In Defense of the Theory of Dissociated Mechanics

[Crazy Jerome]

While you may find the initial effect acceptable, what do you think about this updated effect? There is a matter of degree here, with some folks finding the core example (Trick Strike) as funny as (Knight's Coup), while others are fine with both.

Note the difference between the similar but limited bull rush from 3E: Bull rush can be used "at will" but has a lesser effect, and has a more finely tuned effect chance (opposed strength, instead of an attack roll). I'm not aware of a use of feint that allows you to cause an opponent to move.

I think the problem here is really that one can reject the idea that a rogue's attack could produce this effect. That's what happens for me. I grok bull rush (a person pushing another back), but not this effect.

It's a fair line of argument. I think where one might draw the line will depend in part on how expansive one views the concept of "feints". But did you mean mechanically supported in the rules, or the fiction surrounding "feints"?

In the fiction, it's easy for me. I attend a fencing school taught by an older man who was taught by the Italians in New Jersey. One of his maxims is that, "a feint is anything that causes your opponent to react in a predictable manner." Now it is true that your feint doesn't force them to do that. They can not block your line of attack (in which case, you simply hit them) or do any number of crazy things. However the idea is, if they don't do one of two or three limited options, you've got them cold. (And if they've got any sense, they know you were leading them into an option, and they'll pick one of those, knowing you are expecting it, and then react to what you had planned. But that is getting afield.)

Despite all this, I have seen over and over fencers win touches by pushing their opponent to the back of the strip, suddenly feinting, and having the opponent retreat off the strip, and thus give up a touch. I even won a tied preliminary bout 5-4 once, doing that, against a guy that was better than me. And who cleaned my clock later that day. He felt pretty sheepish letting me get away with it once, and wasn't going to let up after that.

Combat is moving, and off a strip, fighting for your life instead of touches, all the experienced writers I have seen have agreed that this is magnified, not diminished compared to what is essentially highly-regulated sparring.

So for me, the only potential sticking point is the timing of the force. In a simulation with any fidelity, feints resulting in opponents moving--even when this was not necessarily their best course, will happen on an infrequent but recurring basis.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

As evidenced by their lack of ability to avoid that death blow as well as they could when they were fresher.

So he's "not as spry as he was," but only in a very limited, specific sense of "avoiding attacks" (and even then, only specific kinds of attacks). In all other ways he's exactly as spry as he was.

So, there's no particular difference here between "too winded to avoid certain attacks but otherwise perfectly fine" (1 hit point left out of 100 total, but no penalties to AC, attacks, Jump, etc.) and "too tired to perform certain attacks but otherwise perfectly fine" (1 particular daily used, but can use other dailies and encounters and at-wills).

The only difference is the relative newness of the phenomena.

 

[ThirdWizard]

- a player invokes a game mechanic as a direct result of a perceived fiction (ie., enemy is standing on a rug, so I'd like to use a Str check to pull the rug out from under him)

Lets say a player, as part of a description for a daily martial power in 4e that trips, declares that the enemy is standing on a rug in order to give flavor to his ability? Would that count for a point?

 

[Crazy Jerome]

So then, in this highly theoretical thought experiment, if there's a significant difference, than one game encourages the "average" person to score higher than in the other game.

Did I get that right? I only took statistics in one university course a long time ago.

Per your stated effects, I think there is a strong chance of you being correct. You still haven't shown causation versus correlation, though. I've got a bit more statistic than one long ago course, and have used it a bit since, but I don't claim any great shakes at it. So I could be wrong.

But mainly I think your stated effects are a bit off, though. I think what you will fine is that in all groups, there will be "switch flipping" moments in games, or "tipping points" as we talked in another topic. I know for me there are switch flipping moments, and I'm fairly certain that I've observed them and heard them reported from others. In fact, to the extent that a difference in degree becomes a difference in kind from "disassociation," that would seem to be what people are claiming happens?

For example, I have an aesthetic preference against big eyes, spikey armor, ridiculously huge weapons, mechanical player character, and steam-powered dwarven railroads. (I know I'm mixing up all kinds of stuff there.) It isn't that I can't roleplay if any of that is present, or that each one is going to lower my ability to do so some set amount. But throw enough of that stuff at me at once, and my roleplaying ability will simply shut down, same as if I had a carnival barker shouting in my ear at the table.

I don't recall if it was RC or Pawsplay, but the earlier statement about a boxer having fatigue set in and be determinant in a relatively short period at the end of the fight, matches my experience, and applies to a lot more than fatigue. This is what I meant when I said that people would spike all over the place in wave function. When you combine an "ok" system with an "average" person, you'll get something you can measure. But when the peaks or valleys align just right, you'll shoot off the top of the scale, or disappear off the bottom of it entirely.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

But if this is case, why can't the ankheg breathe a 15' foot line after 3 hours?

It's gluptorid (an internal organ which collects, but does not excrete the acid, similar to the human gall bladder) must be completely full to have any substantial range. Imagine a water gun that's nearly empty; how it sort of dribbles until it has a minimum amount of fluid.

In addition the causatis, the liver-like organ which produces the acid in the first place, suffers from a sort of "reflux" and shuts down massively using a sphincter that will not relax for a substantial amount of time, as a means both of preventing an internal acid spray and to conserve and concentrate digestive acid for future use.


(Those were my own inventions, however. They likely bear no resemblance with Ecology of the Ankheg in Dragon 117).


What I'm saying here, is that it can be believable because this is a fantastic creature, and we don't know its biology. Even daily recharge could be reasonable.

Less reasonable would be if it was daily recharge that occurred when it slept (though perhaps the acid is tied to some brain organ that, when at rest allows the production of the acid).

 

[Imaro]

But if this is case, why can't the ankheg breathe a 15' foot line after 3 hours?

Because the description says it is depleted for 6 hours... not depleted for 3 and then partially depleted for another 3. Not really sure what your point is?

 

[Yesway Jose]

Lets say a player, as part of a description for a daily martial power in 4e that trips, declares that the enemy is standing on a rug in order to give flavor to his ability? Would that count for a point?

Good question!!!

On one hand, I think it would score a point, because the player made an effort to incorporate fiction into the ability when he isn't actually required to do so which would imply an interest in the fiction.

On the other hand, what if the battle is taking place in a jungle (to be extreme) and the player declares there's a rug on the ground? Does that mean he genuinely believes that there are rugs in the jungle, or is he just throwing out an excuse so to speak to use the mechanic? And if he did make up a limp excuse, does that make it any less legitimate?

With the other scoring, I think it's clear the player is insisting that the fiction take precedence over mechanical options. In your example, I don't know.

I think you halted my experiment :O)

 

[Yesway Jose]

Per your stated effects, I think there is a strong chance of you being correct. You still haven't shown causation versus correlation, though.

I agree, I believe these statistics can never prove causation.

You started to lose me after that (sorry!) so I will re-read it later again, but I just wanted to say that: In one sense, maybe who cares about rigorously defining whether a mechanic is disassociated or not, an abstraction, an issue process vs outcome, etc.?

The ultimate complaint is that certain amounts and kinds of disassociations are making it difficult to immerse or simulate or narrate the fiction. (Sorry, I don't have time to be rigorous in my definitions here).

I think the question, if you look at thousands of people in actual gameplay over thousands of game sessions, are they paying attention to the fiction, and is that due to or despite of the mechanics? I think that's what ultimately matters if the goal is suspension of disbelief and roleplaying and all that?

 

[Bluenose]

Because the description says it is depleted for 6 hours... not depleted for 3 and then partially depleted for another 3. Not really sure what your point is?

Presumably the idea is that it's refilling the organ that lets it discharge acid gradually over the six hour period, and it will therefore at some point be partly full. That might not be enough to discharge at full effect, but there could be a smaller one.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

The ultimate complaint is that certain amounts and kinds of disassociations are making it difficult to immerse or simulate or narrate the fiction. (Sorry, I don't have time to be rigorous in my definitions here).

I think the question, if you look at thousands of people in actual gameplay over thousands of game sessions, are they paying attention to the fiction, and is that due to or despite of the mechanics? I think that's what ultimately matters if the goal is suspension of disbelief and roleplaying and all that?

Sure. But what I've been driving at is that the conversation is typically starting in a place that has already closed some legitmate avenues of exploration. Rigor is not required to investigate. It isn't even required to get something useful out of the investigation (though it certainly might help in some cases). But rigor is definitely required somewhere, by the time you start drawing conclusions. And certainly, you have to be clear on what the limits of that investigation are.

So for your thought experiment, you could go different ways for that rigor. Here a couple of extremes:

1. You define exactly what you mean by "paying attention to the ficton" and how you are measuring it, what the boundaries are, etc.

2. You go for something more like a reasonably decent reporter observing and interviewing people.

Where's the rigor in the second one? It's in what you draw from it. "Hey, we went out and observed a bunch of groups, and here is what we saw. Yep, we saw X happen in 76% of the groups. What does that mean? Well, it might mean that if we looked closer, that A was involved. However, some of the participants suggested B was closer to the truth. Who knows for sure?"

And likewise, the conclusons in the first one, even with the rigor, are only as good as your ability to define "paying attention to the fiction" in a way that maps back to that label. Otherwise, it comes out that your study was really about "paying attention to the fiction in way X". So you betcha, X sure showed up a lot.