In Defense of the Theory of Dissociated Mechanics

[prosfilaes]

Just how many times are they going to encounter this particular type of creature over the course of 30 levels? Being able to exploit meta-game knowledge gained because you've memorized the Monster Manual is not behavior I want to reward.

Well, it's entirely possible to run into one creature a dozen times in one adventure. Personally, more then any tactical concerns, the question in my mind is what does this creature do from the character's perspective? Is the intent really to destroy any sort of consistency in behavior from the character's perspective?

 

[pemerton]

a player/character would absolutely be reasonably expected to want to understand the source of the War Devil's power, and mitigate it, both meta- and in-game.

<snip>

For a choice to be meaningful, the player/character has to have some baseline in which to evaluate the ramifications of that choice. Lack of ramifications = the negation of meaningful choice.

Any one narrative description is perfectly acceptable for an individual scene. But to then not carry that narrative forward, so that a player/character can benefit from their first hand experience and knowledge seems brutally disingenuous.

<snip>

To my knowledge, the premise in favor of dissociative mechanics is, "Narrative based resolution mechanics provide more freedom for controlling individual scenes and character actions within the scenes."

Unfortunately, we've also stumbled on to an unexpected antecedent: "Since no one scene-based narrative device can be assumed to be carried into another scene, future player inferences about any given mechanic are impossible, other than the actual mechanical results." This is the catch. Right here. This is the thing that can't be explained away.

You seem to be focused mainly on the sorts of inferences and ramifications that matter in sim-heavy operational play (ie planning now to be more efficient in combat, and at exploration, tomorrow). I don't think 4e's design is oriented towards these sorts of ramifications.

One way in which 4e is not oriented towards these sorts of inferences and ramifications, in my view, is that it is very obviously and expressly focused on the encounter/challenge/scene/situation (for current purposes, these can be treated as synonyms) as the focus of play. It does not prioritise exploration.

So the game is not particularly interested in the players wondering how to deal with a war devil, going off to do a whole lot of exploration and hunting for clues, items etc, and then bringing those tools into the combat in order to make short work of their enemy.

I'm not saying you can't do a little bit of this, some of the time. But too much of it and the system won't really deliver - for example, easy combats in 4e can tend to be boring ones.

If you want to build situations that play to the strengths of 4e, then you do things like: locate the clues in the context of a skill challenge or an earlier combat encounter; build the counters to the war devil's power into the encounter with the war devil - whether as a skill challenge, or some particular widget that the PCs have to get hold of and deploy in the course of the combat, or whatever.

My black dragon example upthread shows this at work - the player of the wizard, who is the only one able to evoke the magical power of the statue of the Summer Queen, has to decide whether to gamble his standard action on a chance to dispel the darkness, or whether to leave the darkness in place and try to contribute to the battle in some other way. This is the sort of play that 4e is designed to support.

I'll give some more examples - actual and imagined - below in this post.

Okay, I just looked up something in the D&D 4e Monster Manual I, the Deathlock Wight's "Horrific Visage" power.

Horrific Visage (standard; recharge 4, 5, 6) * Fear
Close blast 5; +7 vs. Will; 1d6 damage, and the target is pushed 3
squares.

That's all you have in the description of the power.

This is one of the first monster descriptions I remember reading in the MM. And I remember thinking what a great power it was - I wanted to use this wight whose horrific visage made creatures recoil in fear.

When I did get a chance to use it, the ranger (I think it was) recoiled in fear and fell down a pit! But the party had somehow worked out that there would be pits, and so had roped together - and the dwarf was able to pull the ranger back up while the sorcerer destroyed the wight with a crit on a Blazing Starfall (AOE radiant damage, for those who don't know it).

Does the wight have to be looking at you to invoke the power, or can it do it to you even if you're directly behind it and it isn't looking?

Is the power magic? Does an anti-magic barrier stop it?

It says it's a fear based power, and it attacks Will--does that mean it can be used against one of us if we're using a scrying ritual? The scrying ritual doesn't mention if powers can be used against me while scrying.

If it does use it on me while scrying, does it still push me back 3 squares?

If we've chosen the scream narrative, does a silence spell counter it?

If we've chosen the abyssal horror narrative, can a player close their eyes to ignore it?

Hussar responed to most of these, but I'll add a few thoughts.

There are no facing rules in 4e (as I believe is also the case in 3E) but the power is a blast, which means that it generates an implication of facing (ie a blast occurs on only one side of an attacker, and the most likely explanation for why those on the other side of the wight are not affected by the power would be that they're not looking at the wight but rather behind it.)

Silence, anti-magic etc don't exist. The scrying thing is a bit of a corner case - does a 3E dragon's frightful presence work through scrying magic? - but I'd be happy to apply a penalty to the scryer's skill check, or even deliver an attack, if the wight looked into the scrying sensor with its horrific visage.

And if a PC closed his/her eyes in response I'd be happy to give a +2 bonus to Will in exchange for being blinded until the start of that PC's next turn.

What if I'm playing a Paladin, and narratively I see my character as being immune to undead fear effects. Does that mean the power is causing physical damage to me, because narratively that's what makes sense to me, even though the power says it's a Fear-based Will attack? Does that mean it's actually targeting AC for me, and not Will?

Well fear is a keyword, and so in the absence of a class ability or power that looks up that keyword, there is a limit on what you can narrate here. (I've actually posted quite extensively in the past on the importance, in 4e's action resolution mechanics, of keywords as an anchor to the fiction - for example, the reason a fireball spell sets things alight but a sword blow doesn't is because the former has the fire keyword and deals fire damage; the reason the push of a Thunderwave can blow people through timber-framed windows, whereas the push of horrific visage cannot, is that the former has the Thunder keyword; and the reason the wizard PC in my game was able to use the Twist of Space encounter power to free someone who had been trapped inside a mirror - via p 42 - is because that power has the teleport keyword.)

The more general answer to your question, though, is that the player of the paladin should be using page 42. The first time the player of a paladin in my game confronted a wight (not a deathlock one) he cursed it in the name of the Raven Queen - mechanically, this was a Religion check as a minor action staking combat advantage for one attack (on a successful check) against some damage as the wight resisted the prayer (on a failed check - I can't remember whether I called it necrotic or psychic damage, but it didn't matter because the player succeeded at the check).

Resisting undead fear through faith could be easily adjudicated in a similar fashion.

What is a "Grave Bolt"? What if I narratively describe it as a ball of unholy light that bursts from the wight's hands, hurtling towards its foe?

<snip confected dialogue that is not representative of any actual play I've experienced>

Call me crazy, but not only is a scenario like this "dissociative," it carries the even bigger penalty of discouraging player creativity.

I believe that, in AD&D, there is talk of the fireball pellet emanating from the mage's hand, or being thrown by the mage. How do AD&D GMs adjudicate fireballs by maimed mages? For me it's never come up, but however it's done, do the same with the wight!

But anyway, what do you see as the point of your dialogue? Do you think that there are actually 4e tables around the world having experiences like that, even as we post and try to save them from themselves?

I'm posting actual play examples. And explaining how they arise within the context of, and are supported by, 4e's mechanics. And showing not only the sort of consistency that is being used to drive the game forward by my creative players - consistency of theme, personae, etc - but also how the so-called "dissociated" mechanics in fact are central to allowing this sort of consistency to occur.

LostSoul has whole threads of actual play examples of his first 4e campaign, and then his current 4e variant. You'll see plenty of consistency, and player creativity there, too. (Not that LostSouls' games are a cipher of mine, or vice versa. Each of us is doing our own thing with 4e.)

Where is the actual discouragement of player creativity, at actual 4e tables? Of course, if your dialogues were representative of how you GMed games then I'm sure that creativity at your tables would be discouraged. But in fact I assume that you don't GM in that way. I'm not sure, then, why you are assuming that this is how anyone would run 4e.

 

[pemerton]

what does this creature do from the character's perspective?

It's over a year since I ran my scenario with a deathlock wight, so I'm a little hazy on the precise details, but the resolution went something like this:

*I described the wight confronting the PCs with its horrific visage (I can't remember exactly how I described it, but probably someting about it's features disapearing and its true, decaying form become briefly visible).

*I then rolled a d20 for each PC in the blast area, added the wight's attack bonus, and asked each player, in turn, "Does a total of X hit your Will defence"?

*Once it was established that at least one PC was hit, I rolled a damage die.

*And to those who answered, "Yes" to my question about Will defences, I then said something like "You recoil in fear from the horrific wight. Take Z damage."

*I then moved the tokens on the map that reprsented those PCs who had been hit by the attack, thereby represented where their recoiling moved them too.

*As I've already posted, one of the PCs (I think the ranger), stepped back over the lip of an open pit and fell, but was saved by the fact that the PCs had roped themselves together.​

I don't think there is anything in the above that is dramatically different from action resolution in AD&D, Rolemaster or any other maintream game - dice are rolled, compared to target numbers (or look up tables, or whatever), and then consequences applied with a corresponding change in the fictional state of affairs.

And I don't think there was any doubt about what was changing in the fictional state of affairs. The affected PCs had recoiled in fear. That was why they had moved (mechanically, this was dictated by the push effect; as far as keeping track of the fiction, it was represented by moving tokens on a map). That was why they were now more worn down, and somewhat closer to the possibility of defeat (mechanically, this was dictated by the hit point loss inflicted).

EDIT: On further reflection, I don't think the ranger actually fell down the pit. I think that he would have, but for the rope. As best I can recall, I think that the ranger was at the end of the rope, and the dwarf fighter was next. We decided - after looking at the position of the PCs relative to the pit and the length of rope between them - that the player of the dwarf should make a STR check: on a failure the ranger would fall down the pit and pull the fighter with him, but on a success the dwarf would be able to stand his ground, meaning that the rope would prevent the ranger from falling. And I think that the check was a success. (I'm becoming more confident that the ranger didn't fall, because I remember the encounter ending up being a fairly easy one for the party because they roped themselves together and it worked - and if the ranger, one of their two strikers, had fallen down the pit then I don't think the encounter could have gone easily for them.)

Anyway, I do clearly remember the players being pleased that roping together had paid off.

 

[LostSoul]

Okay, I just looked up something in the D&D 4e Monster Manual I, the Deathlock Wight's "Horrific Visage" power.

Horrific Visage (standard; recharge 4, 5, 6) * Fear
Close blast 5; +7 vs. Will; 1d6 damage, and the target is pushed 3
squares.

That's all you have in the description of the power.

<snip>

"The Deathlock Wight catches and holds your sight, and an indescribable horror overcomes you, your muscles clenching like a vice."

Great! Fun, evocative, narrative flavor.

Yeah, I agree! I decided to go with the above description of the wight's power, more or less, the first time I ran one back in Keep on the Shadowfell.

The last time I ran a deathlock wight was in a different campaign (with only one player from the previous one) in a modified KotS. The room was covered with mirrors.

The wight used a mirror to catch a PC's gaze - and thus cause him to reel back in unnatural fear - while remaining "hidden"! A neat trick.

Unfortunately, we've also stumbled on to an unexpected antecedent: "Since no one scene-based narrative device can be assumed to be carried into another scene, future player inferences about any given mechanic are impossible, other than the actual mechanical results." This is the catch. Right here. This is the thing that can't be explained away.

I don't think this has anything to do with dissociated mechanics as I understand them. It has everything to do with DMs making judgement calls.

I decided, early on, that magic is cast by speaking words of power. That's all you need. When a PC decided to jam an Immovable Rod into the mouth of a MM1 Human Lich, he could no longer cast spells or maintain the ones he had going. That's a judgement call.

Not all 4E groups enjoy this sort of play. That's cool. I do, and I wrote my hack in order to get more of it. Some people might call my hack more "associated", but I wouldn't: I use Daily Martial Exploits, explicit instructions to players to metagame, and I never once thought about associating the player's point-of-view with that of the PC's.

 

[pemerton]

I decided, early on, that magic is cast by speaking words of power. That's all you need. When a PC decided to jam an Immovable Rod into the mouth of a MM1 Human Lich, he could no longer cast spells or maintain the ones he had going. That's a judgement call.

Not all 4E groups enjoy this sort of play. That's cool. I do, and I wrote my hack in order to get more of it.

I don't think I've seen you mention the Words of Power idea before.

It's an interesting idea.

I've never had my players try to disarm a weapon user or "disarm" (whatever that might involve) a spell caster, so haven't had to make the call.

Mechanically, the upshot has some resemblence to the Helpless condition or the Stunned condition, so I would probably tend towards strictness rather than generosity in adjudicating it under page 42.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Does the wight have to be looking at you to invoke the power, or can it do it to you even if you're directly behind it and it isn't looking?

It's not a gaze attack and just like in 3.5 monsters don't have facing. On the other hand it's a close blast and so it's directional. (Close bursts wouldn't be).

Is the power magic? Does an anti-magic barrier stop it?

What and where is your "anti-magic barrier" coming from? Can something that you'd have to house-rule into 4e stop it. I have no idea - the anti-magic barrier is house rules. If you want a better question, "Why doesn't an anti-magic field tear the wings off a dragon if he's flying?"

Oh wait. That would be applying the standards to 3.X you want to apply to 4e, but are failing to because you are inventing things that aren't there like anti-magic barriers. Except there are anti-magic fields in 3.X. And apparently they don't do this to dragons or beholders.

It says it's a fear based power, and it attacks Will--does that mean it can be used against one of us if we're using a scrying ritual? The scrying ritual doesn't mention if powers can be used against me while scrying.

Close blast 3. Unless DM says otherwise.

If we've chosen the scream narrative, does a silence spell counter it?

Silence is an anti-eavesdropping spell in 4e. And takes a while to cast.

If we've chosen the abyssal horror narrative, can a player close their eyes to ignore it?

If your eyes were specified to be tightly shut (and you had no other means of sight like a Robe of Eyes or Blindsight) before it launched the attack, possibly. I've never seen this happen because keeping your eyes closed in combat in preparation for a possible attack is such a monumentally stupid idea. (No, you can't close your eyes at the end of your turn and open them at the start of your next one).

What if I'm playing a Paladin, and narratively I see my character as being immune to undead fear effects.

Is your character immune to undead fear effects or not? If he is he is. If it's a narrative ass-pull to make your character more powerful, too bad.

Does that mean it's actually targeting AC for me, and not Will?

No.

Any one narrative description is perfectly acceptable for an individual scene. But to then not carry that narrative forward, so that a player/character can benefit from their first hand experience and knowledge seems brutally disingenuous.

It depends. Will similar precautions help? Probably. But do monsters appear from cloning tanks? No.

Fighter PC: "Damn, we just fought one of these things, I'm going to chop off its hands, so it can't cast that bolt thingy."

Would you have allowed a fighter to do the same thing in 3e to a random spellcaster? My guess is no - at least not until you'd rendered them helpless.

In essence, the GM is punishing the player for coming up with a creative idea, when the Fighter PC did nothing more than make the natural, logical leap that one wight is like another.

When what the fighter did was tried something that no DM I am familiar with would allow in 3e. Sunder only cuts off weapons in 3e, not wrists. If it cut off wrists, it would be done to every enemy spellcaster. And sword wielder.

In order to get the monster into a position where its wrists could be sundered, it would need to be reduced to 0hp.

Quick question: In 3.X, how many times did you allow the PCs to cut the hands off a spellcaster in combat? It's really not in the rules.

Quick question 2: How many times did the PCs reduce an enemy spellcaster to 0hp, let him live, and then cut his hands off so he couldn't use somatic components?

If the answer to both these questions is "never", arguing that this isn't covered in 4e is simply special pleading.

Call me crazy, but not only is a scenario like this "dissociative," it carries the even bigger penalty of discouraging player creativity.

Call me crazy, but I don't think that not allowing PCs to amputate limbs of active and aware monsters is anything abnormal in any edition of D&D.

Of course one answer to our dilemma is, "Come up with better narrative for the Bolt power, or don't bother with narrative at all."

Another answer is to tell the player to stop being a munchkin and arbitrarily claiming that he can mutilate still standing enemies and is immune to certain powers when he has no mechanical justification for this immunity. Your examples are made of straw. And worse than that they are made of straw but in most cases show disconnects in 3.X where they don't in 4e.

 

[Yesway Jose]

If you're telling a pure narrative in which whatever you say is true, there is zero "disassociation" because there are no mechanics.

Is this meant to relate to any actual reported instance of play, or just a remark in the abstract?
<snip>
I'm not playing a game without mechanics. I'm playing 4e, which is a pretty mechanics-heavy game.

You excised the rest of the original post, and I think you cherry-picked a sentence out of context, and I think you missed my point. I would clarify, except....

But this is like someone explaining how a meal has been served on a polenta base, and corn meal has been used in the pastry component of the meal, and the meat inside the pastry is corned beef. I mean, yes, I now know why I didn't like the meal - I don't particularly care for either the texture or the flavour of polenta or corned beef - but to infer from that "Ah, now we've worked out why the meal was disgusting", when I'm at a table with a dozen other diners who loved it, would look a bit like I was projecting my preferences somewhat.

I wrote "that's what makes 4E uniquely "disassociative" to me" not "now we've worked out why 4E is disassociative". You inferred wrong. Just like you and others have made a wrong inference from the essay. And I think your analogy is flawed or limited in its usefulness to the point.

You know, the partisanship can get a bit too much. Too much "huzzah" and fist bumps when your side of the table makes a point, and then making the wrong kind of arguments when the other side makes a point no matter how valid. I apologize if I ever acted hypocritically, but I'm not interested in seeing back and forth of one-way bon mots with no feedback loops. The only winner is the last one standing with enough patience to see everyone else give up. I was interested in a discussion about disassociation, not see disassociation in our discussion.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Cant believe this thread is still going

 

[tomBitonti]

There is a disconnect here ... however the Besieged Foe is fluffed, none of that has any mechanical effect whatsoever. No matter how you describe it this time, no matter how different you describe it next time, the effect remains exactly the same. There is no practical in game meaning to the fluff, that's just there because you added it to add color to the scene.

I want to point out, here, that you move from "mechanical effect" to "effect" to "practical in game meaning".

The claim of "no mechanical effect whatsoever" is, in my view, itself not true. As I posted a few times upthread, the way that a power or ability is narrated may often be significant for how the players hook onto it using page 42.

But even if you take the view that use of page 42 is a corner case (I don't, personally) it doesn't follow that it has no effect, or no practical in game meaning. In a game where the main focus is not on operational play of the "flying theif on a rope" variety, but rather (for example) on doing something dramatic or interesting starting with the notion that this is a WAR DEVIL - a being of pure martial domination whom my god has charged me to defeat! - than the fact that I succumbed to a curse placed by that creature might be quite significant. It might affect NPC reactions. Other players' conceptions of, or the player's own conception of, the PC. The structure and resolution of subsequent skill challenges. The structure and resolution of subsequent combats! (Am I the only GM who has recurring monsters and NPCs act on the basis of fictional happenings in previous encounters? I assume not.)

If I may rephrase:

However the Besieged Foe is described, none of that description alters the application of the power. No matter how you describe it this time, no matter how different you describe it next time, the power and its effect remain exactly as specified by the power block.

To me that is what the Alexandrian means by "house ruling" the power. If the description alters the power's effect in a way that maps to game mechanics, that is a house rule.

In my limited experience with 4E, which is in short tries at the local game store, the players don't go beyond applying the power block. They aren't thinking very much in terms of "what does this power mean", just "what happens when I use this power".

Looking back to Besieged Foe:

Besieged Foe (minor; at-will)
Ranged sight; automatic hit; the target is marked, and allies of the war devil gain a +2 bonus to attack rolls made against the target until the encounter ends or the war devil marks a new target.

I can imagine that as a Curse (say, a one target super Bane in 3E parlance), or as the Marshall Motivate Attack major aura.

The difference between the 4E effect: Automatic hit, target is marked, and these two 3E examples: Bane is a spell, with a duration and a save, and is subject to detailed spell mechanics, while a marshall aura requires:

Unless otherwise noted, a marshal's aura affects all allies within 60 feet (including himself) who can hear the marshal. An ally must have an Intelligence score of 3 or higher and be able to understand the marshal's language to gain the bonus. A marshal's aura is dismissed if he is dazed, unconscious, stunned, paralyzed, or otherwise unable to be heard or understood by his allies.

(From D&D Miniatures Handbook excerpt
I rather imagine that is not the current exact power description, I don't think that matters for the current discussion.)

If you model the 4E ability off of the Marshall major aura, and the battlefield has a side room, and a player (temporarily) shifts the devil into the side room while another closes a door, would you then rule that the mark ends? (Do marks require continuous line-of-sight?) Do you require that allies understand the language that the Devil uses?

TomBitonti

 

[pemerton]

You excised the rest of the original post, and I think you cherry-picked a sentence out of context, and I think you missed my point.

Not on purpose.

Here are the two relevant quotes, in full:

If you're telling a pure narrative in which whatever you say is true, there is zero "disassociation" because there are no mechanics. However, you can could also say that there is 100% disassociation, because there are no mechanics to be disassociated from.

If you're playing a pure abstract game, there is 100% disassociation because there is no fiction. However, you could also say that there is zero disassociation, because there's no story to be disassociated from.

I think it may be impossible to prove that a mechanic has any inherent property for disassociation, because your definition is entirely dependant on which position you're looking from.

Thank you, that was my point. Those qualities you discuss above is what makes 4E uniquely "disassociative" to me. I don't know what the anthropic principle has to do with it.

What I see here is a discussion of "pure narrative" with "no mechanics" (what The Alexandrian calls "improv drama", which he then suggests links the tactical skirmishes of 4e).

I also see a discussion of 100% dissociation in purely abstract games - these would be The Alexandrian boardgames.

I don't know if you're meaning to press all the same buttons as Justin Alexaner et al in your post, but you've succeeded in doing so. Despite my many posts describing ACTUAL PLAY EXAMPLES of 4e's mechanics in action, being used to roleplay, you seem to me to be discussing pure theorycraft about improv drama and boardgames.

You also refer to "your definition" of "dissociation". I'm not sure who the "your" is meant to denote - presumably not me, given that I have no definition of dissociation, as I regard it as a pseudo-notion.

You then seem to agree with Crazy Jerome's description of 4e, which has been well-known since some time in 2008, and much discussed by both 4e enthusiasts and those who don't like 4e. Given that Crazy Jerome's description of 4e does not need, nor use, the notion of "dissociation", I think it is consistent with my view that "dissociation" is a pseudo-notion.

I wrote "that's what makes 4E uniquely "disassociative" to me" not "now we've worked out why 4E is disassociative". You inferred wrong. Just like you and others have made a wrong inference from the essay.

If I've misundestood you, I apologise. I haven't misunderstood the essay. The only factual information that it contains is that Justin Alexander dislikes 4e because of the particular character of its metagame mechanics, but it dresses up this rather pedestrian fact in a pseudo-theory of "dissociative mechanics".

The relevance of the anthropic principle - mentioned by wrecan - is this: that the only reason Justin Alexaner's pseudo-theory gets any traction is because there is an audience for it who have not, before 4e, experienced dislike of D&D because of its metagame mechanics. That is, his primary audience is those who can cope with, or even enjoy, D&D's existing, pre-4e metagame mechanics. Other potential readers of his essay, who don't like classic D&D's metagame mechanics, already stopped playing D&D between 20 and 30 years ago, and so they are generally not actual readers of his D&D blog.

Hence the analogy to the anthropic principle - that the only investigators into the existence of a universe will discover that it is a universe capable of housing and sustaining those investigators, however improbable that may seem a priori.

So, mutatis mutandis, with the essay - his primary audience are apt to discover that he accurately captures their experience of 4e, however non-universal this experience might be, just because they are an audience who is having their first taste of an edition of D&D with metagame mechanics that they are not accustomed to.

For those who are genuinely unfamiliar with the range of RPGs that predate 4e and have very obviously influenced its design, and/or with the history of simulationist alternatives to D&D that flourished particularly in the 80s (like RQ, RM and C&S), I can certainly see that they might not notice how the essay trades on projecting a rather particular experience as a universal property of certain mechanics (namely, their tendency to induce "dissociation").

If you in fact are agreeing with a range of other posters on this thread that the occurence of "dissociation" - ie the effect of a particular mechanic driving a wedge between player and PC (or perhaps the fiction more generally) - depends primarily on the experiences and expectations that a player brings to the table, rather than being inherent to particular mechanics, than I certainly did misunderstand you. For which I again apologise.

But this is clearly not what the Alexandrian is saying. Upthread, Beginning of the End said that 4e's power mechanics, as metagame mechanics, are comparable to making moves in a board game. That is continuing the line that a tendency to cause "dissociation" is an inherent property of 4e's mechanics.

You know, the partisanship can get a bit too much.

<snip>

I was interested in a discussion about disassociation, not see disassociation in our discussion.

OK.

From my position, what I see in the Alexandrian's essay and in BoTE's posts is the same old stuff about 4e being a board game in which the pieces are given funky names, and being a series of tactical skirmishes linked by improv drama.

Innerdude's posts are a bit more sympathetic than that, but several of his posts still have the same sort of lame imagined examples of play which are intended, apparently, to show that "This is the catch. Right here. This is the thing that can't be explained away."

These posts frustrate me for two reasons. First, the imagined examples of play are not, as far as I can tell, drawn from any actual play experience by innerdude, nor even any serious attempt to think about how those who play 4e might go about doing it in a coherent fashion. Nor do they bear any resemblance to the actual play examples I've set out upthread.

Second, this notion of "this is the catch, right here" is in its fundamentals no different from The Alexandrian's assumption that his aesthetic response isn't just a matter of taste, but is evidence of some objectively existing problem, to which players of 4e (to quote another poster upthread) have a "blind spot". The language of "trade-offs" tends to carry similar connotations. The overall vibe is as if those who play 4e are unable to comprehend what is going on in their own games, but once the light has been shone by those who APPEAR TO BE ENGAGING PURELY IN THEORYCRAFT then 4e players come under some sort of onus to concede that 4e really does have these problems, these inherent flaws, that those who play it have just been ignoring and working around.

I'll finish by venturing another analogy: suppose I tried to prove that hit points are a "dissociated" mechanic by putting forward the following imagined example of play:

Cleric: That dragon really took it out of you. It bit off both your arms, and a leg.

Fighter: Yeah, luckily I was able to finish it off by holding my sword in my teeth and swinging it by twisting my neck! By the way, have you got any healing that can help me?

Cleric: Yep, a couple of Cure Light Wound spells should grow that leg back. And I can memorise some more tomorrow. And even if I don't, your arms will regrow in a month or so anyway.

Fighter: OK. Gee, imagine what it would be like to live in a world in which humans didn't regenerate like slow-motion trolls, and had no more strength in their necks and jaws than a monkey. We'd never be able to beat dragons in combat!​

No player of classic D&D, or 3E, should regard that tripe as saying anything relevant to the hit point issue, other than perhaps making it clear that loss of hit points - at least for PCs who are likely to recover those hit points in short order - should not be narrated as the severing of limbs.

Whatever the issues with hit points - and in my view their are complexities - the problem is not primarily that they produce a stupid game. Rather, it's that in order to avoid a stupid game you have to (at least occasionally, perhaps often) think about how you're going to narrate them before you do so. Of course, that will have consequences - for example, no matter how many combats the typical PC fights it's pretty unlikely she'll be maimed unless a foe has a sword of sharpness. If one doesn't like this consequence - as I don't, in a game that otherwise tends towards simulationism - then one can play something else! But it would be foolish to think that this conclusion shows hit points to be, per se, an untenable mechanic, or even one which must tend towards introducing incoherence, or "dissociation", into the play of the game. For some, the plot protection element presumably helps them get into an otherwise simulationist game. And for yet others, like Doug McCrae upthread, they might just assimilate hit points to the simulation, treating them as supernatural toughness and using that to explain why no surviving PC ever gets maimed. (And it would obviously be absurd to say that those who like hit points as plot protection, or who like simulationist toughness hit points, have a "blind spot" towards realism. They just prefer something else.)

In short, I think it's possible to explore the features of a game that one does or does not like without making claims about "the catch, right here" that those who play the game only cope with because they have a blind spot. This is what the "theory of dissociated mechanics" fails to do.