In Defense of the Theory of Dissociated Mechanics

[Plane Sailing]

I may be wrong, but I think the crux of the matter is that 4e powers typically are used by the player to exercise some narrative control over what is happening while 3e activities were typically consciously 'used' by the character

The real 'dissociation' if you will is that for some players it seems quite natural for the activities to represent what they want to happen for the characters, while for other players it seems natural that a character has a range of capabilities which the character themselves 'could choose'.

( magic tends to be excluded from this issue because it is magic and thus limited use rules don't seem jarring in the same way that limited use of martial powers does)

 

[Hussar]

/Snip for all sorts of juicy goodness.

Hmm, I rather like the dynamic possiblities implied by this, not to mention the implications for anticipation. You get a "crit", people want to get through the round in a hurry to see what you do with it. Meanwhile, you've got a round to decide what you do with it.

Now there's a houserule that's getting yoinked for the next time I'm DMing. That's a freaking fantastic idea. Crit and regain an encounter power. Might even go so far as to say that if you crit with a full load out of encounter powers, you get a daily back. Or may an action point.

Actually, that might be interesting - you get an action point every time you crit. You can spend 2 action points to regain an encounter power or 3 action points to regain a daily.

Although, the downside of this is characters that favour area attacks are going to get a lot more mileage out of this than, say, strikers.

 

[Hussar]

Gonna take another stab here.

From what I understand, we're saying that a mechanic is disassociated if there is no way for the PC to cause the effect to occur. There's no way that a rogue "forgets" how to Trick strike, so, it's disassociated.

The problem I'm having here, is that there are different levels to the narrative. What's been said here is right - there really is no way that someone "forgets" how to do their martial dailies. But, if you move up a level, from the individual PC to the larger picture, then suddenly the mechanics don't look so disassociated.

That's where I was going with the football example. Since a given game won't have too many bad calls, then it's not really disassociated if the game has only one bad call. It's perfectly fitting with expectations.

Let's take everyone's favourite whipping boy, Come and Get It. Now, from the individual level, there's no way my fighter can "choose" to have a bunch of baddies mob me, dogpile style, and then me burst through them with flashing blades. Completely disassociated at that level.

But, move up a level. The warrior steps up and a bunch of mooks dog pile him. He slashes left and right and bodies drop and he bursts through the scrum. This is a scene that has been repeated in genre fiction for years. Pretty much every sword and sorcery style book and a number of others as well, have a scene like this. Sometimes several scenes like this.

But, it rarely, if ever, happens twice in a given fight. The mooks swarm Conan, ignoring the scrawny bugger in the back and get beaten back. In the next scene, yet more mooks swarm Conan and get beaten back, still ignoring that scrawny little schmuch hanging behind Conan. So on and so forth. ((Note, it's late and I'm dog tired, so, no, I have no idea if these scenes ACTUALLY occur in a Conan story - work with me here))

So, from the level of the overal narrative, suddenly Come and Get It makes perfect sense. It's not disassociated at all - in fact, its very much in keeping with genre expectations.

Now, all that being said, I totally understand that some people don't want to look at things from that perspective. They don't want their game to take on that level of narrative. Totally understandable. But, that doesn't make the mechanics bad, it's simply a case of matching different tastes.

 

[JamesonCourage]

It really is a matter of taste, Hussar. You're right. And I agree, there's nothing inherently wrong with dissociated mechanics. If I recall correctly, Justin Alexander doesn't think so either (he likes them in another game he mentions, I believe).

I don't think he meant associated to the narrative. I think he meant associated to the in-game world. To that end, narrative mechanics -which cannot be learned, explored, or observed- are dissociative. That doesn't mean they aren't fun.

I love Mutants and Masterminds 2e, and I stole the Hero Point mechanic for my game (modified it, but it's based on it). That's a mechanic that lets you use points on a meta level to modify game results, get clues, or even shape the world to very minor degrees. It's definitely a dissociated mechanic, but, like you indicate, it definitely helps build the feel of playing in a superhero genre.

Now, my problem with dissociative mechanics (and this is a very personally subjective problem) is that it pulls me out of character, and kills my immersion very quickly. This isn't a problem with Mutants and Masterminds, since that's not what I want out of the game. But, then again, I only play M&M as one-shots every couple of months.

I definitely agree that having such narrative power could be very natural to use for some people, though, and wouldn't disrupt their game much or at all. It's just not universally shared, though. Just like you said, Hussar, it's a matter of taste. And, that's why people have often spoken up against dissociated mechanics. If they're extrapolating their preference to anyone else's game, though, they're wrong to do so.

As always, play what you like

 

[BryonD]

Alternatively:
You: Nifty. So why can you only do that once per day?
Rogue: What? I can try it as often as I've got the energy for, because it is pretty tiring, but that doesn't mean it'll work all the time. Sometimes people react the way I want, sometimes I just get a decent hit in before they manage to block my attack.

But this idea is already accounted for. It happens exactly like this in my games.
The players rolls a die to see how if something works or not.

The idea that it ALWAYS works ONCE PER DAY (or encounter) and NEVER works more than once per day is not addressed by your alternative. You have answered a question that did not need an answer and ignored the real problem.

In my game a character MIGHT succeed seven times in a row. He might fail all day long. And probably it is something in between.

Dailies completely ignore the story and characters and everything else except the mechanics. Then the story is required to build itself around the mechanics.

 

[BryonD]

If I was reading a novel and a guy feinted once and then it didn't work anymore against his opponent, I would not think twice about it. It works perfectly, and if you only look at 4E at that level, it works perfectly.

But, if I was reading a story and he pulled off an awesome feint in one fight and later that day he could not, then that might seem weird. But, certainly you could be an excuse around it. He just got unlucky in the second fight, it didn't work and now the trick is spoiled. So, ok, it still works.

But the next day it happens once again. And the next day. And the next day. The pattern would become clear. And if you wrote a novel of your 4E characters adventures, these patterns would emerge for every character.It might take a whole lot of reading before the patterns really emerged. So you could get away with it for a long time. But, eventually, the patterns would be obvious. And there is no narrative reason that those patterns would exist and no author simply writing a story would shoehorn those patterns onto their narrative. Stories are not tied to these kinds of arbitrary patterns. 4E brings those patterns in to serve the purposes of balance, ease of prep and "the math works".

But, sitting around the table is different. We know there are mechanics there. So instead of needing to read hundreds of thousands of pages before the pattern appears and starts to stick out, you know from the first moment that the pattern is imposing itself.

I want to feel like I am inside a great novel. And if something would stick out as wrong in a novel it will stick out as wrong in the game. The fact that you can retrofit your narrative to conceal these mandates does not remove them. And any mandated revision is still a detraction from the first preference.

I know that the pattern is there from the word go. I absolutely have the ability to suspend disbelief and roll with it. But I also have the ability to play a better game that doesn't make this requirement in the name of mechanics.

Make it feel exactly like a novel if you want my interest.

 

[Yesway Jose]

This is more of a summary, than stating anything new...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems as if you're saying the rogue has the trick from a meta sense, but doesn't know he has it. He never consciously decides to use the trick, he just attempts to feint (or whatever), and succeeds (if the trick is used on the meta level). At other times, he attempts to feint, but it does not succeed (the power was not used on the meta level).

If that's the case, the power is a form of direct narrative control with no in-game reasoning that can be learned, explored, or observed. This makes the power dissociated.

And, once again, I feel I should state there's nothing wrong with dissociated mechanics inherently. I use them in the game I created. I don't play D&D 3.5, and I'm not here to defend it or tear 4e down. Previous editions have had dissociated mechanics.

The real 'dissociation' if you will is that for some players it seems quite natural for the activities to represent what they want to happen for the characters, while for other players it seems natural that a character has a range of capabilities which the character themselves 'could choose'.

I think the above is a great summary of the core of this entire discussion.

From what I understand, we're saying that a mechanic is disassociated if there is no way for the PC to cause the effect to occur. There's no way that a rogue "forgets" how to Trick strike, so, it's disassociated.

In non-Actor stance, the rogue might explain the phenomenon differently than the "real" reason. The rogue might observe and explain that on Monday, he was able to maneuvere the ogre around the cave but other opponents that day proved to be more wily. Whereas the "real" reason, of course, is because of the player's acceptance and implementation of the 1/day rule.

Two parallel processes leading to the same effect and the rogue can observe and explain the "in-game" version of the phenomenon.

However...

If I was reading a novel and a guy feinted once and then it didn't work anymore against his opponent, I would not think twice about it. It works perfectly, and if you only look at 4E at that level, it works perfectly.
<SNIP>
But the next day it happens once again. And the next day. And the next day. The pattern would become clear. And if you wrote a novel of your 4E characters adventures, these patterns would emerge for every character.It might take a whole lot of reading before the patterns really emerged. So you could get away with it for a long time. But, eventually, the patterns would be obvious.

The rogue is going to have the exact same trouble explaining the 'big picture' pattern as the abovementioned hypothetical author, so the mechanic is disassociated.

 

[ThirdWizard]

On the topic of observing 1/day effects...

I'm going to switch gears to FATE for a moment. Take a theoretical FATE stunt called "Split the Arrow" that uses a fate point to literally shoot an arrow and cause it to split another arrow. A character with a Refresh 5 will start play with 5 fate points. If he wants, he can immediately and always after refreshing his fate split an arrow the first five times he tries and then never again. Every time. He can then ask himself "Why?"

But, doing this goes against the basis of the game.

I know there's a lot of good theoretical discussion going on, but in play, it would never even occur to anyone to go down this line of thought, in my experience. I think there's a difference between analyzing a game, looking over it in a theoretical context, and playing the game with a group of friends.

There's also expectation. Once you've been playing with dissociated mechanics for a while, they are going to look different to you than when you first started using them.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

But, doing this goes against the basis of the game.

EXCELLENT PONT (the whole post, but this in particular).

Hell, if I were naive enough to claim it, I'd be tempted to say "this is the reasoning behind the edition wars! Now we've solved them!"

Of course it's more complicated than that (there's no single reason for edition wars), but I mean that as a compliment to you. That was a really good point.


I think that 4e may have subtly tipped the balance from one stance to another.

By that I mean, I've contributed to (or started) threads about how much D&D can change before it isn't D&D (with no real conclusion), threads about what is or isn't different in 4e (which have been vague or confusing with some observing large changes others view as small and vice versa), threads about how 4e does x,y, or z better or worse than 3e (which always seems to result in anecdotes about how 3e also did the same things better or worse also).

The editions ARE different, and I've never been fully able to wrangle the actual differences conceptually. I'm starting to wonder if this focus (again, focus, not existence of dissociated mechanics for good---not evil.) is a big part of the change from 3e to 4e.

I'll also point out that dissociated is a pejorative tone on it's own. Perhaps if we embraced terms describing the major differences in POSITIVE terms, it might be more acceptable/reasonable/enjoyable for all of us.


I'm going to put forth the terms of:

dissociated/narrativist/actor driven for 4e, as a set.
and
associated/simulationist/character driven for 3e, as a set.


I'd like to improve upon dissociated and associated though. They're the terms we're using here, but again, I recognize they have weight in terms of quality.

What about, instead of them, using (and I may need some help here with better suggestions)...

"storytelling players" versus "rules tell the story for players".


I'm going to flat out admit that last distinction was clumsy, but if people agree with the rest of the post, perhaps we can come together and find positive terms for "associative" versus "dissociative", because it seems we're beginning to understand what we mean, but the terms have unnecessary baggage.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

@Aberzanzorax

It is a big part of the objection to "disassociated" that it was a made up term to distinguish one set of narrativist/stances/metagaming behaviors in a game from that same set of narrativist/stance/metagaming behaviors in another game, because the author wanted to condemn the set in one case but not in another. If all he had wanted to do is say, "Hey, I don't like this set of behaviors in my D&D, or I don't think they did them very well," he could have done that without making up a term.

But to your larger point, yes 4E very much did tip a balance towards this set of behaviors, consciously. Those of us who had already pushed previous versions in this direction (and you can, if you want to), were naturally pleased.

As for replacement terms, I'm not sure anyone is going to do better than simulation/narrative and the stances. Swtiching between Actor/Author stance is a powerful, neutral description of a great deal of the difference. To the degree that someone wants to make distinctions inside the Actor stance, they are going to need to explain their take on immersion, anyway. At the boundary of Actor/Author stance, there is this ground that I have seen occupied quite a bit, where the player is improvising from the Author perspective and then immediately Acting, using this newly authored material.