In Defense of the Theory of Dissociated Mechanics

[pemerton]

My issue is with the basic description of the power. In this example, without the flavor text, the "content" of the power is that it does extra damage, and that it is based on a melee attack with a weapon. There is no "you strike with greater force" or "greater precision" or "you cause the opponent to strain themself" or whatever. The attack simply does more damage, with not much hint of an explanation.

Fair enough. At my table, the fact that it's called "Brute Strike", and a daily, has been suggestive enough - it's the fighter giving it his/her all to try and finish off a foe. And that's how it tends to play, which reinforces the flavour.

 

[Hussar]

But doesn't rolling a d4 have an upper limit of 4 rnds (as in you will never take longer than 4 rounds to recharge)... while none of these mechanics have the same uppper limit?

Exploding dice are a fantastically fun mechanic. You should try it sometime.

But, be that as it may, what does having an upper limit have to do with anything?

 

[pemerton]

A power no one has mentioned yet: the paladin at-will Valiant Strike, which is a standard melee attack but with a +1 bonus to hit per adjacent enemy.

Presumably this is also "dissociated" - there is no ingame explanation for the bonus - it is a metagame mechanic which produces results that live up to the name "valiant strike" ie a paladin who has this power will end up being valiant, because rising to the challenge when surrounded by many foes.

A feat with a similar characteristic is Against All Odds, which grants a bonus to hit and damage when adjacent to three or more enemies.

(And these both resemble Beseiged Foe - again, the use of the power will produce the result that the foe is beseiged by the War Devil's allies.)

Did 3E have any feats like this? Does making them at-will rather than daily make them more tolerablem to those who dislike metagame mechanics?

 

[Beginning of the End]

My big question is: how does this work with negative mechanics? The fact that one cannot trade precision for power in a melee attack without the proper Feat - Power Attack - in 3E is the example I'm thinking about. It seems to me that, in that case, there are meaningful mechanical decisions that have no association with the decisions made by the character - assuming the character wants to trade precision for power yet does not possess the Power Attack Feat.

I would argue what you have there is an arguably odd abstraction.

Let's momentarily simplify the situation by removing Power Attack for the equation. Imagine the feat doesn't exist. What you're left is a game system that doesn't include a mechanical model for trading precision for power. That doesn't mean that your character can't choose to do that; it just means that the choice isn't mechanically relevant (it's been lost in the abstraction of the system).

If we add Power Attack back into this hypothetical system, does anything change? Nope. The system is basically saying, "The decision to trade precision for power is only mechanically relevant if you've had special training for it."

I can see why that particular abstraction would potentially feel strange to some people. (And Justin would probably agree with them. We play with house rules which unify the mechanics for Power Attack and Combat Expertise by giving Combat Expertise the same BAB cap as Power Attack. They also offer a non-trained option of both abilities which basically builds on the rules for fighting defensively.)

I'm not ruling out the possibility of a system being dissociated by the absence of some mechanic. But I wouldn't characterize this particular oddity as a dissociation. It's still a matter of game world information not being available in the mechanics; not mechanical information being unavailable to the game world.

With hit points, it seems to me that there is information available to the player - eg I will die if I take one more hit, or I can jump over that 200' cliff and survive, or There's no way a single blow of that sword can kill me - that is manifestly not available to the PC.

Quite possibly. As the original essay stated, all mechanics both abstracted and metagamed (emphasis added). The example given in the essay are players knowing that fireballs do (d6 x level) damage whereas characters have no idea what d6s are. The exact numerical representation of hit points or Strength or the DC of an Open Lock check would all be similar examples.

I believe some versions of 3E (eg Eberron) use such a mechanic.

I don't think I've ever seen anyone claim that dissociated mechanics were wholly absent from pre-4E versions of D&D. But differences in degree are not irrelevant. If someone says, "I don't really like eating salt-licks." Replying with, "Ah-ha! I saw you put salt on your mashed potatoes last night!" doesn't really have any relevance.

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

Nope. Pretty much every single thing you wrote there was incorrect. You're still confusing abstraction and dissociation.

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.

Everything you say there is true.

But the reason the mechanic is dissociated is because the player making the decision that "this is the moment where everything has lined up to make this happen" is the equivalent of Baptiste saying in the huddle, "Okay, on this play I'm going to leap backwards, catch the ball one-handed, and then do a reverse somersault." And begin right every single time he chooses to say that (but he can only say it once per day).

 

[Hussar]

On a side note, I find it interesting that 4e is basically screwed either way it goes.

One of the big criticisms of 4e was spamming attacks. Players doing the same thing over and over and over again, combat after combat.

But now, the criticism is that 4e doesn't let you spam attacks over and over again and it should.

Which is it? Is it better to allow characters to pick one or two tactics (core tripper for example) and do the same thing over and over and over again, or is it better to have mechanics in place that will let you trip something, but, not all the time, thus forcing characters to choose other tactics as the combat unfolds?

Me? I much prefer 4e's very mobile combat. Every combat unfolds differently since every character interacts with every other character's abilities differently every time. Even at very low levels, each character has about six or so different options in any given round. And those options generally synergise with other character's options.

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But, on to the whole "dissacciated mechanics" thing. For what it's worth, I think the basic mistake being made here is the assumption that there must be one and only one explanation for every single effect and that explanation must be pre-set. This is mostly how 3e worked. If you wanted to do something, you had to choose from effects that were pre-defined.

Now, you can certainly change those definitions. But, now you're into disassociated mechanics territory. If the in-game justification for X can be modified to fit whatever situation, then that mechanic is now associated with every situation into which it can be fit.

I had a discussion a while ago on these boards about my 4e rogue/cleric tapping a lock with his holy symbol and making the lock spring open. I have no problems doing that with 4e mechanics because there are no associated in game explanations for how the Open Lock skill works. Open Lock, in the PHB simply says, "Make a thievery check to pick a lock". That's it. I don't need tools, I don't have any other in game justifications.

Now, some people strongly dislike this. They want Open Lock to work one way and one way only - you need Thieves Tools (3e and earlier) to open a lock. No Thieves Tools (whether regular or crafted on the spot) and you can't open the lock. Now, if I CAN open the lock in 3e by tapping it with my holy symbol, then you have to ignore the text of the 3e Open Lock skill. Which means that you have gone into disassociated mechanics territory since there is no real in-game justification for how I can open the lock by tapping it with my holy symbol and rolling an Open Locks check.

The thing is, DM's do this all the time. Situations come up all the time and we modify existing rules to fit. But, if that's what you're doing, then the mechanics are no longer simply associated with whatever the original association was. Save Vs Petrification is used to jump a pit. Why? Because the number is just about right for a DC. It has no association in the game whatsoever.

But, we do it all the time.

Pemerton is spot on when he says that the primary difference between 4e and earlier editions isn't the existence of disassociated mechanics, it's that 4e embraces their use.

 

[Greg K]

Here's a puzzler -

The most simulationist mechanic in Mutants & Masterminds, hero points, is dissociative.

It's highly abstract, a hero point can be spent to achieve a wide variety of effects. Some of those effects, such as the example in the text of just the right chemicals to create a defoliant happening to be found in a lab, are dissociative in the sense of the player controlling aspects of the world that the character cannot..

Has this changed between 2e and 3e? In 2e, altering the enviornment is not a default use for hero points. It is an option given to GMs for expanding inspiration. By default, inspiration allows the player to spend a hero point 1/session to gain a clue or insight. In 2e, the quote about altering the environment as follows:

"Gamemasters may even wish to expand the 'inspiration' facet of hero points to allow the players greater control over the environment of the game, effectively allowing them to edit a scene to grant their heroes an advantage."

 

[FireLance]

Umm, I would point out that the 1d4 rounds is edition specific. 2e dragons could breathe every round IIRC. Or was it every 3 rounds? Anyway, the "rest between breaths" doesn't even work in your definition since I could roll a 1 and breathe the very next round.

I do recall that dragons used to be able to breathe three times per day, but that could have been Basic or 1E. And dragon breath also dealt damage equal to the dragon's current hit points, which kindasorta made sense, although it was one of the few types of attacks which varied in effectiveness in this manner. (One other, interestingly enough, was the damage dealt by dragonlances in the eponymous setting. A footman's lance dealt damage equal to the current hit points of the wielder, while a mounted lance dealt damage equal to the combined current hit points of the wielder AND the dragon that he was riding.)

 

[LostSoul]

I would argue what you have there is an arguably odd abstraction.

Let's momentarily simplify the situation by removing Power Attack for the equation. Imagine the feat doesn't exist. What you're left is a game system that doesn't include a mechanical model for trading precision for power. That doesn't mean that your character can't choose to do that; it just means that the choice isn't mechanically relevant (it's been lost in the abstraction of the system).

If we add Power Attack back into this hypothetical system, does anything change? Nope. The system is basically saying, "The decision to trade precision for power is only mechanically relevant if you've had special training for it."

Ah, okay, that makes sense. Thanks! This has been an interesting discussion. I have to admit, the idea of dissociation never really occurred to me before.

 

[billd91]

Here's a puzzler -

The most simulationist mechanic in Mutants & Masterminds, hero points, is dissociative.

It's highly abstract, a hero point can be spent to achieve a wide variety of effects. Some of those effects, such as the example in the text of just the right chemicals to create a defoliant happening to be found in a lab, are dissociative in the sense of the player controlling aspects of the world that the character cannot. And yet hero points simulate one aspect of the fiction very well - a superhero gaining a new superpower for one scene, to get the character out of a jam, then forgetting he has that power for the rest of his career.

However innerdude, the OP, has it that dissociated mechanics are not simulationist. I think the issue here is that there is a big difference between fiction sim and real world sim. In fiction the characters must be 'genre blind'. The protagonists in horror must not know that going down to the cellar alone, or having sex, is a terrible idea (unless it's Scream). Superheroes can't know that soliloquoy takes no time, or that their universe is full of continuity errors (unless it's Ambush Bug). And yet the audience know all these things. Mechanics that support such aspects of the fiction must be dissociated, the characters can't know about them.

I guess my rejoinder to this is... so what? And I think that would be the general response of someone who has read and agrees with the Alexandrian article as well. Hero points in M&M are an application of a dissociative mechanic that fits the bill for an acceptable trade-off between pulling the player out of the PC's perspective in order to achieve a desired narrative result (like the improbable sorts of coincidences and outcomes that litter the superhero genre).

The blog post isn't opposed to dissociative mechanics in general - rather ones that aren't worth the trade-off. Is the trade-off of bringing the player out of the PC perspective every time you use a dissociative mechanic worth the results? What result is the dissociative mechanic in question attempting to achieve?

 

[JamesonCourage]

I don't think the "dragon's breath in 1d4 rounds" is necessarily dissociative. If there is a reason, in-game, then it's not. Is it supernatural? In 3.X, dragon's breath is. Is it because their glands need time to build up that much material? The dragonomicon goes into this, I believe.

An ankheg can only spit acid once every 6 hours. Why? "30-ft. line, once every 6 hours; damage 4d4 acid, Reflex DC 14 half. One such attack depletes the ankheg’s acid supply for 6 hours. It cannot spit acid or deal acid damage during this time. The save DC is Constitution-based." The ankheg has an in-game reason that people can learn, explore, observe.

Why does the rogue only get to use his ability 1/day? If it's just narrative control, than it is dissociative. If there's some in-game reason that can be learnt, explored, or otherwise observed, than it isn't dissociative.

As far as I can tell, anyways. As always, play what you like