In Defense of the Theory of Dissociated Mechanics

[pemerton]

Which one of those has anything to do with player control over the narrative?[/quote]The bit where he says that 4e daily powers - unlike Wushu - don't give narrative control, but only contribute to the mechanical crunchiness of the tactical skirmish game.

You paraphrase it here:

(3) The dissociated mechanics in 4e do not allow the players enough narrative control to justify forcing the player to abandon the Actor stance, in the author's opinion.

<snip>

(5) The reason for (3) is that the designers of 4e desired to focus on tactical combat with minis on a battlemat, rather than on player-controlled narrative storytelling.

The other parts that I quoted are the warm-up act for this contention - they introduce the key (and by now familiar) rhetorical tropes, like the comparison to chess and the notion of the fiction as mere improv (which also implies that there must not be narrative control mechanics - because if there were, then the fiction wouldn't be mere improv, would it?).

There is nothing whatsoever in (3) that has anything to do with complexity of mechanics. Complexity of mechanics only arises in the context of attempting to re-associate dissociated mechanics to allow a player aware of the issues raised to re-assume the Actor stance.

The suggestion that mechanical and tactical richness, per se, does not make a good RPG, is what I am alluding to in my use of the word complexity. There's also the apparent implication that narrative control mechanics are OK if they operate at the level of the scene, but not if they are more finegrained than that (as in 4e combat resolution).

I have to wonder what essay you are reading.

Oddly enough, the same one as you. The one from which you paraphrased the same claims that I made, namely, that 4e's tactical combat mechanics - with their complex and metagame character - aren't narrative control mechanics.

Which, as I indicated in my earlier post, strikes me as simply false in light of the very characterisation of narrative control mechanics given in the essay.

From the essay I learn that the author like Wushu but not 4e - and thinks it's important that a player get to narrate sliding under a car, but not feinting an opponent around the battlefield - but that, to my mind, is hardly great insight into RPG design.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

When you start defining what mechanics are and which are not roleplaying, and who is and who is not roleplaying, things are going to start to take a turn for the worse.

Yes. It is an interesting ground to investigage, especially from a game design perspective. But risky. Where I draw the line is that if I suspect, from my experience, that X doesn't fall under the roleplaying rubric, then I want to examine that. If as soon as I start examining it, people start telling me that they do X in their roleplaying all the time, I'm going to be really cautious.

It becomes very likely in such a situation that the thing worth investigating in X is not whether or not X contributes to roleplaying but how it so contributes. Tell me who is most equipped to shed light on that subject--the guy who hasn't roleplayed with X, or the guy who has?

 

[Yesway Jose]

Average Joe looks to me here like boring Joe, or maybe Joe who doesn't care much for the dramatic/thematic elements of the fiction. Maybe I'm missing some obvious point

I think that's a bit of an awful judgement value. Like I wrote, most people in my experience just announce "I attack with ____" and roll a die. I do it all the time myself. Are you calling all of us Boring Joe? Again, this is restricted to standard combat actions, not page 42, not skill challenges, not roleplaying romances. Perhaps if you didn't extrapolate so much, and stayed within the original context, then the point would be more obvious.

I'm really not getting what's at stake here (from your point of view).

I don't know, I was responding to something that ThirdWizard mentioned, I wasn't leading up to bigger conclusions. Again, if you didn't extrapolate so much from what people state....

 

[JamesonCourage]

Justin Alexander's essay makes reference to mechanics that are "nothing more than mechanical artefacts".

He implies it, but not in the way it seems like you are.

Of course, you can sidestep all these issues with house rules if you just embrace the design ethos of 4th Edition: There is no explanation for the besieged foe ability. It is a mechanical manipulation with no corresponding reality in the game world whatsoever.

At that point, however, you're no longer playing a roleplaying game. When the characters' relationship to the game world is stripped away, they are no longer roles to be played. They have become nothing more than mechanical artifacts that are manipulated with other mechanical artifacts.

But in one scenario they have a 50% chance of climbing the wall and in the other they have a 75% chance of climbing the wall. Why? Because of a mechanical artifact that has absolutely nothing to do with the game world.

He called them "nothing more than mechanical artifacts" only if they're dissociated -that is, they have no place within the game world. So, again, if they cannot be learned, explored, or observed in-game, than they are "nothing more than mechanical artifacts." He does not, as you seem to imply, say that all mechanics are "nothing more than mechanical artifacts".

If EX and SU mean nothing more than how something interacts with an anti-magic field, then they've become nothing more than mechanical artefacts.

If there is some tie from the mechanics to reasoning in-game, than it's not the case. The reasoning in-game must be able to be learned, explored, or observed, as far as I can tell. In this case, I think it's that EX abilities aren't magical by nature, while SU abilities are.

To the extent that they are something other than mechanical artefacts, it's because we have some more-or-less independent grasp of what is magical, and what not - and hence what anti-magic will affect, and what it won't.

Simply stipulating to me that an ability is EX, and therefore learnable, but leaving it completely mysterious as to the way in which it is not magical, doesn't strike me as very powerful association.

Okay. It doesn't really need to strike you as a very powerful association. If there is a tie to something in-game related to the mechanic that is able to be learned, explored, or observed, than it's not dissociative, as far as I can tell.

What is actually happening in the gameworld when my sleeping thief evades a fireball? (For example, do I wake up? Does that mean that, if I'm under a permanent sleep curse, and so can't wake up, I lose my evasion? Or would that be a house rule?)

Why do I feel as if you're being purposefully argumentative on this subject? Let me, once again, go quote myself:

If there is some non-magical technique in-game that allows you to hide while being observed, than it can be taught (and thus learned by others). It can be explored. It can be observed. The same goes for evasion, though I'd probably see it as dissociative most of the time. If, however, it allowed you to phase your body reactively, without thought, when certain conditions were met, I could see it. I'd be hard pressed to accept it (my 3.5-based game doesn't allow Reflex saves while incapacitated), but at least it's associative.

This is such a simple thing to look at. Whether or not anything can be explored in-game. How one would go about doing that is a little more tricky, depending on what it is, but it's still a very straightforward concept.

Again, as far as I can tell, If there is an in-game reason that can be learned, explored, or observed, than I don't think it's dissociative. If the rogue can only get to use his ability 1/day, and if it's just narrative control, than it is dissociative. If there's some in-game reason that can be learned, explored, or otherwise observed, than it isn't dissociative.

As always, play what you like

Again, if the mechanic is tied to something in-game that can be learned, explored, or observed, than it's not dissociative. If it's purely narrative control, it does not meet this criteria, and, again, as far as I can tell, this makes it dissociated.

As always, play what you like

 

[Raven Crowking]

Removed

 

[Hussar]

If there is some tie from the mechanics to reasoning in-game, than it's not the case. The reasoning in-game must be able to be learned, explored, or observed, as far as I can tell. In this case, I think it's that EX abilities aren't magical by nature, while SU abilities are.

Actually, you missed the major difference between EX and SU abilities. EX abilities are almost universally passive - things like damage reduction and the like. They are inherent to the character. SU abilities are almost always active - things like the Binder's Vestige abilities are all SU, for example. In other words, SU abilities are just SLA's that bypass magic resistance and can't be dispelled.

 

[JamesonCourage]

Actually, you missed the major difference between EX and SU abilities. EX abilities are almost universally passive - things like damage reduction and the like. They are inherent to the character. SU abilities are almost always active - things like the Binder's Vestige abilities are all SU, for example. In other words, SU abilities are just SLA's that bypass magic resistance and can't be dispelled.

Taking context into consideration, those differences are, to me, not as big as the major difference presented within the game world (in my mind): whether or not it's magical in nature. Though you are not wrong in your assessment that those are also generally true (since many EX abilities are not "inherent" to the character before extensive training... see the Monk class ).

As always, play what you like

 

[ThirdWizard]

What the article suggests is that, for purposes of game balance....and, in 4e terms, game balance is very much balance around the battlefield....the mechanics require that the aware player abandon the Actor stance. If the player then was able to shift fully to the Author or Director stance, all would be well, but full Author or Director stances are also denied the player, again due to game balance.

It's interesting to think about the stance shifting, because I feel that when I play, I can be in both the Actor and Author and Director stance at the same time. There's no mental shift associated with using Encounters or Dailies.

"I catch him off guard..."
"When he's looking at Morgan flanking him, I..."
"Waiting for just the right moment to show itself, I..."

Where "I" refers to my character.

When I do these things, I'm invoking a Director stance. Things are happening. These things do not involve my character's decision. But, I'm seeing it through my character's eyes, even though I'm the one dictating it.

This is in sharp contrast to FATE, where I might say something like:

"I need to get out of here. I want there to be a car with the keys in the ignition, what do I need to do?"

Where the first "I" is the character, but the second two are me, the player. In that case, I want to make a roll to create the situation where there is a nearby car that I can jump inside and speed off in. I've jumped out of the Actor stance temporarily, into the Director stance, because I, the player, need to do something to influence the flow of the game.

I'm not sure what that means, but it does serve as an example of the difference between the two implementations of the mechanics, at least in the mind of one person who plays both games.

 

[MrGrenadine]

Having read through most of the thread, and the Alexandrian's essay again, I'm just as firmly convinced as to the general premise and conclusion posited--that dissociated mechanics are bad, if they're used in the place of non-dissociated mechanics without any benefit in utility or substance (i.e., transfer of narrative control).

But the importance of that concept continues to grow in my mind, and it's based on something that struck me as I was writing my 2nd post on page 6 of the thread--namely that in order for roleplaying games to work at all, they have to represent a form of human rationality as it comes to dealing with other sentient, rational entities.

I can't XP you again, but your entire post is terrific, and I completely agree.

In fact, what you've outlined in your post, combined with a consistent and understandable set of physical laws, (not real-world physics, per se, but consistent and reliable no matter how fantastic), is exactly what I'm looking for when I play.

 

[Hussar]

Taking context into consideration, those differences are, to me, not as big as the major difference presented within the game world (in my mind): whether or not it's magical in nature. Though you are not wrong in your assessment that those are also generally true (since many EX abilities are not "inherent" to the character before extensive training... see the Monk class ).

As always, play what you like

But, OTOH, let's not be coy here. Since the EX abilities can break physics, they're effectively magic by any other name. The only reason they aren't "magic" is so they don't interact with anti-magic spells.

Or, to put it another way, how do you explain Darkvision without referencing magic? And, since Darkvision is an EX ability, how exactly do you "learn" it?

For that matter, how is Spell Resistance (EX) a "learned" ability?

If my Animal companion is in no way magical, then how come it improves as I level up? Isn't that disassociated - after all, the animal companion could be sitting on my sofa the whole time, yet it gains hit points and whatnot regardless of what it does.

If raging is a "learned ability" then how come I can only do it a few times a day but that number increases as I go up levels? And how come the fatigue caused by my non-magical rage only lasts to the end of the encounter?

While there are EX abilities which fit under your criteria of "learned ability" there are some pretty common ones that don't.

The primary reason that an ability is EX is because it's passive - not because it has any requirement to be learned. At least, that't the way it seems.