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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rogue Agent" data-source="post: 5755040" data-attributes="member: 6673496">What you're struggling to put your thumb on here is that 4E features <a href="http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1545/roleplaying-games/dissociated-mechanics" target="_blank">dissociated mechanics</a> to a degree previously unprecedented in D&D. While such mechanics can often be explained post hoc, this process of explanation is distinctly different from that found <a href="http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/6517/roleplaying-games/roleplaying-games-vs-storytelling-games" target="_blank">in roleplaying game mechanics</a>.This is the central problem I see with Cook's essays. He's artificially conflating two radically different concerns:(1) The balancing act between the accuracy of a simulation and the ease of using that simulation. (In general, the more accurate you make a simulation the more difficult and complex it becomes to use. So there's a trade-off. Like most trade-offs, there'll be a sweet spot. And that sweet spot will vary from one player to the next.)(2) The distinction between associated and dissociated mechanics.To be fair, this is a confusion often found among fans, too. But a lot of the dissatisfaction with 4E comes from #2. And if you try to solve that problem by tweaking #1, you won't solve it.To make matters even more complicated, you can probably also toss the sense of "lost utility" from guidelines which were removed entirely from 4E. AD&D and D&D3 reached their state of complexity not because people just randomly added crap to them. That extra stuff was mostly added because somebody, at some point, needed that information. This, of course, also needs to be balanced against the emergent complexity of the ruleset. And there's no easy answer for that, either.But it, too, isn't a problem you'll solve by just tweaking #1.</blockquote>

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