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In Defense of the Theory of Dissociated Mechanics
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<blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5634839" data-attributes="member: 54877"><p>My emphasis added for the sticking point:</p><p> </p><p></p><p> </p><p>And Yesway, that also answers your question about why the designers didn't include it. First, daze and slow aren't always ok, running unhampered. Second, even if they were, you can't possibly include everything that would be ok, or conditionally ok. And finally, if you include a whole bunch of stuff, this detracts from the fact that they expect you to make some of those justifications yourself. A designer can never do as good a job of that as you can. (This, BTW, is the most telling criticism to the sheer bloody number of powers--and one that many 4E fans have made in one form or another.)</p><p> </p><p>I think it is pertinent to the topic because to "justify those distinctions," in 4E you have to use somewhat different methods--in the social contract, if nothing else. In prior versions, people could gloss over the justifying if they wanted. In fairness, they had all different kinds of motivations for so glossing, but some of those motivations were definitely not the kind that others at the table appreciated. See abusing <em>fabricate</em> and the 3E craft and equipment rules.</p><p> </p><p>Some people have trouble (or no interest) in adapting to the justifications that 4E expects. Others have trouble understanding how some of the rest of us are using it. I think it seems terribly constricted to them.</p><p> </p><p>Me, I see it as liberating. Even with a table of good folks, prone to clever play but not to abuse the spirit of the system, all those little details littered in the spells as fluff never seemed to quite work out right. That is, they work well enough if you make a ruling and keep and eye on them, but they can't run unfettered. If I'm going to need to keep an eye on them, might as well make the base simple. </p><p> </p><p>tl;dr version: It has always been true that if you allowed something like <em>zone of truth,</em> then you were responsible for not letting it abuse your campaign. 4E has simply made that transparent and explicit--by means that require you to think about some of the edge cases yourself, rather than "clever" being defined as "caster memorized the right spell this morning and thought to cast it just now." And then "dealing with it" being defined as the GM being a preemptive wizard, vastly experienced, or willing to ad hoc and ad lib his way out of trouble.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Crazy Jerome, post: 5634839, member: 54877"] My emphasis added for the sticking point: And Yesway, that also answers your question about why the designers didn't include it. First, daze and slow aren't always ok, running unhampered. Second, even if they were, you can't possibly include everything that would be ok, or conditionally ok. And finally, if you include a whole bunch of stuff, this detracts from the fact that they expect you to make some of those justifications yourself. A designer can never do as good a job of that as you can. (This, BTW, is the most telling criticism to the sheer bloody number of powers--and one that many 4E fans have made in one form or another.) I think it is pertinent to the topic because to "justify those distinctions," in 4E you have to use somewhat different methods--in the social contract, if nothing else. In prior versions, people could gloss over the justifying if they wanted. In fairness, they had all different kinds of motivations for so glossing, but some of those motivations were definitely not the kind that others at the table appreciated. See abusing [I]fabricate[/I] and the 3E craft and equipment rules. Some people have trouble (or no interest) in adapting to the justifications that 4E expects. Others have trouble understanding how some of the rest of us are using it. I think it seems terribly constricted to them. Me, I see it as liberating. Even with a table of good folks, prone to clever play but not to abuse the spirit of the system, all those little details littered in the spells as fluff never seemed to quite work out right. That is, they work well enough if you make a ruling and keep and eye on them, but they can't run unfettered. If I'm going to need to keep an eye on them, might as well make the base simple. tl;dr version: It has always been true that if you allowed something like [I]zone of truth,[/I] then you were responsible for not letting it abuse your campaign. 4E has simply made that transparent and explicit--by means that require you to think about some of the edge cases yourself, rather than "clever" being defined as "caster memorized the right spell this morning and thought to cast it just now." And then "dealing with it" being defined as the GM being a preemptive wizard, vastly experienced, or willing to ad hoc and ad lib his way out of trouble. [/QUOTE]
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