In Defense of the Theory of Dissociated Mechanics

[Yesway Jose]

From my reading of what YeswayJose was saying, I'd say this is pretty close to his position. At least, that's what I took it to be.
<snip>
Thus, you get the idea of To Hit. In 3e, this is an associated mechanic. If you hit something, you MUST make some sort of physical contact with it.

Just to clarify, I know that "to hit" in 4E (and even maybe in 3E for me) does not necessarily mean physical contact -- it's whatever the player wants it to mean under the paradigm that hit points = stamina, wounds, luck, morale, etc. Several posts of mine on other thread(s) would indicate that.

Thank you, don't mind me, please continue.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Where I get tripped up in all of this is the idea that somehow this is more limiting to the players. That having disociated mechanics somehow makes it more difficult to create a narrative in the game. Isn't disociation by definition more liberating?

The effect you described can be liberating, if used in the spirit with which it is intended. However, "disassociation" implies something very much the opposite, both in its use by TA and in the original pathological meaning. Taken to its extreme case, disassociation implies--among other things--a personality somewhat imprisoned in the owner's skull--expressly, not free to act in ways in which the personality ultimately desires.

One of the characteristics is replacement of decision points with process--even when this might not be the best way to handle the situation. I had a conversation yesterday, with someone suffering from the psychological condition, about the trouble a "locked in" process can cause when the normal parameters for the process are not fully applicable.

Bringing it back to the less serious gaming side, the thing about process-based simulation methods is that they are as much of a double-edge sword as narrative methods. When the process allows you to work efficiently, it is "liberating" in that it lets you get on with the game in a way that is satisfying. When the process locks you in, you obviously get something more confining (the only way I can "make discombobulated" in the story is to use a mechanics explicitly tied to tripping or perhaps confusion). A narrative method that replaces a limiting mechanic is liberating--if you care about the limit. A narrative method that leaves the choice up to you, perhaps making you stop longer than you care to, or cause analysis paralysis due to the options, is confining. "Limits are freeing" is about avoiding analysis paralysis by imposing a structure.

In either case, applying narrative mechanics as a process method are nearly always going to have all of the bad sides of both methods, and neither of the good sides. You've, in effect, got a limited choice process that nonetheless suffers from analysis paralysis and other open-ended issues because the limited choices are not part of the process. "Make up something appropriate--in the simulation process sense--that causes this creature to be prone."

 

[Yesway Jose]

I'm sorry to hear of your frustration. I'm also sorry that you think I'm pettifoggin on semantics.

From my perspective, you're putting forward a notion - mechanics that are metagame on the page, but are rendered simulationist in play - that I don't understand. I'm not looking for an abstract definition. I'm looking for illustrations - whether actual play or seriously worked out hypotheticals - that explain what you have in mind.

The key thing here that I feel that a more holistic approach is ultimately the most useful and important goal in mind, rather than constantly dissect any one element out of context because I think the latter has already been done ad nauseum without consensus.

Even illustrations tend to fail if we consider the last 65 pages.

I find now that lurkerdom is a much better return on investment, as I don't feel compelled to defend my opinions from misrepresentation especially from those who are temporarily belligerent or overly-analytical or both. That said...

I think Roleplaying is just telling an interactive shared story of some sort, usually (but not always) with use of mechanics.

I think Simulationism is if Roleplaying results in a narrative with (subjectively adequate) verisimilitude. There are very complex and very subjective interactions here: the nature of the mechanics, the interaction between mechanics, the way the DM uses mechanics, the way *each* player in the group uses the mechanics, the kinds of stories that each player subjectively wants to tell, the stories that each player considers to be relatively plausible, and the stories that end up being told in the shared narrative after all.

I think Immersion is how I feel *while* that narrative is being formed. There are complex and subjective interactions here as well. There are subjectively independant but related at any one time, so there can be simulationism or immersion or neither or both.

I think all of the above points have been touched upon in the previous pages and many other threads, although I believe it's the 1st time in this thread that I've personally dared to hazard a general interpretation of "simulation" and "immersion". For the above reasons, I feel it's futile for me to drill down into any further detail, so I don't know what else to say.

 

[prosfilaes]

When you quoted me it was a selective quotation and you cut the very next sentence " But it's an opinion based on subjective preferences."

Not in my first response, and I stand by my statement then; that's a meaningless statement of the form used by many to try and avoid the consequences of their statement. Claiming a factual claim is a subjective opinion does not change its nature.

Comparing between two such different games, simmilar as they are in the whole scheme of things, the results are always going to be subjective. But of course I believe my preferences to be the best ones.

First, no; I am well capable of understanding that my preference for Coke doesn't mean it's better in any way. I can even go further; The Day After Tomorrow is one of my favorite movies, but objective I can say it's a lousy movie.

Secondly, you didn't say that 4e was better; you said that for people who have found Pathfinder better than 4e (they have done the test, and PF won), that they are badly missing out (they would enjoy 4e better.) Which is absurd; if someone tells you they enjoy Chick Flick #12 or Horror Movie #47 to Citizen Kane after having watched both, they're probably telling the truth.

 

[innerdude]

The key thing here that I feel that a more holistic approach is ultimately the most useful and important goal in mind, rather than constantly dissect any one element out of context because I think the latter has already been done ad nauseum without consensus.

Even illustrations tend to fail if we consider the last 65 pages.

<snip>

I think Roleplaying is just telling an interactive shared story of some sort, usually (but not always) with use of mechanics.

I think Simulationism is if Roleplaying results in a narrative with (subjectively adequate) verisimilitude. There are very complex and very subjective interactions here: the nature of the mechanics, the interaction between mechanics, the way the DM uses mechanics, the way *each* player in the group uses the mechanics, the kinds of stories that each player subjectively wants to tell, the stories that each player considers to be relatively plausible, and the stories that end up being told in the shared narrative after all.

I think Immersion is how I feel *while* that narrative is being formed. There are complex and subjective interactions here as well. There are subjectively independant but related at any one time, so there can be simulationism or immersion or neither or both.

I think all of the above points have been touched upon in the previous pages and many other threads, although I believe it's the 1st time in this thread that I've personally dared to hazard a general interpretation of "simulation" and "immersion". For the above reasons, I feel it's futile for me to drill down into any further detail, so I don't know what else to say.

This is a FANTASTIC summation of my own sensibilities about dissociation/narrative/immersion when it comes to RPGs.

I wish I had more time to address pemerton's comment about looking at "narrative" differently, because it's really in the center vortex of my ideas behind why I started this thread in the beginning, but I'll have to come back to it later.

 

[pemerton]

In theory, having associated mechanics can never hurt, because you can always disconnect them. They provide narrative support; you can embellish all you want

I guess unsurprisingly, I don't agree. I'll try and explain - and the point of the explanation isn't to try and prove that everyone would be better off with metagame mechanics, but to try and show how sometimes "associated" (or, a I prefer to say, simulationist) mechanics can hurt.

First, you can't embellish simulationist mechanics all you want. They establish parameters.

Of course, as I've been saying, metagame mechanics impose parameters as well. But metagame mechanics that have been designed well will put on just the parameters that the participants want, while leaving just the right scope for narration ("embellishment"). Whereas simulationist mechanics, which if they've been well designed will have been designed to efficiently but plausibly model ingame causal processes, may well not establsih the right sort of parameters.

To give an example - as far as I know, the only way to stop someone in 3E, using a martial maneouvre, is to grapple them or trip them. Both require making a touch attack. They leave it open to embellishment as to what part of my body I am using to touch my foe. But they don't leave it open to embellish eg that I didn't touch them at all, but wrongfooted them such that they tripped over their own scabbard.

To give another example - a simulationist treatment of spell duration, which says that the Baleful Polymorph ends after 6 seconds because that's just how the magic works preclues the end of the duration being negated as a miracle bestowed on a paladin by his god.

Second, when it comes to "disconnecting" simulationist mechanics, at least in my experience - and also in many rulebooks that I'm familiar with - it is the GM who has authority over disconnection. Which tends to mean that the idea of "disconnecting" simulationist mechanics brings with it the threat of GM force in action resolution. And GM force in action resolution is, in general, at odds with player protagonism.

I think this is particularly an issue with high concept simulationism. Purist-for-system design is generally intended to be "GM-proof" in this way, because part of the point of play is for everyone - GM included - to engage with and enjoy the mechanics. But in high concept simulationism the mechanics are a means to a different end (roughly, a genre experience). So the temptation to disconnect, when the connection won't produce that experience, is high. And so we get the "golden rule", "fudging in the interest of story", etc etc. And I'm a completely orthodox Forge-ite when it comes to this sort of play - I find it very dysfunctional.

So if you want to play in the way that I'm interested in playing, "associated" mechanics can (and do, and have) hurt. There's a reason I switched from Rolemaster to 4e, after all!

 

[pemerton]

I think Simulationism is if Roleplaying results in a narrative with (subjectively adequate) verisimilitude.

OK, that makes some of your earlier posts a whole lot clearer.

Outside of some "comedy" games like Paranoia and Toon, I don't know of any approach to RPGing that isn't interested in what you call simulationism here. (At the Forge, they call it "exploration of a shared imaginary space" - and its verisimilitudinous, for those at the table, is part of what helps it be shared.)

From my point of view, all the action in this thread, and in my hostile response to The Alexandrian's essay, is in talking about different ways to achieve this sort of shared imaginary versimilitudinous space. I take it for granted, though, that this is what is being done. (Why a group of people want to get together and create a shared imaginary space is another issue - this is Vincent Baker's point, when he says some just want to "be there", others want to prove they've got what it takes, others want to SAY SOMETHING in the Lit101 sense, maybe there are other reasons too that the Forge hasn't noticed yet.)

The Alexandrian seems to assume that 4e's mechanics, because of the way in which they are not Forge-simulationist (ie don't model ingame causal processes) can't deliver a shared imaginary space (hence comments about imrov drama linking tactical skirmishes). A bit part of my goal in this and other threads is to show that this can be done, and how it is done, without playing in a Forge-simulationist fashion.

 

[pemerton]

I am well capable of understanding that my preference for Coke doesn't mean it's better in any way. I can even go further; The Day After Tomorrow is one of my favorite movies, but objective I can say it's a lousy movie.

Secondly, you didn't say that 4e was better; you said that for people who have found Pathfinder better than 4e (they have done the test, and PF won), that they are badly missing out (they would enjoy 4e better.) Which is absurd; if someone tells you they enjoy Chick Flick #12 or Horror Movie #47 to Citizen Kane after having watched both, they're probably telling the truth.

It's a bit orthogonal to the main point of the thread, but I wanted to say something about this.

It's true that one can have a personal preference for an artwork that is not the best. One of my favourite movies, for example, is Kubrick's Spartacus, but it's certainly not the (asethetically) best movie I've ever seen.

But it's equally true that one can explain preferences by an appeal (perhaps only partial) to quality. Part of what explains my pleasure in Spartacus is that it is nevertheless a good movie, and better than many. And when I say it's not the best, the coherence of that judgement relies upon their being a quality in movies that is independent of my personal pleasure in them. (The idea that a person can cultivate their taste - which is a pretty commonplace idea - also presupposes that there can be quality independent of personal pleasure.)

If I heard someone say that s/he enjoyed Chick Flick #12 or Horror Movie #47 over Citizen Kane, I'd be happy to believe him or her. I'd also suspect that s/he doesn't have very good taste in movies. If s/he tried to explain her enjoyment in terms of her preferred movie being better than Citizen Kane, then I'd treat my suspicion as confirmed!

 

[innerdude]

Based on the discussion of narrative, I've given some thought to how I see narrative working within RPGs.

Others may have their own take, but I see there being three levels of "narrative" that coincide with in-game activity:

1. Meta-narrative
2. Indirect Character Narrative
3. Direct Character Narrative

Interestingly, depending on the circumstance, any of the three can be "dissociative," in the sense of breaking subjectively acceptable verisimilitude, as Yesway Jose kindly stated.


1. Meta-narrative is solely the domain of the GM. This is the "backstory" of the world, its population, nations, economy, and so on. All NPCs fall into this category, at least until they come in contact with the party.

Meta-narrative is typically causally associated to world physics, historical events, biology/naturalism, or anything else that constitutes "why things exist in the state they are."

Meta-narrative is the least-engaged narrative element for players; typically they only interact with it when indirect or direct narrative presents a conflict--for example, the player thinks their character background should be one thing, but the player's desire conflicts with the GM's "vision."

The overall story "arc" of any campaign is usually played out in indirect and direct narrative, but ultimately the "story" becomes meta-narrative as well. Long-running campaigns and long-term PCs/NPCs very much become part of the meta-narrative fabric.


2. Indirect Character Narrative is negotiated between the player and the GM. It's the bridge between direct narrative and meta-narrative, typically related to individual player/character's decisions about who their character is. This includes negotiating race, class, powers/feats/magical abilities, skills, where the character is from, hobbies/professions, and so on.

Indirect character narrative can be engaged somewhat by players, especially when questions of "How would my character react to this?" come up.

Indirect narrative can be influenced both backwards and forwards by mechanics, and the meta-narrative.

For example, we probably generally expect a paladin to have a much different emotional/personal reaction to a starving orphan on the street than a rogue. Why? Because the rules generally point players to some common elements that make up a paladin character's indirect narrative. Does this mean that a rogue couldn't have the same reaction? No, not at all; there's just no mechanical impetus for the rogue character to feel the same way.

Some games even provide specific indirect narrative elements as part of character creation. For example, GURPS has the option to use the Enemy disadvantage, where it's generally assumed that the GM and player will create a narratively acceptable recurring villain that meets the requirements of the mechanic.


3. Direct Character Narrative—This is where most RPG sessions operate in a moment-to-moment basis; it's anything the character does while participating in an actual session.

Meta-narrative, indirect narrative, and mechanics all influence how the player approaches direct character actions--"My paladin character would feel the need to help that ragged orphan on the street" (indirect); "My sorcerer wants to find out the history of the Chancellor's magic ring" (meta-narrative)"; "My fighter wants to climb that wall. Tell me if I succeed" (mechanics). Many times the narrative elements will overlap and interconnect.

There's more that I want to touch on regarding the ways the three narrative elements connect to mechanical association/dissociation, but I'll have to come back to it.

 

[Hussar]

Innerdude - I mostly agree with what you wrote, although I would point out that this:

1. Meta-narrative is solely the domain of the GM. This is the "backstory" of the world, its population, nations, economy, and so on. All NPCs fall into this category, at least until they come in contact with the party.

is something that is perhaps not always true. There are numerous games out there where the "backstory" of the world is partially the domain of the DM. FATE, for example, allows players to add or subtract elements to the game world based on their Aspects. At the most basic, you have mechancs like Action Points in 007 which allow the player to add or subtract elements from a scene in order to make it more "Bondesque". Being chased by thugs? Spend an action point and random Chinese Delivery Boy #27 steps out in front of the thugs and trips them up. That sort of thing.

But, I agree, in D&D, typically this is entirely the realm of the DM.