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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5628388" data-attributes="member: 42582">Yesway Jose, thanks for the reply.Quite. I believe I've provided a couple of black swans upthread.Well, at the level of mechanics, the spell was going to end anyway because that's what the rules say. But in the fiction, it doesn't follow that the spell would have ended but for the Raven Queen's intervention. The point of the player's narration is that (given that no one at the table contested it) it establishes that, in the fiction, it was the Raven Queen who turned the paladin from a frog back to a person.So according to Justin Alexander, this is an example of a "dissociated" mechanic - because there is no reason for the mechanically dictated event to occur in the fiction other than that supplied ad hoc by the player (Alexander calls this houseruling).And <a href="http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/dissociated-mechanics.html" target="_blank">according to Alexander</a>, a "dissociated" mechanic of this sort is bad becauseit disengages the player from the role they're playing.But in the example I gave, the so-called dissociated mechanic didn't disengage the player from the role he was playing at all. In fact, it gave him an opportunity to reinforce his engagement with the role he was playing.That's one of my black swans.OK. Once you take the theory out of the essay, though, I'm not sure what's left other than that Justin Alexander doesn't like 4e.Well, as you've seen, my compulsion is the opposite of yours - ie I'm compelled to present the black swans that I've witnessed with my own eyes.I've got no doubt that, when you play an RPG, certain mechanics have a tendency to make you disenage from the role you're playing. So you don't need to justify that to me.But I'm not sure how far you're wanting to generalise your experience. Sometimes it seems you don't. But then sometimes it seems that you do, which is what triggers my compulsion to respond!Well, the issue of 4e and roleplaying crops up pretty often on these boards, so this'll probably come true . . .</blockquote>

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