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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6286750" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Well, first off I don't see how I was being uncivil.  Second, I know what you mean by dissociative.I'm not sure that you understood what I wrote as I was playing with your ball on your court.  I was speaking specifically to the issue of character perspective and player perspective being married.  I was breaking out what happens in a martial contest, perspective-wise, that is a fundamental prerequisite for a player to share if you want the two perspectives to be coupled or "associated."  Let me try again.  Are you familiar with basketball?  It is an international game that is understood all over the globe so I'm going to assume you have some familiarity.  In basketball, there is an important segment of gameplay between offender and defender that takes place with the offender's back to the basket, 8-12 feet (typically) from the goal.  This typically takes place anywhere from one freethrow stripe to the other ("the paint").  This is called "playing the post."   Playing the post is extremely physical, strategic, and tactical (for both martial actors - offender and defender).  In many ways it is a perfect analogue to what happens in a melee skirmish.  The offensive post-player is typically going to have an array of "post moves" akin to "combat maneuvers."  These will be either on the "left block" or "right block" and oftentimes the player will have different moves depending on which block they are on.  I'm a proficient post player so I'm going to provide the array of moves of which I am confident I can get a high percentage look from:Left block:1)  Spin baseline to weakside, reverse layup.2)  Shoulder/head fake middle and shoot baseline, fadeaway jumper.3)  Shoulder/head fake baseline and shoot middle, fadeaway jumper.4)  Drop step baseline.5)  Up (pump fake jumper) and under baseline either strong side or weak side lay-in.6)  Up (pump fake jumper) and under middle to weak side lay-in.Right block:1)  Spin base line to weakside, reverse layup.2)  Spin baseline to stronside, layup.3)  Shoulder/head fake middle and shoot baseline, fadeaway jumper.4)  Shoulder/head fake baseline and shoot middle, fadeaway jumper.5)  Drop step baseline.6)  Up (pump fake jumper) and under middle to weak side lay-in.7)  Baby hook middle.The vectors I'm considering in a 6 second interval in the post are the following:A)  Is the defender playing me particularly physical?  Is he particularly long (tall and/or arm length)?  Is he particularly athletic?  Has he shown any tendencies I can exploit (such as shading me baseline or being overaggressive on pump fakes)?B)  Are they double-teaming?  If so, from where and by whom (including determining the info in A above about the double teamer)?  Is the person that the double teamer is leaving a good shooter (especially from that location)?  Are they rotating hard such that we can swing the ball weak-side and get an easy look after I pass out of a double team?C)  Did I just spend a ton of energy on defense?  Is my overall defensive assignment exhausting?D)  Do I have any other offensive players I can lean on to carry the scoring load or am I primary?This is the Observe and Orient aspects of the OODA Loop that I will typically perform in that interval.  Depending on the outcome of that evaluation, I will Decide and Act.The issue that I'm trying to outline is that for someone "playing Manbearcat" in the "melee skirmish" that is post-play in basketball, this OODA Loop is necessary to associate their perspective with my own.  This is fundamental to the mental/emotional experience, the perspective, and the process.  You appear to be trying to say that deep abstraction has no bearing here.  Of course it does.  If there is considerable "information loss" relative to the above experience/perspective/process, then the process itself becomes "unphysical" and the perspective of the player of Manbearcat and the actual Manbearcat in the melee skirmish are completely decoupled.  They are not associated at all.  The two cannot be sharing perspectives, orienting based on those perspectives and the inherent evalutions therein, and then deploying resources based on evaluative judgement, tactical relevance, and stamina reserves.  Now I personally don't care so much about this as I'm trying to emulate genre in my play.  A system that abstracts actions (and accordingly, the model loses some spatial and temporal resolution) is no problem for me or my group.  In fact, it is a serious boon (necessary) for our dynamic play that functionally and consistently emulates genre tropes and for consistently bringing about climax.  However, if you do care deeply about legitimate association of the OODA Loop of the player at the table and the character in the fiction being mapped (associated), then you must stridently care that the resolution (temporal and spatial) is high, the OODA Loop processes are well-derived by the mechanics, and the abstraction is minimal.  The deeper the abstraction, the more information you are losing, up to a point where the processes that the character "should" be carrying out are rendered incoherent, possibly up to the point that it becomes totally unphysical, when cross-referencing it with the perspective of the player.  If you can't Observe coherently, you can't Orient coherently.  If you can't Orient coherent, you can't Decide coherenty.  And if you can't Decide coherently, then you can't Act coherently.  Abstraction, and its inherent information loss (up to rendering a process unphysical) 100 % affects your thesis.  You may have internalized the basic conceits of the mechanics such that "you don't care."  But make no mistake about it, it matters.  Then we just get back to "stuff that you can tolerate (because you've internalized it) and stuff that you cannot tolerate."</blockquote>

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