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With Respect to the Door and Expectations....The REAL Reason 5e Can't Unite the Base
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5988191" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>Mustrum, I thought the same thing. Didn't you or me even post it already upthread?</p><p></p><p>I think <a href="http://" target="_blank">this</a> is a standard definition of stances:</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">*In <strong>Actor</strong> stance, a person determines a character's decisions and actions using only knowledge and perceptions that the character would have. </p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">*In <strong>Author </strong>stance, a person determines a character's decisions and actions based on the real person's priorities, then retroactively "motivates" the character to perform them. (Without that second, retroactive step, this is fairly called <strong>Pawn </strong>stance.) </p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">*In <strong>Director </strong>stance, a person determines aspects of the environment relative to the character in some fashion, entirely separately from the character's knowledge or ability to influence events. Therefore the player has not only determined the character's actions, but the context, timing, and spatial circumstances of those actions, or even features of the world separate from the characters.</p><p></p><p> [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s example of the chandelier is Author stance: the player decides that it would be cool to have his/her PC do a stunt, and then (retroactively) decides that his/her PC wants to do something stuntish. My own view is that most RPG players switch between actor and author stance all the time, and neither has anything to do with 1st vs 3rd person narration (you can do either with either).</p><p></p><p>This is quintessential author stance. I don't think it's very controversial that this is part of RPGing.</p><p></p><p>A well-known example of director stance from 4e is (pre-errata) Come and Get It: when the player decides to use the power, the NPCs close on the PC even though the PC has no power (ingame) to influence their behaviour. Most of the complaints about CaGI as "mind control" seem to miss this feature of the power, and to assume that its use must be an instance of author or actor stance.</p><p></p><p>In AD&D, every time the player of a cleric writes down his/her 3rd or higher level spells for the day without checking with the GM, we have director stance too: because (per Gygax's DMG) the player has decided that the servitors of his/her god, whom the PC has no power over within the gameworld, have granted his/her requests for spells.</p><p></p><p>To explain why the CaGI director stance is controversial, but the AD&D director stance is not controversial, is not trivial, though I think there are important differences (one is part of action resolution, the other part of day-to-day PC build; the GM has a veto power over the AD&D player's decision, but not the 4e player's; etc).</p><p></p><p>I think this issue of fictional positioning is important. And I think 4e takes a particular approach to fictional positioning: keywords are very important to it, and in combat some parts of the fiction (eg details of facing, weapon technique used, etc) aren't relevant to action resolution. In skill challenges, it relies heavily on the GM to adjudicate the details of the fiction.</p><p></p><p>But I'm not sure that this goes to the "dissociation" issue, because that doesn't seem to be about fictional positioning. As best I can tell, the anti-dissociation view is that no decision should be made by the player which does not correlate to a decision by the PC (the reverse is permissible - the PC decides to strike high or low, even though the player doesn't have to). Which is why what puzzle me is that D&D hp pass this test, or initiative - because, as I posted upthread, when the player decides to act based on knowledge of his/her PC's hp total, or rolls initiative, <em>what is the PC doing in the fiction</em>?</p><p></p><p>It's also worth noting that actor vs author stance is irrelevant to "dissociation", because a player can make a choice in author stance and still have it correlate to a choice by the PC. But director stance <em>is</em> ruled out. And so are any mechanics that have no stance at all, because don't bear upon the content of the fiction at all (initiative would be one example, I think).</p><p></p><p>I agree with this.</p><p></p><p>I don't dispute that 4e has distinctive mechanics compared to some earlier versions of D&D - especially, more metagame and more director stance in the "active" aspects of action resolution. My objection to the "dissociation" idea is that (i) it is pejorative in tone, and (ii) it misses innerdude's point that it about personal and group responses to game systems, rather than objective truths about their suitability for RPGing.</p><p></p><p>Part of the point of my example of the paladin and the polymorph is to try and show, via a concrete actual play example, that metagame, director-stance, "dissociated" mechanics are completely consisted with "inhabiting" and playing one's PC, provided that the players take them in their stride. (As my player did.)</p><p></p><p>I'm glad I ended up making sense to you!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 5988191, member: 42582"] Mustrum, I thought the same thing. Didn't you or me even post it already upthread? I think [url=]this[/url] is a standard definition of stances: [indent]*In [B]Actor[/B] stance, a person determines a character's decisions and actions using only knowledge and perceptions that the character would have. *In [B]Author [/B]stance, a person determines a character's decisions and actions based on the real person's priorities, then retroactively "motivates" the character to perform them. (Without that second, retroactive step, this is fairly called [B]Pawn [/B]stance.) *In [B]Director [/B]stance, a person determines aspects of the environment relative to the character in some fashion, entirely separately from the character's knowledge or ability to influence events. Therefore the player has not only determined the character's actions, but the context, timing, and spatial circumstances of those actions, or even features of the world separate from the characters.[/indent] [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s example of the chandelier is Author stance: the player decides that it would be cool to have his/her PC do a stunt, and then (retroactively) decides that his/her PC wants to do something stuntish. My own view is that most RPG players switch between actor and author stance all the time, and neither has anything to do with 1st vs 3rd person narration (you can do either with either). This is quintessential author stance. I don't think it's very controversial that this is part of RPGing. A well-known example of director stance from 4e is (pre-errata) Come and Get It: when the player decides to use the power, the NPCs close on the PC even though the PC has no power (ingame) to influence their behaviour. Most of the complaints about CaGI as "mind control" seem to miss this feature of the power, and to assume that its use must be an instance of author or actor stance. In AD&D, every time the player of a cleric writes down his/her 3rd or higher level spells for the day without checking with the GM, we have director stance too: because (per Gygax's DMG) the player has decided that the servitors of his/her god, whom the PC has no power over within the gameworld, have granted his/her requests for spells. To explain why the CaGI director stance is controversial, but the AD&D director stance is not controversial, is not trivial, though I think there are important differences (one is part of action resolution, the other part of day-to-day PC build; the GM has a veto power over the AD&D player's decision, but not the 4e player's; etc). I think this issue of fictional positioning is important. And I think 4e takes a particular approach to fictional positioning: keywords are very important to it, and in combat some parts of the fiction (eg details of facing, weapon technique used, etc) aren't relevant to action resolution. In skill challenges, it relies heavily on the GM to adjudicate the details of the fiction. But I'm not sure that this goes to the "dissociation" issue, because that doesn't seem to be about fictional positioning. As best I can tell, the anti-dissociation view is that no decision should be made by the player which does not correlate to a decision by the PC (the reverse is permissible - the PC decides to strike high or low, even though the player doesn't have to). Which is why what puzzle me is that D&D hp pass this test, or initiative - because, as I posted upthread, when the player decides to act based on knowledge of his/her PC's hp total, or rolls initiative, [I]what is the PC doing in the fiction[/I]? It's also worth noting that actor vs author stance is irrelevant to "dissociation", because a player can make a choice in author stance and still have it correlate to a choice by the PC. But director stance [I]is[/I] ruled out. And so are any mechanics that have no stance at all, because don't bear upon the content of the fiction at all (initiative would be one example, I think). I agree with this. I don't dispute that 4e has distinctive mechanics compared to some earlier versions of D&D - especially, more metagame and more director stance in the "active" aspects of action resolution. My objection to the "dissociation" idea is that (i) it is pejorative in tone, and (ii) it misses innerdude's point that it about personal and group responses to game systems, rather than objective truths about their suitability for RPGing. Part of the point of my example of the paladin and the polymorph is to try and show, via a concrete actual play example, that metagame, director-stance, "dissociated" mechanics are completely consisted with "inhabiting" and playing one's PC, provided that the players take them in their stride. (As my player did.) I'm glad I ended up making sense to you! [/QUOTE]
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