In Defense of the Theory of Dissociated Mechanics

[JamesonCourage]

I'll stand by the idea that disociated mechanics makes for MUCH easier world building because all of the above stuff doesn't have to be handwaved away.

I think that has more to do with the types of powers than with whether or not they're dissociated. If 3.X magic was dissociated, it would still pose the same problems to you that it does now.

 

[pemerton]

my next baby step is to ask that no matter how you define A (=all the things hypnotism can do outside of combat), it has no affect on B (=what you can do inside combat).

Thus combat is a selectively permeable membrane. It passes mechanical information from combat to out-of-combat, but it doesn't accept mechanical information from out-of-combat into combat no matter how out-of-combat is defined

As I see it, technically correct, but missing a critical piece of context: If you have decided at your table to expand to a more robust usage of powers out of combat, then it isn't much of a jump to selectively allow some of that to go back into the combat portion. After all, you've already taken responsibility for allowing "magic" to do some things outside the rules. Presumably, then, you'll be somewhat comfortable extending that ruling back into combat.

This gets fuzzy of course. Because p. 42 is usable in combat--maybe mainly usable in combat--a character can already push the definition of powers through it.

I agree that page 42 is key here.

I haven't had the Hypnotism issue come up, but I have had to decide - Can Thunderwave (which deals Thunder damage and a push effect) blow its target through an open window? can Twist of Space (which deals untyped damage and teleports its target) be used to rescue a person trapped inside a mirror, or inside an extra-dimensional space with transluscent walls? Will using Fireshroud (which deals fire damage to enemies) in a library set fire to the books? What about making a close burst with a polearm - will that knock over the scroll racks? And can a close burst with a polearm be used, while standing in a pond, to wedge stone blocks at the bottom of the pond into the spring that feeds it, so as to stop the flow of water?

In each case the answer has been to require a skill check at an appropriate DC - Arcana with the spells, Acrobatics (in the library) and Athletics (in the pond) for the polearm - and in the case of the Thunderwave, when the check was failed but the attack was a crit, the table decided to let the target be blown through the window in any event!

I LOVE your thinking, but if it was a good idea to use daze or slow with Hypnotism then why wouldn't the designers have thought of that themselves? There must be a game balance issue, and thus it can't be suitable for normal 4E gameplay.

I don't think it's particularly an issue of balance. As I see it, it's about sleekness and ease of design. 4e's approach, for better or worse, is that some core features of a power will be spelled out in detail, and the more contextually variable stuff - or the stuff where the GM might want to set stakes based on context (eg you can daze with your hypnotism, but if you fail your Arcana check you'll be granting combat advantage yourself as you get caught up in your own sophisticated gestures) - is left to the GM to adjudicate via page 42.

It's a halfway house between the detail of 3E's spell descriptions (which appear to incorproate all the sage advice and other contextually-governed modifications that've been identified over the years) and the completely open-ended descriptors of a game like HeroWars/Quest or Maelstrom Storytelling, where every use of a descriptor requires adjudication by the participants as to exactly what it will and won't permit to be achieved in the fiction.

Whether such a halfway house is fun to play is, no doubt, a matter of taste. Whether Hypnotism is a particularly well-designed power within that overall design paradigm is another question again - it might be better if it had text closer to that for the Prestidigitation cantrip. But the logic of the design seems fairly clear to me.

Do you agree that in an average game these improvisations are not used? Your question does seem to imply that it's not the norm in your experience.

I expect that they're not the norm at Encounters or similar playing-with-strangers events, for the sorts of reasons Crazy Jerome has flagged - there aren't the shared expectations, social contract etc to support them. I don't think HeroWars would play very well in that sort of context either.

Whether they are common or not in other more serious 4e games I have no idea. My players - who came into 4e from steady diets of 3E and/or Rolemaster - haven't had any trouble. They just look down their character sheets, see the sorts of things their PCs are obviously capable of doing, and say "OK, can I do this?" I've given some examples above, and other examples less immediately related to powers (like using oil to enhance a slide effect, and using Religion to get combat advantage against a wight) upthread.

Many games are being played to the letter of the rules. Of those many games, many DMs/players may not have gotten the "hint around the edges" and if they did, they might be afraid to experiment with that social contract and affect game balance.

Just out of curiosity - what is your evidence for this (outside of the context of Encounters and convention games, where I take it for granted that it is obviously true).

Yet IIRC with Baleful Polymorph, A > B

That is, a wizard might be able to turn people into frogs for longer periods of time outside of combat, but once in combat, due to constraints of time and concentration, he can only turn them into frogs for approx 6 seconds

Unless I missed something, the example of Baleful Polymorph was introduced into this thread by me, explaining that - in an actual session that I ran - when the duration ended (as per the mechanical specficiation for the NPC's power), the player of the PC who had been polymorphed narrated this as his god - the Raven Queen - turning him back.

The question of how long a Baleful Polymorph might last if nothing intervened to bring it to an end - whether the Raven Queen or something else - has not come up in my game. Nor has the question of how long a Baleful Polymorph might last if cast not in combat (as a standard action ability) but when performed as some sort of ritual (as far as I know there is no such ritual, but I imagine that it could be a Paragon effect taking 10 minutes or an hour to cast that affects only a helpless target).

The double standard is that 4E is exempt from Problems due to a social contract clause, but 3E is fraught with problems like Zone of Truth and does not have the right to use the "social contract" clause like 4E does.

Just to add to what Neonchameleon, Crazy Jerome and wrecan have said upthread - the contrast is between a system that starts out from a clear and (hopefully) unproblematic base, and then allows self-conscious tweaking and improvisation, and a system that starts out laden with potential problems, and draws attention to the need for tweaking and improvisation only once those problems become manifest. I think that that is a fair description of 4e, and it seems to me to be fair of 3E - but I don't have the same degree of experience with 3E as I do with 4e, so my impression is based as much on reading as on experience, and is based also on my experience with games that are similar in this respect, like AD&D and Rolemaster.

 

[pemerton]

Again, if you read a book long enough and some archer character achieves a certain nature of result consistently once per day that will stick out. Describing the actual process of firing an arrow in exactly the same manner for the regular shots and that daily awesome shot doesn't change anything.

Right, but I think I've already established that there won't be such a pattern. X hp of damage is X hp of damage, whether delivered via Twin Strike with a good damage roll and a crit, Biting Volley with no crits, or Shots on the Run with a miss for half damage.

Furthermore, what X hp of damage means is highly variable - was the monster a minion or a solo or something in between? did X hp bloody the target? reduce it to 0 hp?

Depending on the answers to these questions, it may be that the daily is, in the narrative, unimpressive and the Twin Strike - which is actually the killing shot - that seems awesome.

the character in the book would not perceive the difference. And a new reader also would not. But after a dozen times, maybe more, maybe less, the reader would learn. And on going back to re-read the book, it would stick out like a sore thumb from the first instance. Players already know.

In a pure narrative an awesome event could happen four times in a row then not for three days of trying. Or it could happen once a day for three days straight. Or anything else. The results are not driven any mechanical force outside the narrative.

This is equally true - the variability of hit rolls, crit rolls, damage rolls, plus prior hit point status of a target when a given amount of damage is dealt, all ensure that an awesome event could happen four times in a row, then not for three days (eg the archer rolls lots of misses, crappy damage, no crits, and falls victim to the fighter or the sorcerer kill-stealing every time).

If the PC build rules allowed for a 1x/day play an "I win" card, and this was the only reliable way for a PC to win, then I can see how a pattern might emerge. Even if there was such a card, and it wasn't the only way to win, I can see how a pattern might emerge, although it would perhaps be a less evident pattern.

But the situation for 4e martial PCs (at least, the builds I'm familiar with) isn't even like this. There is no 1x/day "I win" card. Dailies change the odds, and do interesting things, but the vagaries of the dice, in combination with the interpretive complexities of hit points as a resolution mechanic, break the pattern in the fiction.

From the archer's point of view the daily can certainly look like at-will. And the results of the daily will look like an at-will that went awesome.

But from the people sitting at the table's point of view, the ones who are there to have fun, the daily is a daily. The difference in result is not the effect of fate on otherwise equivalent activities. The difference in result is the effect of the mechanically established pattern.

Right. But this doesn't seem to be a pattern in the fiction. It's a pattern in the gameplay. I can definitely see the metagame wedge that is at odds with simulationist preferences. But I can't see any pattern in the narrative.

 

[pemerton]

This thread has gotten too big for me to catch up.

So I don't know if anyone has posted a link to this:

anyway: 3 Resolution Systems

As I understand it, this is the issue that motivates [MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION]'s 4e hack - he wants more "rightward arrows" (from the clouds (=fiction) to the boxes (=mechanical gamestate(?))) than he finds in 4e as published.

I think that skill challenge resolution, as written, requires rightward arrows - the GM has to frame the initial situation, and then reframe as part of each new skill roll (PHB p 259; DMG p 74):

Your DM sets the stage for a skill challenge by describing the obstacle you [the player] face and giving you some idea of the options you have in the encounter. Then you describe your actions and make checks . . .

You [the GM] describe the environment, listen to the players’ responses, let them make their skill checks, and narrate the results.​

I interpret the plurals here as distributed, not collective - ie after each description a player responds, makes a check, and a result is narrated which provides the new environment to which a player then responds - because the other reading - describe the environment, let the players make X checks without any connection to the fiction, then narrate the overall outcome of the challenge, (i) seems to produce a crappy game and (ii) is at odds with the examples of play that are found in the DMG and RC.

Because of the role of the battlemat and tokens/minis, I think that the role of the fiction in 4e combat is more contested. Some people think that the map and tokens are a represenation of the cloud. But obviously they are also part of the mechanical gamestate, and so are boxes.

I think how 4e combat is experienced may depend a lot on whether, for any given group, the stuff that is drawn on the battlemap is first and foremost fictional stuff - trees, rubble, fog, walls with doors and windows, etc - or first and foremost mechanical stuff - cover, difficult terrain, obscuring terrain etc. Perhaps in part because my maps are fairly sketchy and my group uses board game tokens rather than miniatures or even WotC's picture tokens, I think that the fictional stuff prevails. And this is reinforced by the resolution of interactions with it that involve rightward arrows and not just manipulating the map - like climbing walls, overturning furniture, opening or closing doors and shutters, etc.

This in part relates to Vincent Baker's comment #4 on the blog you linked to:

There are a couple of places in the game where there are supposed to be rightward-pointing arrows, but they're functionally optional. I assert them, but then the game's architecture doesn't make them real. So it takes an act of unrewarded, unrequired discipline to use them. I suspect that the people who have the most fun with the Wicked Age have that discipline as a practice or a habit, having learned it from other games.​

To an extent, my group has habits developed playing other games (mostly D&D and Rolemaster). But there are also aspects of the 4e architecture that generate rightward arrows - the rules on damaging objects, for example, make it clear that keywords (like fire, ice, teleportation etc) have fictional signficance. A tree can be set alight, for instance, but a stone pillar can't - so here we have a rightward pointing arrow, from fiction to mechanics, that is not just boxes (in the form of a cover symbol on a map) to boxes. Icy terrain can be used to cross a river, whereas a grasping vines spell that also creates difficult terrain probably can't. And so on.

[MENTION=6679265]Yesway Jose[/MENTION] is suggesting that this sort of approach to the game is not common. I don't know whether or not that is true, but I think approaching the game as a purely boxes-to-boxes exercise, or boxes-to-clouds plus a bit of clouds-to-clouds ("improv drama linking the tactical skirmishes") requiers ignoring things like the signficance of keywords + fiction to action resolution that are expressly called out in the game rules.

Anyway, I'm not sure how (if at all) this relates dissociation, but I do think it's an important issue in game design.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Oh don't even get me started on that one...

How the PCs integrate into the fiction is part of my worldbuilding. The PCs aren't aliens. Harry Potter has potential access the same spells and implements as the rest of the school, maybe not the exact same spell affinities for every individual, but there are similar paradigms for everyone. Harry Potter's Baleful Polymorph need not be unrecognizable and alien to other magicians.

Unfortunately for this case, 4e PCs are sometimes different from NPCs at a fluff level. The magic Invokers wield is normally unfamiliar or legendary for a very good reason. And yes, there are similarities. But the 4e hypnotism spell is just the single most basic spell of its type. There is a charm person spell. There are spells that knock people prone with mind control. Or even go right the way to dominating. I don't see your issue here.

that problem has never appeared in any of my games, so it's not a problem for me any more than Hypnotism is not a problem for you.

I don't care if people asking about Zone of Truth and the legal system has never appeared. It's not always an in game problem. It's a world-building problem. If there's someone in every villiage able to cast Zone of Truth (and most villiages have at least one 3rd level cleric) then you have a world where whoever wrote the law and all the local judges have curd for brains. Now it can be handled by giving a reason why they don't use Zone of Truth in the legal system. But if it isn't handled it makes the inhabitants of your world stupid. All of them. And that is a worldbuilding problem.

And then there is the problem of merchants and Zone of Truth. Merchants are generally ambitious and just a shade unscrupulous. The ability to deploy Zone of Truth is a huge advantage in negotiations, especially for a relatively honest merchant. And having a Zone of Truth used on you in many schools of bargaining is nasty. It is, as I have mentioned, very easy to find someone who can cast a Zone of Truth, and it's such a powerful aid to negotiations that once you have one single merchant who hires a cleric for this purpose the idea is going to spread like wildfire for anyone negotiating for anything expensive. Once one merchant starts using it, they are all going to want to if only in self defence. Or are going to take countermeasures. Either way it's going to change their negotiating strategy. This means that in 3e if Zone of Truth is not being either used or countered by merchants on a routine basis then there is no merchant who is either smart or thoughtful enough to think about how commons can make them be metter merchants. And never has been. And having all merchants as stupid people is a massive fail in worldbuilding.

That's just one spell. And not taking account of it gives you a daft legal system and makes every single one of your merchants stupid. The first is ... understandable if bad practice. Making all your merchants stupid and unimaginative is IMO an epic fail in terms of worldbuilding.

Possibly we just have different ideas of what "Worldbuilding" means. You seem to consider it to be somewhere that focusses on a narrow area round the PCs? I consider it to be about the whole world, and the PCs are (at the start) a very minor part.

 

[Yesway Jose]

Thank you to everyone for your responses.

Please understand that with a multi-pronged debate like this one, with me singlehandedly facing several different tangents and several different people, I cannot trust myself to have the time (and inclination) to fairly process everyone's posts and in return write coherently and articulately to reflect my own opinions.

So I hope a generic summary will suffice. I wrote before:

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).

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.

I fully understand the inclination to tear down a broken corrupt system and rebuild a fresh approach. I really do. I've felt this many, many times in 3E and previous editions.

However, I don't think it's fair to state that 4E is better than or is exempt from 3E-like problems in terms of worldbuilding.

3E has the advantage of a design committee that, if they have a simulationist approach, are paid to spend hours and hours tinkering and playtesting with a believable semi-coherent semi-consistent system. 4E leaves the burden to the DM and players, which is managed ad hoc, and generally without the time and resources available to a design committee.

Secondly, when "rebelling" and tearing down the status quo that is the simulationist 3E game world, what is the new ideal/foundation that supports the New Vision? Is it a dream of an amazing fiction, perhaps inspired by a new novel or movie? Is it a dream of a coherent rationale fantasy world? No, I believe the foundation of worldbuilding in 4E is none of the above, but a combat paradigm that informs out-of-combat experience, and that combat paradigm has everything to do with narrative control and game balance and little to do with good non-combat fiction.

That's my general opinion. Take it or leave it (probably leave it, and that's OK too). I may have time or not to address more specific avenues, but I'm not sure. I hope that in the last few pages, something interesting or useful can be derived by somebody.

 

[pemerton]

We do have some published evidence of what motivates the 4e design team in their approach to story elements: Worlds and Monsters.

I think that their inspiration is an idealised conception of the sort of fantasy that D&D seems typically to have aspired to - a fantastic world, with a long, rich and (at its base) mythical history. With many fallen empires, and prior to those, fallen gods, leading up to the present. This is a mix of Conan, The Dying Earth, Tolkein and classical mythology. The core elements of this conception of the gameworld are stated in W&M, and reiterated in the DMG (and more recent Essentials books that replicate that DMG material).

Sourcebooks like The Plane Above, The Demonomicon and Underdark (and to a noticeably lesser extent, The Plane Below and Open Grave) reinforce this conception.

It is a key feature of this conception that the gameworld support what are regarded as classic D&D-isms - ancient ruins to explore (this is 4e's take on "dungeons"), and conflicts with many sort of beings (not just humans), which conflicts are in many cases apt to be resolved by combat (this is 4e's take on "dragons").

The only relevance this has to mechanics, that I can see, is that it prioritises both PC build and action resolution mechanics that allow these conflicts to be expressed and explored in satisfying ways. Contrary to the claim, then, that "the foundation of worldbuilding in 4e . . . is a combat paradigm that informs out-of-combat experience", I think that the foundation of 4e's combat paradigm is a desire to have action resolution mechanics that are well-suited to expressing the conflicts that are at the centre of 4e's gameworld.

No doubt some PC powers, and some monster designs, do this better than others. The deathlock wight, which was mentioned upthread, I think is a good example of a monster that does this. I know (from a lot of use) that hobgoblins are another good example, as are the MM wraiths, in my experience (and somewhat bizarrely, given the criticism they receive from those who analyse them purely mechanically). The only monster I can think of at present which really feels like it's fallen short is the humble skeleton - it doesn't feel very skeletal.

As to whether or not 4e's design has a lot or a little to do with good non-combat fiction, I'm not sure that this can easily be judged in the absence of actual examples (even if we put to one side the fact that good fiction is at least in part a matter of taste).

 

[Yesway Jose]

pemerton, I agree with what you wrote above, with one small clarification... and this is where "disassociation" comes into play... worldbuilding is lifeless if the PCs don't interact with it meaningfully IMO.

To put it very generally for now (for lack of time), if the PCs operate by a certain paradigm, and the rest of the world operates on another paradigm, then it's like the PCs have a Twilight Zone cloud always following them, or it's like they're walking in a video-game-y bubble, or they are looking thru bulletproof transparent glass into the gameworld.

This is not to say that all NPCs must be codified like in 3E. But if an NPC has some candy, the PCs could also get that candy theoretically. If a witch turns a person into a frog for 1 minute or longer (using a spell, not a ritual), a PC wizard can learn to do so as well (and I don't mean a ritual). Also, if NPC wizards are turning people into frogs for longer periods of time, why does every PC wizard only learn the puny 6-second version by default? * There seems to be a disconnect there, and that disconnect is informed by the combat paradigm.

I need a feeling that the PCs are *part* of a living world. Otherwise, there's disassociation for me.

EDIT: * that could be worded better, but it's what I got for now.

 

[Neonchameleon]

3E has the advantage of a design committee that, if they have a simulationist approach, are paid to spend hours and hours tinkering and playtesting with a believable semi-coherent semi-consistent system. 4E leaves the burden to the DM and players, which is managed ad hoc, and generally without the time and resources available to a design committee.

What is your evidence that 3e had anything resembling a committee that tested the worldbuilding, or even the balance? Balance in 3e was pretty dire even at the tactical level that would be playtested.

No, I believe the foundation of worldbuilding in 4E is none of the above, but a combat paradigm that informs out-of-combat experience, and that combat paradigm has everything to do with narrative control and game balance and little to do with good non-combat fiction.

There is basically one condition you need to worldbuild for 4e. A slightly larger than life either pulp-ish or action-ish setting. If you want to exclude a power source (Dark Sun) it just drops out. And you can focus on the world you want to build. You don't build worlds for 4E. You build worlds for the type of game you want to play or based on whatever setting it is. An entirely easier condition.

 

[Yesway Jose]

What is your evidence that 3e had anything resembling a committee that tested the worldbuilding, or even the balance? Balance in 3e was pretty dire even at the tactical level that would be playtested.

1) just because 3E didn't share 4E's high level of enthusiasm for micromanagement of game balance, it doesn't follow that nobody imagined or playtested how simulationist mechanics affect worldbuilding
2) I assume that multiple designers and years of edition development with simulationist mechanics can at least be relatively compared to a 4E DM pondering an ad hoc narrative and making a ruling in 30 seconds, or even by himself for a few hours before a game
3) since my post was indicated to be an opinion, I don't need to provide rigorous evidence
4) you don't have any evidence that 3E did NOT playtest for worldbuilding or less so than any one hypothetical 4E game world

If I *must* face off a multipronged debate, it would be very helpful to my sanity if we can focus on the spirit of the argument, and not pursue "evidence" and suchlike for an opinion piece.