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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Beginning of the End" data-source="post: 5619067" data-attributes="member: 55271">The fact that a Knight can only move in an L-shape in Chess is a dissociated mechanic. The fact that you collect $200 when you pass "Go" in Monopoly is a dissociated mechanic.The idea that you have some sort of "responsibility" to avoid using those mechanics is... bizarre. Those mechanics are part of the game. If the existence of those mechanics is not serving the purpose of the game; then they shouldn't be part of the game.You've pretty much nailed it here.The besieged foe ability -- as it was available at the time the essay was written -- was a complete tabula rasa: The characters have no functional explanation for it because there's no explanation given at all. This is somewhat distinct from Trick Strike (for which an explanation is given which is not consistent with the mechanic), but not so distinct as to represent a radically different concept.And, yes, house rules can be applied to the besieged foe ability in order to associate it with the game world (the "several game world explanations" you talk about). But this is also true of Trick Strike. You can house rule Trick Strike to model a magical tattoo that you can activate once per day to place magical shackles on a chosen target which you can activate by hitting key pressure points on the shackles in order to exert a limited control over the target's movement. The result would give you something much more closely associated to the game world than the existing mechanic.Speaking as someone who's played at hist able: Justin was excited about 4th Edition. When it came out, he played it and he DMed it several times. He simply didn't enjoy it. And in trying to explain why he didn't enjoy it, he articulated the concept of dissociated mechanics as a major reason why. If that constitutes an "axe to grind", then I guess it's an axe that had to be ground.You can also be too exhausted to do an encounter power right now... but a couple or three dailies? Sure. No problem.(1) That definition is, in fact, the one proffered in the original essay. (Except he doesn't include the extraneous "abstractions", because all mechanics are abstractions.)(2) The original essay not only says that dissociated mechanics work within the design ethos of 4th edition, but actually includes a lengthy section talking about how dissociated mechanics can be used. It even includes a section explicitly labeled "Benefits of Dissociation".How you can go from that to concluding that the essay "declares them universally bad" is beyond me. In fact, one would suspect that you have not actually read the essay.</blockquote>

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