D&D 4E Is there a "Cliffs Notes" summary of the entire 4E experience?

[Remathilis]

4e set out to fix a lot of perennial mechanical problems with D&D, and largely succeeded. Thing is, long-time D&Ders had spent the prior 3 decades getting into the habit of compensating for those problems....

I think this gets to the heart of why 4e didn't feel like D&D to me.

When you get involved with something for a long time, you get used to its quirks. Hell, sometimes you don't even notice they are quirks. Even when I agreed that the quirk needed fixing, I found I rarely agreed with the solution.

So far, it seems like 5e has mixed the quirks with different solutions. Its working for me.

 

[pemerton]

no one in this thread has listened to the other person and just accepted that their worldview is just as valid, and that they just don't share it.

As I've posted upthread: I believe that some people don't like 4e. I believe that for some of them that is becaus they dislike a certain sort of metagame mechanic.

I don't think their view that I'm not roleplaying, or that my game is shallow, or that no one in my game experiences immesion, is valid, though. Why should I?

This is not exactly the same thing, but it's related. People who write in genre fiction (of any kind) outside of the real world have to deal with the "suspension of disbelief" problem. And one of the first things I learned about it was that, generally, you can only take people outside their comfort zone once. Saying "this is a world where spies fight world-dominating secret organizations without mussing their suits" can get past people's filter without too much difficulty. But add in a talking animal for no reason, and you get people leaving the theater, saying it's "unbelievable".

This is true. But I've never heard any suggestion that there is some objective property that spies in un-mussable suits lack, and talking animals possess, which explains why the response is a valid or warranted one.

I think it's generally accepted that the response is subjective and mostly a consequence of certain properties of the audience-members (eg their genre expectations, their repeated exposure to certain tropes, etc).

May I point out that in six years (or however old the essay is), not one person (on any side of the issue) has proposed a substitute to "dissociated mechanics" that has stuck as a meme.

I'm not sure what is meant to follow from that.

I'm one of the few posters on ENworld who uses s/he, his/her etc rather than predominatnly masculine pronouns for RPGers and their characters. My usage has not caught on as a meme. I can draw some conclusions!, but they're not going to make me change my usage.

 

[pemerton]

the wishlist is the method recommended in the DMG to meet the DMG's explicit recommendation that the character finds the item that they want to use.

Here is the relevant passage (4e DMG, p 125):

The trickiest part of awarding treasure is determining what magic items to give out. Tailor these items
to your party of characters. Remember that these are supposed to be items that excite the characters, items they want to use rather than sell or disenchant. . . .

A great way to make sure you give players magic items they’ll be excited about is to ask them for wish lists. At the start of each level, have each player write down a list of three to five items that they are intrigued by that are no more than four levels above their own level. You can choose treasure from those lists (making sure to place an item from a different character’s list each time), crossing the items off as the characters find them. If characters don’t find things on their lists, they can purchase or enchant them when they reach sufficient level.​

Taken purely literally, that passage is incoherent: the second paragraph begins with lists written by players and given to the GM, and ends with "characters' lists". To make sense of it, then, we have to settle on a non-literal interpretation. I think that the idea of a wishlist is most naturally read as a metagame technique. (After all, who would the character be handing his/her list to, if you read it the other way?)

if you are aware of the second part as a player, you cannot say the first part in-character, because your thought process and your character's thought process are not the same thought process.

A player's thought process and a character's thought process are never numerically identical - for instance, one happens in a really-existing person in the real world, while another happens in an imagined being living in an imagined world.

So the only sense in which they could be the same is if they were different instances of the same type. Now that is not literally going to happen either, because the player's state of mind will inevitably include elements (such as their visual awareness of the room and people around them) which the character does not have in mind, and conversely the character will be thinking of things (eg the dragon s/he can see) that are not part of the player's state of mind (given the player does not actually see a dragon, nor does s/he believe a dragon is present before him/her - whereas the character does).

Personally I'm not really sure that the player's thought process and the character's thought process resemble one another very much at all - and to the extent that they do, I don't see that the resemblance is disrupted by the presence, in the player's mind, of such further thoughts as that s/he is communicating information to the GM that the GM might then incorporate into his/her running of the game.

When we are angry, we make choices that are different from when we are happy, or scared. This suggests that emotional states significantly influence decision-making.

<snip>

one cannot be simultaneously both angry and sad (as those terms would be psychologically employed)

<snip>

The emotional state of the character is distinct from the emotional state of the player. When the character may be anxious or scared, we as a player might be happy or excited.

Personally, I prefer a system which tends to bring it about that the players' emotions and their characters' emotions are similar (in general kind if not in degree).

Other players at the table understand the nature of our character via our semiotics, which are primarily in-play defined by the game actions are character takes, which are in turn defined by the emotions we imagine our character is experiencing

<snip>

to communicate the idea of our character being anxious ("I bet there are goblins on the other side of this door"), we will adopt our character's emotional state, and necessarily (because emotions are discrete) leave our own.

This is quite hard to follow. What do you mean by "adopting our character's emotional state"? Do you mean "become anxious"? In which case, why do you deny that the player has the same emotional state as the character?

Personally, I think that if the game wants the players to display anxiety about the situation their PCs are in, then it should make the playersm anxious.

To adopt your character's emotional state, you will imagine being in their situation, presented with the same context that they are, using your imagination to go to a place that never actually existed. In this, you imagine the fictional context, and as your focus is on that context, your own context must be overwritten in parts, so as to bring forth a distinct, discrete emotion in the performance of your character that you as a player do not have.

This sounds like a description of a certain sort of acting or performance technique. It is not inconsistent with (for instance) communicating things to other participants in the performance. And even deliberately setting out to do that.

Which is why when you as a player decide there are orcs behind the door, or give the DM a list of items you will then find in hoards, you are not doing it in-character

Two things:

First, you are not doing it in characer, know. But you can be in character and out-of-character at the same time. For instance, you can soliloquise (in character) while taking a drink of water to help clear your throat (out of character). You could even be soliloquise (in character) while gesturing to a friend at the table to pass you the water to help clear your throat. The gesturing, as well as the drinking, would be out of character. But needn't interrupt the in-character soloiloquy.

Second, the player is not deciding that there are orcs behind the door. Nor is writing a wishlist deciding what treasure will be find. Making suggestions or requests to the GM is not the same as decdiding. And that distinction is actually fundamental to most Forge-y "scene-framing" play: the GM frames the scenes (ie makes the decisions about antagonism and stakes) but does so in accordance with cues/signals sent by the players.

following the 4e DMG recommendations for magic items is an example of of a time in which the desire for playing in-character is in tension with the game's recommended methods, forcing you to make a choice between one or the other.

The actual DMG recommendation is that when you level up you also write a list of items you would like to find. I've never met anyone who thinks that updating a PC sheet with a new level is an instance of "playing in character", and so I don't see how writing down a list of items you would like is in any way increasing its out-of-character-ness.

 

[jbear]

As I've posted upthread: I believe that some people don't like 4e. I believe that for some of them that is becaus they dislike a certain sort of metagame mechanic.

I don't think their view that I'm not roleplaying, or that my game is shallow, or that no one in my game experiences immesion, is valid, though. Why should I?

I had only read the first few pages of the thread when I replied (luckily). I don't want to step into what is (or at least seems to be) an irreconcilable difference of opinion, but I do have to agree with permeton's above statement.

I remember the transition to 4e. WotC did themselves no favours by advertising 4e as a fix or 'better' than 3.5 as this intimated a large part of their fan base were playing 'wrong'. Understandably a lot of folks took issue with such an intimation. There was a lot of strong emotions involved. Quite frankly it was ugly.

Those who say 4e is not D&D or that those playing it are somehow playing an inferior version or doing it 'wrong' should recall how that felt when the shoe was on the other foot, and avoid permeating such a condescending view point.

At no point have I ever played D&D wrong or in an inferior way. I have played it different ways, and I have found the way that I enjoy the most. This does not detract from how others enjoy playing, or make their games any less 'D&D' than mine.

Anyone suggesting that the game I play is some how inferior or more mmorpg-like because I use a 4e engine to drive the mechanics of my adventures issimply mistaken. People should just talk about their preferences, exlain why they prefer those things and leave it at that. There is no need to blow out someone else's fire to make your own burn more brightly. That kind of thing just brings out the ugly.

 

[pemerton]

how come you get to decide what is an isn't an absurdity?

I get to decide what is absurd to me.

My point is that absurd to me is not an inherent property. You don't find the fact that a 3E cleric can heal a farmer's mortal wound by casting a Cure Light Wounds spell absurd. I do find that absurd. Similarly, you find that martail encounter powers spoil your immersion. They enhance mine. There is no inherent property of martial encounter powers - "dissocation" - that explains your response. It is as idiosyncratic to you as my inability to tolerate the idea that a wound can at one and the same time be mortal and light.

Some of this discussion could be considered questions of fact - if something is or is not dissociated, for example.

"Dissociation" is not a matter of fact. The only criterion you can point to that makes martial encounter powers dissociated depends upon your psychological response to them (eg their effect upon your immersion).

For instance, it's not true that there is no reason in the fiction why certain things can't be repeated - it's just that the relevant material is added into the fiction in a different way from what you prefer.

Nor is it true that, as a player using only mechanics that you label "associated", you can always work out from the fiction what is feasible for a character. Just one example: as players of the game we have no idea what it is in the fiction that explains why a cleric, but not a pious fighter, can have his/her prayers answered. The way that we work out that a fighter can't cast cleric spells isn't by inference from the fiction; it's by reading the rulebooks. Which is the same way that we work out that an encounter power can't be used twice by a player within a given episode of play.

This is why I regard the notion of "dissociated mechanics" as spurious.

Magic is explained, always. However it works within the context of the game world is implicit in what the characters know and can perceive.

<snip>

Magic is never dissociative, because it's always understandable by the character - magic has no real world analogue to be held against, and so is always self-defined.

<snip>

With regards to the clerical training thing, I'm not sure I see what the problem is. Clerical training is associated in terms of mechanics and in-game effects - you have a cleric class (and spellcasting progression) that represents some sort of spiritual/religious/occult training that forges a strong enough connection to a deity that lets it (at its choosing) grant you spells. You don't need every detail meticulously defined to have something be associated

Magic is not explained to the players. You yourself have to explain clericism by reference to the game rules - classes, spellcasting progressions, etc - and yet insist that there is no metagame element to this!

From the rules, we can imagine that there might be some ingame rationale. Similarly, when a player knows that s/he can't declare a certain power a second time we can imagine that there might be some ingame rationale. For me, there is no difference in these things. For you, there obviously is, but it can't be because one begins from the ingame and the other from the mechanics. Because both are driven entirely by the mechanics, and the fiction is simply hypothsised to take some form or other that will accord with the mechanics.

It's not "pure" metagame - it's associated because there's an in-game reason for it. You left yourself open in a matter that, despite your high Dexterity (seriously, why would that mean that you're somehow never going to leave an opening in combat?), allowed an enemy to get the drop on you. It's right there in the name "attack of opportunity." That's an example of associated mechanics in action - there's a strong connection between what the mechanics are and what they're telling us about what's happening from an in-game perspective.

You are insisting, in your debate with [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] that it is absurd that physical abilities might be quarantined into separate reservoirs, yet you can't see why someone might think it absurd that a 30 DEX character can't get off a shot without letting a 6 DEX goblin get the drop on him/her?

The "association" here is all post-facto: because the game mechanics dictate that the goblin gets the AoO, you then read into the fiction that my 30 DEX PC dropped his/her guard. That is no different to a fighter player declaring CaGI, and then everyone at the table reading into the fiction that the orcs decided to charge the fighter.

Which leaves the problematic issue of Schrodinger's paradox, since then you are actually unable to define something until you attempt to resolve it.

You can't define whether or not my PC will let his/her guard down in 3E until you attempt to resolve my action declaration. For instance, if my archer stands there but I don't declare an attack, the goblin doesn't get an AoO. But if I do declare an attack then suddenly, without any reference to my stated intentions, my PC's DEX, etc then I have dropped my guard and the goblins gets to attack me. (Except if the goblin misses, we might then narrate that I didn't drop my guard at all! - Scrhoedinger's guad-dropping!)

The fact that there's no reason for why the character to say "well, I can't do that again until my next fight, despite being able to do everything else just fine, for no particular reason that I'm aware of."

You keep repeating this. But in fact the character can do it again, as has been pointed out repeatedly. It's just that the gameplay pathway to that - the action declaration conventions, and the mechanical devices - might be different.

The player's declaration of his character's action and the action the character attempts are the same thing. That's at the core of associated mechanics, and rightly so.

In AD&D combat, the action declaration is not identical with the action the character attempts. The character attempts many strikes, parries, etc - the player's action declaration determines against which foe a telling blow was possible, and triggers the resolution of that telling blow.

Furthermore, the standard wording for an action declaration is "I make an attack roll" or "I roll a skill check" or "I roll a saving throw" - none of these things, all of which involve manipulation of dice and consequent arithmetic, is done by the character.

The idea that turn-based initiative/combat somehow breaks that association is a fiction. The segmenting of actions and turns that the player perceives is merely a manner of presentation - the characters do not act one after another; rather, the actions all happen simultaneously, with those that are higher on the initiative order merely happening to land first. Since there's no in-character recognition of when one turn ends and another begins, there's thusly no in-game understanding that one character is "always going before" another

But action declaration happens in regular, ordered sequences. This is why, in 3E and 4e, player action declaration is not the same thing as a character acting in the fiction.

Can you please explain how (i) a peasant rail gun is impossible and yet (ii) turn-based mechanics are "associated"?

If one attempt just requires a comparatively modest attack roll, and another requires a very high stunt check, these different mechanics presumably have some sort of in-game analogue for why a different mechanic is being used.

No. Just as there is no ingame reason why sometimes when my PC is friendly to someone I roll a Diplomacy check but other times I don't.

This presumes that "effectiveness" is somehow judged by the results, rather than by the degree of ability with which it can be performed

Correct. Effectiveness is determined by observing effects.

Of course, because what they "feel" is the result of the die roll - that's how well they're performing the action. The die modifiers are associated with something else.

This presumes that <snip> the character is unaware of what the penalties or diminished possible results from an in-game standpoint

The presumtion is correct. The game mechanics are known to the players. They are not known to the characters. Likewise for the results of dice rolls. For instance, when a PC hits a dragon for 8 hp of damage (a minor scrape, let's say, given the dragons 80 hp) and hits an bugbear for 2 hp of damage (also a minor scrape, given the bugbear's 20 hp), the character doesn't necessarily experience anything different even though the dice rolls were different. And when the character runs his/her sword into a gelatinous cube (doing, let's say, 8 hp of damage) s/he almost certainly experiences something different from scraping the dragon.

Similarly, in D&D there is no difference between hitting with a 10 on the d20 and hitting with a 12 - in fact, if I hit with a 10 and then roll 8 hp of damage I was more effective than if I hit with a 12 and then roll 1 hp of damage.

There are systems in which there is a much closer correlation between dice rolls and "feel" - eg RQ, RM - but they have quite different mechanics from D&D to achieve this, and even they still have some of the same features as D&D (eg high attack roll but low damage/crit roll).

Martial powers in 4E are presented as dissociated mechanics, because their encounter and daily powers are explained as "deep reserves," without that explaining how their usage translates into an in-character understanding, due to the fact that these are implicitly presented as physical reserves, and that's not how exhausting physical reservoirs of effort function.

We know how physical abilities work, and they don't work like that

Likewise for the nth time, if you want to say that the "deep reserves" that power martial abilities are some sort of non-natural "super powers," that's a perfectly valid explanation that avoids the problems of dissociated mechanics, since it necessarily divorces it from the presumption of reality that otherwise is implicit in how physical abilities work. I question if the 4E rules necessarily make that correlation

If by "extraordinary" you mean something along the lines of "super power or similar ability" then I don't disagree. I just don't presume that the hero's exploits are necessarily redefined to be "extraordinary" unless that's unambiguously stated/demonstrated.

I think that this aspect of your debate with Tony Vargas might be enhanced by referring to the actual text of the 4e PHB (p 54):

Encounter powers produce more powerful, more dramatic effects than at-will powers. If you’re a martial character, they are exploits you’ve practiced extensively but can pull off only once in a while. . . .

Daily powers are the most powerful effects you can produce, and using one takes a significant toll on your physical and mental resources. If you’re a martial character, you’re reaching into your deepest reserves of energy to pull off an amazing exploit. . . .

Martial powers are not magic in the traditional sense, although some martial powers stand well beyond the capabilities of ordinary mortals. Martial characters use their own strength and willpower to vanquish their enemies. Training and dedication replace arcane formulas and prayers to grant fighters, rangers, rogues, and warlords, among others, their power.​

Nothing there implies that the "reserves" in question are purely physical, given the express reference to "mental resources", "willpower" and "dedication". Also, even if it's true that, in the real world, physical resources are generic - which personally I doubt - there is no reason to suppose that abilities that "stand will beyond the capabilities of ordinay mortals" would behave in the same way as prosaic, real world physical abilities.


***************************

metagame mechanics aren't the issue - the issue is when they're dissociated.

Can you give an example of an "associated" metagame mechanic?

Games that want to emulate a genre can already do that by having the players act in ways that emulate the genre, without being forced to do so via dissociated mechanics.

In my personal experience, this is overly simplistic.

For instance, how do players of 1st level PCs in Moldvay Basic act so as to emulate the genre of "heroic action fantasy"? In heroic action fantasy, the protagonists get into fights which they win against the (apparent) odds. In Moldvay Basic, 1st level PCs who get into a fight have a very good chance of dying.

Given that, in an RPG, the mechanics are pretty important to outcomes; and given that the outcomes are pretty important to genre; it follows that an RPG's mechanics are pretty important to the genres that it supports.

I'm honestly confused as to what you're saying here. PCs in any version of the game can try to jump to the moon

My point is one from the philosophy of action and intention. It's generally accepted that "A tries to do X" entails something like "A believes that it is possible for A to do X." Hence I can't try to jump to the moon, given that I don't believe that it's possible for me to do so.

 

[pemerton]

Hey Bob! Come over here a sec! I want to spar a bit -- I think I found a limitation in my training . We're going to practice combined strike/tripping for a while.

...

Hey Bob, don't you think it odd that I can get a trip/strike on you pretty much any time I want, but only the once per sparring session?

I don't think that 4e's encounter powers are intended to model sparring sessions. From the point of view of the edition's mechanics that likes a bag of rats or a peasant rail gun.

 

[Nagol]

I don't think that 4e's encounter powers are intended to model sparring sessions. From the point of view of the edition's mechanics that likes a bag of rats or a peasant rail gun.

Yeah I made that point in one of my next posts. The purpose of the exercise was to explain clearly why "but my character was only given an opening when I the player wanted to use the power" was unsatisfying.

 

[Umbran]

So, folks, there you have it - I think this serves as a very good answer to the OP. Very nice summary. It looks rather like the same discussions that have been going on for years.

Having made its basic demonstration, the thread is at risk of being an attractive nuisance. It is already generating lots of reports for rudeness and edition warring (which has been part of that demonstration). Now it is time to consider whether any further discussion here is actually constructive, or if it amounts merely to continued butting of heads from folks who just cannot let a point go.

Please consider that as you plan your next post - are you saying something that hasn't already been said? Do you have any chance of actually making the person you're responding to gain a bit of understanding? Do you *care* if they understand, or is it that having drawn your personal line in the sand, you must now defend it, for honor and ego?

In general - consider spending some of the time and energy writing about things you do like, rather than arguing about something you don't like.

 

[Pickles JG]

PS: I know it's a faux pas to say this in a 77 page ENWorld thread, but I've really been enjoying much of the dialogue here, I feel like there's a lot of good ideas bouncing around in here, and no one seems to be brimming with hostility as would be par for the course with some of the subject matter, so basically, yay.

Yeah it's clarified my thinking on story games as distinct from role playing games (or at least the aspects of those games that cover one or other of those activities).

The abnegation-expression analysis is very interesting. Using words that are too big even for google to find.

I would say there are a number of other emotions that people like to get out of role playing games. At the very least the "hanging out with your mates having fun" emotion & the "overcoming challenges" emotion.

In my experience in table top role-playing I don't clearly recall anyone losing themselves in character. (I may have - I seem to recall someone getting very angry about something his character would or would not do in a Living Greyhawk game many years ago). I do not deny it exists - I have seen it & even experienced it in live action role playing games I just don't think it's very common* in tabletop games.

The times I seen people lose themselves in the game are in tense combat situations when everything has gone to pot the situation is looking extremely dicey for our heroes & everyone is focused on making sure they take the very best actions they can & every dice roll becomes dramatic.
I am sure this is abnegation too - after all it's the same sort of thing as trying to complete a challenging Sudoku. It does have a very different quality to it though. Mine maps to G of the GNS & yours to S (ish).


*It may be self selecting. My experience of D&D is very much "tactical miniatures with in character chat" which is how I described in on these boards in the run up to 3e under a now lost ID. It was too silly to me to be much more in its early editions, when I was a humourless teen. The way 4e told people to play was very much the way I already played - I did not even realise I was an outlier.
This may be where the self selection perhaps came in in that anyone who tried one of my games who did not like this style quickly left. OTOH I played a fair bit of LG & a lot of LFR & did not seem out of place any time there. Given this was the way I had always played D&D & D&D was the grand daddy of RPGs what I was doing was ipso facto roleplaying.

 

[Alzrius]

I get to decide what is absurd to me.

My point is that absurd to me is not an inherent property. You don't find the fact that a 3E cleric can heal a farmer's mortal wound by casting a Cure Light Wounds spell absurd. I do find that absurd. Similarly, you find that martail encounter powers spoil your immersion. They enhance mine.

Which is what I stated previously.

There is no inherent property of martial encounter powers - "dissocation" - that explains your response. It is as idiosyncratic to you as my inability to tolerate the idea that a wound can at one and the same time be mortal and light.

"Dissociation" is not a matter of fact. The only criterion you can point to that makes martial encounter powers dissociated depends upon your psychological response to them (eg their effect upon your immersion).

This is not the case. The state of dissociation is a question of fact, not opinion - though whether or not that's an issue for you is one of opinion. If a metagame rule has an in-character effect without an in-character explanation for why that is, then it's objectively dissociated. Now, you can if such an in-character explanation is present or not, but that's a question of interpreting facts, rather than differing opinions.

For instance, it's not true that there is no reason in the fiction why certain things can't be repeated - it's just that the relevant material is added into the fiction in a different way from what you prefer.

In the case of certain things not being able to be repeated, where limited-use physical powers are concerned - even if you interpret the page 42 rules as allowing you to break the metagame limitation on how often such powers can be used, you still can't utilize them with the same degree of efficacy, for no in-game reason that stands up to scrutiny, as demonstrated in previous posts.

Nor is it true that, as a player using only mechanics that you label "associated", you can always work out from the fiction what is feasible for a character. Just one example: as players of the game we have no idea what it is in the fiction that explains why a cleric, but not a pious fighter, can have his/her prayers answered. The way that we work out that a fighter can't cast cleric spells isn't by inference from the fiction; it's by reading the rulebooks. Which is the same way that we work out that an encounter power can't be used twice by a player within a given episode of play.

Quite the contrary, a player using only the associated mechanics knows exactly why in the fiction something is or is not feasible for their character. Your characters in the game know exactly why a cleric, but not a pious fighter, can cast divine magic (mostly due to their being a difference between having divine intervention in answer to a prayer, and being granted divine spells). The rules necessarily inform us of what is happening in the fiction - true, the answer isn't a detailed one, but it doesn't need details for the exact nature of what clerical training is anymore than it needs to give us the details for exactly what type of attack a fighter is making each time he makes an attack roll.

That's different than figuring out why an ostensibly physical power can't be used more than once during a fight.

This is why I regard the notion of "dissociated mechanics" as spurious.

Likewise, the above is why I maintain that the existence and definition of "dissociated mechanics" is a question of fact, rather than personal interpretation. How much that fact impinges on your enjoyment is up to you, of course, but saying that it doesn't exist is self-evidently not true.

Magic is not explained to the players. You yourself have to explain clericism by reference to the game rules - classes, spellcasting progressions, etc - and yet insist that there is no metagame element to this!

You're not making any sense here. No one is saying that there's no metagame element to clerical training - of course there is! You can't have "associated mechanics" without the "mechanics" part of it.

From the rules, we can imagine that there might be some ingame rationale.

The rules provide a self-evident rationale. Class progression is something the characters do - your cleric is advancing in his religious training enough to learn how to harness and utilize greater degrees of divine magic. A fighter that likes a certain god a lot isn't the same thing - if he was undergoing the same religious training, that'd be associated under the rules by his actually taking a level of cleric.

Similarly, when a player knows that s/he can't declare a certain power a second time we can imagine that there might be some ingame rationale. For me, there is no difference in these things. For you, there obviously is, but it can't be because one begins from the ingame and the other from the mechanics. Because both are driven entirely by the mechanics, and the fiction is simply hypothsised to take some form or other that will accord with the mechanics.

Except that one is associated (the clerical spellcasting rules inherently present an in-game explanation for what's happening in the context of the game world) and one is dissociated (being able to utilize a purely physical power once in a fight does not inherently present an in-game explanation for why that is in the context of the game world).

Now, you can try to re-associate the latter mechanic with an in-character explanation for why that is, but so far there hasn't been an attempt to do that that survives any sort of scrutiny. Saying that that necessarily solves the problem is the Rule 0 Fallacy all over again.

You are insisting, in your debate with Tony Vargas that it is absurd that physical abilities might be quarantined into separate reservoirs, yet you can't see why someone might think it absurd that a 30 DEX character can't get off a shot without letting a 6 DEX goblin get the drop on him/her?

In all honesty, no. Dexterity isn't a measure of your speed, nor does it mean that you can't make a mistake in combat and leave yourself open enough where even an opponent with a slower reaction time couldn't make the attempt to take advantage of it. Simply put, you've imbued that particular example with properties that I find to be absurd, rather than saying that the example itself is absurd.

The "association" here is all post-facto: because the game mechanics dictate that the goblin gets the AoO, you then read into the fiction that my 30 DEX PC dropped his/her guard. That is no different to a fighter player declaring CaGI, and then everyone at the table reading into the fiction that the orcs decided to charge the fighter.

It's not post-facto at all. There's a reason it's called an "attack of opportunity." You don't become immune to mistakes, bad decisions, or otherwise leaving yourself open long enough to prevent someone else from taking advantage of that opportunity when you have a high enough Dexterity bonus. That's incredibly different than a fighter somehow being able to compel three orcs to charge him, but only once per day.

You can't define whether or not my PC will let his/her guard down in 3E until you attempt to resolve my action declaration. For instance, if my archer stands there but I don't declare an attack, the goblin doesn't get an AoO. But if I do declare an attack then suddenly, without any reference to my stated intentions, my PC's DEX, etc then I have dropped my guard and the goblins gets to attack me. (Except if the goblin misses, we might then narrate that I didn't drop my guard at all! - Scrhoedinger's guad-dropping!)

You're misreading the situation here - absolutely nothing in the example you posted requires a resolution of the events in order to define them. For example, the existence of an attack of opportunity does include a reference to yoru stated intentions: you just said that you declared an attack! Likewise, if the goblin misses, you are still narrated as having dropped your guard - the goblin took advantage of the opportunity and made an attack (since he made an attack roll); it just failed to damage you.

Schrodinger has no place in the scene you described.

You keep repeating this. But in fact the character can do it again, as has been pointed out repeatedly. It's just that the gameplay pathway to that - the action declaration conventions, and the mechanical devices - might be different.

There is no "might" about it. Even if you avail yourself of page 42 to say that such limits don't exist, you still can't perform them with the same efficacy that you could beforehand. Ergo, they're not performing the same action - they're performing a gimped version of the same action. You've still impinged on the character's ability to try something to the point where it's noticeable in-game without a narrative reason for why that is.

In AD&D combat, the action declaration is not identical with the action the character attempts. The character attempts many strikes, parries, etc - the player's action declaration determines against which foe a telling blow was possible, and triggers the resolution of that telling blow.

No, they don't. The idea that an attack roll represents a flurry of strikes, counter-strikes, feints, etc. is one that I've never found to be slightly plausible. If that was the case, then why does wielding a weapon in your other hand grant you an additional attack? Why does having poison on a weapon still poison an opponent if all you did was make him more tired from dodging when you dealt hit point damage? Etc.

Furthermore, the standard wording for an action declaration is "I make an attack roll" or "I roll a skill check" or "I roll a saving throw" - none of these things, all of which involve manipulation of dice and consequent arithmetic, is done by the character.

All of these things are done by the character. They have an associated consequence for what's being attempted in the game world.

But action declaration happens in regular, ordered sequences. This is why, in 3E and 4e, player action declaration is not the same thing as a character acting in the fiction.

See my previous posts for this. The construction of ordered "turns" in combat is an issue of presentation as the players see it. The segmenting of different "turns" in combat represents characters all dong things in the same short amount of time, where some actions manage to complete before others - even then, the issue of "complete before others" is an issue of presentation for the players, since the issue of "one round ends and another begins" isn't one that affects what happens in the game world.

Can you please explain how (i) a peasant rail gun is impossible and yet (ii) turn-based mechanics are "associated"?

I just did. See above.

No. Just as there is no ingame reason why sometimes when my PC is friendly to someone I roll a Diplomacy check but other times I don't.

Yes. There is an in-game reason why being friendly requires no check, whereas trying to convince someone to feel better towards you requires a Diplomacy check.

Correct. Effectiveness is determined by observing effects.

Incorrect. Efficacy is determined by how well you attempt to do something, not by a retroactively judging it based on its success.

The presumtion is correct. The game mechanics are known to the players. They are not known to the characters. Likewise for the results of dice rolls. For instance, when a PC hits a dragon for 8 hp of damage (a minor scrape, let's say, given the dragons 80 hp) and hits an bugbear for 2 hp of damage (also a minor scrape, given the bugbear's 20 hp), the character doesn't necessarily experience anything different even though the dice rolls were different. And when the character runs his/her sword into a gelatinous cube (doing, let's say, 8 hp of damage) s/he almost certainly experiences something different from scraping the dragon.

That presumption is incorrect. The game mechanics represent in-character analogues that the characters are aware of. The results of the dice rolls reflects this. In your example, the characters both know that they've scored minor damage on a few, but are aware of the difference due to an intuitive understanding of the difference in the scaling damage. That is, they can determine that what's a scratch to a dragon would be a serious wound to a bugbear, which makes sense - a dragon is a much greater creature, and so requires a great deal more damage just to scratch!

Similarly, in D&D there is no difference between hitting with a 10 on the d20 and hitting with a 12 - in fact, if I hit with a 10 and then roll 8 hp of damage I was more effective than if I hit with a 12 and then roll 1 hp of damage.

There is a difference between hitting on a 10 and hitting on a 12. Hence why hitting on a 20 is a critical! You can make an awkward attack that still manages to score a large amount of damage, the same way you can land a skillful attack that deals only a little.

In both cases, what's important to take away is that each die roll resolves itself, rather than being part of stringing together a narrative that can only be interpreted after the fact. You know that a roll of 10 is a modestly-skilled blow on your part - how much damage it then inflicts is a separate issue, decided by the damage roll. Now, you can narrate the specifics of what your attack was for the attack roll, and what sort of wound you inflicted on the damage roll, but the association in each case has already been made.

There are systems in which there is a much closer correlation between dice rolls and "feel" - eg RQ, RM - but they have quite different mechanics from D&D to achieve this, and even they still have some of the same features as D&D (eg high attack roll but low damage/crit roll).

They have their own associated mechanics. Lots of games do.

I think that this aspect of your debate with Tony Vargas might be enhanced by referring to the actual text of the 4e PHB (p 54):

Encounter powers produce more powerful, more dramatic effects than at-will powers. If you’re a martial character, they are exploits you’ve practiced extensively but can pull off only once in a while. . . .

Daily powers are the most powerful effects you can produce, and using one takes a significant toll on your physical and mental resources. If you’re a martial character, you’re reaching into your deepest reserves of energy to pull off an amazing exploit. . . .

Martial powers are not magic in the traditional sense, although some martial powers stand well beyond the capabilities of ordinary mortals. Martial characters use their own strength and willpower to vanquish their enemies. Training and dedication replace arcane formulas and prayers to grant fighters, rangers, rogues, and warlords, among others, their power.​

Nothing there implies that the "reserves" in question are purely physical, given the express reference to "mental resources", "willpower" and "dedication". Also, even if it's true that, in the real world, physical resources are generic - which personally I doubt - there is no reason to suppose that abilities that "stand will beyond the capabilities of ordinay mortals" would behave in the same way as prosaic, real world physical abilities.

Besides the ambiguous reference to "some martial powers stand well beyond the capabilities of ordinary mortals," there's nothing suggesting that these powers are anything but ordinary physical abilities. As I've stated before, the presumption is that - even in a fantasy game - something that has an analogue in the real world and is not explicitly redefined within the context of the fantasy world is presumed to function the same way that it does in the real world.

Now, you could argue that that "beyond the power of ordinary mortals" line is such a redefinition, stating that martial powers are a form of unnatural abilities. In that case - even if they're apart from magic - they're still a sort of "super power," which removes them from the standard presumptions of how physical effort functions. As I stated, if that's the case then there's no problems of association; any sort of magic/supernatural/preternatural/unnatural powers get to set their own rules, and by virtue of that can associate themselves with the game world.

In other words, saying "my fighter powers are magic by another name" solves the underlying problem.

Can you give an example of an "associated" metagame mechanic?

There should be plenty throughout the thread; that said, here's a self-evident one: an attack roll is associated with making an attack.

In my personal experience, this is overly simplistic.

For instance, how do players of 1st level PCs in Moldvay Basic act so as to emulate the genre of "heroic action fantasy"? In heroic action fantasy, the protagonists get into fights which they win against the (apparent) odds. In Moldvay Basic, 1st level PCs who get into a fight have a very good chance of dying.

That's because you're leaving the GM out of the equation here. If all of the players want to emulate a particular genre, that should include the GM attempting to frame the world, the campaign, the adventures, and the encounters in ways that lead into that. If the GM hears that the PCs want to play "heroic action fantasy" (where "heroic" means "we win") and puts the PCs up against encounters that are likely to kill them, then all of the people playing the game aren't on the same page.

Given that, in an RPG, the mechanics are pretty important to outcomes; and given that the outcomes are pretty important to genre; it follows that an RPG's mechanics are pretty important to the genres that it supports.

I'm not suggesting that mechanics - and even genre, believe it or not - are unimportant. I just don't think they're more important than the player's ability to let their character attempt to do whatever the player wants them to try.

My point is one from the philosophy of action and intention. It's generally accepted that "A tries to do X" entails something like "A believes that it is possible for A to do X." Hence I can't try to jump to the moon, given that I don't believe that it's possible for me to do so.

Leaving aside that the question of what is possible or not are very different in a fantasy world, I don't believe that that follows. You can try to do something even if you don't believe it will succeed - just because failure is a (virtual) certainty does not gainsay the attempt. You might not be able to fly, but you can still try to jump off a cliff and do so. Characters in a game world have - or at least should have, in my opinion - that same freedom to try.