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In Defense of the Theory of Dissociated Mechanics
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<blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 5624841" data-attributes="member: 22779"><p>Gonna take another stab here.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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))</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Hussar, post: 5624841, member: 22779"] 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. [/QUOTE]
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