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

[innerdude]

This makes no sense to me, because there is no "what is happening in the game" - it literally doesn't exist. It is imaginary, which means that all that exists are the separate conceptions and models of it that people (players and GMs) hold in their minds. These models and conceptions need to be coordinated sufficiently for descriptions of actions and events based on one conception of the fiction to be intelligible in other conceptions held by other minds. This is a major function of the rules; to explain how events are taken to be resolved such that each model of the fictional reality can be constructed to accomodate those resolutions.

In the absence of a clear ruling, I'd bet that most groups use "the real world" as the "independent arbiter" for how our characters experience the fiction.

When a rules dispute comes into question, the typical sequence goes something like:

1. The described result of the rule / mechanic does not fit with one or more members' conception of the fictional construct.
2. The group attempts to resolve the dispute from within the current game parameters, situation, scene framing, and related rules constructions.
3. If the result cannot be resolved from within the fiction, the "real world" as we experience it and common sense become the final arbiters.

A player saying "The rule doesn't really work that way" is actually a player saying, "The result you've just described doesn't fit with want I want / believe / expect from the fiction your game portrays." Associated mechanics are easier to GM in disputes because they ultimately point to some real-world, causal phenomenon that either permits or prevents the described fiction from working. Obviously, both the players and GM have to agree that the "real-world" cause is in accord with the fiction.

Associated mechanics ultimately protect both the player and GM better, because disputes are more easily resolved using known, experienced processes. "Well, the real world works this way, and you wouldn't really expect Y to happen if you did X, would you?" Are they perfect? No. Do GMs sometimes make mistakes in determining real-world cause and effect? Oh you betcha. But at least that association is THERE. Personally, I just like things to "make sense." My mind gets stuck on things that DON'T make sense, and I cannot easily move beyond them until they do.

Mechanics have three recourses during a dispute---the GM puts his or her foot down and says "No," the GM basically has to say, "Well, that's what the rules say, even if I don't like it," or the GM is forced to make a snap judgement about the nature of the fiction itself. Depending on the group, none of these may be problematic. "Dissociated" mechanics, however, lack the ability to map to the fiction through any pre-existing "real world" view or model, they are completely arbitrary based on group accord. Hey, if everyone's willing to go along with whatever the in-the-moment fiction describes, great. But for some of us, the sense-making precedes the fiction.

 

[Libramarian]

In my own experience, so-called "dissociated mechanics" can help players get into character and feel what the character feels. Come and Get It, for example, requires the player to think about positioning his/her PC in relation to a group of foes - thereby experiencing the same sort of tactical thinking about position and the like that the PC is going through. And on earlier threads on this topic I've given the example of the player of a paladin in my game, who narrated the end of a baleful polymorph on his PC as his god turning him back, thereby further inhabiting and expressing this PC's unwavering religious devotion.

I actually am completely on board with this idea that immersive mechanics are not necessarily process sim. NeonChameleon mentioned it earlier with the example of the FATE alcoholism mechanic being more immersive than the GURPS alcoholism mechanic. I find the AD&D rule of XP for GP to be immersive, because the direct power increase you get from finding a teasure hoard feels evocative of the relationship between money and power in the game-world, which would otherwise be harder to imagine because we don't spend much actual play-time on buying and selling. When you get a big whack of XP directly from finding the treasure, you feel your character's urge to let the shiny coins trill through their fingers while laughing maniacally. Whereas if you don't, it's hard to get that excited about it unless you have a really well-developed economic system in the game.

However, I think at this point we're talking about something subtle enough that it's going to be really, really hard to discuss it in an edition warlike environment without losing the signal in the desire to make a point in favor of one game or against another game.

I see what you mean about the feeling of tactical positioning with CAGI, but surely you could capture this in a different mechanic that also makes it easier to picture what is occurring in a way that makes sense.

 

[prosfilaes]

Does it really need to?

Any GM who needs that stated or else his game is held hostage by a literal reading of the rules strikes me as too hapless to successfully run a game.

The problem is, and this seems to be especially a problem with D&D, is that "common sense" is not common. Does a fireball suck all the oxygen out of an area if cast underground? It says it melts metals; how hot does it leave them? Instantaneously heating a metal to its melting point and reducing it to below that would have no effect, so it's got to be hot for a while. So our swords that were in the range of a fireball should be superheated and do extra damage when we hit now, right? (That makes perfect sense, but it's the type of common sense DMs hate. The turn-around, that the weapons are too hot to hold, doesn't help the DM, as then monsters will be forced to drop their weapons with a fireball.)

I don't know how I feel about a suddenly appearing can't trip oozes rule. I do know that "common sense" rulings like that tend to annoy the heck out of me as a player, because they suddenly change the world my character was living in and planning in, and in practice on the fly common sense rulings don't seem to make things make more sense.

You want common sense in D&D, you can play E6 or something similar. You can't be hostage to stupidly literal readings, but a lot of the rules in D&D are written to be gameable, not simulations.

 

[Libramarian]

This makes no sense to me, because there is no "what is happening in the game" - it literally doesn't exist. It is imaginary, which means that all that exists are the separate conceptions and models of it that people (players and GMs) hold in their minds. These models and conceptions need to be coordinated sufficiently for descriptions of actions and events based on one conception of the fiction to be intelligible in other conceptions held by other minds. This is a major function of the rules; to explain how events are taken to be resolved such that each model of the fictional reality can be constructed to accomodate those resolutions.

If the rules are "divorced from what's happening in the game world", is this because there is some independent arbiter of what the game world is with which they can disagree, or is it that the players refuse to adapt some part of their world models to accommodate what the rules say about how resolutions will be conducted? I would suggest the latter, since the former is palpably untrue (supposed GM absolutism not withstanding; communicating the entire of a world model sufficiently to allow synchronisation of conceptions would involve the GM communicating the de-facto rules as play progresses - an unrealistic task).

If the players are all fixated upon some fictional elements that don't fit with what the rules say about resolution, then they should change the rules. They should be aware in doing so, however, that the ways that resolutions are made does much to make the process of player decision making an interesting and varied activity - or not, as the case may be.

People come to the game with prior conceptions and models of what a fantasy game-world looks and feels and behaves like. They don't get all of this from the game itself. The coordination of the participants' separate conceptions and models may be a major function of the rules, but the rules are not a major contributor to this coordinating process. Most of it is just talking and having a shared cultural background.

 

[pemerton]

In the absence of a clear ruling, I'd bet that most groups use "the real world" as the "independent arbiter" for how our characters experience the fiction.

<snip>

Associated mechanics ultimately protect both the player and GM better, because disputes are more easily resolved using known, experienced processes.

I think I can see what you're saying, but I also think I disagree with it.

On the "real world as arbiter" issue, how does that work in a fantasy RPG? Using the real world as arbiter, for example, most of what happens in Conan or LotR is not possible.

I think that genre is a more important arbiter than the real world. In other words, I agree with this:

People come to the game with prior conceptions and models of what a fantasy game-world looks and feels and behaves like.

"Dissociated" mechanics, however, lack the ability to map to the fiction through any pre-existing "real world" view or model, they are completely arbitrary based on group accord.

I don't fully follow this. "Dissociated" mechanics generally aren't arbitrary - they tend to allocate some form of narrative power, whether directly (eg Come and Get It) or via mechanical mediation (the War Devil's Besieged Foe let's the GM impose a debuff on a PC that creates a mechanical incentive to a particular sort of narrative). Adjudication of these mechanics typically does not require working out what happens mechanically, but rather working out what is happening in the fiction, if that is left unsettled by the mechanics.

Genre is the guide and constraint on such narration, and it is no less available for this purpose than to guide the application of simulationist mecahnics.

I think at this point we're talking about something subtle enough that it's going to be really, really hard to discuss it in an edition warlike environment without losing the signal in the desire to make a point in favor of one game or against another game.

I see what you mean about the feeling of tactical positioning with CAGI, but surely you could capture this in a different mechanic that also makes it easier to picture what is occurring in a way that makes sense.

I'm not sure whether you mean "surely I (permeton) could give another less divisive example", or "surely a mechanics that was different from Come and Get It could give the same tactically immersive experience"?

On the first interpretation of your comment: I GM 4e, so it is hard for me to give non-divisive examples, given that 4e seems inherently divisive. But another example would be the way that in-combat healing, death and dying work in 4e - these create a strong sense of tension and threat in play, which immerses the table in the combat situation. I've never experienced the "Schroedinger's confusing wounds" issue - a PC down and dying triggers concern by the players, dramatic and urgent response by the PCs (just as one would imagine if one of the team went down!) and uncertainty and tension ("Will he make it?") as the death save is rolled.

On the second interpretation: I'm sure that other mechanics could also produce a tactically immersive experience. Burning Wheel and The Riddle of Steel both aim at that, for example. But I generally don't find it hard to picture what is happening with Come and Get It. Mabye it's just the good fortune of the way I design encounters, but I've simply never encountered the issue of a dagger-armed mage, casting a ritual, suddenly breaking away and charging the fighter. It doesn't happen in part because of my encounter mix, but also because the PC typically wouldn't use Come and Get It in that situation - he would use Footwork Lure instead.

Just as, for some, the 15-minute day is purely an internet phenomenon (though for me it has been very real, particularly in Rolemaster), so for me the narrative chaos and confusion engendered by Come and Get It, and prone oozes, is purely an internet phenomenon. I just haven't come across situation that can't easily be narrated. (I think part of this is because the CaGI fighter in my group uses a halberd, and is a forced movement specialist - so Come and Get It typically plays out as just another expression of his ability to tactically dominate his enemies at reach.)

 

[Desdichado]

The problem is, and this seems to be especially a problem with D&D, is that "common sense" is not common.

I've never had that problem. Maybe I'm just playing with the wrong players.

Or the right ones, as the case may be.

I don't know how I feel about a suddenly appearing can't trip oozes rule. I do know that "common sense" rulings like that tend to annoy the heck out of me as a player, because they suddenly change the world my character was living in and planning in, and in practice on the fly common sense rulings don't seem to make things make more sense.

You live in a world where your character routinely trips oozes? Oddly (or not) I can't think that the question has ever occurred to me in the 12 years that I've played d20. Because I wouldn't ever try to trip an ooze. It doesn't even make sense to do.

You want common sense in D&D, you can play E6 or something similar. You can't be hostage to stupidly literal readings, but a lot of the rules in D&D are written to be gameable, not simulations.

I didn't say I want common sense (although I think common sense solves most of these "problems" long before they are identified as problems by people who possess it.) You're referring to innerdude's post. I'm the guy who said that GM's who can't handle these kinds of questions when they come up by making a ruling are too hapless to successfully run a game.

 

[GreyICE]

You live in a world where your character routinely trips oozes? Oddly (or not) I can't think that the question has ever occurred to me in the 12 years that I've played d20. Because I wouldn't ever try to trip an ooze. It doesn't even make sense to do.

Ever built a fighter who maximized trip? It's one of the few builds of fighter that is viable (well, for a while. It kind of peters out once the "one size category" thing becomes a fatal problem, but oh well).

I admit to seeing the point of a player reading the rules and saying "well, could be fun, and it seems viable-ish unless I'm facing lots of huge opponents" and then being told "oh yeah, and unlike what the rules say, it also doesn't work on a whole host of things because DM Fiat lol."

That just boils down to the fact that rules shouldn't encourage players to make 1-trick ponies, since that sort of character is terrible for the game from a simulationist perspective, a narrativist perspective, and a gamist perspective.

But it does underscore some of the arguments that "common sense" should top "the rules." I mean maybe the ooze is smacked into pieces, and has to spend its next turn reforming, rather than moving. That makes sense, yes? So the "common sense" that oozes can't be put in a state where they are more vulnerable and have to spend time to reform actually looks completely wrong from that perspective.

P.S. That's a huge argument FOR dissociated mechanics in my book. Trip implies rather a lot of things - and it can be a rather sloppy action. The idea of a guy in full plate dropping down and performing a leg sweep is frankly a tad ridiculous. "Knocked prone" implies that the fighter found a way to topple the enemy. Maybe with a large golem he didn't leg sweep it (that seems a tad ridiculous), maybe he chose to lunge forward with his shield at an opportune time and knock it over backwards.

Abstract mechanics let you fit the narrative to the game world, while concrete mechanics (trip) often end up subtly ridiculous in many situations.

 

[innerdude]

I don't fully follow this. "Dissociated" mechanics generally aren't arbitrary - they tend to allocate some form of narrative power, whether directly (eg Come and Get It) or via mechanical mediation (the War Devil's Besieged Foe let's the GM impose a debuff on a PC that creates a mechanical incentive to a particular sort of narrative). Adjudication of these mechanics typically does not require working out what happens mechanically, but rather working out what is happening in the fiction, if that is left unsettled by the mechanics.

Well, yeah, that's EXACTLY the point. Mechanical association rides on the assumption that its very nature is a necessary property of the resolution before it happens. Association with the game world assumes that some kind of "real world" or "genre conducive" interpretation of the fiction is the most likely way to produce a "consistent" result, if the goal is to produce "immersive," "actor stance," "process resolution" gameplay.

"Disassociated" mechanics, on the other hand, dispense with the notion that the form or process of resolution are more important than the mechanical result. It doesn't matter how it happens, but by golly, foe X has to shift two spaces and become fatigued. Can this be immersive? Of course it can, in the hands of talented players and GMs. But there's also the real danger of producing an unsatisfactory, illusion-breaking, genre-contrary narrative if the in-the-moment fiction building isn't up to the task.

In terms of "creating a mechanical incentive to a particular sort of narrative," I think I'm pretty much in the camp that I prefer my RPGs to operate in the reverse mode. I'm creating a narrative incentive to interact with particular sorts of mechanics.

 

[Siberys]

Abstract mechanics let you fit the narrative to the game world, while concrete mechanics (trip) often end up subtly ridiculous in many situations.

Amen to that.

Personally, I prefer dissociated mechanics precisely for this reason. An associated mechanic likely requires a more mechanical resolution, which pushes me out of the story and into 'hard game mode' - "Okay, first do this, then that, oh and make a die roll here". Any issues I have with a dissociated mechanic are likely to be flavor issues, though, and thereby force me to think about what's happening storywise - keeping me further in the fiction.

YMMV, of course.

 

[tomBitonti]

The problem is, and this seems to be especially a problem with D&D, is that "common sense" is not common. Does a fireball suck all the oxygen out of an area if cast underground? It says it melts metals; how hot does it leave them? Instantaneously heating a metal to its melting point and reducing it to below that would have no effect, so it's got to be hot for a while. So our swords that were in the range of a fireball should be superheated and do extra damage when we hit now, right? (That makes perfect sense, but it's the type of common sense DMs hate. The turn-around, that the weapons are too hot to hold, doesn't help the DM, as then monsters will be forced to drop their weapons with a fireball.)

(Remaining text omitted.)

What is curious is that no-one ever seems to use that rule. The notion of a player handling a roaring blast of heat sufficient to melt soft metals without losing all of their hair, probably their eyesight, probably most of the soft flesh in the face and hands, and having massive nasal, tracheal, and lung burns if they were unlucky enough to be inhaling during the blast, keeps them from using that ruling. In my experience, the rule goes completely ignored -- having a completely zero chance to live on in player's minds because of the narrative consequences.

TomB