D&D 5E You can't necessarily go back

[Emerikol]

My character feels only what I decide he feels. Note: this is an important point.

Well people that like dissociative mechanic games prefer to stay in the author stance and not the actor stance so it makes sense you feel this way. Your character is a piece on the game board. My character is me. It's the difference between 3rd person and 1st person.

What does a PC think when an invisible magic-user fireballs them, ie when the PC in unaware of the attack?

Does the PC think anything? Do they get a saving throw? What does that saving throw represent -- their Spider-sense maybe? What's the association between the player and their character at that point?

Both know the same thing which may not be much. I agree that realistically the saving throw should be penalized. But there is no difference in their thinking.

What does the character know?

That they are lucky.

Dissociated mechanics are a kind of abstraction.

Perhaps an abstraction of the plot. Players are altering the world outside of playing their characters. Lots of people like this approach. I do not.

 

[Emerikol]

Nod. Labeling some abstract mechanic dissociative is as easy as constructing a visualization of it that you don't care for. That's very easy to do with hps, which are very abstract and more than a tad vague. It's just as easy to come up with associative rationales: When your PC is low on hps, he knows he's being overwhelmed, that he can't keep up his defenses much longer. Or "hit points are all meat" (even though each edition has stated clearly they're more than that).

There are categories. Things can be almost impossible to take any way but dissociatively and there are things that can be taken either way. People who don't mind or even embrace dissociative approaches will likely think that way on things not even necessitating it.

For those of us that hate dissociative mechanics we are not going to interpret things dissociatively. So hit points are by no means mandatorily dissociative. But a martial daily by someone without a magical explanation can't really be interpreted any way but dissociatively. And thats all I'm defining as a dissociative mechanic. If something is easy to take either way then its not inherently dissociative even if it is possible to interpret it that way.

 

[Tony Vargas]

There are categories. Things can be almost impossible to take any way but dissociatively and there are things that can be taken either way.

Meh. I haven't seen anything that can only be taken dissociatively, only things people insist on taking that way, while rejecting other interpretations.

I was wondering why it is that this major-seeming bit of game design theory had taken so many decades to be articulated, and it finally struck me: it hadn't. It's just looking at meta-gaming from a different angle. Meta-gaming is a familiar concept, something that can happen in any game: players who make decisions based on player knowledge rather than in-character knowledge can be said to be meta-gaming. A sub-set of that is making decisions based on knowledge of the game /rules/ as opposed to based on what those rules try to (but can never perfectly) model. Games that are abstract or 'unrealistic' (or imbalance or inconsistent, for that matter) make meta-gaming more of a temptation because the gap between what the rules do and what they try to model can be pretty wide. But it's always a player choice.

For those of us that hate dissociative mechanics we are not going to interpret things dissociatively.

Funny, you seem determined enough to do so...

But a martial daily by someone without a magical explanation can't really be interpreted any way but dissociatively. And thats all I'm defining as a dissociative mechanic.

A martial encounter could be explained as a 'trick' that you can't pull off in the same encounter because everyone's wise to it. A martial daily could be explained as a more elaborate one that requires set-up, risk-taking, and effort that you're lucky to pull off once. While martial powers aren't magical in the sense of having such a keyword, they are super-human and could have a mystical explanation, if you're more comfortable with such things. A martial character could perform meditation and centering exercises at the start of the day to prepare him for those few moments when he feels he must push beyond human limits. Each such move, manuever, trick, kata or whatever you want to call it is a one-time all-out effort. If it succeeds it's a relief, it fails it's a blow to your confidence, either way, you're not going to be able to attempt it again until you've restored that mystic sense of balance and awareness you attain with your daily training and meditation.

Nothing in the way martial powers work, mechanically, nor even the way they're presented (super-human, but not super-natural) prevent such rationales.

 

[Lanefan]

You forgot the Third and Forth types;

Those who purchased 4e PHB only then to return it, (or give away as a gift) then falsely claiming they gave 4e a FAIR trail.

Those who only browsed the 4e books at the store, then decided they hate 4e without ever making ANY effort to try 4e.

I guess I'm a Fifth type, who followed 4e design before release, bought the first round of books and read them over pretty thoroughly, and has since run several 4e adventures (but not using the 4e system); and has long ago concluded that while excellent for a convention or one-off game it ain't the 10-year-campaign game for me.

Your character is a piece on the game board. My character is me. It's the difference between 3rd person and 1st person.

Pretty much sums me up as well, most of the time.

Lanefan

 

[pemerton]

Well people that like dissociative mechanic games prefer to stay in the author stance and not the actor stance so it makes sense you feel this way.

You post these things as if they're not controversial. Yet in the "With Respect to the Door" thread I gave examples of so-called "dissociative" mechanics facilitating immersion in character.

Here is is again, in case you missed it the first time:

Rolemaster, classic Runequest and classic Traveller are the most process games I know, and are very frequently played in author stance: players make choices for their PCs because the player thinks it would be a cool or worthwhile thing to have the PC do whatever is chosen; and then retroactively narrates the appropriate motivation on the PC's part.

Agreeing to join the party would be just one example of this (given that all 3 RPGs are generally intended to be used in a party-based style).

Conversely, orthodox 2nd ed AD&D seems aimed at actor-stance play (immerse yourself in character and make decisions from that point of view) even though it has very many non-process mechanics: saving throws; XP and levels; hit points; 1 minute attack rounds; etc.

<snip>

My agenda, in participating in this discussion of metagame mechanics and stances, is not to deny the obvious features of 4e. Rather, it is to contest a view expressed by some posters (not innerdude) that, because they find certain mechanics jarring or disruptive of immersion, others must likewise; or that those who don't mind them must therefore be playing in some shallow or superficial ("boardgame", "beer and pretzels") fashion.

This is why I brought up the paladin-polymorph example in the earlier thread, and restated it in this thread.

That example shows a player, in the course of playing his PC in the first person, casually slipping into the director stance permitted by the metagame duration mechanic and bringing the gameworld into conformity with the religious convictions possessed by his PC. He did not lose immersion, or cease to inhabit his PC: in fact, the player's declaration, in character, that the gameworld was as his PC's religious conviction dictated that it must be reinforced immersion and inhabitation of the PC. And the mechanics of the game did not present any obstacle to this expression, by the player, of the PC's character. Rather, they permitted it in a way that process mechanics would not have.

I don't want to head too far towards territory that the board rules forbid, but I'm not 100% sure how you could have a more immersive experience of playing a PC with religious conviction if you lacked the director stance powers that this player exercised, and therefore were always hostage - in professing your PC's faith - to the possibility that the GM sees the gameworld differently.

Of course, this alternative set up for play could facilitate the playing of religous doubt: I've played PCs in such a fashion, exploiting my lack of director stance powers, as a player, to help reinforce my in character doubts about the reality of divine providence

I want to develop this thought via a hypothetical example: the player of a religious PC, who rolls a natural 20 on an attack or check, in a game that permits director stance around metagame mechanics can always narrate that good fortune as divine providence, and the mechanics will not prohibit that or tell him/her that the PC's faith and conviction are in fact mistaken. Whereas a game that treats the d20 roll as some sort of process simulation, and that prohibits director-stance declarations by players, seems to mean that any time a PC forms the view that good luck (as mechanically achieved via the player's lucky die roll) is a gift from the gods is in fact mistaken - deluded even - because the good luck was simply a function of the ingame causal process, in which no god was a participant, modelled or abstracted by the d20 roll.

How can you immerse in a religious PC when the mechanics you are using for every PC action tell you (on a process-simulation interpretation) that the world is a godless causal system dictated by cold Lovecraftian logic plus mere chance? (When I played my religious doubt PC, it was ambiguous whether the dice were a process mechanic or not - hence the room for doubt between confident director-stance divine providence, and unarguable process-simulation lifeless causality.)​

Your play exeprience are what they are, but I don't know why you feel they generalise to any significant degree any more than mine (or others') do.

 

[triqui]

There are categories. Things can be almost impossible to take any way but dissociatively and there are things that can be taken either way. People who don't mind or even embrace dissociative approaches will likely think that way on things not even necessitating it.

Health could be expressed in a non-dissociative way. You could use Injury levels and Wound penalties, for example. It's just that D&D has chosed not to.

For those of us that hate dissociative mechanics we are not going to interpret things dissociatively. So hit points are by no means mandatorily dissociative. But a martial daily by someone without a magical explanation can't really be interpreted any way but dissociatively. And thats all I'm defining as a dissociative mechanic. If something is easy to take either way then its not inherently dissociative even if it is possible to interpret it that way.

That's enterely cool, and completely true. But it's like ignoring the gorilla in the room, your brain *decides* that kind of dissociative rule is "fair enough" to live with it, and so, you choose to ignore it, to blind yourself to it, so you can keep playing. When the rule becomes so glaringly dissociative that your brain can no longer ignore it through selective perception, you rule it out with a house rule. For example, if the player decides to jump from a tower, just because he (the player) knows the character will survive, you houserule the falling damage and kill him outright. Or if the player is tied to a pole and shot with a volley of crossbow bolts from a firing squad or if the player starts to bet 1000 gold in a russian roulette, because he (the player) knows 1d6 from a revolver won't kill him (the character), ever. Even if the PC thinks otherwise.

Your brain choses to ignore *some* dissociative mechanics, those that you can live with. Other people (like those who like 4e) do the same. It's just that the bar of "what mechanics I can live with" is higher for them. And sure, 4e is much more dissociative than 3e, by far. That does not mean 3e does not have a gorilla in the room, that people choses to ignore.

 

[Lurks-no-More]

I'm once again struck by how immensely conservative, in the non-political sense, a lot of D&D players are. We are all too ready to dismiss new things out of hand, or deny even the possibility that entire fields of creative endeavor (like video game industry) could have something to offer.

Considering this whole hobby is built around using our imaginations and exploring places and situations we don't have in the reality, this hostility to unfamiliar, new things is baffling and a bit alarming.

 

[billd91]

Health could be expressed in a non-dissociative way. You could use Injury levels and Wound penalties, for example. It's just that D&D has chosed not to.

There's a problem with this, though, by the same arguments saying hit points are dissociative. The player will know how the wounds accumulate, how they are delivered, and how they interact. So, again, the player knows what the PC can survive and can't survive as much as with hit points. The terminology is less abstract as hit points, but if hit points are dissociative then any wound system in which the player knows the PC's status and proximity to death is similarly dissociative.

Don't make the mistake of conflating abstract with dissociative.

 

[triqui]

There's a problem with this, though, by the same arguments saying hit points are dissociative. The player will know how the wounds accumulate, how they are delivered, and how they interact. So, again, the player knows what the PC can survive and can't survive as much as with hit points. The terminology is less abstract as hit points, but if hit points are dissociative then any wound system in which the player knows the PC's status and proximity to death is similarly dissociative.

Don't make the mistake of conflating abstract with dissociative.

Sure, if a system goes with wounds, or whatever other health system, you are just moving the goal post, so the "bar" for dissociative mechanic is raised or lowered, and thus, the kind of people who get satisfied or not by it changes. That does not mean it does not have dissociation too.

However, that dissociative mechanic is lessened (or not) depending on how you construct it. A game where you, as a player, don't really know if you are going to die in the next hit (like Rolemaster and its Critics Tables) put you in the same level than your character. You *think* you can survive falling from a tower, but you are not *sure* about it. A D&D character can make a living by playing Russian Roulette, as the player knows he'll never die. A Rolemaster player isn't sure about it. Same goes with open-ended damage like Legends of the five Rings.

Also, if you have wounding penalties, your character *knows* he is close to die just like you do. It does not really matter if it uses abstract hitpoints or wound levels, the problem is you, as a player, know your PC is close to death, while he, as a character, does not have any reason to think so, because he can run, jump, and fight just fine. It's the player the one who knows it's near to depleting his hit point pool.

EDIT: that's not to knock D&D hit points. I like the mechanic. I'm just pointing out that there are dissociative mechanics in any edition of D&D. The *amount* of dissociative mechanics is what vary, with 4e being the most dissociated one. But some people has taken "dissociative" as a synonim of "bad", so they use it in a derogative fashion, and fail to acknowledge that his favored edition, whatever it is, also have dissociative mechanics. Just that they become blind to it, because of the Selective Perception issue that make our brains not to see the gorilla in the room.

 

[Imaro]

The point remains the same: the player knows that the next hit will disable him/her (or, at high levels, where minimum damage is more than 10, knows that the next hit will kill him/her). Whereas the PC can't know this.

But damage is random... so unless you as a player know exactly what your DM is going to roll or even what die he's rolling for damage(which some/many/most DM's roll behind a screen)... how do you know this for sure as a player? You can make a (sometimes) educated guess... but you don't know for sure.