In Defense of the Theory of Dissociated Mechanics

[Yesway Jose]

And it's not that the Paladin never explored it further. He was simply secure in his faith that that was what happened. Why would he need to search for further explanations? It could come up again - and due to observer bias he would once more be convinced.

I fear you might be missing the point. I don't care about the objective legitimacy of his philosophy or if he intellectually investigates it.

I care if his philosophy informs his behavior for the entire narrative such that it associates the mechanics to the fiction in a meaningful consistent way, and not in a superficial momentary and ultimately meaningless instance.

 

[wrecan]

I care if his philosophy informs his behavior for the entire narrative such that it associates the mechanics to the fiction in a meaningful consistent way, and not in a superficial momentary and ultimately meaningless instance.

It doesn't need to, because the scope of the game is limited in duration. There are 300 encounters in a D&D campaign. Most quirks of mechanics are not going to repeat itself to the player more than a handful of times.

Let's look at your polymorph example. A wizard turns a paladin into a frog and six seconds later, he turns back. You are treating these mechanics as if the paladin could set up an experiment where he and the wizard agree that the wizard will polymorph him and other "control" subjects repeatedly to determine the parameters of the mechanics.

But that's not how the game is set up to operate. The mechanics you are examining are combat mechanics and they apply only when there's bona fide combat. Everything else is narrative. The paladin is not going to arrange for the paladin to cast this on him repeatedly, because D&D isn't a game for investigating the ins and outs of transmutation magic. It's a game of heroic fantasy.

Even if he did, out of combat, the wizard's ability to polymorph operates however the DM thinks it appropriate to operate in his campaign world. Maybe he'll adopt the paladin's justification. Maybe he won't. Maybe the wizard acknowledges that his spell only works for less than a minute. Maybe the wizard has a personal polymorph ritual, which is a stronger version of his polymorph power when he has the time and components needed to enhance that power. Who cares?

If a person's disbelief is affected by some requirement that the game mechanics apply as physical laws both in and out of combat, that is a different and much larger problem than disassociated mechanics.

 

[Yesway Jose]

The paladin is not going to arrange for the paladin to cast this on him repeatedly, because D&D isn't a game for investigating the ins and outs of transmutation magic. It's a game of heroic fantasy.

Your example of the paladin arranging to cast this on him repeatedly is what I said is not the point (ie., intellectually investigating). Is that called a straw man argument, I don't know the exact definitions.

If the Paladin did arrange for that, he could just say "Oops, I was wrong, I guess it wasn't the Raven Queen after all." The theory could all be in his head anyway.

And if the Paladin was an intellectual Paladin, then who are you as a DM or the player to say that the character cannot explore this question? (I'm sorry, this is a herotic fantasy game, we're not going to be repeatedly turned to frogs in this game, that's wrongbadfun)

 

[MrGrenadine]

Let's take everyone's favourite whipping boy, Come and Get It. Now, from the individual level, there's no way my fighter can "choose" to have a bunch of baddies mob me, dogpile style, and then me burst through them with flashing blades. Completely disassociated at that level.

But, move up a level. The warrior steps up and a bunch of mooks dog pile him. He slashes left and right and bodies drop and he bursts through the scrum. This is a scene that has been repeated in genre fiction for years. Pretty much every sword and sorcery style book and a number of others as well, have a scene like this. Sometimes several scenes like this.

But, it rarely, if ever, happens twice in a given fight. The mooks swarm Conan, ignoring the scrawny bugger in the back and get beaten back. In the next scene, yet more mooks swarm Conan and get beaten back, still ignoring that scrawny little schmuch hanging behind Conan. So on and so forth. ((Note, it's late and I'm dog tired, so, no, I have no idea if these scenes ACTUALLY occur in a Conan story - work with me here))

So, from the level of the overal narrative, suddenly Come and Get It makes perfect sense. It's not disassociated at all - in fact, its very much in keeping with genre expectations.

Now, all that being said, I totally understand that some people don't want to look at things from that perspective. They don't want their game to take on that level of narrative. Totally understandable. But, that doesn't make the mechanics bad, it's simply a case of matching different tastes.

Apologies for being a little late with this response, but just wanted to say that I totally agree with your last sentence. Here's my take on Come and Get It, however:


Instead of a power I can use once a fight that forces mooks to surround my fighter so he can respond with a cool attack, I would like a power I can use anytime mooks choose to surround my fighter, or he can position himself inside a group.

In both cases, the actual power will probably only go off once a fight, but on the rare occasion that a wave of mooks tries to take my guy down en masse, and he uses the power, and then a few rounds later another group of mooks appears on the scene and try to pile on my fighter, I want to be able to use that power again. Its situational. I always know that power--its in my bag of tricks, and I pull it out when the situation warrants it.

And if no mooks surround my fighter, or he doesn't get the opportunity to step into a group, then that power will not be used, but I'm cool with that. And I doubt I'd be able to use it twice a fight, because I count on the DM playing the NPCs at the top of their intelligence.


I guess in the end the difference for me is that I prefer that certain elements of the narrative--what the NPCs choose to do, for instance--stay out of my character's control so I can react in character, naturally.

 

[wrecan]

Your example of the paladin arranging to cast this on him repeatedly is what I said is not the point

Then I don't understand your point in any way. What does it mean to "associate the mechanics to the fiction in a meaningful consistent way, and not in a superficial momentary and ultimately meaningless instance"?

I thought I had addressed those quoted words in my post, but you labeled it a "straw man". So clearly those words mean something else, but I can't figure out what you intend them to mean.

Let me try again.

For purposes of D&D, a "meaningful consistent" association of mechanics and fiction need not be applicable in all situations; it only has to apply in the limited number of situations in which it arises in game, and those are should number less than 5, at most. The game assumes no more than 300 encounters throughout a campaign. It further assumes that some of those encounters will not be combat (and the mechanics we have been discussing apply to combat only). Moreover, each instance of a mechanic one might have to "associate" to the fiction are going to apply in a small fraction of combat encounters.

Thus, any association of fiction to mechanics needs only to be meaningfully consistent for a handful of events at most. So the paladin who justifies his save against a polymorph by the intervention of the Raven Queen is unlikely to come across a scenario in which that justification is shown to be faulty, for many reasons. First, it is very likely that the wizard who cast the polymorph is defeated and won't be re-encountered. Second, it is very likely that the DM is not going to have another encounter in which the paladin is polymorphed by someone using the same technique as the wizard.

Because any given scenario is exceedingly unlikely to repeat itself, the disassociation of fiction and reality is almost entirely hypothetical. It shouldn't actually come up in the game.

 

[Yesway Jose]

Then I don't understand your point in any way. What does it mean to "associate the mechanics to the fiction in a meaningful consistent way, and not in a superficial momentary and ultimately meaningless instance"?

I'm in the process of clarifying that, but need more time to hack out an articulate response...

Because any given scenario is exceedingly unlikely to repeat itself, the disassociation of fiction and reality is almost entirely hypothetical. It shouldn't actually come up in the game.

I was with you in the beginning.
"There is a story of a rogue who uses a tricky combat strategy multiple times per day in practice sparring and meaningless battles. This is not that story..."

I get that (or that it's true for a 4E foreground story of a meaningful combat).

Now we have a Paladin who is affected by a spell and the player narrates it in a certain way, and you're telling me:

"And there was also a story of an intellectual Paladin who wanted to learn if his deity would protect him from transmutations. This is not that story..."

It feels as if any question along the lines of "but how do we explore in-game the reasoning of...", is now met with:

"There is a story of a ____________. This is not that story..."

Am I being contravened for poking around too much? What story am I allowed to have left?

 

[wrecan]

It feels as if any question along the lines of "but how do we explore in-game the reasoning of...", is now met with:

"There is a story of a ____________. This is not that story..."

We can explore it, but it is explored narratively. You seem to think that "explore the in-game reasoning" means ferreting out the objectivity of the combat mechanics as if they were physical laws that could be discovered.

The mechanics operate to approximate combat, not to exactly replicate it. Just as characters can't investigate why they can walk diagonally faster than they walk horizontally, and they can't actually determine they can fall from a 50-foot height without any fear of death, they can't figure out that everybody has a 55% chance of being released from a polymorph spell in precise six-second intervals.

Because those mechanics you're "exploring" only apply in the no more than 300 combat situations any character will experience over his lifetimes. Because they are approximations created to allow us to play a game, not to explain a world.

In game, your paladin can absolutely "explore" why the polymorph spell ends so abruptly. And the answer to that question (and whether the paladin's exploration will even be fruitful) will be determined by the story written by the DM.

 

[Yesway Jose]

If a person's disbelief is affected by some requirement that the game mechanics apply as physical laws both in and out of combat, that is a different and much larger problem than disassociated mechanics.

I missed this before, but this is a good point. This almost seems to fault the player with having absurd expectations of expecting that in-game magical and physical laws are different in meaningful combat than outside. Which I think is an incredulous ironic position to take, especially in a discussion about disassociation between rules and fiction.

 

[wrecan]

This almost seems to fault the player with having absurd expectations of expecting that in-game magical and physical laws are different in meaningful combat than outside.

I think that is an absurd expectation in a role-playing game. Because I think it absurd that anybody who has played combat in a roleplaying game thinks that combat is in any way a simulation of what's happening in the game world.

Nobody really thinks that combatants patiently wait their turns to take actions until everyone else has acted. Nobody really thinks that if two combatants stand back to back and walk at the same rate of speed, but 45 degrees from one another, that one will walk 60' and the other about 85' (55' in a 1-2-1 system). Nobody really thinks their character knows that he can fall form a fifty-foot drop without any fear of death.

Nobody plays a fantasy RPG and thinks that what's going on during combat at the table is precisely illustrating what is happening in the game world. I do think it's an absurd notion. I would have thought so under any game system I've ever played (which includes every edition of D&D).

 

[Yesway Jose]

The mechanics operate to approximate combat, not to exactly replicate it.

So if the Paladin was deemed to have been a frog for 1 round, and then after the battle is over, the character are unable to explore that because it didn't happen the way, we the players, experienced it. Maybe he was a frog for a minute. Maybe was a frog for 3 minutes. Maybe he is still a frog and always was. The mechanics used to approximate combat are so abstracted or surreal that they cannot be explored because they aren't part of the fiction. And when the Paladin thought the Raven Queen de-frogged him, that was all part of that weird dream that may or may not be true.