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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5779954" data-attributes="member: 54877">It's exactly the same point as earlier in that post. "I want more verisimilitude" and "disaassociated mechanics" assumes that there is some kind of inherent and objective scale, and then proceeds from the assumption that all we need to do to make more simulation fans happy is to move up that scale. Whereas, "I want different verismilitude", or if you prefer, "This mechanic makes me feel disassociated from the fiction," acknowledges that there is no such scale. That acknowledgement is crucial. Sure, there are broad classes of things that we can discuss that apply to a lot of people. But they aren't all on a scale. This is important not only because some people want more or less simulated reality (which everyone here has acknowledged from the beginning), but also because many people who want more of X simulated are in inherent conflict with people who want more of Y simulated--at least if you want the game to be playable at all.  I realize it is a pedantic distinction, but it is an important one. It is especially important with the "disassociated mechanic" phrase, because the purpose of the essay was in part to pretend that the distinction did not exist, so as to advocate forcefully for the writers' preferences as if they were objective fact. In short, it was either logically wrong or dishonest, take your pick. And if you want to take the more sensible approach (which the essay should have done), that "disassociated mechanics" is explicitly and firmly nothing but short-hand for "a mechanic that makes me feel disassociated from the fiction", then you must accept that there is no argument there, but a mere tautology coupled to an observation about a person and their feelings. How do we know the mechanics is disassociated? Someone feels disassociated. Circular argument. How do we know it it happens? Someone tells us it does. Observation. Of course, if one was going to take that approach, it might have been better to talk about disassociated people, instead of mechanics. That has its own problems, of course. To be really correct, you'd have to say "disassociated relationship". <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> Edit for clarity: This is no way implies that the person or their feeling is not important or should not be considered. Just about every gamer that has ever got into a character at all has got some feelings along these lines somewhere or another (albeit different ones). But going down that particular rabbit hole is a bad way for people with those feelings to get what they want. Better to just say clearly and unashamedly that its your feeling, and you want it--and you don't need any faux argument to justify having it. Then we can talk about how to get you what you want, along with all those other people that have different feelings.</blockquote>

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