In Defense of the Theory of Dissociated Mechanics

[innerdude]

First, I apologize if my earlier samples came across as insulting, or insinuated that anyone actually played 4e in the manner described. They were extreme cases, but extreme to demonstrate the point--that when carried to a certain logical extension, there are "fissures," or "cracks between the lines," inherent in narrative resolution playstyle.

The choice to carry forward, or not carry forward, any particular scene-based narrative resolution has ancillary consequences. Those consequences may run counter 4e's inherent paradigms, and they may have relatively little applicability to actual in-game play.

But for me, the principle involved alters my opinion just as much as the potential for any particular effect to occur--or not occur--in actual use.

That said, as long as you're willing to accept the basic tenets of narrative resolution, for the first time since it was released 3 years ago, I can actually cognitively understand and recognize how some players enjoy 4e, and find that it provides a satisfying play experience.

For that, I'm actually grateful to wrecan, pemerton, and the others for being willing to engage in dialogue.

I'm not totally willing to concede, at this point, that the concept of dissociation is not "inherent," or "objective"--but I'm pretty close.

More appropriately, if it any mechanic can be proven to be "inherently dissociated," its actual applicability in any objective case would likely be so far removed from being useful, that it's pointless. I'm sure any of us could come up with something objectively dissociative--

"Mars Attacks"
At-Will, melee, Magic
1W + special

"Every time you hit something with your sword, aliens from Mars appear overhead in a UFO, and add 2d6 of damage with a laser beam."



But at that point the distinction between "dissociation," "crappy mechanics," and "general idiocy" becomes nigh indistinguishable.

(And even then, the dissociation of "Mars Attacks" is still subjectively based in the genre expectations of heroic fantasy....)

However, I want to reiterate something I said in a previous post, which is that even if something is subjective/not universal, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist, or provides zero utility.

I think the quote by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in 1964 about obscenity applies here: "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ['dissociative mechanics']; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it."

I also think we should be careful in criticizing Justin Alexander too much.

The only factual information that it [the original essay] 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".

To be fair, it's a little bit more than that. The stated the premise might be, "4e contains a number of mechanics of a general meta-game nature, caliber, tone and timbre, that when applied through a shared association of inherent property or 'state of being,' rather than narratively, will tend to deviate or break from that shared association. This I have termed dissociative."

It's a question of the form of association--is it through shared fiction, or through inherent property or "state of being"?

There's really two reasons I'm not 100% willing to concede the objectivity point--one, I'm still not completely sold on the idea that narrative resolution can always be left behind scene to scene. At some level, in some fashion, there's going to be a point where a narrative resolution is going to have to be adjudicated and "mapped," as tomBitonti stated.

The other reason I'm not willing to totally write off objective dissociation is because there's lots of assumptions being bandied about here about the nature of "narrative" that is undefined as well. That, however, is most certainly a subject for another thread.

 

[Victim]

I'm not being immersed in a story; I'm being immersed in a character. He has no reason to expect that the world will change to conform to his needs. Furthermore, Chekov's Gun only applies to a narrow set of stories; more expansive stories can have guns that aren't just there to further the story, that expand the world.

And yet that's not the only kind of immersion that can exist. With multiple kinds of immersion, mechanics that harm one can help others (and vice versa).

Unless you want to argue that the kind of immersion you like is universally superior, there's no reason that mechanics shouldn't be implemented in some games that favor other kinds.

 

[LostSoul]

I'm not totally willing to concede, at this point, that the concept of dissociation is not "inherent," or "objective"--but I'm pretty close.

More appropriately, if it any mechanic can be proven to be "inherently dissociated," its actual applicability in any objective case would likely be so far removed from being useful, that it's pointless. I'm sure any of us could come up with something objectively dissociative--

"Mars Attacks"
At-Will, melee, Magic
1W + special

"Every time you hit something with your sword, aliens from Mars appear overhead in a UFO, and add 2d6 of damage with a laser beam."

I know it's a joke, but...

As I understand it, I don't think that power is dissociated. The PC has a magical power to call Martians when you hit someone with your sword. The player wants to defeat their foe in battle; so does the PC. That's associated. (Even if it wasn't magical it would still be associated.)

If it was...

Mars Attacks
Daily
Requirement: The character expresses their true desire not to kill the target.
Target: Anyone the character does not wish to kill.
Attack: Cha vs. Will
Hit: UFOs from Mars kill the target.​

The player uses the power when he wants to kill a target, but in order to use the power the character cannot want to kill the target. The player's desire and the PC's are dissociated.

Maybe I still don't understand what "dissociated" means. If this is not the case - if "dissociated" means that what's happening in the game world doesn't matter - then I don't see how that's not the case for Power Attack and other abstracted mechanics.

 

[Yesway Jose]

Mars Attacks
Daily
Requirement: The character expresses their true desire not to kill the target.
Target: Anyone the character does not wish to kill.
Attack: Cha vs. Will
Hit: UFOs from Mars kill the target.
​

The player uses the power when he wants to kill a target, but in order to use the power the character cannot want to kill the target. The player's desire and the PC's are dissociated.

The going definition is that a mechanic is not disassociated if the reasoning of the power be learned, explored, or observed in-game. So if a UFO was scanning for speech patterns like "I don't want you to die" and always following the PC or able to triangulate the coordinates and instantly teleport to the vicinity, observe or mind-read the PC to confirm the intended recipient of the expression not to die, and unerringly laser and kill the target, then it's not disassociated. Also, in order not to be disassociated, there must be an in-game reason for why it only happens once per day.

 

[Hussar]

In game reason for once a day - the alien's sensors are not that good and don't always pick up every example of the trigger.

By and large, it's usually not that hard to come up with plausible reasons.

Something I do want to tangent on for a second is the idea that dissociative mechanics make world building more difficult. I really cannot agree with this.

In earlier editions, the fact that many mechanics were indelibly linked to the world meant that the world was almost always defined in some way by the mechancs. You could break that link by changing the rules, but, that had to be a conscious decision.

Take Dragonlance for a second. In DL, you don't have gold pieces, you have steel pieces. Now, why? Why change the basic monetary unit, while preserving the exchange rates?

The answer is fairly simple. This is a campaign where you're going to kill dragons. Lots of dragons. And dragons have tons and tons of gold and treasure for which you gain XP every time you collect it. If you actually used a GP standard in DL, your characters would be fantastically wealthy in only a couple of levels and would gain those levels very, very quickly.

So, they change to a Steel standard. Dragons still have mountains of gold, but, now, that gold is simply window dressing and without value. We preserve the base mechanics - XP for treasure, advancement rates, etc - without having to reinvent the wheel.

Or, ask yourself this. Why is one of the very first encounters in the DL saga meeting the one person in the WHOLE world that can cast cleric spells? Is it to drive the story forward or is it a recognition that without a cleric and clerical healing, the game becomes extremely difficult to play?

I'd argue the latter. The justification is added later, but, the reason Goldmoon is the first NPC that joins your merry band is no accident.

Now, turn this over to a 4e system. Wealth isn't particularly tied to anything. Because treasure gained is meant to be parcelled out by level, rather than by whatever critter you happen to kill, there's no need to change gp standards. You can if you like and it makes no difference. The choice isn't mandated by the mechanics.

Goldmoon can still be the only cleric in the world. But, now you can move her to any point in the adventure and not have game play go kerblooie because the characters have no healing. Her placement is solely dependent on the needs of the narrative and not the mechanics.

IMO and this is just my opinion, the fact that the mechanics are by and large not tied to any specific in game reason, means that you gain so much freedom when designing settings and campaigns.

 

[Yesway Jose]

In game reason for once a day - the alien's sensors are not that good and don't always pick up every example of the trigger.

By and large, it's usually not that hard to come up with plausible reasons.

Sure, but some are more plausible than others for any one person.

The sensors not always picking up every speech pattern is extremely plausible to me. However, thinking of the bigger pattern, it's more plausible when 1/day is hardwired into the fiction, like it takes a day to power up the laser again. In that way, there can never be a "disassociation" when the sensors could probably work more than once per day but didn't. (But yes, you'd need a new mechanic if the fiction dictated that the martians upgraded the power core).

Interestingly, if the DM said "No way in hell are there UFO and martian aliens in my game!" then the power IS 'disassociated" because the reasoning used the explain the mechanic in-game cannot be true. With the game world defined as alien-free, that mechanic is inherently disassociated to the game world (whatever "inherently" means?)

Interestingly, the more fiction implied by the mechanic, I guess the more room for disassociation. Which makes sense for simulationist mechanics. Unlike picking a rule and adapting the fiction, in simulationist roleplaying the player thinks from the fiction and grabs the best rule -- the one that already feels the most associated.

Something I do want to tangent on for a second is the idea that dissociative mechanics make world building more difficult. I really cannot agree with this.

I guess that's all related to world-building - 3E would offload much of the responsiblity to the designers to decide the fluff that is default, 4E would offload more (but not all) of the responsiblity to the DM/players to narrate the fluff ad hoc or not. The cohesiveness of the game world is then dependant on the effort and imagination of the designer or DM/players. (I hope I'm not re-stating something obvious that someone else stated a little earlier, I think I probably am).

IMO and this is just my opinion, the fact that the mechanics are by and large not tied to any specific in game reason, means that you gain so much freedom when designing settings and campaigns.

Oh, I agree. Following from above, though, I think it's fair to say that: with more freedom, comes great responsibility. The burden of that responsibility is entirely up to whether the players perceive it as such. Tactical skirmish, for example, don't perceive it. An immersionist would.

 

[Uller]

Okay...I read the original "theory" and random smatterings of this thread...so maybe I missed it...

What is the difference between "dissociated" rules and abstractions?

Every game mechanic is an abstraction. Not every mechanic can possibly be tied back to some sort of rule about how the world works...in fact, I would postualate that NO mechanic can be satisfactorily associated to the game world.

Take the most fundamental: Using a dice to resolve random chance.

Imagine, a wizard decides to experiment with how well he can use a spell to knock squirrels out of trees. He observes that when he hits a squirrel with a particular spell that has a forced move effect it has exactly a 45% chance to cause the squirrel to fall from the tree. Why?

He does this with other spells and other circumstance, repeating the spell 10s of thousands of times...always 45%. WTH?

Then he observes that every random event has a probability of occurring in increments of 5%. I suppose he could do one of two things: He could postulate the theory that (in the universe in which he lives) randomness is discreet and divided into some sort of "particle" of discreet size...or he could realize that there is no explanation...it is dissociated from reality and then watch as his world turns into a backgammon board in a puff of logic (to borrow from Douglas Adams's babble fish).

 

[Yesway Jose]

Every game mechanic is an abstraction. Not every mechanic can possibly be tied back to some sort of rule about how the world works...in fact, I would postualate that NO mechanic can be satisfactorily associated to the game world.

Well, nobody has defined "associated", but since it must be a relative measure, then "satisfactorily associated" must be whatever the person qualifies to be plausible or plausible enough. I posited many pages back that the most associated mechanic is like playing a match of rock-paper-scissors to simulate an in-game match of rock-paper-scissors.

Imagine, a wizard decides to experiment with how well he can use a spell to knock squirrels out of trees. He observes that when he hits a squirrel with a particular spell that has a forced move effect it has exactly a 45% chance to cause the squirrel to fall from the tree. Why?

He does this with other spells and other circumstance, repeating the spell 10s of thousands of times...always 45%. WTH?

Sounds like a numerology conspiracy theory

The going definition (nobody has come up with anything else AFAIK) is that a mechanic is not disassociated if the reasoning of the power can be learned, explored, or observed in-game.

The wizard might deduce that the success of his spells are not dependant on the target or circumstance, but is based on his own internal mastery of magic.

Then he observes that every random event has a probability of occurring in increments of 5%

How does he observe this?

or he could realize that there is no explanation...it is dissociated from reality and then watch as his world turns into a backgammon board in a puff of logic (to borrow from Douglas Adams's babble fish).

I assume the character doesn't have to explore the reasoning, the stipulation is only that can/could do so.

I don't think anybody has pinned down all the parameters, as there are many factors and interactions going on.

 

[Uller]

The wizard might deduce that the success of his spells are not dependant on the target or circumstance, but is based on his own internal mastery of magic.

But then he asks a much more powerful wizard use a much more powerful spell and finds he also has a 45% chance of knocking squirrels from trees...(save on a 10+ game mechanic)

How does he observe this?

Duh! The same way anyone observes the probability of anything. Repeat it unreasonably large numbers of times and observe the results. (probably by first securing a research grant from the local academy of wizardry)...

I did find in an earlier post what I think about all of this...the rules are a tool that the player uses to interact with the world through his character. They are not how the world actually works. I've been playing since the late 70s and that's how I've always understood any RPG...I never bothered to ask (for instance) why a sleep spell only affects monsters with up to 4 + 1 HD...if it's got 4 + 2 HD, it is immune...why, in game world terms, would that be so? Who cares! It's the rules...

If the world is constrained to behave only as the rules describe, then either the world is going to be overly simple, the rules overly complex or some combination of the two.

 

[Yesway Jose]

But then he asks a much more powerful wizard use a much more powerful spell and finds he also has a 45% chance of knocking squirrels from trees...(save on a 10+ game mechanic)

Then 45 is literally the magic number.

Duh! The same way anyone observes the probability of anything. Repeat it unreasonably large numbers of times and observe the results. (probably by first securing a research grant from the local academy of wizardry)...

There's an old saying that everything happens in threes. Your wizard has amazingly discovered that randomness is based on fives. Combined with the discovery of 45 being the magic number, he wins a Nobel Prize.

I think that hypothetical examples are enlightening in illustrating a point, but I'm not sure what it is here, and I'm not invalidating your examples, as I enjoyed the thought experiment, but maybe someone else can help in way that I can't.

I never bothered to ask (for instance) why a sleep spell only affects monsters with up to 4 + 1 HD...if it's got 4 + 2 HD, it is immune...why, in game world terms, would that be so? Who cares! It's the rules...

The PCs cannot observe the mechanics of HD, but they can observe that some creatures, noticeably the tougher ones, are immune to sleep spells. That's why PC and NPC wizards didn't try to cast sleep on dragons, because they knew it doesn't work. (Part of the fun was not knowing if the sleep was going to work on all monsters.) There's a predence for elite monsters in fantasy literature shaking off the effects of puny weapons and lesser magic, and it always seemed intuitive to me.

At the end of the day, I guess it's not something that can measured and quantified. We look at the abstraction and decide for ourselves if the fiction is plausible/associated or implausible/peripheral to the mechanic. For me, some mechanics seem to feel more simulationist than others.