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What does pulling out all the stops mean? In a real fight, I don't simply choose to pull out all the stops and land my roundhouse kick to the head, or high-amplitude throw, or arm-bar -- and if I do land any of those moves, I'm no less likely to land them again on a different opponent. Awesome...

Exactly. And that's why the mechanic is disassociative. No character, in the game world, is thinking, now is the time for my daily power! The player is not thinking like the character. Is the player making tactical choices? Yes. Are they the same as, or even similar to, the tactical...

It's a bad rule, and it's an associated mechanic, but I'm not sure I'd say it's associated in a bad way. The problem is that it's overly effective -- and consistently effective, in a way that doesn't ring true. I agree that many simulationist games make the same mistake, of defining different...

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...

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:

I'm not sure what I said that is not even close. That's what I meant by simulate. Other methodologies can give plausible results without being a simulation. We can get together and narrate a tale without simulating the underlying scenario. GURPS is a (rather) simulationist game. The GURPS...

You seem to be conflating disassociated and abstract. A disassociated mechanic is divorced from the "reality" of the game world; it doesn't simulate it. An abstract mechanic doesn't provide much detail; it may or may not simulate what happens in the game world. Many war games are extremely...

You can keep the forum name and URL the same but just change the description. For instance, this forum is named and described above as: Meta Post comments and questions about the messageboards and other parts of EN World. If you have a problem, this is where to go. Moderator email addresses are...

As GreyICE noted, all rules require interpretation, because no rule set can be truly complete. Dissociated mechanics are so maddening because, by definition, the rules are divorced from what's "really" happening in the game world. How do you make a good judgment call about what should happen...

And this is why dissociated mechanics are so maddening.

If you spend any time on the mat -- wrestling, judo, jiu-jitsu, whatever -- you quickly learn that going for a takedown opens you up to counters. The rule may not model reality perfectly, but it's not ridiculous. What rule set are we discussing? Because I was never under the impression that...

Associated mechanics should reflect the modeled reality so clearly that they disappear, because there's no disconnect between what's happening inside the game world and what's happening in the rules. A bad simulation can be disassociated. It's not solely a matter of designer intent.

I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean, because improved trip seems like a decent way to simulate skill at foot sweeps and throws. Come and get it, on the other hand, isn't narrativist at all, because it isn't driven by story concerns: plot, character, etc. More than anything, come and get...

I'm totally on board with high-level fighters being just that good -- but just that good at what exactly? Because they're not especially good at avoiding getting hit, yet they can ensure that they won't get hit well -- at first, and right after getting healed.

Many swords & sorcery characters, heroes and villains, seem like rogues who dabble in magic. (Certainly by D&D standards all they do is dabble.)

Absolutely. If everyone's wearing heavy armor and using mundane weapons, then combat feels more or less right, like an Arthurian tale -- only no one ever gets unhorsed and knocked out early. If performing division wasn't such a pain, then having armor divide damage by a factor of two, three...

What does that mean inside the game world that someone can ensure that they won't take a good hit?

Yes, that the nature of hit points. Either they're low, and characters can't survive multiple deadly attacks, or they're high, and characters can't die from a single deadly attack. They're either predictably lethal or predictably non-lethal. Saving throws, on the other hand, model the...

To build on that, the fighter's fighting ability increases so dramatically at low levels, because his hit points increase at a high linear rate -- a second-level fighter has twice the hit points of a first-level fighter! -- and just when this really slows down, his hit points are already so...

I agree that multiple different kinds of hit points could easily overcomplicate things. I think the key insight is that a fight should involve intangible points that don't reflect hits at all. We shouldn't track health so much as momentum or balance. Simply pressing the attack might "damage"...