"Stumbling Around in My Head" - The Feeling of Dissociation as a Player

[S'mon]

Dissociated mechanics can really enhance narrative roleplaying, and I think there's a tad of a crusade mentality among a certain subset of players that fails to acknowledge this reality...

Yes - people who aren't interested in Dramatist, story-creative, & Author-Stance play are much more likely to object. I think a lot of people, me included to a degree, tend(ed) not to see D&D as a suitable vehicle for Dramatist play. If we're playing mostly for immersion-Sim + some Gamist challenge, then dissoc mechanics can get in the way. And I think all pre-4e versions of D&D had very little mechanical support for Dramatist play, so it was a jarring change.

I think now I've come to value 4e for what it does, potentially a nice combination of Gamist and Dramatist play. I even got some actual Narrativism into my Southlands 4e campaign, and the system was certainly less hostile than 3e would have been.
But, 4e nowhere comes out and says clearly that this is what it is. People will cut FATE a lot of slack because it's clear what the game is trying to achieve - it seems clear that the default stance in FATE is author-stance. That is not the case in 4e. People try to use 4e for Gamist/Sim mashup, the way IME D&D has usually been played, and end up frustrated, as I did.

 

[Umbran]

I've thought about this some, and I wonder if perhaps the real issue is somewhat more simple than how people tend to talk of it (whether a mechanic is truly dissociated, and whether this is an issue for narrative, simulationist, or gamist play, and so on). I think that avenue tends to limit the way we think, and has us misidentifying the problem.

The combination of the OP's "Stumbling around in my head" and GreyICE's mention of FATE has helped clarify this for me.

We may be able to generalize. No matter what people say, humans are actually pretty bad at multitasking. Switching contexts in how they are thinking is disruptive to their thought processes - so we may note that there's a problem when the mechanic causes the player to context-switch in order to make decisions.

For example, the FATE mechanic sounds dissociative, and narrative until you see it in play, where it may be neither. If I'm in an encounter, and I want to goad the other guy into a rash action, and I know he's Sensitive About Family, then I know if I start making "Your Momma..." jokes I'm gonna cheese him off! However Narrative and Dissociated is may seem from a design perspective, in play it can seem quite natural from an immersion-sim view as well. From either perspective, I don't have to change how I'm thinking to make a good decision!

Now, you still might see D&D gamists have an issue with the mechanic, but not because it is narrativist, or because it is dissociated, but because the gamist player is used specifically to tactical wargaming gamism. The conflict isn't with gamism, but with the wargaming habits. This mechanic is asking the player to think about things other than the order of play and the physical positioning on the battlefield, and such. For the tactical wargamer, this mechanic is thinking outside the box - context switching! Therefore it'll tend to be annoying and rejected as a bad idea.

Thoughts?

 

[innerdude]

No, there's some definite truth to what you're saying, Umbran. The "switching out" of mindsets is definitely part of what's going on in my head when I get that "Huh? What?" feeling.

Some of that is definitely tied to expectations as you've addressed, too. When I'm expecting to maintain a fairly heavy actor-stance, process-resolution mindset for a scene or encounter, getting thrown a bunch of narrativist, build-the-in-the-moment-fiction curveballs just feels jarring. It destroys the "build up" of trying to get into that moment. Then when it happens again....and again....and again....well, yeah, suddenly as a player you're saying, "This is NOT what I expected." Some people are okay with switching gears and rolling with what's being presented. Some people are okay with simply dealing with switching mindsets. And some people really struggle with the change in expectations and the resulting need to switch between them.

If there is a true black and white, hard and fast dividing line, I still think it sits around JamesonCourage's explanation from last year: To avoid potential "dissociation" for process resolution / actor stance mechanics, the results of a mechanic must be able to be reasoned, learned, or explored from within the fiction by the characters.

Interestingly, I don't know that I agree that FATE is inherently "dissociated"--considering that the whole point of the FATE system is "build narrative association" within the fiction as it develops. Also, in many ways FATE is really just swapping direct 1:1 rules correlation with GM fiat; it's the GM determines "fidelity" to the game world, even when it comes to using FATE points. That's actually an interesting question; does FATE even have the potential for dissociation?

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

So why does something like hit points not trigger the dissociation flag? For the most part, it's that it doesn't require any "in the moment" thought during resolution. Many mechanics that opponents claim should be "dissociative" but are not often recognized as such are typically things that are "hard wired" into the basic world of the fiction, either explicitly in the rules, or implicitly in the group's "this is the way the world works."

I suspect there's a certain mass of dissociated rules -- like hit points -- that should and would give immersion-sensitive players pause more often, except that we learn these rules very early in the learning curve. Because these rules are one of the first D&Disms we learn, they slip in under the dissociation-radar, so to speak.

Hit points and AC are the two biggies here. Are they really a great way of representing what they're trying to abstract? Eh, not so much, but we've either worked out in our minds before hand a reasonable explanation, or we've just grown numb to the particulars of its effects. Is that inconsistent? Yeah, maybe, but for me, that's just the way it works.

The bolded part applies especially to me. Or rather, I've grown numb to pretty much all of D&D's immersion-breaking rules. It's funny, because I'm probably one of the most immersion-sensitive gamers around. So sensitive, in fact, that I gave up rationalizing hit points and whatnot years ago and decided "Frak it, D&D physics and biology just don't work like the real world."

Now, anything that's hard to explain from a RL perspective gets the "It's magic!" treatment. It works for everything from hit points to Come and Get It, it's simple, and it passes JamesonCourage's test for in-character discovery.

 

[S'mon]

Now, you still might see D&D gamists have an issue with the mechanic, but not because it is narrativist, or because it is dissociated, but because the gamist player is used specifically to tactical wargaming gamism. The conflict isn't with gamism, but with the wargaming habits. This mechanic is asking the player to think about things other than the order of play and the physical positioning on the battlefield, and such. For the tactical wargamer, this mechanic is thinking outside the box - context switching! Therefore it'll tend to be annoying and rejected as a bad idea.

Thoughts?

Yes - I think this supports what I said about there being a clash of expectations, and this being the source of annoyance with 4e.

(OT) Your wargamer example is interesting, it brought home to me that traditional wargames seem very much steeped in a Clausewitzian paradigm of what a battle is and how it should work. The Mohammed/Mao three-stage system for insurgency war, or Sun Tsu perhaps, would have no trouble with the idea of defeating the enemy on the moral level before any physical force is used. Our wargames are ultimately derived from Prussian kriegspiel and they embody a force-on-force model where maneuver and supply are important but much is excluded as irrelevant that other theorists would see as critical.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Interesting ideas.

I know that I am very much Sim and total actor stance.

I love Dresden Files (a Fate game) but I GM it. I could never play it. When I play I never want to worry about framing, narrative, what works with the story. My only concern as a player is trying to become the character - live his life, think his thoughts, feel what he feels. So I like mechanics that mirror what the character is doing - I need to find something that I found out is in a safe. I open the safe - the roll only defined that I opened the safe. It doesn't tell me I found the information. As close to straight 1 to 1 parity between action and dice.

So I think I do tend to agree that the N-S line is where a mechanic my be considered dissociative.

 

[Neonchameleon]

@Neonchameleon So the 1-minute AD&D round feels more dissociative to you than the 6 second 3e/4e round, even though it takes much less time to resolve? Because you're in a climactic moment where there are assumed off-screen parries and ripostes?

Because I might as well sit back, turn on the TV, and press play to find out what happened. There is very little I can do that's other than either routine or cosmetic until the hurly burly's done, and the battle's been lost and won. And that's several minutes away. In 3e and 4e I can actually react to a changing situation rather than simply watch it unfold.

@innerdude As a DM in 4e, I loathe it when a player uses a power, reads the effect it has, and when I say "so what's happening, what's the story?" they look puzzled, go "uh...", shrug, or just repeat the power's effect. Aaargh!! That drives me nuts!

Me too.

Now, you still might see D&D gamists have an issue with the mechanic, but not because it is narrativist, or because it is dissociated, but because the gamist player is used specifically to tactical wargaming gamism. The conflict isn't with gamism, but with the wargaming habits. This mechanic is asking the player to think about things other than the order of play and the physical positioning on the battlefield, and such. For the tactical wargamer, this mechanic is thinking outside the box - context switching! Therefore it'll tend to be annoying and rejected as a bad idea.

Thoughts?

This. D&D (and I don't care which edition) is not very far drifted fromthe tactical wargames it is descended from. OK, so 4e has drifted hard in the direction of a tactical board wargame as opposed to one that measures distances in inches. But the assumptions are wargame-centric and you think in almost the same way. 4e also adds in a lot of stealth narrativism.

But when it comes to immersion and disassociation I'm narcissitic enough to quote myself.

To pick another illustration, there are two ways of modelling alcoholic characters. I'm going to call them GURPS and FATE just for the sake of argument. In GURPS an alcoholic character in the presence of alcohol needs to make a roll not to drink. A perfectly associated mechanic. In FATE, the DM offers a fate point to have someone's alcoholism become a problem. Completely disassociated.

What are the results of this?

In GURPS, getting an alcoholic character into a bar is normally incredibly difficult. They almost all behave like recovering alcholics who won't let liquor in the house. It's a simple risk-reward matrix; drinking is all risk and no reward for a GURPS alcoholic character. The rules even explicitely say that it's an addiction and the character drinks in the evening but this normally has no effect on the game unless they are in the presence of alcohol.

In FATE, an alcoholic character really is an alcoholic. You'll normally find them in their down time round a bar - and always tempted to take those extra drinks at just the wrong moment. After all, the FATE points feel good, and they can handle it (or so they think). And going cold turkey is actually hard.

One is process mapped to alcohol addiction. The other encourages you to behave as someone with a drinking problem. I'll leave it to the reader to guess which I consider leads to the more immersive character.
​

 

[FireLance]

I suspect there's a certain mass of dissociated rules -- like hit points -- that should and would give immersion-sensitive players pause more often, except that we learn these rules very early in the learning curve. Because these rules are one of the first D&Disms we learn, they slip in under the dissociation-radar, so to speak.

Hmmm... for some time now, I've been considering the possibility of setting up a Martial Daily foundation (not to be confused with the Marshal Daly foundation, if it exists ) to teach young children the concept of non-magical abilities that can only be used once between extended rests so that when they grow up and become potential gamers, they will no longer be bothered by the concept of martial daily abilities. This could take the form of reading primers ("See Soveliss run. See Soveliss use split the tree on a pair of goblins."), fairy tales ("After an extended rest to regain the use of knockout and brisk stride, Jack climed up the beanstalk to the giant's castle again."), and other fiction ("Bomorir rose, Agaron's inspiring words still ringing in his ears. Once again buoyed by the warlord's encouraging speech, he found, deep within himself, the strength to fight on despite his wounds. This cave troll is tough, he thought, it's time to use brute strike.")

I'm planning to start with my own kids. Anybody care to make a donation?

 

[Neonchameleon]

I'm planning to start with my own kids. Anybody care to make a donation?

I don't have any to donate, but try some of the links below?

UK adoption agency | Adoption services | Voluntary, independent adoption agencies
British Association for Adoption and Fostering
American Adoptions - A full service adoption agency

 

[GreyICE]

[MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION]: I actually think the DMG was very clear that you were playing in a narrativist space. It didn't say "narrativist" of course - the DMG was actually very careful to avoid gamer jargon and other traps and always defined terms before it used them - but it was clearly a narrativist space nevertheless. One of the first things it does is lay out player personalities - Actors, Explorers, Instigators, Power Gamers, Slayers, Storytellers, and Thinkers. And it discusses how to engage each of them, and elements of a story that will disengage each of them.

This is the MOST fundamental concept of narrativism I can imagine. A shared storyspace where each person is engaged and active within the game.

That's when D&D 4E tells you it's heavily narrativist. Page 8 it starts. Look at even the power gamers. The story that you're telling the power gamers is that they're winning D&D! It's a meta plot outside the game plot! (you tell them this through "bonus XP" rewards, offering them nifty magic items they want as adventure hooks, and designing certain encounters that show off their nifty tricks.) THEY TURNED POWER GAMING INTO A METANARRATIVE.

Did they perhaps have marketing problem? Well, maybe. I certainly think a few playtests could have smoothed some of this over. And there's no question they made very little effort, with certain powers, to focus on what was happening from a simulationist stance (that they later went back and fixed a lot of these issues was rather after-the-fact).
[MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION]: I think you're fairly close, but I think you're giving too little credit to the Gamist in this. The Gamist can grasp the mechanic. He identifies which elements of the story are important, figures out how many FATE points he wants to spend to have the best chance of accomplishing his results, and he does it.

The problem, for the gamist, is... that's it. There's no meat to the bones, from his perspective! Okay, sure there's a story. Maybe he even enjoys the story. But there's no game occuring! Facing down an angry troll is very similar to a complex social maneuvering. Yes, to the narrativist they're VASTLY different, but to the Gamist, they could not be more similar.

That's why the gamist gets a little disgusted with FUDGE/FATE after a while. To them it's remarkably shallow. To the narrativist it's blessedly simple (the mechanics do as little as humanly possible to get in the way of the story) but that's just not how a gamist sees it.


Is there something wrong with this? No. No there isn't. If the gamist isn't having fun, the gamist isn't having fun. Maybe the gamist even also enjoys narrativism, but Fate just leaves him feeling half-satisfied and he'd prefer a system that fed both halves.