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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wicht" data-source="post: 6596075" data-attributes="member: 221">That's a fools errand anyway, because the matter is, like so many things, highly subjective... Does the mechanic cause dissonance in the player or does it not. To use the case in point, Power Attack seems highly "associative" to me, but obviously there are people who are very passionate about it the other way. Who am I to argue with their perception of dissonance. Further, different contexts might make a thing create more or less dissonance in and of itself, without the thing changing...For instance, if I was playing 4e, a fighter "daily" power would really bug me. If I play one of the Board Games like Wrath of Ashardalon, the same mechanic doesn't bother me in the slightest. That is slightly irrational I suppose, but it is what it is. I listen to a lot of board game reviews and I find it interesting to hear different reviewers discuss their views and opinions on the exact same mechanic in a game. Some will find some fiddly bits of a particular game to break the mood for them, while others are fine with it. Nor is the interpretation consistent within a single reviewer, as sometimes what bothers them in one game might not bother them as much in another, if the game makes up for it elsewhere. It can be, as I already said, highly subjective; often dependent upon how well the reviewer can justify the action as being in some way related to the theme in the game (this probably only matters in themed games; abstracts are a different thing). But it behooves one to recognize the fluidity of opinions on the matter of tying mechanics to theme and how the exact same thing can be interpreted so differently by different users.</blockquote>

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