In Defense of the Theory of Dissociated Mechanics

[pawsplay]

I'm not the biggest fan of "last ditch" and "first hurdle" as terminology - they carry evaluations that I don't really share - but putting the evaluation to one side, I agree. 4e's difference from AD&D is not in having metagaming-type mechanics, but embracing them.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to be prejudicial. I guess that is simply my preferences showing.

In HeroQuest they recharge by turning up for sessions and doing stuff - a bit like 4e's XPs. I'm not sure where you see this as falling on your spectrum.

It's functional, but, uh, I don't want to throw out a fancy term here, but structuralist. You do the things you are rewarded for doing so you can continue to be rewarded for them and doing them... HeroQuest is laudable for giving the players many opportunities to craft the narrative, but I see that as the back wall, against which you may well bump. One of the things I like about mechanical aspects of games is that the dice (cards, whatever) can surprise you. In HQ, it's really only the other players that can truly surprise you.

I don't think HQ is particularly more dissociative than 4e, and may even be less so in the typical game, but there is definitely a ceiling to how player-PC congruent you can get in that game. It tends to work out best when the player wants to explore their character thematically... congruence is pretty high then. As a tactical game, so-so. As a long-term resource game, I don't think HQ hits the right cylinders to be a a very congruent PC saga.

If you already responded to LostSoul's post upthread - about 4e benefitting from having extended rests be triggered narratively rather than per day - I missed it, sorry. Do you have a view on that suggestion?

I could see something like that working, but honestly, my main view is that it's a mistake to take D&D in that direction. Why do poorly what other games do well? Why abandon what D&D already does well? ... I know the 4e designers had the same thought and things still (IMO) went awry, but I think the idea is sound. My view is that D&D works best when narrative tropes are built into the game probabilistically, rather than tied to a narrative, thematic approach. RPGs are a post-modern form of storytelling, and D&D barreled onto the scene with a very post-modern approach. I think uniting the unpredictability of the RPG concept to the unpredictabilities of the D&D milieu is a winning combination.

In much the way trying to clamp down RPGs to do four-color Silver Age supers really has its issues. Comics are tidy things.

Now this I strongly disagree with, based on extensive play experience: Rolemaster damage plays nothing like D&D hit point loss, even with death from massive damage rules included. (The exception to this is creatures that take Large or especially SuperLarge criticals - in these cases, hit point attrition - hacking away the meat! - is more significant.)

I don't consider differences in specifics to be relevant. Rolemaster has hit points, and a variety of condition and sudden death mechanics. D&D is the same. Rolemaster has more conditions and sudden death mechanics tied to standard attacks, but that is only a specific difference in their design, not a difference in character.

OK, nearly all my D&D play has been above 1st level. So this aspect of hit points looms pretty large for me. The "jumping over the cliff" scenario is a variant of it. For me, the most natural interpretation of the high-level-character-survives-ambush scenario is that, at the last minute (like Conan!), s/he ducks or rolls via "sixth sense". Always.

Sure. And the corollary is that all successful assassins must have a sneak attack or assassinate ability. All of them. And for the standard D&D milieu that works well enough.

 

[pawsplay]

By the way, despite the rumblings here and there about edition warring, I just want to say this has been a surprisingly useful thread for identifying when and how dissociation occurs, and the considerations that raises for game design and play. It's certainly given me food for thought as to how I might "improve" a version of D&D.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Could you reference which ones you mean? I actually cannot think of any significant rules that have no flavor text.

Quite a few of the class powers in 3e simply state what the power does without giving an explanation of what is going on in the game world, of how the power is accomplished. It's particularly noticeable with the extraordinary abilities, which, being supernatural* but not magical would seem to require more explanation. Examples include: the barbarian's fast movement; the druid's animal companion, woodland stride, trackless step, venom immunity and timeless body; the monk's timeless body and tongue of the sun and moon; the ranger's woodland stride and hide in plain sight; the paladin's divine health; the rogue's special ability opportunist. This would seem to lay them open to the same objections The Alexandrian levels at the besieged foe power, of being open to multiple interpretations.

I must admit though that most of the class powers do have accompanying flavor text. An example is the druid's wild empathy - "a druid can use body language, vocalizations, and demeanor to improve the attitude of the animal." I was surprised to discover that there is flavor text for a barbarian's damage reduction, a particularly supernatural power – he "gains the ability to shrug off some amount of injury from each blow or attack." Though whether that's sufficient to justify DR5/-, the same resistance to damage as a wooden door, is more open to question.

I agree. What relevance does that have to the Alexandrian's argument? Can you think of any example of any rule in any RPG ever written, or that could be written, that is not abstract?

In this case I was using abstract to mean a single rule which can stand for a wide variety of quite different game world properties. As pemerton described upthread, this is Gary's account of saving throws in the 1e DMG pg 80 -

This protection takes a slightly different form for each class of character. Magic-users understand spells, even on an unconscious level, and are able to slightly tamper with one so as to render it ineffective. Fighters withstand them through sheer defiance, while clerics create a small island of faith. Thieves find they are able to avoid a spell's full effects by quickness . . .​

Hit points are similarly abstract, by the 1e DMG, in that one hit point can mean a unit of physical injury, or skill, or luck, or fatigue, or divine protection.

You are quite right to say that all rules are abstract. It's a good point and something I'd not considered. As mentioned upthread, a roll to hit could reference a stab or a slash. But I think the level of abstraction involved in saving throws and hit points is far greater than this.

It's relevant to The Alexandrian's argument because his difficulty with the besieged foe power appears to be the variety of possible game world interpretations it allows. This is where we get into difficulty in distinguishing between a dissociated mechanic and a highly abstract rule. I think they are the same thing, at least for this definition of dissociated mechanic.

That has nothing to do with dissociative mechanics. As long as the characters can actually do those things in the D&D world, you're golden.

I think that 3e's extraordinary abilities have a lot to do with it. The Alexandrian's difficulty is not with magical powers, which as always get a free pass, but with non-magical martial powers such as Trick Strike, his first example of a dissociated mechanic. TA's problem with Trick Strike is that he cannot explain it in terms of the game world. But 3e is already full of non-magical martial powers. An extraordinary ability is a power that cannot work in our world. It is a power that *should* break our suspension of disbelief. Why then can Trick Strike not be an extraordinary ability? If we accept barbarians with skin as tough as wood and druids with immunity to poison and monks speaking with any living creature and rangers hiding in plain sight and a character with evasion avoiding all damage from a fireball. While he's asleep. And that all of these are non-magical, then why can we not accept Trick Strike?

*EDIT: I should add that when I use the word supernatural I'm using it in its common English sense, and not as a D&D rule term. In 3e, supernatural abilities are always magical.

 

[JamesonCourage]

I think that 3e's extraordinary abilities have a lot to do with it. The Alexandrian's difficulty is not with magical powers, which as always get a free pass, but with non-magical martial powers such as Trick Strike, his first example of a dissociated mechanic. TA's problem with Trick Strike is that he cannot explain it in terms of the game world. But 3e is already full of non-magical martial powers. An extraordinary ability is a power that cannot work in our world. It is a power that *should* break our suspension of disbelief. Why then can Trick Strike not be an extraordinary ability? If we accept barbarians with skin as tough as wood and druids with immunity to poison and monks speaking with any living creature and rangers hiding in plain sight and a character with evasion avoiding all damage from a fireball. While he's asleep. And that all of these are non-magical, then why can we not accept Trick Strike?

Like I mentioned, I think it's important to note whether or not characters can investigate the reasoning in-game. If the reasoning for the ranger "Hide in Plain Sight" can be taught (or otherwise learned), explored, or observed, it's not dissociative. If the use of Evasion while sleeping saves a rogue cannot be taught (or otherwise learned), explored, or observed, than it is dissociative.

Again, 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.

I think that's the issue, as I understand it. And, again, it's not that D&D hasn't had dissociative mechanics in the past. It's that 4e embraced them, and that they seem so omni-present to so many people (whether or not you agree) that it became a problem for those people (and thus the post that sparked this thread).

I don't know if some abilities have flavor text or not, but if they could theoretically be explored in-game by characters, I think they aren't dissociative. If they cannot be explored, however, my understanding is that they are dissociative, whether or not they're possible in the real world notwithstanding.

Again, this is all as far as I can tell. As always, play what you like

 

[Mallus]

This has been an interesting discussion. I have to admit, the idea of dissociation never really occurred to me before.

Hey Lost... could you explain the idea of dissociation to me? Your writing is clear and insightful (and partisanship-free!).

I've read the original blog post, and this thread, and I just don't get the meaningful difference between "dissociation" and what I'd label "a species of abstraction". Can you lend a hand?

Thanx!

 

[Yesway Jose]

Part of the idea is that most tables won't play through those million instances. It's a narrative conceit - like Boromir having only the odd occasion to sound his horn (making it dramatic rather than mundane).

That was directly addressed by the very next paragraph which you may have glossed over:

You may say that 4E is not modelling 1 million fictional instances in any one gaming group's subjective fictional world, which is true, but it's only a thought experiment illustrating the disassociation of my expectations from what the rules technically would allow me to experience. Even if there are just a couple dozen instances of a Rogue not using the power more than 1/day, the probability curve outcome is already failing to associate for me.

We'll not experiencing one single permanent instance of Lord of the Rings. We're experiencing many different iterations of many different stories, after which the limitation on the probability curve of possible outcomes starts to become more apparent.

I looked up the Horn of Gondor. Boromir uses once as a sort of warcry and once to call for help. It's not clear if it has any actual enchantment, or just a subtle one. Anyway, Boromir could use it anytime it makes fictional sense, and he could theoretically do that when he wants and how often he wants. 4E wouldn't prevent Boromir from using the horn whenever he wants, but it may limit the number of times it has a consequential effect. Pre-4e, it may have an effect based on fictional prerequisites (ie., whenever someone is in hearing range).

So perhaps here's an illustration of disassociation. Player: "I can use the Horn of Gondor 1 x day. Our party is in trouble, we're just at the edge of Gondor's border, so I could blow the horn now and try to summon aid. However, I'll use up the daily. I won't be able to use it later today." Fictionally, however, a character in danger would very rarely hold back from using the horn and almost certaintly never for fear of 'wasting' a once per day opportunity.

The only way around this is to force the story to conform to the 1x day mechanic, such that the player never has a fictional incentive to use the horn more 1 x day, but unlike Tolkein writing Lord of the Rings, there's no guarantee of that because the story is an interactive and unpredictable one.

Another quibble is that what if the horn is sounded deep inside a cave in the wilderness vs within arrow range of a Gondor castle. There is NOT an equal probability of help arriving any time soon or at all. A "disassociated" mechanic is a Rule that puts its fingers in its ears and shouts "La, la, la!" loudly while you're trying to explain that to the Rule.

Due to the above, I think that a game like 4E (sorry to be partisan about it) would entirely remove anything like a Horn of Gondor from the game, because it can't be fairly modelled with 4E design intent. So what actually happens there is that you've realized a potentially interesting fictional construct but then barricaded it from the game, not because it's not a good idea, but because the system won't handle it as such.

As usual, it's all relative. All RPGs are disassociated by nature. However, if a game system embraces mechanics-first philosophy to a certain extent....

 

[Doug McCrae]

Further to the notion of the difficulty in providing a game world explanation of multiple dailies - if a character is tired why can he use one daily but not another? - it's worth noting that in 3e a barbarian could take the stunning fist feat and he would also have multiple dailies. Admittedly this is far more of a corner case than it is in 4e, where all martial characters of level 5 and up have multiple dailies.

It may be possible to provide further justification for multiple dailies with the concept of different forms of tiredness. After hours spent walking I can find it a lot harder to walk further, but not so difficult to perform mental tasks. Likewise any form of repetitive task can produce tiredness and strain which can be alleviated as soon as one changes to a different task. A change is as good as a rest as they say. So in the same way, exhaustion may be specific to a particular daily.

I concede that it's a fairly feeble justification, but it feels kind of Gygaxian to me.

 

[tomBitonti]

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.

That works for me. But, I thought the flavor text for a power was to be taken, at best, as suggestive, but that it had no relevance to applying the power. And, could be changed to fit ones taste.

That seems one of the big differences between 4E and prior editions: Before, say, for a spell description, the spell description was meaningful in terms of understanding the in-game effect of the spell. In 4E, all that matters are the keywords and effects block. At least, that is my understanding.

That means I can reflavor brutal strike to mean, "a deep penetrating lunge", say, if I wield a rapier. The "bone-crushing" description isn't a necessary part of the power.

(Note: 3.5E had already started down this path. Codification of spells, and placing more of a focus on combat effects, had already started. As well, a number of 3.5E classes and feats, typically in expansion books, have unexplained abilities. There seems to be a tendency, once an abstraction is made, to build new powers and abilities that are defined in terms of the abstraction, without looking to an underlying justification.)

Thx!

TomBitonti

 

[Doug McCrae]

I don't know if some abilities have flavor text or not, but if they could theoretically be explored in-game by characters, I think they aren't dissociative. If they cannot be explored, however, my understanding is that they are dissociative, whether or not they're possible in the real world notwithstanding.

But can't we always come up with some sort of game world justification, however wonky and, at best, semi-plausible, in the good old D&D tradition. This would mean that no game mechanics are dissociative.

I think the term marking might be the most egregious because it's just a rules term, it doesn't reference anything in the game world. Combat challenge and divine challenge, the terms for the fighter and paladin's marking abilities are a lot more acceptable as they suggest, and the text below seems to support this, the character shouting a challenge to single combat.

 

[Yesway Jose]

There are some areas where hit points are dissociative. For instance, it's very hard to ambush and kill a high level character in D&D. Since nobles in older editions were often level 2 to 4 fighters, assassination was a tricky business. If that's an important consideration in my game, I'll have to outlay some effort to patch the hit point rules for this situation.

Situational HP, perhaps?
http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/308612-how-about-situational-hit-points.html