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

[Neonchameleon]

Often I find in these discussions that people want to define a "dissociated mechanic" as meaning something other than what I defined it to mean. Then they'll argue against their definition. Which would be fine, I guess. But then they'll claim that they've actually said something meaningful about the concept of "dissociated mechanics" as I originally defined it. But all they've really done is construct a strawman.

In my experience it's the people trying to use the term that way who define it. And then exploration indicates they mean what I'm talking about. I have different issues with the way you defined it than the way it's commonly defined.

The topic of hit points in these discussions is usually more misleading than enlightening: Prior to 4E, there was an interpretation of hit points (supported by most editions of D&D) which was associated but heavily abstracted. (And that abstraction was possessed of variable flaws depending on which edition we're talking about.)

This, I believe, is historical revisionism. 1e is emphatic in defining hit points as skill, luck, stamina, and divine protection - and out and out says that the meat definition is ludicrous. Entirely compatable with 4e. 2e on the other hand indicates that they are meat. 3e ducks the whole question quite neatly. And 4e almost entirely agrees with 1e but gives a second axis of lont term stamina.

 

[Umbran]

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.

Of course he can grasp the mechanic.

The problem, for the gamist, is... that's it. There's no meat to the bones, from his perspective!

Oh, really?

What you say still suggests to me that the issue is not on the game aspect, but on some specific expectation of how games are structured and played (say, like wargames, or tactical combat games). They have an expectation that the rules provide the richness, rather than the action on the board.

Contrast this with probably the most played game on the planet - Go. Or Chess, if you prefer. I'm guessing most RPG "gamists" have not played much of, and certainly not mastered, either of those games. Both have incredibly simple rules - there is no "meat" there either. The meat is not in the rules, but on the board, and in the other player.

A typical wargamer or tactical combat gamer interacts with the rules first, and the board and other players second. The primary action is in building the character (or army, or deck of collectible cards, or the like), and the gameplay is rather limited to driving the action to the realm where the construction is most effective, and letting it do its work.

But a player of Chess, or Go, cannot do that. There's nothing like that to do - the rules are focused on what you build in terms situations on the board during play, not off the board before it.

The gamist, playing FATE, should approach it like Go. The interesting bit is not playing with the rules, but playing with the other person, using the rules as a framework and intermediary.

 

[GreyICE]

Some do. Some don't. I'm running a FATE game at the moment, and I'll happily say two things: First, I love it, and second, it's not for everyone.

Yes, gamists can excel at FATE. They almost always do when there's a game system that can be comprehended and solved. But FATE isn't oppositional roleplay. The Storyteller works with the players to create a story. To a lot of gamists it doesn't "feel" right. Some like it, some want to be playing a more structured system.

No one system is right for everyone. There's systems that most everyone can agree are suboptimal (skills in 3E or 4E... D&D has a radioactive history with skills), but there's no system that is right for everyone.

 

[LostSoul]

Hey Justin, I have a few questions to ask.

I'd have to agree. It does. But that's not the sense in which the word "dissociated" was being used when I coined the term "dissociated mechanics". The dissociation of a dissociated mechanic is not describing some "feeling" or psychological condition that a person has while using the mechanic. It is the dissociation between the mechanic and the game world.

In your essays and here, you say that it's the dissociation between the mechanic and the game world. Makes sense.

In the second essay you say that a dissociated mechanic is one where the player's choice is not equivalent to the character's choice. Is that the easiest way to spot the difference between associated mechanics and dissociated ones, the definition of dissociated mechanics, or both?

When the character can make a choice in the game world that's outside of the purview of the player, that's an abstract choice, right?

In my 4E hack that I've been working on, basic resolution follows the following principle: the players (must) describe what their characters are doing, and from that description we pick modifiers and DCs for the roll. The roll resolves what the character was doing, as previously described by the player.

I'm not sure that's associated or dissociated because the mechanics don't, in themselves, have a tie to the game world. It seems like you have to add in that association as you play through resolution. But maybe they do - for example, you add your STR modifier to your attack if you're using "Strength and raw power", and the DC for the attack roll is Reflex if you are trying to "Touch or tag the target". Any thoughts on that?

 

[prosfilaes]

I think very largely the people who found hit points dissociative, and cared about it, stopped playing D&D and simply don't care how D&D does it and won't even know this sort of discussion is taking place.

I found hit points dissociative, and left D&D, but came back and made my piece with them.

I think the hit points as meat is unfairly prejudicial. Ultimately, heroic/superheroic characters do things that real life people can't do; take flying trips in lead refrigerators, for example, or more generically, survive explosions, things that meat can't do. Surviving a colossal dragon's breath is ludicrous no matter what HP means. All I need is for HP to reflect something concrete in the game world, not just be a number.

 

[JustinAlexander]

Yeah - my brain sticks with the associated 'meat' version of hp, despite designer efforts. Then I get that sinking feeling in my gut when a 'dying' 4e PC, who's maybe one death save from croaking, is then up and fighting again after an encouraging Martial word from his warlord buddy.

This is one of the things that made DMing 4E just an endless pain for me. One of my particular strengths as a GM is describing combat in visceral and exciting detail. But 4E completely disrupted my ability to do that because the system doesn't actually tell you what type of wound a person suffered until after they've healed it. (And more than that: Not only does it not tell you; it doesn't let you define it for yourself, either, because you'll end up getting contradicted if somebody uses a different method to heal it.)

You are playing Basic D&D. Your 3rd level fighter has 20 hit points. Your PC is confronted by a bandit, 20' away, armed with a bow. An arrow does 1d6, so maximum damage is 6 - or 7, on the off chance that the bandit has +1 arrows. So your PC cannot be killed by a bowshot while closing with the bandit.

When playing your PC, you know this. In fact, knowing this is pretty crucial to mainstream D&D play, as it is what makes the combat-heavy nature of D&D viable. But your PC cannot know this.

Ultimately, I'm just not that interested in getting into the hit point discussion again. It's pointless. You want to go with the "only the last few points count"? Great. More power to you.

You want to claim that this is the only way to interpret pre-4E hit points? You're wrong. You want to claim, as Neonchameleon does in a later post, that 1E exclusively endorses this interpretation? You're simply wrong. (In point of fact, the 1E DMG is explicit in stating that any attack which inflicts hit point damage is a physical wound.)

I consider both the Axe to the Face argument and the Death by Dodging argument to be fundamental misreadings of AD&D and D&D3. But if you're really wedded to them, there's nothing in the mechanics that's going to thwart your dissociated ambition.

Also, your math is wrong and you're mistaking abstraction for dissociation.

That'll be my last word on hit points in this thread.

 

[S'mon]

I found hit points dissociative, and left D&D, but came back and made my piece with them.

I think the hit points as meat is unfairly prejudicial. Ultimately, heroic/superheroic characters do things that real life people can't do; take flying trips in lead refrigerators, for example, or more generically, survive explosions, things that meat can't do. Surviving a colossal dragon's breath is ludicrous no matter what HP means. All I need is for HP to reflect something concrete in the game world, not just be a number.

Eh, pre-4e hp are meat, but most hp on high level PCs are just a little bit of meat - a scratch, a singe. Why do they take such light wounds? Skill, luck, divine providence. But they're still getting hit/scorched. The hp represent damage. If you're at negative hp, you're always in a bad way - until 4e, when whether you are in a bad way or not can only be determined retrospectively.

4e death/dying rules IME are really really bad and can lead to inappropriate player behaviour. For instance, we recently had the Leader PC, Esmerelda the Bard, at negatives, in a negative energy zone taking continuing damage being drained of surges as she rolled death saves. Esme's player James, normally outgoing, has a strong tendency to clam up/fall silent when things are going badly, often causing people to overlook him. So Esme failed a save, made a save, and the other players, all newbie-ish and not used to thinking about 4e healing rules, were used to PCs popping back up with Esme's healing words and with her down they really struggled to grok the idea that Esmerelda was in serious trouble and they had better do something fast - they were really reluctant or blase about using actions to save her. You would never see that in eg the 1e or 3e systems where it is usually very clear that a dying PC is dying and needs help fast. In 1e-3e 'dying' in game mechanics terms maps reasonably well to 'dying' in-world. In 4e dying is a retrospectively determined Schrodinger, the system seems to be telling you that most of the time, whether you are really dying in-world cannot be determined at this time. The one exception in 4e is a dying PC with 0 healing surges left - when they are game-rules 'dying' then they are in-world 'dying' also, to a similar extent as 1e-3e dying PCs.

 

[Neonchameleon]

You want to claim that this is the only way to interpret pre-4E hit points? You're wrong. You want to claim, as Neonchameleon does in a later post, that 1E exclusively endorses this interpretation? You're simply wrong. (In point of fact, the 1E DMG is explicit in stating that any attack which inflicts hit point damage is a physical wound.)

Originally Posted by AD&D 1e DMG, page 61
Damage scored to characters or certain monsters is actually not substantially physical - a mere nick or scratch until the last handful of hit points are considered - it is a matter of wearing away the endurance, the luck, the magical protections.
​

It's certainly explicit in saying that the hit points aren't substantially physical even if they do have a cosmetic physical impact. I don't believe it directly contradicts itself in another place.

Originally Posted by AD&D 1e PHB, page 34
Let us suppose that a 10th level fighter has 55 hit points, plus a bonus of 30 hit points for his constitution, for a total of 85 hit points. This IS the equivalent of about 18 hit dice for creatures, about what it would take to kill four huge warhorses. It is ridiculous to assume that even a fantastic flghter can take that much punishment.
​

It is also explicit in rejecting the meat argument, calling it ridiculous. There may be a minor physical wound involved. But the substantive part of the attack, openly and explicitely "is a matter of wearing away the endurance, the luck, the magical protections".

 

[Neonchameleon]

4e death/dying rules IME are really really bad and can lead to inappropriate player behaviour.

4e rules never IMO properly explained a conceptual shift as a shift. In 4e Hit Points are, the way I see them, basically a stun track with the real damage being measured in healing surges. A 4e PC on negative hit points is about the equivalent of a boxer on the canvas, but with one with people ready to rush in with knives.

 

[S'mon]

4e rules never IMO properly explained a conceptual shift as a shift. In 4e Hit Points are, the way I see them, basically a stun track with the real damage being measured in healing surges. A 4e PC on negative hit points is about the equivalent of a boxer on the canvas, but with one with people ready to rush in with knives.

But this is a stunned boxer who without help will die in an average of about 40 seconds! So there's this huge shift from hp as 'stun track' to negative hp = 'dying!' to 'whoops, it was just stun track!" when the PC gets healing.

Re 1e-3e hp, I tend to treat it as proportional - a PC on 90/100 looks as badly hurt as one on 9/10; a PC on 10/100 looks as badly hurt as one on 1/10. I haven't ever experienced major cognitive dissonance with this approach. I'm not bothered that healing magic is less effective on more powerful people.