In Defense of the Theory of Dissociated Mechanics

[Bagpuss]

He gives several examples in the essay, so I don't want to repeat them here, but his presentation of the premise is fairly ironclad--if you create a rule and the characters have no reasonable explanation for how and why it "works" inside the game world, the mechanic is dissociated.

Problem is his examples aren't ironclad.

His first example is... Trick Strike (Rogue Attack 1) which he has a problem with just because it is a daily.

The problem is that this is a Daily power -- which means it can only be used once per day by the rogue.

Huh? Why is Robin Hood losing his skill with the bow after using his skill with the bow? Since when did a swashbuckler have a limited number of feints that they can perform in a day?

There's a fundamental disconnect between what the mechanics are supposed to be modeling (the rogue's skill with a blade or a bow) and what the mechanics are actually doing.

If you're watching a football game, for example, and a player makes an amazing one-handed catch, you don't think to yourself: "Wow, they won't be able to do that again until tomorrow!"

Thing is when you see something like this...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhN0OZA3aIs]YouTube - ‪Best Catch Ever?! - Morgan State Player Makes Unreal Catch!‬‏[/ame]

You think exactly that. First because the set up situation isn't likely to occur exactly the same, in that game or even next weeks game, or even in practice. Second, because the wind conditions could easily blow the ball to the left or right, or the defense could have caught him or any number of situations. There are loads of receivers that drop the ball, in similar situations or aren't even there to try to catch it. The power represents the occasions when everything goes just right and they have the skill, hence it is a daily and not an at will.

Same with Trick Strike, it's not a loss of still from the rogue it's the fact the other variables aren't right. The opponent sees through the feint, or some other event.

The definition of disassociated mechanics is fine, just the application is prejudice by his own dislike of 4E.

You want to talk disassociated mechanics in D&D start by looking at hit points they stand out far worse than any of the powers in 4E and we've had hit points since the beginning and no one seems to mind.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

So if I'm understanding this (clarified) explanation of dissociated powers...

... feinting in melee combat in AD&D is dissociated because it isn't something the player can choose to do. It's assumed their character is doing it --all the time, when they're in the mood, if they got bit by a feinting bug that morning-- but declaring a feint has no effect.

... critical hits in D&D 3e are dissociated, because they're a product of mere probability, modified by weapon type and possibly feat choice and class ability. But not by player choice during live play. A player can declare "I'm shooting for the eyes --or any other vital spot-- but this, again has no effect.

... saving throws are dissociated powers aren't necessarily tied to specific character actions, and the representation of a saving throw in the game fiction is described after the fact. The order of operation is: player makes a saving throw --> die roll is evaluated --> character's action in the fiction is described.

So dissociated mechanics have always been around, right? So can we talk about in a more nuanced way, perhaps discussing why some are good, or at least tolerable, while others get people's dander up?

I don't remember AD&D very well, but at least the other two are not dissociated.


Just because an action is not initiated by a character or player doesn't have any relation to dissociated mechanics.

A critical hit represents the character landing a lucky blow. Just as in the real world, luck can play a part in the pretend world.

A saving throw is a measure of the combination of luck and skill/protections (the d20 roll and the character's save modifier). This is not dissociated because, as in the real world, a faster person might be able to escape a burning building but also might be unlucky enough to be hit by falling firey boards.


In both of these two instances, what is happening in the mechanics is pretty obvious and clear, and is easily described. It doesn't have to be "real world", but it's easiest to show with real world examples.


EDIT: But yes, dissociated mechanics HAVE always been around, these particular examples are not them.

 

[Yesway Jose]

So dissociated mechanics have always been around, right? So can we talk about in a more nuanced way, perhaps discussing why some are good, or at least tolerable, while others get people's dander up?

I thought a good number of posts were kinda doing that.

 

[chaochou]

Here're some definitions of stances:

In Actor stance, a person determines a character's decisions and actions using only knowledge and perceptions that the character would have.

In Author stance, a person determines a character's decisions and actions based on the real person's priorities, then retroactively "motivates" the character to perform them. (Without that second, retroactive step, this is fairly called Pawn stance.)

In Director stance, a person determines aspects of the environment relative to the character in some fashion, entirely separately from the character's knowledge or ability to influence events. Therefore the player has not only determined the character's actions, but the context, timing, and spatial circumstances of those actions, or even features of the world separate from the characters.

​

Sorry, can't XP you at the moment, but I think looking at stances would be helpful.

The most workable definition of 'dissociated mechanic' I can see is:
'A mechanic a given player can not pre-rationalise while in Actor Stance'.

So there are two reasons why a given player might object to a disocciated mechanic:
* because it intrudes on their ability to remain in actor stance
* because they can-not pre-rationalise - meaning the causes are not determined prior to the effect

The TA essay goes on to give examples. TA does not object to dissociated mechanics in Wushu. The reason is because he is playing in director stance and is happy to post-rationalise because it's a workable way to produce cool narrative.

The need to pre-rationalise is a defining factor of a simulationist agenda. The Forge :: Simulationism: The Right to Dream

Resolution mechanics, in Simulationist design, boil down to asking about the cause of what... Two games may be equally Simulationist even if one concerns coping with childhood trauma and the other concerns blasting villains with lightning bolts. What makes them Simulationist is the strict adherence to in-game, pre-established, cause for the outcomes that occur during play.

The TAs constrast between the positive effects of dissociated mechanics (using my definition) in Wushu and negative effects in 4e are a result of approaching Wushu and 4e with different agendas. He abandoned the need for pre-established cause, or for actor stance, in Wushu but imposed them on 4e.

Similarly The argument in TA that post-rationalising events produces 'house rules' - which over time become burdensome - assumes that once I explain a cause after an effect that specific explanation becomes binding as a pre-establised cause of future effects. That argument takes a non-simulationist technique and applies simulationist priorities to it. Wushu fares no better if you do that.

I have no problem with TA wanting to play D&D with a sim agenda, from actor stance. It's his right. But yet again - as I and many others have argued - the problem is not 'the game'. It's the mismatch between the game and the agenda a player brings, as @CrazyJerome brilliantly intuited way back on about page 2 of this thread.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

I think the video catch from Bagpuss as compared to a critical hit points to an important difference as to why invoking a daily might be dissociated while rolling well for a crit is not.

That was an incredibly lucky catch, but one that required a ton of skill (no way I would have been able to make it). I'd liken it more to rolling really high combined with a great attack bonus or athletics/acrobatics roll. In 4e, that catch is like a super high dc along with having maxed out skill and high ability modifier.

Here's the dissociation with calling that a daily. Could he potentially make that same catch later in the same game? Yes. Would he have the same chance to do so? Probably (it is a slim chance, and he'd likely miss....you don't roll a 20 every time). Would it be impossible for him to make that catch again? No. (But if it were a daily representing it, then he, as a character WOULD find it impossible to make that catch again.)

Also, it's not as though he decided "I'm really going to use up some personal resource to make this catch...I'm going to put something on the line, give it my all, and end up worse for wear until I rest up." Perhaps a better representation of a daily would be a football player taking a horrific tackle, getting injured, but because of the risk making a touchdown. Or perhaps we could represent a daily as a baseball player sliding into home on his face. Even these, though, would be better represented in 4e by other things (hp attrition, loss of healing surges, etc), but at least it shows how they couldn't do that all day...even so, unless the injury were debilitating in some way, they'd still be able to do it again, even in the very next play.

That is why Dailies are seen by some to be dissociated. I honestly cannot come up with an example of what they're modelling in the game world that can't be better explained by other rules in that same game world. To be more clear, every explanation of what dailies represent in 4e seems to actually be represented by other things in 4e, at least the way I see them.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Removed

 

[Bagpuss]

I honestly cannot come up with an example of what they're modelling in the game world that can't be better explained by other rules in that same game world.

Okay, I can see where you are coming from calling that a critical, but at least you can see how they might be modeled a different way, even if you feel it requiring a critical is a better way to model it.

Personally I prefer a daily mechanic than a "critical" mechanic to model those events.

Taking the stances mentioned earlier.

A critical mechanic to model rare circumstances, would be in the actor stance.

Where as a daily mechanic would be in the author stance I think.

We know the event is likely to only happen once every four fights or so. A one in 20 chance. The actor stance makes that event random, where as the daily mechanic gives the player control over when that event happens.

In the critical model, while the athlete might be able to make that same catch five minutes later, he might never make it in an entire game or even in a season, because it is completely random.

In the daily model at least I as the player get to pick when the event is important enough to ensure the game winning catch.

The other problem was in 3rd ED it never really was a critical model (1 in 20 chance), it was just a case of rolling against a fixed number.

So if we take the popular example of tripping, there tended to be two options.

1) Don't build a character that focuses on tripping, and if you attempt to trip you will most likely fail, because it is a rare chance of happening. So you never used the trip action, because there was nearly always something better you could do than waste an action failing to trip.

or

2) Build a character based on tripping and exploiting that roll with additional modifiers until in the end completely almost removing the random element. Something that should have been a special occasional event became and every round event.

What I like about 4th Ed is now, I don't have to build a character around tripping to be able to do it when it is dramatically appropriate. And I don't have to put up with characters tripping every single round of combat until it becomes boring.

But yes there is a difference in stance there I suppose.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

I think I agree with everything you said there Bagpuss.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

That is why Dailies are seen by some to be dissociated. I honestly cannot come up with an example of what they're modelling in the game world that can't be better explained by other rules in that same game world. To be more clear, every explanation of what dailies represent in 4e seems to actually be represented by other things in 4e, at least the way I see them.

This is where you hit up against the multiple reasons why Dailies are in the game, and thus to answer that, you have to consider all of those reasons. (I might miss some.)

Pemerton already aluded several times to narrative pacing. Flatly, the whole question of people being comfortable with the relation between the mechanic and the in-game reality is ignored here, with the goal of giving the player a way to impose drama at times of his or her choosing. So there is a sense in which--even if you can stay in actor stance and rationalize a given power--you aren't using them to their full potential unless you deliberately go into author or director stance.

But it doesn't stop there. From a simple handling time perspective, Dailies also serve the purpose of very clearly and sharply handing out this narrative (and gamist) power, in a simple package. This is, in fact, exactly a big reason that Vancian magic was adopted in the first place, per earlier quote by Gygax.

Then there is the balance and aesthetic issue (it is both) of giving martial characters something impressive to do at high levels. Dailies are a way that this can be done.

It it true that from any single perspective, a game could produce simulate the things done by fighter dailies using some other mechanics. Many games have. But when you look at it from a wider perspective, not so much. Name me the options for so simulating, while allowing or even pushing the fighter's player to take temporarily control of the narrative and exert resources to win an encounter, with simple handling time for the player, and giving the fighter the opportunity to exert some of the aesthetic choices from famous fighter characters in fantasy, while neither subordinating the fighter to other characters or overwhelming them either. And feel free to include other parts of "Dailies" that I have probably overlooked. Oh, and whatever you list, it has to work for a version of D&D.

That's a tall order. It is such a tall order, that some people might feel that 4E was an ambitious failure, in that it got a little too far from "a version of D&D," and there wasn't a way to meet all that. However, that is a separate criticism, and really ought to be made upfront, if that is the tack someone wants to take.

 

[Yesway Jose]

We know the event is likely to only happen once every four fights or so. A one in 20 chance. The actor stance makes that event random, where as the daily mechanic gives the player control over when that event happens.

In the critical model, while the athlete might be able to make that same catch five minutes later, he might never make it in an entire game or even in a season, because it is completely random.

In the daily model at least I as the player get to pick when the event is important enough to ensure the game winning catch.

Technically, IF a daily is a random event requiring a number of external unpredictable variables to be true, then choosing when that improbable event occurs AND in fact knowing that it's going to happen 1/day is "disassociated".

It's as improbable as a) knowing that lightning will strike every day and b) knowing exactly when to raise your sword so that you can use "Harvest the Lightning Blade".

Furthermore, due to a conflict of interest, it's "disassociated" when the player chooses the improbable event to occur when it is optimal for him/her and not when it is optimally plausible for the fiction.

Continuing my (absurdly exaggerated) example, the player could choose "Harvest the Lightning Blade" to occur during a climactic battle on a clear sunny day, rather than a minor skirmish during a thunderstorm.

I cannot fairly extrapolate much more from this absurd example, other than to theoretically claim that some mechanics can empower player action to be just as "dissassociated" as the way the mechanic reads on paper. Not a criticism per se, just an observation.