D&D 5E Realism and Simulationism in 5e: Is D&D Supposed to be Realistic?

[Ovinomancer]

Association and disassociate in regards to mechanics can be measured on a spectrum (regardless of how you feel about either). Whether or not something breaks your immersion is entirely subjective.

Please, place a few things on the spectrum: hitpoints, inspiration, sneak attack, attack actions, and, say, casting fireball.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Go play Pathfinder 2nd Edition? I never hear people say that game has disassociated mechanics!

I mean ... in fairness, I almost never hear people talk about it at all ....

 

[Lyxen]

Association and disassociate in regards to mechanics can be measured on a spectrum (regardless of how you feel about either). Whether or not something breaks your immersion is entirely subjective.

Although I agree in general, a spectrum implies some sort of continuity, whereas for me it's more black and white, does a feature break immersion or not.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Association and disassociate in regards to mechanics can be measured on a spectrum (regardless of how you feel about either). Whether or not something breaks your immersion is entirely subjective.

And I'm asserting it really can't. As alluded above, by myself and others. The point @pemerton made about "explanations just past the page," for example. If the standard requires that full-on everything be justified purely within the literal words of the text, an enormous swathe of fiction instantly ceases to be immersive solely because it doesn't go into a lot of unnecessary detail about grain imports and industrial capacities etc. Since you seem to be cool with the Rivendell example, it then behooves you to explain why those handwaves are acceptable, but game-related ones are not.

I don't see why character creation is relevant. I don't see how character creation can be dissociated or associated because there isn't even a character yet.

The original Alexandrian article makes an explicit discussion of how character creation is "dissociated" but not a problem for being so, because it's not part of at-the-table play. This is critical, since many people (IIRC including yourself? please correct me if I'm wrong) have emphasized how the Alexandrian article is (allegedly) not saying "dissociated = bad" specifically because this section is present. Given that part of the explanation of the concept very specifically calls out character creation as "dissociated," and AFAIK no one has said otherwise about character creation rules prior to your post here, I had assumed this was part of the package.

This, incidentally, just gives another demonstration of why I think the whole concept is just too much of a problem. Even the people who intend to use it seriously have major disagreements over what does or doesn't count, and which parts of the original article are relevant or important.

Nor do I see why whether one decision about character creation or advancement whether associated or not necessarily affects whether later mechanics are associated or not.

I also don't know what the generalisation is that I'm supposed to be asking for?

It is quite possible I am mistaken. But my understanding of your argument is as follows: Hit points do not meet the narrowest definition of "dissociated" mechanics, because (per the Alexandrian article where the term was articulated) "dissociated" mechanics are ones that must relate to choices the character and player make. Players do not make choices about what their hit points are, generally speaking. They may make choices about (say) consumable resources which can restore hit points, but in the way the article uses the term, hit points themselves are outside the scope.

Yet you have said that they they clearly are "dissociated" (and I, personally, agree with you). This implies generalizing beyond the narrow limit: permitting us to include choices informed by mechanics, not merely ones directly invoked by them. Characters do (presumably) have awareness of their overall state of fitness and ability to act, but they do not and realistically cannot know many of the things that hit points allow a player to know. I gave the example way upthread of a character (like, say, a level 8 Fighter with 14 Con) deciding whether to jump down a 100' cliff face. If that character has full HP, the player can know--for certain, purely from the mechanics--that falling damage cannot kill the character, as the fall can only do 10d6 damage (1d6 per 10') and the character has 68 HP, indeed the character is very likely to take no more than about 44 damage.

That is the generalization. Going from "this concept only applies to things that actually require player choices" to "this concept applies to any mechanics which inform player choices." But if we make that generalizing step, then everything that arises from character building--based on the original article explicitly calling character building "dissociated"--is necessarily informed by that character building, and thus necessarily "dissociated" for exactly the same reason that HP are.

 

[Ovinomancer]

And I'm asserting it really can't. As alluded above, by myself and others. The point @pemerton made about "explanations just past the page," for example. If the standard requires that full-on everything be justified purely within the literal words of the text, an enormous swathe of fiction instantly ceases to be immersive solely because it doesn't go into a lot of unnecessary detail about grain imports and industrial capacities etc. Since you seem to be cool with the Rivendell example, it then behooves you to explain why those handwaves are acceptable, but game-related ones are not.


The original Alexandrian article makes an explicit discussion of how character creation is "dissociated" but not a problem for being so, because it's not part of at-the-table play. This is critical, since many people (IIRC including yourself? please correct me if I'm wrong) have emphasized how the Alexandrian article is (allegedly) not saying "dissociated = bad" specifically because this section is present. Given that part of the explanation of the concept very specifically calls out character creation as "dissociated," and AFAIK no one has said otherwise about character creation rules prior to your post here, I had assumed this was part of the package.

This, incidentally, just gives another demonstration of why I think the whole concept is just too much of a problem. Even the people who intend to use it seriously have major disagreements over what does or doesn't count, and which parts of the original article are relevant or important.


It is quite possible I am mistaken. But my understanding of your argument is as follows: Hit points do not meet the narrowest definition of "dissociated" mechanics, because (per the Alexandrian article where the term was articulated) "dissociated" mechanics are ones that must relate to choices the character and player make. Players do not make choices about what their hit points are, generally speaking. They may make choices about (say) consumable resources which can restore hit points, but in the way the article uses the term, hit points themselves are outside the scope.

Yet you have said that they they clearly are "dissociated" (and I, personally, agree with you). This implies generalizing beyond the narrow limit: permitting us to include choices informed by mechanics, not merely ones directly invoked by them. Characters do (presumably) have awareness of their overall state of fitness and ability to act, but they do not and realistically cannot know many of the things that hit points allow a player to know. I gave the example way upthread of a character (like, say, a level 8 Fighter with 14 Con) deciding whether to jump down a 100' cliff face. If that character has full HP, the player can know--for certain, purely from the mechanics--that falling damage cannot kill the character, as the fall can only do 10d6 damage (1d6 per 10') and the character has 68 HP, indeed the character is very likely to take no more than about 44 damage.

That is the generalization. Going from "this concept only applies to things that actually require player choices" to "this concept applies to any mechanics which inform player choices." But if we make that generalizing step, then everything that arises from character building--based on the original article explicitly calling character building "dissociated"--is necessarily informed by that character building, and thus necessarily "dissociated" for exactly the same reason that HP are.

So, just to stick my head in, hitpoints are used for decisions. Players make choices for actions based on how many hitpoints they have and what their well for replenishing these are all the time. They are a key input into many decisions. But there's no defined fiction for these inputs -- hitpoints are, at best, described in an ad hoc and/or arbitrary manner. So there's no character-side information going into these decisions; it's entirely at the metagame level. Sure, you can arbitrarily create an ad hoc description of current hp for a character, but this is that hallmark of dissociation -- you have to create fiction for the specific circumstance to explain the mechanic so that there's an in-character rational. Hitpoints are very much dissociated and also used for decisions. True, I don't decide hitpoints, but not all mechanics are the choice. Some are inputs into the choice.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

“If you’re fine with not being shown the elven artisans of Rivendell, you must also be fine with fate points.”

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

And I'm asserting it really can't. As alluded above, by myself and others. The point @pemerton made about "explanations just past the page," for example. If the standard requires that full-on everything be justified purely within the literal words of the text, an enormous swathe of fiction instantly ceases to be immersive solely because it doesn't go into a lot of unnecessary detail about grain imports and industrial capacities etc. Since you seem to be cool with the Rivendell example, it then behooves you to explain why those handwaves are acceptable, but game-related ones are not.

Ugh. Okay, I guess I'll interject since, you know, I started this thread. Although really it's all the fault of @Swarmkeeper . HAPPY NOW? See what you did?

Look, people like what they like. That's always true from a subjective sense. It's also true that there are techniques used to make things more effective for most people. For example, films employ certain types of grammar that most of accept and process unconsciously. After a movie, people will often say, "I like it!" or, "I hated it!" without always knowing what, specifically, was done in the movie that made them have this reaction ... especially when the faults are non-obvious or occur in the grammar and rules of the film.

To make this more concrete, think about how a horror movie might be scary, or not scary. One way that this is done is through the use of jump scares. I'm going to embed a 12 minute youtube video that does a decent job of showing how some movies (The Conjuring) use the jump scare effectively, and other movies (Jason Takes Manhattan) .... don't. And it's because of the underlying film grammar and technique.

Spoiler

What does this have to do with anything? Well, the majority of people who saw those two movies would probably feel the difference, but might lack the vocabulary to express it. They would just say something like, "The Conjuring was a better movie than the Friday the 13th Movie," or, "I just didn't think that the Manhattan movie was very scary." Again, not everyone ... people are all different. But most people would know that there's a difference, even if they couldn't articulate it, and would have a preference.

Issues of realism, whether you're watching a game or enjoying narrative fiction, are almost always overblown. People who like the thing in question will suspend their disbelief- it's "realistic" (or true to genre) for them. Those who don't will immediately point out the ways in which it isn't realistic. Here's a concrete example-

Two people are arguing about Star Wars and Babylon 5. The Babylon 5 fan says that Star Wars is unrealistic, it's just fantasy with wizards and space ships. It's not "hard science fiction" like Babylon 5, that consulted with NASA's JPL, and has Earth's ships spinning to create gravity....

And the Star Wars fan replies, "Yeah yeah. But all the ships went pew pew pew in the vacuum of space, didn't they?"

What people accept as realistic, and what they don't ... that level of suspension of disbelief .... it depends on a lot of things. On a lot of cultural things, on a lot of genre conventions, and, of course, on subjective factors that are personal (the difference between what Neil deGrasse Tyson accepts, and what JJ Abrams accepts, may be different).

Moving this to the game discussion, it is clear that people have different preferences when it comes to rules for TTRPGs in general, and to D&D specifically. While 4e was, in many ways, an evolution from the very last stages of 3.5e, it also had a very different grammar and assumptions about the rules. For some people (including many on this thread), that was liberating and awesome. For others (including many on this thread), that was alienating and unenjoyable.

The arguments about disassociated mechanics and "realism" (ugh) are attempts by people that found 4e unenjoyable to analyze why they found it unenjoyable by looking at the grammar of the game. Now, they might not be correct, but it is unlikely that anyone who likes 4e would understand it ... because they disagree with the basic premise that 4e's grammar is unenjoyable.

To have a productive conversation about this ... which, based on what I have seen in these threads is impossible, you would have to start with the premise that the rules-grammar of 4e does not work for a contingent of people, and then try (in good faith) to really understand why, as opposed to assuming that arguments regarding 4e are made in bad faith. This doesn't mean that the rules-grammar of 4e is bad in anyway, but that it did not serve the purpose of some portion of people.

One way that might be productive, especially given that the thread topic is about 5e and realism, is to consider the ways in which 5e both used the grammar of 4e and broke with the grammar of 4e, and from there, determine what aspects of the rules grammar people really took issue with. Or not!

 

[Ovinomancer]

“If you’re fine with not being shown the elven artisans of Rivendel, you must also be fine with fate points.”

No, but there's some work that needs to be done with explaining what the difference is. Preference need not be entirely rational.

 

[Thomas Shey]

So..."dissociation" is just a different term for "immersion-breaking." What's the point of it, if it's literally just synonymous with that?

Well, it at least leads to a new terminological argument instead of the umpteenth one about "immersion".

(Honestly, I do think there's something to "this seems so disconnected it pulls me out" as long as you recognize that can't be but a subjective standard and different people will put it in different places. I know someone who can just elide most hero point mechanics, but the card play in Torg/Masterbook was just a bridge too far.)

 

[Thomas Shey]

"I have one fortune point remaining" is not associated because there is (probably) nothing that can be referred to in the fiction that links to the mechanic. The character does not make the decision to be lucky this time - or really any decision at all related to the mechanic.

Though I should note that sort of thing is almost certainly needed in some genres to produce an appropriate result. One can simply not want to deal with those genres, but if you do, you're going to have to make your peace with some sort of mechanic to handle it.

Some things come in complex packages which can be partly referred to in the fiction and partly not, like hit points in D&D. In these kinds of cases the distinction is not particularly useful.

Eh. I still say that the problem with hit points as expressed in D&D is that they've always been pretty incoherent. What they actually are, how they're supposed to apply, hasn't been consistent at all throughout the life of the game. That lets you do some massaging of their meaning at-need but it also can make them super, super jarring and hard to engage with what's happening.

(There's arguments that hit points aren't a great model in general, but as you noted in the paragraph prior to my quote, at least fixed hit points can usually be matched pretty directly to injury in some fashion.)