Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 6520184" data-attributes="member: 87792">Actually this deserves a full reply. There is a huge difference between disassociated mechanics and a disassociated character, and this is one thing that most critics of disassociated mechanics miss. (And some people don't care).To use the classic example of a game with disassociated mechanics we're going to take Fate in which Fate Points are an abstract currency. Now the thing about Fate Points is that they are spent through the medium of aspects. If you care about disassociated mechanics (not everyone does) then it is perfectly possible to create associated characters in which Fate Points are directly meaningful. You can have The Determinator whose Fate Points are Willpower, who has a Trouble Aspect of "Dependent Family" (which are what they fight for), a high concept of "I don't know how to quit" and three other determination related aspects. In which case Fate Points for that character are points of Willpower. For another character their Fate Points can be physical endurance (with a negative aspect of "Eats like a horse" and positive ones like "One Big Push"). This character has Fate Points that are entirely associated - but associated in a different way. You can even have a Mage: the Ascension Mage for whom Fate Points are points of Quintessence. (Or pick your WoD splatbook; a Vampire using Blood for Fate Points also works and the trouble aspect should be easy...). The rules are disassociated but each individual character can be associated if that's what the player cares about.4e works similarly for that matter. That if you worry about association of recharge times, for a mage they prepare spells in short and long rests - while the martial characters need to catch their breath. And the one armed diving catch is an argument by someone who doesn't understand the system. The 4e AEDU abilities are effectively narrative pacing - watch an action TV series, and some tricks are only pulled 1/episode and others all the time.All this means that supposedly disassociated systems using abstract resource currencies can have a much much wider range of associated characters. If you care about that level of association then you have the tools to handle that. But an associated system limits itself to one worldview - the associations made by the game designers. Arguably this is incomplete design, arguably it's flexible design creating a toolkit.</blockquote>

Verification