NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5627623" data-attributes="member: 42582">OK. But this is the point where, as I said, the inhabitants of the fiction can't tell the difference between that sliding (which in the typical case is an abstraction, let's say, of some sort of fancy footwork and swordplay by the rogue) and any other sliding (whether from another rogue power, or permitted by a leader power - The rogue's fencing really shines when his comrade's need him! - etc).Which takes me to this:At this stage, I can't help but feel that wrecan's point upthread is apposite - this testing can't take place, because after fewer than 300 encounters the rogue has reached 30th level and has achieved immortality.Not to mention that I find the notion of a fictional character trying to explore the boundaries of the genre conceits that an author has imposed on him/her - which is something like what is being described here - fairly odd.But actual testing probably isn't the issue, as (it seems to me) you bring out here:And once we get to the problem not being the actualy testing, but the possibility, in principle (if we disregard wrecan's point) of the testing, then what I see is those with simulationist priorities (as per my quote from Ron Edwards upthread) disliking mechanics that impede simulationist play. (Because they are not mechanics that model ingame causal processes.)I'm not seeing anything else. (And you've been very clear in your post! So I don't think that there's something else there that I might have missed.)Which is part of why I don't feel the need for a new "theory" (of "dissociation") to describe a playstyle preference that's already fairly well known.Yes. As I indicated in the post, the PC is a paladin of the Raven Queen. His paragon path is Questing Knight.I posted the anecdote partially to illustrate, from actual experience rather than imagined hypotheticals, how 4e's metagame mechanics actually get used in play - including in ways that I as GM (and perhaps the designers? who knows?) didn't anticipate.But I posted the anecdote also to contest the claim that so-called dissociated mechanics, of necessity or even by some generalisation of tendency, drive a wedge between players and their engagement with their PCs or with the fiction. It is an actual play example of a player using a metagame mechanic - without any pause or hesitation in terms of the actual back-and-forth of dialogue and description between player and GM - to reinforce his PC's pesona, and spiritual/metaphysical/moral place within the fiction, and relationship to a revered patron god.I'm not seeing the dissociation of player from PC role.</blockquote>

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