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

[Neonchameleon]

The auto-success of CaGI doesn't give the target an even break. That's a fundamental problem.

I'll grant that. And that, not anything to do with the supposed disassociation on behalf of the PC is why they erratad it.

Try using it much on your players and see how well they enjoy being sucked into close contact automatically. I suspect you'll get complaints.

You are talking here as if NPCs and PCs work by the same rules. That is IME a 3.X and GURPS conceit and many games don't have it; in some the players roll all the dice.

 

[Neonchameleon]

First--You've just proven the point---the 1-minute combat round is associated, using your own example. It's just (admittedly) a crappy abstraction.

You mean it's associated if and only if the character stands there like a lemon for 55 seconds?

Second, the entire premise of encounter and daily powers as being "there's a strategic combat opening" is inherently dissociated, because the player is "deciding" that the opening occurs, while the character is not. The act of choosing to use the power necessarily implies that the player has decided to create the opening.

This is no more true than a chess player moving his knight to B7 to fork king and rook is creating the opening when he decides to move the knight there. The character can decide to move the knight to B7 - but it's only a fork because of opposing positioning.

(Which is why the whole "Well, the character just found the right opening" argument sounds like a weak cop-out to players who dislike dissociation.)

Because they don't normally care how people think in OODA loops, that the Orient and Decide show what you have available, and that grandmasters don't see bad moves any more than good chess players see illegal moves.

 

[billd91]

You are talking here as if NPCs and PCs work by the same rules. That is IME a 3.X and GURPS conceit and many games don't have it; in some the players roll all the dice.

But other editions of D&D work that way too. If the opponent has a charm power, how many editions impose that effect on PCs without a save or (in 4e) successful attack? The availability of the power or building of the creature with it doesn't have to be the same at all, but the assumption that the power isn't an auto-success generally is the same.

 

[Neonchameleon]

But other editions of D&D work that way too. If the opponent has a charm power, how many editions impose that effect on PCs without a save or (in 4e) successful attack? The availability of the power or building of the creature with it doesn't have to be the same at all, but the assumption that the power isn't an auto-success generally is the same.

As I say, that's why they errata'd it - the autosuccess on a really threatening effect. But there are plenty of powers 4e monsters get that PCs don't. For very good reason - as far as I know it's only 3.X where they tried to give PCs all the monster abilities.

 

[Sunseeker]

I thought of minions straight away too - only instead of minion, we have the unbridled application of GM force.

I've long thought that a lot of those who don't like aspects of 4e, such as minions, like a lot more GM force in their action resolution than I do, and these examples just upthread are not dissuading me from that opinion!

I certainly agree. I prefer to be more of a narrator, sometimes as simply the "voice of god" putting ideas into their head based on their rolls, or through a Gandalf-like character. The game takes care of all the nuts and bolts, while I paint the body and put on chrome hubcaps.

I really feel like 4e gives that to me more than any other edition. Very little GM force is needed to turn it's wheels.

Though I certainly can appreciate systems wherein the GM is more of a field-general or a puppet master behind a thinly veiled curtain whose hand is wanted and needed in nearly every aspect of the game.

 

[billd91]

But there are plenty of powers 4e monsters get that PCs don't. For very good reason - as far as I know it's only 3.X where they tried to give PCs all the monster abilities.

That is pretty much irrelevant to the discussion. Do those 4e monster powers, the ones capable of manipulating PCs, work automatically? Or do they require a successful attack?

 

[Neonchameleon]

That is pretty much irrelevant to the discussion. Do those 4e monster powers, the ones capable of manipulating PCs, work automatically? Or do they require a successful attack?

Of the top of my head I can think of an effect that automatically knocks everyone in the aura prone without needing an attack roll or granting a saving throw. And I can think of an effect that bypasses hit points as a defence and reduces the target straight to zero. Such things are rare but exist.

I've used the automatic prone one before now. No one complained. And an automatic slide, now I come to think about it.

 

[innerdude]

I'm going to bow out of this thread for now, I appreciate everyone's responses (truly). I'm just surprised that there's so much resistance to the concept of dissociation, particularly from The Alexandrian's clarified, revised essay.

For me personally, I suppose I fight so hard in favor of the concept because it represents a very real thing that I have experienced, and being told, "No, it isn't" just kind of gets under my skin.

One of the reasons I participated in this, and the "scene framing" thread is because I respect the hell out of pemerton's ability to generate a coherent, narrativist, "gonzo" fantasy game out of 4e, because every experience I've ever had with the system was one of disappointment, dissatisfaction, boredom, and just general un-fun. I LIKE hearing from someone who has a different perspective, and has been successful at it, even if I'm disagreeing with him semi-regularly on particular points.

I guess I'm just asking for at least a little recognition that experiencing "dissociation" happens to many players, even if it seems incomprehensible, or foreign to those who haven't experienced it.

Innerdude out for more dude-ning!

 

[innerdude]

You mean it's associated if and only if the character stands there like a lemon for 55 seconds?

Nobody's claiming the 1-minute combat round is realistic or abstracted well. I personally find it somewhat ridiculous.

All I'm saying is that it's associated in the initial player / character decision ("I choose to engage in combat, using the best techniques at my disposal.").

The broader question, I think, is how all three of these concepts--realism, abstraction, and association--play into the larger concern of immersion. I'd venture to guess that over-breakage of any of these three has a similar effect of disturbing immersion.

This is no more true than a chess player moving his knight to B7 to fork king and rook is creating the opening when he decides to move the knight there. The character can decide to move the knight to B7 - but it's only a fork because of opposing positioning.

But there's no character in chess, only a player. *sigh* Once again, fundamental misunderstanding of the Alexandrian's essay.

(I really should have quit when I first intended. LOL).

Because they don't normally care how people think in OODA loops, that the Orient and Decide show what you have available, and that grandmasters don't see bad moves any more than good chess players see illegal moves.

This might make sense from an association standpoint if there was an element of fortune that determined that the "encounter power" goes active. For example, the player/character scores a critical hit. In this way, the player isn't fundamentally dissociating the use of the power from the character's inexplicable "magical" ability to make the opening happen exactly when he or she wants.

I don't care how far into your enemy's OODA loop you get--sometimes that opening simply isn't there, and when the player DECIDES that it now IS there, there's potential for dissociation. There's no equivalent mental process the character can make in the game world.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I'm going to bow out of this thread for now, I appreciate everyone's responses (truly). I'm just surprised that there's so much resistance to the concept of dissociation, particularly from The Alexandrian's clarified, revised essay.

For me personally, I suppose I fight so hard in favor of the concept because it represents a very real thing that I have experienced, and being told, "No, it isn't" just kind of gets under my skin.

Oh, I don't deny that disassociation is a very real thing. On the other hand I'm 99% certain The Alexandrian's analysis of disassociation is superficial and misleading.

As I said, I know that disassociation is a thing people experience because I have experienced it. When I experienced it was playing OSRIC with 1 minute combat rounds. And that is why I not only know it's a thing, I know that Justin Alexander's analysis of it is wrong. I am 99% certain that under Justin Alexander's definition 1e is not disassociated. But for me it is. This is because Justin Alexander has taken a thing that happens (disassociation), found confirmation bias in that each separate game has its own thought patterns and people used to the thought patterns for 3.X aren't used to those for 4e, and decided that his thought patterns not matching 4e are a good excuse to kick the edition wars off.

Disassociation happens when the player's thought processes do not match the designer's. This has absolutely nothing to do with what the character would actually be thinking in the situation and everything to do with what the player is used to. And as I have pointed out repeatedly using the OODA loop, the thought processes of a player of a 4e fighter in combat are closer to those of an actual fighter than in any other edition (with the honourable exception of the 3.5 Crusader which is even better than AEDU - and I have a further improvement to make with my 13th Age hack when I get round to it). But it is undeniably true that if you think how a player of a 3.X fighter thinks is how a fighter thinks then a 4e one is different and may lead to disassociation.