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Could you clarify why you think so? To my understanding the definition of a dissociated mechanic is when the player's decision-making process can't be equated to the character's decision-making processes. Under my understanding, the attack mechanics would be associated because both the player...

Some individual poisons differ, but the general rule for injury poisons is that they stay potent until delivered through a wound or washed off. However, in general they only work once, and then have to be reapplied, which is why the action type to reapply it matters. My Battlemaster/Thief could...

Fortunately the DM didn't try that. :) I was frustrated enough at the time that I would have seen it as flippant instead of funny.

It happened to me regularly in a long-running game where I was playing a Battlemaster/Thief that specialized in poisons. For every PC that isn't a Thief, applying poison to your weapon requires an Action, whereas a Thief can do it as a Bonus Action. The ability to apply poisons quickly was one...

In the area of my campaign world I usually focus on, there are two places to reliably buy magic items, but both have drawbacks. The first is the Great Market in the capital city. Almost anything can be purchased here, but the market is so large that it can take weeks to find something obscure...

Depending on campaign style the Warlock player may be able to purposefully influence the number of short rests. Taking cooks tools, specializing in soups that require simmering, and RPing meal time is a great way to ensure that mealtimes are extended enough to count as rests, while...

My experience differs sharply. A short rest is pretty easily available any time that the party doesn't have an imminent deadline. The total time cost is low, or even almost zero if the party just stops for their next meal earlier than originally intended. Moving lunch up a couple hours, for...

Let's say a 9th level party decides that it is worth the time to build a small fortress. To save money they're going to perform as much of the work themselves as they can. Two questions: Would you consider construction to be downtime? When calculating the time required to build the fortress...

That's going to depend a lot on playstyle, in two different ways. First, many warlock players will cheerfully cast their slots at the drop of a hat, because the low opportunity cost of recovering their slots makes spells comparatively cheap, and the downside of having no slots left isn't so...

I thought the defining feature of the coffeelock is that they skip long rests? Isn't the association with being caffeinated and sleep-deprived where the "coffee" part of the name comes from? Just using short rests to stock up on sorcery points (without trying to charge up over multiple days)...

Personally, I don't see that as abuse. Warlocks excel at giving the party the ability to trade time for magic in smaller time increments than the full casters can manage. I think that capability is one of the main strengths of the class, and it comes at the heavy opportunity cost of not having a...

Not in it's most extreme form, but I've seen Warlocks routinely use their ability to get slots back on a short rest to cast extra useful spells in situations where taking lots of short rests are easy. And no, I don't see it as a problem at all--quite the opposite. The ability to do so is one of...

There are several always-useful spells, but Sending (available to Great Old One Warlocks and some multiclassed Warlocks) is the big one. The size of the contact network a party can usefully maintain is often directly a function of how many Sendings they can (on average) cast in a day. With a...

We're continuing to miscommunicate. None of your responses address what I was trying to say. I don't know if that's because you continue to doubt my intentions, or because we use language very differently, or for some other reason. In any case, I don't want to continue to spend the time to try...

That's fine--there's plenty of room for disagreement here. :) And I entirely agree that the Backstory-first vs Situation-first dichotomy is relevant to this thread. I think it's similarly relevant to discuss perceived drawbacks to, and/or perceived shortfalls of, that analytical approach.

I see. Well, if you aren't willing to take me at my word regarding my intentions, then I'm not sure more words are likely to help. I'll go ahead anyway and try to provide a specific response to your objections, but if you're convinced I'm being disingenuous then I can't be sure how my answer...

That isn't at all what I think or what I am doing or saying. To clarify, I am inquiring as to the utility of the category "Backstory first" and whether it is axiomatic (as @Malmuria suggested) or describes differences in play experiences (as @pemerton claims). I agree that it at least describes...

I agree that "Backstory first", as @pemerton is defining the category, appears to distinguish Story Now from other approaches. Indeed as a category it seems purposefully defined to do exactly that. I asked pemerton what purpose they saw in categorizing together disperate approaches because I...

What purpose do you see in categorizing together playstyles that provide different experiences? For instance, in the second quote above you're evidently defining "Backstory first" as a singular process broad enough to encompass both static map-and-key and living sandbox styles even though those...

Interestingly, this is a great illustration of the reasons I prefer game mechanics that consistently and predictably model the fiction. :) I dislike mechanics like Covering Fire whose utility directly depends on the GM's choices for how to mechanically model the fiction precisely for the reasons...