Ruin Explorer said:
Where are you getting "Abnegation vs. Expression" from? I can't find definitions which seem to match up with the way you're using them. Is this some Forgist or academic thing?
It's academic.
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Fundamentally, the idea is that different games appeal to us for different emotional reasons in much the same way that any media appeals to us. We go to horror movies to be scared, we go to comedies to laugh, we go to tragedies for the FEELS. This is posited to also be true in games: what we seek in a game of Mario Kart is different than what we seek in a game of Settlers of Cattan, or a game of Solitaire. We seek out these different games for the different emotional states they can put us in. When we're in the mood for one, the other will not do, because we are looking for a particular emotional state.
Those emotional states are categorized and labelled as various types of "aesthetics." The list is still subject to some editing and pruning and whatnot, but for our purposes here, I'm talking about two different emotional goals in D&D specifically:
The first is Abnegation, the fun that comes from losing yourself in fantasy and getting away from the Real World. Zoning out to do a sudoku puzzle tones out the jerks on the train around you, so that delivers abnegation. If the puzzle was too easy or too hard, it wouldn't deliver that as well -- it'd be too easy to engage you, or so hard that you couldn't sort of turn on auto-pilot. D&D delivers a HUGE dose of that through playing a role, that is, the goal being to
lose yourself in some other character. The cares of your life fade away in the face of talking in funny voices and stabbin' some goblins.
It could follow that those who seek this goal are especially sensitive to "dissociative" or "metagame" methods -- things that don't flow from the character's viewpoint as the character is being played. It wrecks their fun because it stops them from losing themselves in the character. In some cases, in some doses, for some people, in certain situations, maybe it's fine, but when you use a method like that, you're at risk of alienating this kind of player.
The second is Expression, the fun that comes from making something up and having others delight in it. When you build an awesome structure in Minecraft (or the analog Minecraft, Legos!), or when you make a card tower or build a sandcastle or dink around with your Sims, these deliver Expression. If the Legos only fit together to make one particular structure or if Minecraft forced you to build according to someone else's plans, this would weaken the Expression-fun those toys are able to deliver, and create an experience that wouldn't work for someone looking for Expression in their passtime. D&D delivers Expression in its character building (and in using those things you've built your character with) and especially in DMing. A lot of the "player narrative control" methods in "modern" games are mostly about giving the players some of that Expression fun, too.
It could follow that those who seek this goal would be especially enthusiastic about methods that enable narrative control or that allow greater character variety and customization Similarly, they would have their fun wrecked by things that take that control and customization away. In some cases, in some doses, for some people, in certain situations, maybe it's fine, but when you use a method like that, you're at risk of alienating this kind of player.
Games deliver on mutliple aesthetics, typically, especially successful ones. Sudoku, for instance, isn't pure abnegation because it also delivers the hedonic pleasure of seeing a void filled, and the challenge pleasure of holding all those variables in your head at once.
Now, psychologists understand that emotions are discrete physiological states, but I don't need to dip into Ekman and emotion research here in particular. It's probably enough to point out that there are some game methods that deliver Expression that are
in conflict with the goal of Abnegation.
Like, when you're playing Cops & Robbers, that kid who pretends to be an alien with a Death Star is farting on your fun of inhabiting these roles. It's outside-the-box creativity, but that's not really the kind of thing you signed up for. It's not the "Listen to Jimmy's Cool Laser Sounds" time, its "Lets all talk tough and wear fake beards" time.
[MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] referenced a time where he asked for a cursed item for his character 'cuz it would be fun. When he did that, he wasn't inhabiting the role of the character, he was making an interesting story for him, the player, to go through. In this respect, the item wishlist delivered on good Expression play (it created an interesting story!), but bad Abnegation play (it wasn't "losing yourself in the character.")
I'm sure it happens vice-versa, too, where Abnegation play might step all over Expression play (imagine playing with LEGOs but RPing as an architect and having to take into account ambitious designers and overzealous safety planners and local zoning boards, or playing Minecraft in a world where your family's financial history defined what you could build).
The criticism of "dissociative" seems to me to be specifically related to mechanics that conflict with a player's goal of being in-character. That is, someone who wants to have fun like THIS encounters a game that tells them the way to have fun is like THAT. And those two things conflict with each other sometimes.
And 4e was mostly "When you feel that conflict, that must suck for you, because we're doing it THIS WAY, and that is the way it is. If you don't like it, go play Pathfinder."
Come to think of it, that probably was especially problematic in light of some of the early marketing materials being critical of 3e. Not only was 4e saying "we're doing it THIS WAY," but also "Your way is not as good."
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And all of this just reinforces my mantra that 5e should be as accepting and accommodating as it can be.