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

[Desdichado]

The problem is that we don't "interpret" english. We plainly read it. That is the problem with "over-technical" rules that try to cover too much ground, and with rules that use "plain english" for some of their keyword terminology.

No, that's not the problem. The problem is that clearly the rules were not meant to cover the case where someone was already in negative hit points to begin with. If you play them as written, but not in the context that they're meant, then you absolutely are interpreting them. Except you're interpreting them as a jack-ass instead of as a reasonable player. No rule can cover 100% of the situations to which it might be put. That's why there's a GM in the first place, to interpret which rules apply and when, and to make judgement calls and rulings when the rules are unclear or inadequate for an unusual situation.

So I stand by my original read on this situation: it's not a problem with a stupid rule. It's a problem with stupid players.

Now the darkness spell, which casts "shadowy illumination" and therefore can be used to see with when it's too dark to see otherwise--that's a stupid rule.

 

[Desdichado]

Monte Cook made a comment that is appropriate to this, "The designers of the newest edition (3.x) built so much reliance on rules right into the game, to make it easier to play. As one of those designers, I occasionally think to myself, 'What have we wrought?'"

What they have wrought is a culture of players that only look at the rules as written for guidance instead of relying on the intent of the rule and the sound decision making capacity of the DM.

Again; a problem with players, not the rules. I never played that way in B/X. I never played that way in Star Frontiers. I never played that way in Top Secret. I never played that way in White Wolf games.

Why is it that d20 is supposed to somehow change my behavior? It doesn't. I'm still the same player of all of those games--therefore I play them the same. Blaming the rules for bad player behavior--that's the hoax.

When people complain about "disassociated mechanics" IMO its all a hoax. A way to put down something by using "elaborate sounding" language. Because maybe if somebody coined a term for it its really a valid complaint against a rules system, instead of what it really is, a personal preference.

Of course it's a personal preference. What causes you to feel "disassociated" from the game is a subjective thing. It's always been personal and anyone who claims otherwise is trying to sell you something fishy.

That doesn't mean that it isn't also a valid description of how the rules interact with their preferences. Some rules just don't work for you; and they "take you out of the game"--they don't feel natural. They disassociate you from the game fiction in the middle of play. Therefore, they're disassociative. But those same rules might not for me. Saying, "A-ha! I figured it out! There's no objective problem with disassociative rules in any game; it's all personal preference!" isn't particularly relevatory. In fact, it's kind of a "Yeah, no kidding," kinda thing.

 

[Imaro]

That's actually a great example of simulationist versus narrativist.

D&D 3E simulates fire. It does 1d6 damage a round, reflex to negate. Potentially lethal to level 1 characters. At level 12 or so when you have some fire resist, laughable. If we assume Xena is a ~level 15 Warblade then she's got just about nothing to fear from nonmagical fire.

D&D 4E lets you set narrative damage for fire. Want people to be panicking? Go to page 42 chart, pick a moderate or high damage type, make that the environmental damage for being in the firefield.

One tries to simulate fire. One gives you the tools to make a narrative of fighting in a burning building.

See this confuses me, because we just had a long thread on page 42 where it was pretty much agreed on by 4e fans that the table wasn't supposed to be used for scaling of the same fiction for the PC's level... and once you've set DC's and damage they should be consistent. Yet here we have a 4e fan saying that's exactly what page 42 is for in 4e... which one is it? I mean people claim it's the wrong way when non-fans of 4e cite it as the way things are supposed to be run in 4e and that they don't like it... but when a 4e fan claims this is how the game is supposed to be run, it's left unchallenged and isn't corrected. I'm having a serious disconnect here...

 

[Desdichado]

I'm having a serious disconnect here...

Are you feeling... disassociated?

 

[Neonchameleon]

My favourite example of an associated mechanic is the to-hit roll: the player rolling a d20 to-hit maps directly to the PC taking a swing at the monster with his weapon. IME it's very immersive.

The only game that even comes close to being immersive in is GURPS IMO - due to the one second combat rounds.

And that doesn't take into account sword and shield combat. My shield is a weapon. If Hammerborg is right about the way the vikings used their shields (and having experience with sword and round shield I believe he is), the weapon you initally attacked with was the edge of your shield - you then followed up with your sword to exploit the opening you had made. Yes, you read that right. Sword and shield fighting by one of the cultures that took it most seriously you'd attack first with your shield. Edge on. Swinging your sword at someone was to exploit the opening you've made or the opening they've presented you with.

I won't say the swing is the least important part of the exchange because quite clearly it isn't. But it's the smallest part. And I consider the idea that an attack roll maps directly to a swing to be risible. Because I can swing and attack more than once per minute. Are we fighting using stop motion animation here? If you treat the attack roll as an almost complete abstraction of a six second period including an OODA cycle or two it works but the second you try to say that the attack roll is the swing we're into stop motion animation territory and extremely diassociated.

In combat your goal is first to create then to exploit openings.

For me the most immersive and the most associated form of D&D melee combat is comfortably the 4e version. The only thing that challenges it is the Book of 9 Swords.

For immersion, to think as my character does, I need to replicate the OODA loop. Observe. Orient. Decide. Act.

Observe. What is going on around me? This is where AD&D breaks down hard. I update my observations and start a new loop once per minute. Once per six seconds is ... acceptable if not great.

Orient. This is where 4e and the Bo9S blows the competition out of the water and why I really dislike [MENTION=326]Upper_Krust[/MENTION]'s attempts to generalise powers in play (rather than as a dev tool).

The second O, orientation – as the repository of our genetic heritage, cultural tradition, and previous experiences – is the most important part of the O-O-D-A loop since it shapes the way we observe, the way we decide, the way we act.
​

You are at your fastest, and therefore your most effective, when you are using moves you have practiced to be instinctual. Breaking it down to a list of pre-determined powers and combinations, not all of which will be applicable in any given situation for reasons the rules are too zoomed out to tell precisely is right for this step. To get the Orient step right you need (a) multiple predefined non-trivial options and (b) for not all of them to be accessible at once. AD&D fails here. 3.X makes a vague stab but because it does it with static feats you don't have the unfolding situations allowing different tricks and combinations, and generally just have one best button. And the Bo9S Crusader structure is better than the 4e AEDU structure, but 4e has deeper and richer options for orientation because they include much more movement and positioning.

Decide: From your choice of actions what do you do? In AD&D for a martial character this amounts to "Target him, mash the 'A' button." Great. Once again this fails anything resembling immersion. (That said, 'quick' is a redeeming feature). In 3.X normal combat it's 'move into position if you aren't already there and choose whether to mash button A or button B'. You use your feat chain to weight one of your buttons and then normally just mash that button - and Full Round Attacks seriously cut your options down. In Bo9S and 4e if you build properly, you decide where to move, how to move, exploiting the relative positioning of enemies, and swing at one then turn back to attack the other is entirely possible for fighters. Positioning in a duel is probably as important as swordwork - and in rolling skirmishes it's probably moreso.

Act: Here's where you roll the dice and see what happens. At this point there's little to choose between them. Better systems on the act scale like WFRP 3e or Cortex/Leverage have two axes to play on - did you do what you were intending and were you lucky or unlucky with it.

So as we can see, mapping to the thought processes, the combat cycle should be OODA. AD&D it's more like ..da. 3.X it's Ooda. 3.X Bo9S is probably OODa and 4e is OODa or possibly even OODa. (So far D&D Next looks to me as if it will end up as OODa at best, and 13th Age is OOda).

So for mapping my thought processes to the thought processes I would use as a warrior in combat, 4e leaves everything except the Bo9S in the dust. Not that there isn't a lot of improvement to be made - a lighter game using the WFRP 3E engine could get up to OODA. But as things stand there's just too much to track.

 

[Viking Bastard]

I stand by the idea, though, that the idea of "taking swings" at the opponent is a really poor - even misleading - way to look at melee weapon combat.

Sure, but I don't think that's the point. I believe he's talking of the association in your mind between [ rolling the die = swinging the sword ]. It's that directness between the action in the fiction and the mechanical resolution; that it feels like you're swinging the sword when you're rolling the die.

It's like the evolution from 1 minute rounds to 6 second turns: I'd argue that the 1 minute round, filled with it's assumed parries and multiple swings, is a better simulation than the [ roll = swing ], but people generally didn't play it like that. That feel of association is too strong.

 

[Neonchameleon]

See this confuses me, because we just had a long thread on page 42 where it was pretty much agreed on by 4e fans that the table wasn't supposed to be used for scaling of the same fiction for the PC's level... and once you've set DC's and damage they should be consistent. Yet here we have a 4e fan saying that's exactly what page 42 is for in 4e... which one is it? I mean people claim it's the wrong way when non-fans of 4e cite it as the way things are supposed to be run in 4e and that they don't like it... but when a 4e fan claims this is how the game is supposed to be run, it's left unchallenged and isn't corrected. I'm having a serious disconnect here...

What's meant to change is the fiction. Most of it. If 10 level 1 goblins are throwing burning torches to set fire to a building level 1 PCs are in, that's a serious threat. If it's level 11 PCs this is not a serious threat. Neither are the goblins. On the other hand if the level 11 PCs are holed up in a building that the drow are attempting to burn down round their ears, the drow aren't going to be using hand held torches and casually tossing them. It's more likely to be a mix of greek fire and magical napalm that's causing the building to burn. Or it's a team of ogres throwing barrels of pitch through the window to force the PCs out. Or it's a couple of hundred goblins throwing torches - and that fire's going to be a whole lot hotter. Try exactly the same trick on level 11 PCs as level 1 and you are going to fail. Miserably and with good reason. The assumptions of 4e include the idea that if people try that sort of stunt it will only be as colour or for entertainment purposes.

The 4e table assumes that people are trying things that have a decent chance of success. And not being completely stupid.

That is not at all how I'm using the term, and it's not how you (correctly) used it later in your own post:

No. The way I defined what disassociated mechanics means is the way it's been used every time I've seen it from Justin Alexander onwards. I can not think of a single rule in any RPG I've played or read that isn't there to model some part of the fiction, whether it's direct process-sim, pacing mechanics, narrative tension, or how to write a good sim. Rules are all there because they are thought to add something to the game and either make it better match the fiction or make it more fun. (Monsters, spells, and powers are sometimes there because the designer was paid by the word, admittedly).

As I was pointing out with the part you quoted, the FATE point system is better for encouraging you to get inside the head of the alcoholic you are roleplaying as than a simple linear process map of the direct consequences in the way GURPS handles alcoholism. I believe this is wrong and that models that encourage you to get into the head of the person you are roleplaying as are superior for the purposes of roleplaying. This is a matter of which model is superior - the "associated" process sim or the "disassociated" psychological picture.

So yes, even in my quoted part it is how I was using the term. Calling process sims "associated" is a claim of superiority of that model over other ones such as ones that give the right psychological inputs and outputs.

 

[Imaro]

What's meant to change is the fiction. Most of it. If 10 level 1 goblins are throwing burning torches to set fire to a building level 1 PCs are in, that's a serious threat. If it's level 11 PCs this is not a serious threat. Neither are the goblins. On the other hand if the level 11 PCs are holed up in a building that the drow are attempting to burn down round their ears, the drow aren't going to be using hand held torches and casually tossing them. It's more likely to be a mix of greek fire and magical napalm that's causing the building to burn. Or it's a team of ogres throwing barrels of pitch through the window to force the PCs out. Or it's a couple of hundred goblins throwing torches - and that fire's going to be a whole lot hotter. Try exactly the same trick on level 11 PCs as level 1 and you are going to fail. Miserably and with good reason. The assumptions of 4e include the idea that if people try that sort of stunt it will only be as colour or for entertainment purposes.

The 4e table assumes that people are trying things that have a decent chance of success. And not being completely stupid.

But that wasn't the situation that was given. The situation given was a burning building that was always a narrative danger no matter what due to the fact that the damage and DC's were scaled... not due to the fact that the fiction changed. I'm not the one you should be explaining this too as I remember all the arguments presented in the former thread as well as how those who don't like 4e were willfully mis-representing the rules of the game... and yet here's a fan of 4e stating that the chart is supposed to be used to scale a building fire as a "narrative" challenge with no mention of changing the fiction.... because honestly if the fiction is changing in a narrative system shouldn't it also change in a simulationist system, if we are comparing, as well?


In other words we should be comparing like and like... So why are we comparing a regular fire in 3.x with magical drow-created demon-alchemist fire or whatever in 4e? I'm sorry but you're rationalization doesn't fit the comparison that was made.

 

[mmadsen]

No. The way I defined what disassociated mechanics means is the way it's been used every time I've seen it from Justin Alexander onwards.

That's clearly not true, if only because I just told you that's not how I'm using the term. I am not using disassociated to mean bad and associated (or simulationist) to mean good.

In fact, I see a few clear uses for disassociated mechanics: (1) for characters who are not subject to the vagueries of luck, because they're the main characters of our story, and (2) for characters whose goals and desires don't match the players', e.g. alcoholics needing a drink.

What I dislike is the conflation of in-character and out-of-character decision-making, like tactical maneuvers that have one use per day or work regardless of context. That's disassociative in a bad way -- at least for those who share my taste in gaming.

 

[Mallus]

What I dislike is the conflation of in-character and out-of-character decision-making, like tactical maneuvers that have one use per day or work regardless of context. That's disassociative in a bad way -- at least for those who share my taste in gaming.

What about associated in a bad way -- like a 3.5e Improved Trip-monkey fighter, ie the PC I mentioned up-thread? He was a character that played like a someone spamming the same overly-effective combo in an arcade fighting game.

I still don't see the value in talking about association without considering the results.

(and then there's the problem of "in-character decision making" itself -- I've never seen a player in a mechanically complex system, like both 3e and 4e, make PC decisions that weren't, in part, dependent on out-of-character decisions/choices).