t react until end of the other guys turn.

I could give other examples (like the guy who makes a 5' step, then proceed to cast a spell or makes a full round attack with a bow, just 5' away from his target, whiw could beat him with oportunity attacks *if* he could make a 5' step himself. But he can´t. He has to wait until the spell ends (or the last arrow from the volley is shot), before he can move and retaliate.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

You're locked in melee combat with a wolf. It decides to withdraw. Before you can make any decisions about what to do next, the wolf is 120 feet away.

Unless all movement is simultaneous, stuff like that shows up. Some wargames get around this by making players plot their movement.

However, the problem this creates is that there is no reactive movement. Units end up in places they would not in a RW version of the encounter.

 

[Obryn]

Yep, the game sure has gone downhill since the "declare intentions" phase was removed.

-O

 

[Vegepygmy]

The headscratcher comes when you make your decisions for the round. You're reacting to what the other characters have spent their 6 seconds doing.

It's a small headscratcher, yes, but only a small one. You (the player) are indeed reacting to what the other characters have spent their 6 seconds doing, but your character has been acting (not necessarily reacting) during those same 6 seconds.

You see what has happened to everyone who goes before you during the round, and you react to that, but somehow you're acting at the same time as they are.

Yes. You (the player) are reacting, but 'somehow' your character is acting at the same time they are. It's a little counterintuitive, but c'mon...it's not that incomprehensible.

e.g. You're locked in melee combat with a wolf. It decides to withdraw. Before you can make any decisions about what to do next, the wolf is 120 feet away.

You (the player) don't have to decide what your character will do until you see that the wolf has ended its turn 120 feet away, but your character was acting that entire time. Depending on what you (the player) decide, your character was either chasing after the wolf, or moving in some other direction, or taking out his bow and shooting at the wolf, or...whatever.

I really don't see why this is so difficult for some people to grasp.

I don't think this is dissociated. I think it is absurd. Associated mechanics don't prevent absurdity.

It is neither disassociated nor absurd, and in fact has nothing to do with the discussion at hand.

Associated mechanics don't prevent absurdity, that's true, but disassociated mechanics can certainly promote it.

 

[Obryn]

You (the player) don't have to decide what your character will do until you see that the wolf has ended its turn 120 feet away, but your character was acting that entire time. Depending on what you (the player) decide, your character was either chasing after the wolf, or moving in some other direction, or taking out his bow and shooting at the wolf, or...whatever.

I really don't see why this is so difficult for some people to grasp.

So ... in other words, you're taking the results of the game mechanics as a given ... and then building your narrative around it, filling in the blanks to justify what the rules said happened?

I can get behind this idea!

-O

 

[F700]

Simple solution: Remove move and standard actions, go back to having turns upon which everybody either moves or attacks/does whatever.

That way everybody's action jive a little better. And nobody's really losing anything in terms of actions, their 2 actions per turn are just split between two rounds.

 

[LostSoul]

It is neither disassociated nor absurd, and in fact has nothing to do with the discussion at hand.

Associated mechanics don't prevent absurdity, that's true, but disassociated mechanics can certainly promote it.

I think it's absurd but that's a value judgement. It falls within my levels of tolerance, though. I prefer different initiative systems but I can enjoy this one.

I don't know if it's necessarily true that dissociated mechanics promote absurdity. I think they can but they don't have to any more than associated mechanics must. If there is no connection to the game world - the mechanic is dissociated - then you're free to create your own. You can create plausible or absurd fictional results as you like. Well-designed associated mechanics should create the intended fictional results - absurd or not, depending on the design goals.