Why not just assume that?
There are a number of examples I could use, but which I will not, because they are likely to add utterly unnecessary inflammatory elements to a conversation we're trying to tone down. Suffice it to say: when terms have a problematic and/or hurtful history, that history is difficult to walk away from. When terms have such a history
explicitly baked in for their original definition and meaning, it's
especially hard to walk away from that. Most examples of this that I could cite are
extremely morally charged, as in, there would be risk of interpreting my example as making a statement about the moral character of "dissociated" mechanics that I
emphatically do not want to make. Hence, I will not give examples, unless you really,
really want them, in which case I will PM them to you. I will have to ask that you accept one or the other of those as an appropriate response: the history of a word, its usage and context, matter an awful lot. Even words that were perfectly acceptable at one point can be totally unacceptable later (and vice-versa; euphemism and dysphemism treadmills happen).
The debate/issue is the same. Only the terms have been changed.
Well that's....kind of my point? The term doesn't seem to be adding anything
other than letting the exact same debate play out anew with all-new ability to assert that people who dispute it have simply missed the nuance, or that people who support it have reified personal dislike into objective characteristics of existing things.
Messy to you perhaps, but not to me.
How about "I've never read the Alexandrian and really don't give a damn what it says, but it's given the community (and thus me) a fine term for something I already knew about and didn't like that didn't previously have a term"? 'Cause that's my position.
Sure, that works for me. It means, however, that you're probably going to have to
define the term, because I no longer have a common source to draw from. "Dissociation" seems to mean different things to different people (hence the above discussion about whether character creation even qualifies as "dissociated," with the Alexandrian article explicitly saying yes and Mordhau explicitly saying no). So, what do you consider a "dissociated" mechanic to be? Can you give examples of things that are vs aren't "associated"? Is it a binary, or a spectrum? Is it possible for two people to disagree, not on whether a certain level of "dissociation" is acceptable, but rather on whether the mechanic is "dissociated" at all (or, if it's a spectrum, to disagree significantly on the degree to which a single mechanic is "dissociated")?
That's the price of leaving this source behind so cleanly. The name exists now, and you've cut it clear of its roots--but that means cutting it clear of its shared definition. You must either supply your own, so we know what you mean, or admit that it's gonna be pretty hard to discuss, since we won't know what you mean.
That said, there isn't a system out there that's immune to being dunked on.
Believe it or not, I actually got banned from a (sub)forum once for arguing against this very position. I did so in a foolish way, so it was at least in part "on me" for having argued so, but yeah. There are folks who have argued that it was impossible to dunk on 5e, purely sincerely, no irony or sarcasm, expressing bafflement when I expressed my...frustrations...with that viewpoint.
Hell, it took 30+ years to come up with that term and now you want another instead?
Got any ideas?
How about we...don't? If 30 years of debate have produced euphemism after euphemism, rehashing the same topic over and over again, maybe we're trying to assert a category that doesn't actually exist, or to force together things that shouldn't be. Maybe there's a ton of truthiness involved: people
feel like "dissociated" mechanics etc. have something true to them, whether or not there
is anything truly there.
As it turns out, people’s wounds and scars don’t magically heal upon the signing of peace treaties.
While this is true, I want to make clear here that I don't think it is
impossible to discuss this topic in a (relatively) neutral manner. The core issue remains that, when people want to discuss it, they almost always still turn to the Alexandrian article for communicating what it means,
or they just assume people
already know...which is effectively pointing them to the Alexandrian article, since any effort to search for what the term means will point you to that article. That article is
blatantly focused on using the term to critique 4e specifically--to the point that, when the author
has deigned to discuss "dissociated" mechanics separately from 4e, he has
repeatedly weakened it and distanced himself from the hard criticism...but
not once done anything to alter the conclusions drawn about 4e from the implicit retraction of the original, strong claims.
That's why I reject this "walking on eggshells" terminology for what I'm asking. Because I'm not. I'm asking that people either...y'know...be up front with the "yeah, the Alexandrian article is kinda like Freud, he got a good thing started but almost everything he said was wrong, and probably not actually good or productive." I have, until this thread,
literally never seen a single person do that. People hold up the article completely uncritically.
That's why I don't assume people carry none of the baggage. I've never seen it before, and seen the reverse over and over, even in this very thread at least a couple times.
Also, I would like to apologize to the thread at large. Earlier, I asserted I wasn't the person who brought this up. That was, simply, false. I
did bring it up, albeit only in passing. I truly apologize for that. Someone else did ask me to speak more on the topic, and specifically with regard to the Alexandrian's formation, but I was straight-up wrong to say that it wasn't me that introduced the topic. I'm sorry.
Because, as I said before, Tolkein doesn't need to explain any of this in order to tell his story. We can make reasonable assumptions if it matters.
An RPG setting, however, does need to explain this at least in broad terms; as there's no way of knowing what stories or even type of stories that setting is going to be used to tell. Failing that, the setting has to be able to withstand the making of reasonable assumptions by its users.
Okay, but there's a distinction here between "an RPG setting" and "the rules one uses to play a character in an RPG setting." One that seems to fit in with the exception being given to authors, specifically. To use your phrasing, an RPG handbook doesn't need to explain any of this in order to run the game. We can make reasonable assumptions if it matters.
