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

[Guest 85555]

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.

In the past, Neonchameleon has been incredibly vague and contradictory about whatever it is he's talking about when he says "disassociation". But what we can all be really, really positive of is that he's not talking about dissociated mechanics.

For example, here's how I've defined a "dissociated mechanic": "A dissociated mechanic is one which is disconnected from the game world. The easiest way to perceive the difference is to look at the player’s decision-making process when using the mechanic: If the player’s decision can be directly equated to a decision made by the character, then the mechanic is associated. If it cannot be directly equated, then it is dissociated." (link)

And here's what Neonchameleon has said about "disassociation" in this thread: "Disassociation happens when the player's thought processes do not match the designer's."

It should be absolutely trivial for anyone with a passing familiarity with the English language to figure out that whatever Neonchameleon is talking about has absolutely nothing to do with the concept of dissociated mechanics. Despite this, Neonchameleon likes to pretend that whenever someone talks about dissociated mechanics as I've defined them that they're really talking about his vague concept of "disassociation". Why? I'm charitably assuming it's because he likes yelling futilely on messageboards.

i have to say, I found dissociation resonated with me when I first read your article on it. I think for people like me, it helps explain some things.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

They are not equivalent because you are comparing two very different things. One is a statement about balance and 3E. The other is a statement about a mechanic and 4e. But the broader issue behind cagi is how it breaks immersion and 4E, for me, is littered with such issues. Whether you are talking healing surges ormartial dailies and encounter powers, the game a a very fundamental level just breaks my immersion. This is much more comparable to complaints about balance in 3E. However I would stand by the earlier things I said where it is about preference, not about 4E being objectively immersion breaking or 3E being objectivley poorly balaced. It all boils down to your expecations about balance/believability and your playstyle.

But why I see it as different is like this:

For me 4e isn't dissociative. When I run a character in a game I consider the actions of my character from a narrative standpoint and the rules simply provide a mechanism by which my idea of my character becomes incorporated into the narrative in an orderly way. My character concept may involve a cunning fighter who likes to sucker his enemies in, so maybe I take the CaGI power and it does what I want. When I decide that my character would do that, then he uses the power and something mechanically happens that is representative of that narrative happening. As was discussed in the "4e game everyone loved to hate" thread this is quite cool as it mechanically reinforces my character's concept. Likewise with other aspects of the game such as heals and etc. I just see having limited use powers and such as the necessary machinery of delimiting the PLAYER's influence on the narrative, they have no in-game reality in particular.

For me 3e is fundamentally unbalanced. In every single respect a mid-level 3e cleric is utterly superior to a fighter of the same level. You can probably work up some corner-cases where this isn't quite true, but in general MECHANICALLY the game does NOTHING to support me if I want to play "fighter that is as bad-assed as anyone around and can hold his own" because he certainly will be shamed by a druid or a cleric pretty easily, and a wizard will evince all sorts of capabilities that aren't available to the fighter except on a MUCH more limited basis (IE he might have a couple of them in item form where the wizard can memorize a whole range of them almost as-needed). These aren't subjective statements about the game. At any table which plays 3.x in basic accordance with the rules these things will quickly become evident, they are built into the game itself.

My point is I can play 4e from what to me is as much a solidly character stance as I can play in any other edition by using the rules as intended (at least as I see they were intended) and imagining the results in a way that suites me. OTOH no amount of imagining in a 3e game will make my fighter the equivalent in most fights to a cleric above 5th level without making actual changes to the rules or at least not using a number of the obviously best clerical options. That's not a preference difference AT ALL. Nothing about these 2 things is at all comparable. YOU may of course find it unenjoyable to play 4e in the way that you like to play, and not be bothered at all by the fact that your 3e fighter is much weaker than a full caster, but that doesn't make the later a preference as the former is. To change the later you must change the actual rules of the game, regardless of who you are or what your preferences are. You can change the 4e issue by using the existing rules differently without changing them, at least in principle. The only way to make these things equivalent is to engage in an argument which trivializes all rules debate completely by calling it ALL 'just preference'. At best that's a pointless exercise.

 

[triqui]

Can't speak for @timASW, but I ignore all of these rules and ad hoc things in certain situations if they don't fit the story I'm trying to tell.

So bassically you pre-script the scene, and let the players think they have some influence in the result, while it's actually a fate thing?

I mean: the PC roll and win Initiative, but you ignore that, because the bd guys have some thing they are going to do that is already scripted. They do it, a PC cast dispel-magic or whatever, and undo the action, and you ignore it too, because it doesn't fit the story you are trying to tell. Later, and lucky crit would kill the BBEG, but you fudge his HP, because it is not "the right time to die yet". Later, once the NPC has done all his script things, when it's the "right moment to die", if the player attack miss, you fudge it too, and then he dies.

Is it that? Why do you need rules then? 4e, 3e, 5e, it doesn't really matter. Why don't you just tell the story?

 

[Guest 85555]

For me 3e is fundamentally unbalanced. In every single respect a mid-level 3e cleric is utterly superior to a fighter of the same level. You can probably work up some corner-cases where this isn't quite true, but in general MECHANICALLY the game does NOTHING to support me if I want to play "fighter that is as bad-assed as anyone around and can hold his own" because he certainly will be shamed by a druid or a cleric pretty easily, and a wizard will evince all sorts of capabilities that aren't available to the fighter except on a MUCH more limited basis (IE he might have a couple of them in item form where the wizard can memorize a whole range of them almost as-needed). These aren't subjective statements about the game. At any table which plays 3.x in basic accordance with the rules these things will quickly become evident, they are built into the game itself.
.

i feel 3E has some balance issues as well (though I dont think they are as bad as you paint them). I will leave it to the 3E proponents to adequately defend that edition (I have seen JA make a pretty solid case for 3E in the past). But I do still think this is a preference issue. Lots of people do not have this reaction to 3E and it is because people have different expecations from balance. For some, the fighter starting out hardy and being eclipsed by other classes as time goes on is balanced. For others 3E is balanced because eventually resource management catches up with casters. Some see clerics as broken, yet others see them as lame healbots. Some see them as too powerful, others think it is overblown because many of their buffs end uonhelping the fighter an the rest of the party anyways. But like I have said, I think 2E was more balanced, and 3E did intoduce some balance issues. I just dont think it is all that objective. Even if one accepts that certain classes and combos are objectively better than others in 3E, some see this as perfectly acceptible and even balanced because system mastery is part of the game (not saying I agree, but I have seen that argument). The problem you identify simply doesnt arise at every table because how you play the game matters when it comes to balance. So I am just not seeing the argument that it is objectively imbalanced as holding a lot of weight (though I do personally agree it has balance issues).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

For example, here's how I've defined a "dissociated mechanic": "A dissociated mechanic is one which is disconnected from the game world. The easiest way to perceive the difference is to look at the player’s decision-making process when using the mechanic: If the player’s decision can be directly equated to a decision made by the character, then the mechanic is associated. If it cannot be directly equated, then it is dissociated." (link)

But like I said to [MENTION=85555]Bedrockgames[/MENTION] just now I need not in any way 'dissociate' by this definition when playing 4e. I suppose I have the choice to do so, but it is not inherently necessary. I'd also point out that you lambasted 4e and to put not too fine a point on it pooed all over it practically before the ink had dried on the PHB 4 years ago. You certainly didn't structure your criticism at that time as an observation on modes of play that 4e was or wasn't suitable for or RP techniques that would work well with it. No, you dived right in and in so many words called it a bad game design. Not to try to drag the discussion into a debate about different poster's merits, but you may find that your stock with people who have been finding 4e to be a good, effective, fun game for the last 4.5 years is kinda low. I won't say there was nothing to what you had to say then, people like [MENTION=85555]Bedrockgames[/MENTION] confirm that there are play styles for which some people don't favor 4e and they can articulate that in a reasonable way. Note the difference though, there's none of that "its a bad game" thing in there. Maybe we've all grown beyond that, but I think you may be getting more than the usual jaundiced eye tossed your way given past history.

In fact googling on this subject informs me that the gist of what you've been saying is that 4e's design "inhibits roleplaying" etc. I personally find these assertions ridiculous in any objective sense or even widely-held subjective sense and frankly when I run into people on the internet with one highly dubious idea its pretty hard not to just assume they're 'out there' in some fashion. So, in short NO, 4e's mechanics aren't dissociative to any greater degree than 3e's or 2e's, and even if they were the notion that this inhibits RP is at best only true for you and perhaps some other people. It surely isn't true of anyone that I've actually played with.

 

[Guest 85555]

My point is I can play 4e from what to me is as much a solidly character stance as I can play in any other edition by using the rules as intended (at least as I see they were intended) and imagining the results in a way that suites me. OTOH no amount of imagining in a 3e game will make my fighter the equivalent in most fights to a cleric above 5th level without making actual changes to the rules or at least not using a number of the obviously best clerical options. That's not a preference difference AT ALL. Nothing about these 2 things is at all comparable. YOU may of course find it unenjoyable to play 4e in the way that you like to play, and not be bothered at all by the fact that your 3e fighter is much weaker than a full caster, but that doesn't make the later a preference as the former is. To change the later you must change the actual rules of the game, regardless of who you are or what your preferences are. You can change the 4e issue by using the existing rules differently without changing them, at least in principle. The only way to make these things equivalent is to engage in an argument which trivializes all rules debate completely by calling it ALL 'just preference'. At best that's a pointless exercise.

For me to enjoy 4E I would actually have to change the rules of the game. While you are able to iagine it in a way that makes it enjoyable, i honestly cant imagine away the problems things like healing surges, martial dailies and cagi create for me.

I think how we react to rules is largely a matter of preference. There are certainly things that can be talked about objectively (raw numbers are raw numbers and probabilities are always concrete) but statements like this is balanced or this is fun, or this is believable are all subjective opinions. We can certainly get into the specifics (i.e. you could compare the average damage a fighter versus a cleric can do and provided your math is right, its indisputable-----but what that means will probably be disputed by some).

I think you can still get into concrete with this though. For example I know that many 4E players find 3E unbalanced. So whether or not it is objectively imbalanced, that is a good starting point for a conversaiton about rules and class balance. I am just not prepared to say things like 4E is objectively immersion breaking, or 3E is objectively broken.

This is just how I look at design. I try to keep an open mind and understand what people really want. Part of that is learning to accept things you might not agree with. I mean there is so much disagreement about balance and 3E, how can it not be preference and what we mean when we say "balanced".

 

[Neonchameleon]

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.

In the past, Neonchameleon has been incredibly vague and contradictory about whatever it is he's talking about when he says "disassociation". But what we can all be really, really positive of is that he's not talking about dissociated mechanics.

For example, here's how I've defined a "dissociated mechanic": "A dissociated mechanic is one which is disconnected from the game world. The easiest way to perceive the difference is to look at the player’s decision-making process when using the mechanic: If the player’s decision can be directly equated to a decision made by the character, then the mechanic is associated. If it cannot be directly equated, then it is dissociated." (link)

And here's what Neonchameleon has said about "disassociation" in this thread: "Disassociation happens when the player's thought processes do not match the designer's."

It should be absolutely trivial for anyone with a passing familiarity with the English language to figure out that whatever Neonchameleon is talking about has absolutely nothing to do with the concept of dissociated mechanics. Despite this, Neonchameleon likes to pretend that whenever someone talks about dissociated mechanics as I've defined them that they're really talking about his vague concept of "disassociation". Why? I'm charitably assuming it's because he likes yelling futilely on messageboards.

[MENTION=6700092]JustinAlexander[/MENTION] 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 [MENTION=85870]innerdude[/MENTION] 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 do not and have never claimed that disassociated mechanics and a sense of disassociation are the same thing.

 

[Balesir]

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.

And not only do you claim so, you give us an example of how to rewrite one of Neonchameleon's posts just to make sure we see how it works. How considerate.

In the past, Neonchameleon has been incredibly vague and contradictory about whatever it is he's talking about when he says "disassociation". But what we can all be really, really positive of is that he's not talking about dissociated mechanics.

Each to his or her own, but I understood his version of "dissociation" a whole lot better than I understand yours; as far as I can see, yours is a pseudoconcept that applies only to those things you don't like for reasons that are mysterious to me.

For example, here's how I've defined a "dissociated mechanic": "A dissociated mechanic is one which is disconnected from the game world. The easiest way to perceive the difference is to look at the player’s decision-making process when using the mechanic: If the player’s decision can be directly equated to a decision made by the character, then the mechanic is associated. If it cannot be directly equated, then it is dissociated." (link)

Ah, right - like hit points? Where the character decides to do something utterly foolhardy because s/he has plenty of hit points? Or, wait. is a "good DM" supposed to radically change the rules for that case, so that it doesn't count?

Or maybe we're talking about experience points, where the character, we are to believe, suddenly and spontaneously decides to train new skills and abilities, because, well, s/he has enough "experience" now?

D&D has always been replete with cases where the player is making decisions based on information that the character could not plausibly be taken to have in the circumstances. Since it is pretty clear that the character must be imagined to have considerable quantities of information that the player does not if our imaginary world is to be plausible, this is, I strongly suspect, inevitable in any RPG.

And here's what Neonchameleon has said about "disassociation" in this thread: "Disassociation happens when the player's thought processes do not match the designer's."

Yes; in the sense that what you seem to be talking about when you say "dissociation" seems to map pretty closely to a difference between your own model of how the real world works and that apparently held by the designer of the game, I'd say that makes sense. The fact that you seem extremely resisitant to the idea that any viable alternative to your own model of the real world exists adds further credence to that hypothesis.

It should be absolutely trivial for anyone with a passing familiarity with the English language to figure out that whatever Neonchameleon is talking about has absolutely nothing to do with the concept of dissociated mechanics.

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. In other words, if your account of which mechanics were "dissociated" lined up with your definition, I would be happy that I understood you - but it doesn't.

Despite this, Neonchameleon likes to pretend that whenever someone talks about dissociated mechanics as I've defined them that they're really talking about his vague concept of "disassociation". Why? I'm charitably assuming it's because he likes yelling futilely on messageboards.

Or, alternately, because he, like me, sees an explanation for your dislike of certain mechanics that appears to fit the list of mechanics you vilify far better than the one you have offered?

 

[Ahnehnois]

So bassically you pre-script the scene, and let the players think they have some influence in the result, while it's actually a fate thing?

No. Completely the opposite. I presuppose very little, let the scene play out, and make judgments when they need to be made. I generally have no idea what will happen over the course of a session. I'm an improv DM.

And, as in any game, since I am the arbiter of the world (or the DM is, in general terms), the players' influence comes through me. If they build characters I like, make good decisions, and roll well, then good things often (but not always) happen for them (in D&D anyway; in CoC not so much). If they don't, the results are less inspiring. But as in any D&D game (or as in life, or as in all but the most extreme examples in fiction) one character has very little influence over the world and even over his own life. I mean, no matter what the players do, there's nothing stopping me from chucking the Tarrasque at them or making them deities or bringing about the end of the world. The DCs and modifiers for any d20 roll are whatever I say they are. It would be absurd to suggest that anything in the D&D rules gives the players any real power relative to the DM.

So why would I let my players think they have any more influence than they do? The influence they do have is more than enough to satisfy them. Trying to get them to assume greater narrative control is not necessarily a meaningful goal. The players want to be (in dramatic terms) actors, not writers, producers, or directors. DMs take those responsibilities. Playing one character and reacting to the DM's choices is a perfectly reasonable way to play.

I mean: the PC roll and win Initiative, but you ignore that, because the bd guys have some thing they are going to do that is already scripted. They do it, a PC cast dispel-magic or whatever, and undo the action, and you ignore it too, because it doesn't fit the story you are trying to tell. Later, and lucky crit would kill the BBEG, but you fudge his HP, because it is not "the right time to die yet". Later, once the NPC has done all his script things, when it's the "right moment to die", if the player attack miss, you fudge it too, and then he dies.

Since I don't have those kinds of things scripted very often, generally there is no need to do those things. If they get lucky and kill an enemy that was supposed to last, then that's the story of that session. If they get unlucky and die, that's the story. Part of being a DM in my opinion is adopting a certain equanimity; seeing the perspectives of the NPCs and the drama of the story but not becoming invested in any one character or plotline.

However, on the rare occasion that I actually do feel the need to "cheat" and modify or ignore the results of initiative, saves, damage, or other game rules to change the outcome (as opposed to just skipping the rules and getting to an outcome that was going to happen anyway, as described above), the results are almost invariably enjoyable, and no one complains. And I don't particularly feel I've overstepped my bounds, merely exercised my discretion.

Is it that? Why do you need rules then?

The main reason is to establish a framework of reality. Without the rules, every player would simply say that they attack and kill the enemy. The numbers on character sheets give us a way of describing how powerful each character is, and let us make judgments about relative power. The DCs for skill checks tell us what a character of a certain power level can realistically accomplish in the world. The dice allow us to interject an element of unpredictability.

And, of course, because building characters is fun.

 

[Obryn]

((stuff))

Yeah, I was stunned to learn that when I was playing 4e, I was not actually playing an RPG because some dude wrote a pseudo-intellectual screed on his blog.

As far as I'm concerned, that erased his credibility entirely. And I'm mildly surprised whenever someone I view as reasonable like [MENTION=85555]Bedrockgames[/MENTION] puts his support behind a blog article that was just edition warring with a fancy tie.

-O