In Defense of the Theory of Dissociated Mechanics

[Raven Crowking]

Removed

 

[ThirdWizard]

The essay also explicitly states that nothing about dissociated mechanics undermines roleplaying around those mechanics. (OTOH, it's pretty much true by definition that you are not roleplaying during those times in which you are using dissociated mechanics and, therefore, not engaged in the process of making decisions as if you were your character.)

I would ask that you don't dictate who is and who is not roleplaying. Being told that you aren't roleplaying on a message board dedicated to roleplaying is a bit inflammatory.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Removed

 

[JamesonCourage]

My point is that it's not enough for the game rules to stipulate that there is a method that can be learned, if the notion of such a method is contradictory or incoherent.

I would suggest that the notion, in D&D, of phasing my body as an EX rather than a SU ability, is an example of that sort of incoherence.

Hiding in plain sight perhaps not - but does it have clothing/camouflage requirements?

A quick notation of how EX and SU are actually used in 3.5 may help you to understand where I'm coming from:

Extraordinary Abilities (Ex)
Extraordinary abilities are nonmagical, though they may break the laws of physics. They are not something that just anyone can do or even learn to do without extensive training.

These abilities cannot be disrupted in combat, as spells can, and they generally do not provoke attacks of opportunity. Effects or areas that negate or disrupt magic have no effect on extraordinary abilities. They are not subject to dispelling, and they function normally in an antimagic field.

Using an extraordinary ability is usually not an action because most extraordinary abilities automatically happen in a reactive fashion. Those extraordinary abilities that are actions are standard actions unless otherwise noted.

Supernatural Abilities (Su)
Supernatural abilities are magical and go away in an antimagic field but are not subject to spell resistance, counterspells, or to being dispelled by dispel magic. Using a supernatural ability is a standard action unless noted otherwise. Supernatural abilities may have a use limit or be usable at will, just like spell-like abilities. However, supernatural abilities do not provoke attacks of opportunity and never require Concentration checks. Unless otherwise noted, a supernatural ability has an effective caster level equal to the creature’s Hit Dice. The saving throw (if any) against a supernatural ability is:

10 + ½ the creature’s HD + the creature’s ability modifier (usually Charisma).

The big difference between the types of abilities? Whether or not they go away in an anti-magic field (SU abilities are magic). EX abilities do not have to obey the laws of physics (though they definitely can), though they "are not something that just anyone can do or even learn to do without extensive training."

Thus, my assertion that as long as there is a way for the ability to be learned, explored, or observed in-game, than it's not dissociative. Thus, again, if the rogue's ability is purely narrative control, it does not fit this definition, and makes it dissociative, as far as I can tell. If he had some ability to warp reality once per day for some reason, it's no longer dissociative.

EX and SU abilities really have nothing to do with it.

 

[Mallus]

I cannot think of any RPG that doesn't blend role-playing (making decisions within the frame of the avatar), story-telling (narration from Director or Author stance, where one is not directly playing the role within the frame of the avatar), and gamism (engaging the mechanics). I would also agree that these three things are at times indistinguishable, as they blend together during actual play.

Very well said, RC.

 

[ThirdWizard]

The claim that, at times in the game in which you are not playing a role, you are not actively engaged in role-playing, shouldn't be seen as inflammatory.

When you start defining what mechanics are and which are not roleplaying, and who is and who is not roleplaying, things are going to start to take a turn for the worse.

 

[pemerton]

A quick notation of how EX and SU are actually used in 3.5 may help you to understand where I'm coming from

<snip>

The big difference between the types of abilities? Whether or not they go away in an anti-magic field (SU abilities are magic). EX abilities do not have to obey the laws of physics (though they definitely can), though they "are not something that just anyone can do or even learn to do without extensive training."

Thus, my assertion that as long as there is a way for the ability to be learned, explored, or observed in-game, than it's not dissociative.

<snip>

EX and SU abilities really have nothing to do with it.

Justin Alexander's essay makes reference to mechanics that are "nothing more than mechanical artefacts". If EX and SU mean nothing more than how something interacts with an anti-magic field, then they've become nothing more than mechanical artefacts. To the extent that they are something other than mechanical artefacts, it's because we have some more-or-less independent grasp of what is magical, and what not - and hence what anti-magic will affect, and what it won't.

Simply stipulating to me that an ability is EX, and therefore learnable, but leaving it completely mysterious as to the way in which it is not magical, doesn't strike me as very powerful association. What is actually happening in the gameworld when my sleeping thief evades a fireball? (For example, do I wake up? Does that mean that, if I'm under a permanent sleep curse, and so can't wake up, I lose my evasion? Or would that be a house rule?)

 

[TwoSix]

I cannot think of any RPG that doesn't blend role-playing (making decisions within the frame of the avatar), story-telling (narration from Director or Author stance, where one is not directly playing the role within the frame of the avatar), and gamism (engaging the mechanics). I would also agree that these three things are at times indistinguishable, as they blend together during actual play.
RC

Two issues with that. One, I think many players don't use term "role-playing" as defining merely the subset of play that occurs within Actor Stance. Some use it for any activity involved within the play of a role-playing game, including the engagement of mechanics. Others, myself included, would define it as encompassing all the decision-making process made at the table, whether in Actor, Director, or Author stance.

Second, defining "role-playing" as purely Actor Stance comes with the unfortunate side effect that one is also forced to define other table play as "not role-playing", which can easily come across as unnecessarily pejorative.

While the primacy of importance of Actor Stance in a traditional RPG is well understood (I think), there's probably a better term for it than "role-playing", at least within a group that includes both traditionalists and players of more modern games.

I don't actually have a problem with the Alexandrian's essay's use of that term, since he is fairly obviously preaching to the choir of trad players, and he also defines what he means by role-playing within the essay itself.

 

[pemerton]

If we're asking if a mechanic encourages narration, it has to also be true for an average session with Average Joe. A mechanic that encourages narration in oddball corner cases or for storyteller players who are already inclined to narrate regardless, then it doesn't prove much to claim that a mechanic encourages narration 0.1% of the time -- as most of us are interested in the 99.9%.

Average Joe looks to me here like boring Joe, or maybe Joe who doesn't care much for the dramatic/thematic elements of the fiction. Maybe I'm missing some obvious point, but I'm not sure why is it significant that this Joe care about narration. Presumably this Joe wouldn't narrate much in HeroQuest, either, or in the Burning Wheel - but what follows from that?

I'm really not getting what's at stake here (from your point of view). From my point of view, what's at stake is that - contra the essay referred to in the OP - the use of daily powers, and the consequences of their use, do matter to the fiction, and that (among other consequence) the fiction in a 4e game is therefore not simply "improv drama linking a series of tactical skirmishes" (and if that's paraphrase rather than quote, it's not very loose paraphrase).

 

[Crazy Jerome]

This, in my mind, is the heart of roleplaying. Whatever class and skills a character possesses, whatever race, whatever "level" or proficiency a character has, all of that is merely a vehicle for the player to present themselves as a particular rational entity, and that the game world is expected to respond, act, and react to what is presented. Character backbround matters because of this reality. I've seen a lot of people say in essence that no character needs a background any more specific than "I grew up with an adventuring spirit."

Danger, danger! You are edging right up the line of declaring all "develop in play" roleplaying as not roleplaying. You are stopping short of crossing over, because the implication is that the thing you are rejecting is not develop in play versus develop before play but "don't develop at all."

Timing matters, and it matters in different ways for different styles. Don't confuse, "for us, this thing needs to happen at this point for it to work," with, "this things needs to happen at this point for it to happen at all."