Why have dissociated mechanics returned?

[pemerton]

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.

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

I've played a lot of Rolemaster, which has an action declaration phase and (more-or-less, depending on which variant initiative system is being used) continuous action. It tries to cope with the reactive dimension by permitting "press and attack" as one of the declared options.

The system still produces oddities, though, which don't correspond to anything in the gameworld. For example, moving causes a penalty to attack and/or parry. So, depending on how initiative falls, one or the other character may be the one who bears the greater burden for the movement required for the two to close (because you can't exploit the headstart your initiative gives you unless you close to melee range - the system doesn't easily support charging quickstrike duels like that in the Seven Samurai). Also, because the allocation of weapon skill between attack and parry happens as part of the declaration, depending how declared movement works out relative to the distances involved can mean that a player does or doesn't get a chance to declare a new attack/parry split in response to an enemy closing on his/her PC.

My players referred to this sort of thing as being "initiative purged".

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.

This is why I like 4e's high number of out-of-turn actions: they cost handling time, but they reduce (but don't completely eliminate) the sort of absurdity that you describe here.

(I liked your other examples too, but can't XP you at this time.)

It's a small headscratcher, yes, but only a small one.

Well, for some of us it's more than a small headscratcher. It can be a serious issue for verisimilitude, and hence for immersion.

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.

<snip>

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.

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.

You make it sound as if I, the player, am making decisions that draw on a different pool of information from what my PC drew upon, and which don't correspond to the decisions that my PC actually made on the basis of that different pool of information.

I though that that was meant to be the very definition of "dissociation"!

After all, that's just what happens with a martial encounter power: I, the player, decide to use the power now, based on one pool of information (say, that now would be a tactically sound time to get to attack with a close burst); while my PC makes a decision based on a different pool of information to which I, the player, am not privy (say, noticing an opportunity and deciding to exploit it).

 

[Li Shenron]

the halfling could simply use:

Disengage Action
When you disengage, you move up to 10 feet.
During this movement, you can leave any hostile creature reach without provoking an Opportunity Attack from it.

(How to play, page 10)

Yes I remember this, but it's just 10 feet, barely enough to get to the other side of a medium creature. I think it might be useful in a corner case (also literally!), e.g. to reach something on the other side, including possibly an escape route from the battle.

When I first read the ability description, the first thing that came to my mind was a cool scene of a halfling passing under the legs of an orc and "emerging" on the other side of it to strike from behind. Unfortunately, without facing rules it won't hardly make a difference.

 

[Li Shenron]

Now when people say this is nit-picky or this is a stupid discussion about realism in an unrealistic fantasy game it makes me a little sad as I feel I wasn't able to bring my point across...

I believe that this is one direction of game design that may not look so bad in the beginning, even not after some time has passed and you've been happily playing with the rules. But at some point, this separation of mechanics and the character's actions will lead to a general drift away from immersion with the events of the game. And at that point an RPG loses what makes it so special.

I share your feelings... I want immersion too!

I also have to admit however that on the other hand associated mechanics might have one problem: some groups might be more immersive than I want and start arguing about how descriptive details of the current situation can affect the rule (usually to their advantage), if such rule is strongly associated to an in-game explanation.

 

[Sir Robilar]

It's quite common for discussions about dissociated mechanics that posters show up to explain why each and every criticized mechanic is realistic and in some way an adequate translation of some element of the game world. But - sometimes - that is the "you can explain everything" fallacy and sort of misses the point.

Yes. Gnolls are stereotypical pack animals - that is, savage in packs and cowards alone.

This would be a good description for the Gnoll's tactics section so DMs can play them adequately. But the mechanic as written doesn't capture (and doesn't even try to capture) the creature's savage nature. Instead it gives the creature a specific advantage in a combat situation and slaps the "Savage" tag onto it. The trait is a tactical mechanic for a creature in a tactical combat situation and was clearly designed from this point of view. Now this is a suitable design approach for a tactical combat game, but some may say it's problematic in a role-playing game.

Outside of the specific situation's that the trait was made for, it doesn't make much sense in the game world. And this is often a problem with dissociated mechanics. They are cool as long as you use them how they are intended. But since they are not the best representation of something that is actually happening in the world, but just the best representation when looking at something in a special way (usually combat) they break apart when you put them into another context. A bad example: A lone Gnoll controlled with a Dominate Spell should be able to attack with all it's might when commanded to do so by the Wizard, but this trait would disallow it.

In my opinion a flexible core system for 5E should carefully exclude dissociated mechanics since a role-playing game's core needs all the flexibility it can get. Or to put it differently, if dissociated mechanics rub some people the wrong way (and they seem to do this especially with many players of old editions) the designers should rethink their addition to the Core and maybe instead add them in a rules module later if there is demand.

 

[Sir Robilar]

I also have to admit however that on the other hand associated mechanics might have one problem: some groups might be more immersive than I want and start arguing about how descriptive details of the current situation can affect the rule (usually to their advantage), if such rule is strongly associated to an in-game explanation.

Hmmm, interesting. Could you give an example? If this is something opportunistic players will do I bet I've already encountered it with my players. They'd do everything they can to bend the rules in their favor...

 

[slobo777]

Hmmm, interesting. Could you give an example? If this is something opportunistic players will do I bet I've already encountered it with my players. They'd do everything they can to bend the rules in their favor...

Edit: Sorry, was responding to the general sentiment and enclosed quotes, and noted I don't have an example. I do generally dislike players wanting bonuses to rolls just because they've said or argued something they think is relevant. If nothing else, it can de-rail the game into long passages of "Persuade the DM" (the flip-side to "Mother may I?"). I personally believe bonuses to rolls should come from spending game resources or taking risks in the game side. Although I play that looser with the cross-over skills that include RP/persuasion such as Diplomacy and Intimidate.

With techie education, and with many years in technically-involved jobs, my group tend to find playing gamist and non-simulationist is faster and more involving than the very weak simulations provided by any playable RPG. That's because simulationist play gets us dragged down into needless detail, which ends up being mechanics-focussed and less immersive than if we'd skipped the details.

You hit the gamist limits in 3E pretty much immediately you want to do something not explicitly documented, or in simple things such as having to take turns or metagame options around hit points. The options are to extend the simulation to some kind of acceptable depth (perhaps with a quick patch and ruling), or say "hey, it's a game" and roll the dice.

After many years of trying to extend the depth of simulationist play (including with my own house rules, and game systems based round RuneQuest), I have to say it's very freeing to just roll the dice and tell a good yarn. I don't think we've lost any immersion.

 

[pemerton]

This would be a good description for the Gnoll's tactics section so DMs can play them adequately. But the mechanic as written doesn't capture (and doesn't even try to capture) the creature's savage nature.

<snip>

Outside of the specific situation's that the trait was made for, it doesn't make much sense in the game world.

<snip>

A bad example: A lone Gnoll controlled with a Dominate Spell should be able to attack with all it's might when commanded to do so by the Wizard, but this trait would disallow it.

That's a pretty corner case. Apart from anything else, how to we know that a Dominate spell can get a pack animal (or a person, for that matter) to be as solitarily savage as s/he would be in a pack (or a mob)? But if we accept that as given, it seems like a GM who was bothered by this issue could easily rule that the savage gnoll gets the bonus to damage.

The obvious alternative becomes one in which pack animals, including gnolls, are no more dangerous in a pack than any other two animals (say, two giant spiders). Which, in my view, does more harm to verisimilitude and immersion than the Dominate spell being unable to produce the same frenzy in a gnoll that an actual pack of its fellows does.

A comparison can be drawn with 1st ed AD&D. In the AD&D Monster Manual, various monsters - including dragons - got bonuses to attack and/or damage when defending their young. There was no rule to explain how this interacted with illusions of their young being threatened, or the use of telepathy or dominate - it was assumed that the GM could handle such corner cases. Given its overall vibe, I would expect D&Dnext to take a similar approach, of leaving corner cases to be resolved by GM adjudication - while trying to make sure that the consequences of that adjudication are not going to be too extreme one way or another. A dominated gnoll gaining +4 to damage at your table but not mine probably isn't going to break the game.

 

[rounser]

Nm.

 

[underfoot007ct]

I don't mind that people like or dislike dissociative mechanics. What I hate is the disrespect shown to those of us that do not like them. I can't stand the fluff mechanics disconnect. I don't care if others want them. Of course in a game I care about like D&D, I am going to give my opinion if asked. The playtest is them asking us what we like. I say what I like.

Yes, disrespect is rude, we ALL need to be tolerant of ALL play-styles.

So let me suggest if you want to be taken as anything other than a jerk no nothing, ease up on the condescension. It's valid and fun for many people to play without dissociative mechanics. The opposite is also true. Since D&D has traditionally avoided dissociative mechanics, it's understandable that pre-4e people advocate for a return to that philosophy. It's because we grew up with that philosophy.

Let me ask just what "pre-4e" people means? I myself have played 1e(years), 2e(not so much), 3.0e, 3.5e (tons), now 4e. I have no interest in avoiding dissociative mechanics yet I played long before 4e was even a dream. I also don't want to take anything from whatever play-style you prefer. So is it only 4e that has dissociative mechanics? No other editions?

 

[underfoot007ct]

I share your feelings... I want immersion too!

I also have to admit however that on the other hand associated mechanics might have one problem: some groups might be more immersive than I want and start arguing about how descriptive details of the current situation can affect the rule (usually to their advantage), if such rule is strongly associated to an in-game explanation.

"Immersive" & "immersion" are buzz words that puzzle me a bit. Can someone supply a working definition of these. I want to get a better understanding on just people mean with these terms.