D&D 5E "But Wizards Can Fly, Teleport and Turn People Into Frogs!"

[Bluenose]

While the believability issues are definitely significant, there are many other problems created with this approach.

Positing relatively simple maneuvers as abilities that can only be attempted by characters that select them creates a sense of exclusivity; haves and have-nots.

Well, that depends on what you're defining as 'relatively simple manoeuvers. To me strikes and blocks are simple manoeuvers. People who've put in a couple of hours training every week for six months can probably be assumed to have reached the stage where they're not likely to hurt themselves or the people they're fighting alongside. You really don't want people who aren't trained trying to disarm or trip enemies. They don't know how to, and are nearly certain to both fail and expose themselves to an attack.

 

[Bedrockgames]

OK, colour me interested. Conditional upon what? Part of my issue is that the stuff they are conditional upon for the character is likely to be way, waaay below the resolution of the world-state information that is exchanged during the typical RPG session.

Well for D&D I would certainly do it a bit different , but in my own games the way I do it is make maneuvers conditional on simple things like whether a foe did damage, hit but didn't do damage, whether you hit the foe, whether you closed in on the foe this round, etc. it definitely comes a bit more from my boxing background and again I would do it differently for D&D but for my game it works pretty well (though I am revising and play testing alternatives for the next variation).

 

[Ahnehnois]

Well, that depends on what you're defining as 'relatively simple manoeuvers. To me strikes and blocks are simple manoeuvers. People who've put in a couple of hours training every week for six months can probably be assumed to have reached the stage where they're not likely to hurt themselves or the people they're fighting alongside. You really don't want people who aren't trained trying to disarm or trip enemies. They don't know how to, and are nearly certain to both fail and expose themselves to an attack.

That depends. D&D has a battlefield full of noncombatants (wizards and such) and weaklings (kobolds and goblins). I don't think attempting to shove them over or knock something out of their hands requires much training for a reasonably fit person. Trying to attack a trained combatant should be much riskier.

 

[Bedrockgames]

In the context of D&D, I disagree. I feel that it is othering; one style will be presented as "the default" and the "others" will be optional supplements. Remember the recent mention of those whose arguments with 4e were psychological? That will make that crowd happy. Certain ENWorlders come to mind here. To me, that is not preferable.

again, i really dont think that is what is going on here. I think there are playstyles andpreferences. Wotc has to decide which ones it can meet. When 4E came out the game didnt fit my playstyle well, and the deigners seemed (even if it was just imagined on my part) to deride my approach to the game, as did many who advocated for the new edition. By i never felt like i had been othered. They had just made a choice that the aspects of the gake embodied by 4E was the winning formula. Nothing wrong with that. It isnt a moral issue.

I may or may not be happy with such an approach. If it takes their "production structure" too long to accommodate me, I may not care anymore by that point. If I have to wait too long for it, it had better be mind-blowingly amazing.

At this point, it seems pretty clear to me that to meet their goal, they'd have to release multiple versions of the game, because "One Game to Unite Them All, and in the Next Edition Bind Them" doesn't seem to be working out too well so far from my perspective. I am obviously not alone in this conclusion.

i agree. I think multiple games is a good way to go. They did it the past when they had D&D and AD&D and that satisfied a lot of people.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

again, i really dont think that is what is going on here. I think there are playstyles andpreferences. Wotc has to decide which ones it can meet. When 4E came out the game didnt fit my playstyle well, and the deigners seemed (even if it was just imagined on my part) to deride my approach to the game, as did many who advocated for the new edition. By i never felt like i had been othered. They had just made a choice that the aspects of the gake embodied by 4E was the winning formula. Nothing wrong with that. It isnt a moral issue.

Othering is not inherently a moral issue; to quote the definition from Wikipedia, "The Other refers, or attempts to refer, to that which is other than the initial concept being considered. The Constitutive Other often denotes a person Other than one's self; hence, the Other is identified as "different"; thus the spelling is often capitalized."

Seems to fit what I said, and how I feel about the topic pretty well. I'm not saying you have to agree or feel the same way about it, but that is my position.

i agree. I think multiple games is a good way to go. They did it the past when they had D&D and AD&D and that satisfied a lot of people.

If they're going to do that, it would just make more sense to simultaneously support all the versions that they've produced so far, rather than creating yet another schism within already-fractured communities.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Othering is not inherently a moral issue; to quote the definition from Wikipedia, "The Other refers, or attempts to refer, to that which is other than the initial concept being considered. The Constitutive Other often denotes a person Other than one's self; hence, the Other is identified as "different"; thus the spelling is often capitalized."

Seems to fit what I said, and how I feel about the topic pretty well. I'm not saying you have to agree or feel the same way about it, but that is my position.

That is a pretty broad definition and doesnt really match how i have encountered it. i imagine there is more to it in the entry you are quoting from.when you talk about othering people though it s usually as a moral issue (and you did seem to frame it that way). I am familiar with the term but i think it is a much too powrful word for what you are describing. To me it is usually a weighty existential concpt or omething to do with things like orientalism and war. To me using it to talk about not having your playstyle represented in the DMG kind of trivializes it.

If they're going to do that, it would just make more sense to simultaneously support all the versions that they've produced so far, rather than creating yet another schism within already-fractured communities.

Well, i dont think it will be cut precisely on edition lines. My guess is they want to get it down to to, maybe three lines. But we will see

 

[Balesir]

Well, you might have mechanics for facing, or a "combat focus" that requires the player to declare that his attention is focused in one place (at be at a mechanical disadvantage against his other opponents).

That's really beside the point I'm making, though. The sort of awareness I'm thinking of modelling is instinctive (and developed with increasing skill), and doesn't rely on "focus" or "facing". Indeed, I really don't think "facing" per se is meaningful at all in melee combat - either your perception is on your entire surroundings or you're dead meat. Being engaged by multiple foes has an effect, for sure, but never do you choose to focus only on one of them. I actually think the "flanking" system brought in by 3.5e D&D or the "-10 per opponent above one" of HârnMaster are the ideal solution, there.

You could create a deeper action economy that requires players to make more detailed choices between guarding themselves, helping others, moving or attacking.

You could, but many seem to cry foul at the complexity of the action economy already. Besides which, the sort of perception I'm talking about operates outside the "action" system; if it takes an action to instinctively note an opportunity for a particular type of manoeuvre, the action system is getting pretty "dissociated"...

You could impose tighter dice rolls that always leave a chance of failure (rather than the 3.5 rogue that never fails tumble after about level 2).

The point is that there should be times when the chance of success is minimal, and there should be times when the chance of success is pretty good - and a skilled character should know the difference instantaneously.

You could then design character abilities that make skilled combatants better able to focus their attention on multiple enemies in their area, or less likely to fail certain checks, or grant them more power within the action economy.

All very nice - but missing the point that what (I think) they need is the ability and necessity to make timing decisions based on a constantly varying "option space" that they can perceive and are thus aware of. In other words, the opportunity to use some moves should come up relatively seldom, and even more infrequently when considered useful by the character, but the character (and, by extension, the player) should be aware of those opportunities with minimal effort such that they are able to exploit them should they choose to do so. If they are spamming the ability because it always works, or ineffectually trying it repeatedly because it hardly ever works, then the system has seriously missed its mark. A skilled operator will attempt the moves only when they are likely to work - but that will not be all the time.

The power concept models none of that stuff.

It models making timing and opportunity decisions, which is more than any other system we have so far does. It's not perfect, I'll agree - but at least it makes an actual attempt to model this aspect of skill.

Well for D&D I would certainly do it a bit different , but in my own games the way I do it is make maneuvers conditional on simple things like whether a foe did damage, hit but didn't do damage, whether you hit the foe, whether you closed in on the foe this round, etc. it definitely comes a bit more from my boxing background and again I would do it differently for D&D but for my game it works pretty well (though I am revising and play testing alternatives for the next variation).

That makes it sound like it's mostly "attack" manoeuvres you are modelling - is that the case? Can you give any examples? I can see some options, here; the rogue's "tumbleset", for example, which can move past enemies that are engaged by at least one other ally without attracting opportunity attacks, making the precise positioning on the battlegrid do the work of generating the "opportunity", but it's not going to work for all cases.

 

[JustinAlexander]

Everyone should be aware that the first thing Neonchameleon does when he reads something I've written is to rewrite it to say something else that he can then attempt to criticize.

@JustinAlexander is talking about disassociated mechanics and I am explicitely talking about what causes a sense of disassociation in a playeras part of a long conversation with @innerdude in which we agreed that disassociation was a real thing but disagreed about causes. It is indeed absolutely correct to assert that what I was talking about in the quote above is only tangentally about disassociated mechanics and that the two concepts are different. When I talk about disassociated mechanics, I call them disassociated mechanics - but I believe that the reason the concept of disassociated mechanics has gained the traction it has is because players get disassociated by things, and the sense of disassociation is unpleasant and disassociated mechanics are an attempt to explain this sense.

I rest my case.

I find it impossible to engage in conversation with someone who simply refuses to address what was actually said and instead spends his time flailing at his own strawmen. Have a good day, Neonchameleon.

Here I have to take you at your word, since you have not vouchsafed to me any coherent account of what "dissociated mechanics" actually means, and you are the originator of the term. I know that you claim it is about "the player's decision not mapping to the character's decision directly", but since you seem to further restrict it, within such cases, to only mechanics that you dislike, I am at a loss as to what the actual definition is.

I'd love to help you. But since I have specifically and repeatedly said that I like some dissociated mechanics and even identified specific dissociated mechanics that I like and explained why I like them in both the original essay on the subject and the new primer, I have to confess I find it difficult to imagine to imagine how you could possibly have reached the conclusion that it only applies to mechanics that I dislike.

Could you perhaps explain what you find so confusing about statements like "this essay should not be seen as an inherent vilification of dissociated mechanics", "dissociated mechanics can also be quite useful for roleplaying games", "the advantage of a [dissociated] mechanic like Wushu‘s is that it gives greater narrative control to the player", and so forth? They seem fairly clear-cut to me.

 

[Manbearcat]

Indeed, I really don't think "facing" per se is meaningful at all in melee combat - either your perception is on your entire surroundings or you're dead meat.

"Keep your head on a swivel". Facing in a TTRPG is quite possibly the most counter-intuitive game mechanic possible when considering the dynamics of any martial endeavor with multiple actors. More important than acumen in attack and defense routines, you need passive spatial awareness and orientation and active peripheral vision (keep your head on a swivel) or you end up a smudge on the ground like Paul Kariya:

[video=youtube;1mKmYWy-gBU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mKmYWy-gBU[/video]

A rule that mandates "pay attention to only this area in your field of vision" is absurd. There would be no such thing as martial "heroes" as their careers would be short-lived indeed. They'd be on the permanent DL after a few weeks.

 

[Bedrockgames]

That makes it sound like it's mostly "attack" manoeuvres you are modelling - is that the case? Can you give any examples? I can see some options, here; the rogue's "tumbleset", for example, which can move past enemies that are engaged by at least one other ally without attracting opportunity attacks, making the precise positioning on the battlegrid do the work of generating the "opportunity", but it's not going to work for all cases.

Keep in mind, this is for an investigative gritty historical game, and now I am porting it into a magic heavy fantasy setting, so it isnt desgined with d&d classes in mind (the game is sill based with backgrounds affecting how many skill points you have in different categories). And yes right now they are mostly oriented around attacks (and like I siad biased by my own experience with boxing).

Mstly in my system these maneuvers and attack styles manifest as a bonus to attack or damage as well, so that is worth keeping in mind. For example, i have one called counter. Basically a counter attack. On this one, if the foe hits you but doesnt do damage (there is a roll to hit and then you have to bypass hardiness to do damage on your damage roll) you gain a +1d10 bonus to damage against that target. So you this makes it not only based on a condition, but you can actively try to set up the condintion in order to gain the counter bonus. Another is Deflect, which is a type of parry. This is a simple defense bonus against melee attacks on rounds that you do not move in. For someone who is a outside street fighter type we have another one that gives a famage bonus if you move your full movement before attacking a target. These bonuses dont sound like a lot, but in the context of our game they can be significant. But like I said it was designed for a gritty historical game, i am working to develop it more for the fantasy variation where it will produce actual effects in some cases, rather than a simple bonus. We also have closing in rules so that things weapon reach matter. Essentially the round you close in the guy with reach gets a bonus on his attack, while in subsequent rounds, if you are still closed in, athe guy with a really close range weapon might get the advantage.