Can O Worms: Vancian Casting is totally disassociated.

[sabs]

The problem is that D&D 4th Edition, is not a roleplaying game.

It's much more like Talisman, or Cosmic Encounter, or maybe even Monopoly.

[DSMatticus]

Cinematic realism. You're not simulating real life, you're simulating novels, comic books, movies, etc.

And while that is a valid way to play, that is dissociative and inconsistent. You can totally play like that (and I super fucking don't want to), but that isn't how D&D has described itself until 4th edition. It's a totally different playstyle, and it makes immersion difficult.

Seriously, let's say you have a 20d6 fall ahead of you. From the player perspective, you know you can survive that if you're a level 10 fighter. From the character perspective, who only understands his hitpoints as plot armor, he has no idea what's going to happen. He knows people have like a .0000001% chance of surviving a fall like that, and he's debating doing it anyway.

In that situation, it is seriously 'metagaming' to make that jump, because your character thinks, "fuck, this is going to kill me," and the only one who knows otherwise is the player. That playstyle forces you to play the game from the metagame perspective.

whichever way you pick, you're going to have a dissociative mechanic.

No. Dissociation does not mean what you think it does. Dissociated does not mean, "huh, that doesn't make sense," dissociation means, "the player and his character see the same event in fundamentally different ways." Being tough as whatever is not dissociative, because both the player and the character know he is. Having magic crap be immune to mundane combat damage in the hands of characters is arguably dissociative, though, but I'm not entirely sold on the idea yet. Magic equipment already uses its users saves, and it's trivially easy to invoke Magic Is Weird, but that doesn't help with mundane items.

"Because he can only gather the strenght to do that once a day".

This is literally not what the 4e text says, and using dailies is completely non-exhausting/non-fatiguing, and that is completely and utterly contradictory to the fluff reality 4e establishes. Seriously, everything about that makes no sense in 4e - read the fluff for martial power sources, and start reading some of the fluff for martial dailies.

Done. For making stuff playable, games need to have abstraction. Get over it.

I've had to say this a lot, but abstraction and dissociation have fuck all to do with eachother. All mechanics are abstract. Not all mechanics are dissociated. When the metagame explanation is fundamentally different than the in-game explanation, you have dissociation.

The metagame explanation for dailies is, "you have an ability you can use once a day that does this." The in-game explanation for dailies is, "you're really talented with a weapon, and you know how to do this trick." Those don't sync up, because using a physical, martial trick you know does not stop you from using that trick again later.

Then you layer on the defense: it models opportunity. This is also dissociative, because the player decides when that opportunity exists, and the character just sees that opportunity. Again, the meta-game is wildly divergent from the in-game.

You can have games like that. They aren't inherently bad. It just hinders immersion because to appreciate the mechanical situation, you have to step 'out of character,' because your character has no idea how the world he actually lives in works. He may be able to consistently survive 1,000ft falls, but he will never know that, so when it comes time to make the jump he can't be the one making the decision. You are.

[CCarter]

I personally have a much easier time imagining Hines Ward having to take it easy for the rest of the game after having tweaked a calf muscle than I do imagining Natsu Dragoneel forgetting how to use Fist of the Fire Dragon. (and I gotta admit that Natsu is a pretty forgetful wizard).

Am I just blind - was this always here in the OP's post?

If you are conceptualizing a daily as being physical damage, drinking your Potion of Cure Light Wounds should recharge it.

OTOH - if a daily also requires a 'specific opening' to perform, then likewise an unconscious/helpless target should be open all the time. I should be able to Brute Strike unconscious targets all I want, or break down doors and crap with it.

If an encounter power is something someone saw and can't do again, that actually might make sense for a feint, but not for a whole lot of powers - is a higher level dude you fight actually likely to have never seen a fighter use [Standard PHB 1st level encounter power X] before? And if the BBEG fights you but gets away, you shouldn't be able to use the same powers against him the next time you fight him, either.

[darkmaster]

I'm not sure what this argument is about anymore, something about HP, or something. But here's my two CP. It seems to me that a disassociated mechanic is one that you can't really come up with an explination in game.

But the problem with calling magic in D&D disassociate is that a wizard can explain it in verse.

Sure; it might involve making shit up like "the laws of (D&D) magic forbid it", but it's possible.

The same thing applies for non-magical maneuvers. "Every time I try it, I sprain the same muscle and I have to rest before I can do it again" or "It's not sporting to try the same trick too many times" or "You'd be surprised by how infrequently the opportunity to use that trick comes around" or "I don't want to press my luck by hoping that lightning strikes twice, so to speak" or "the laws of (D&D) physics forbid it", etc., etc.

Well thanks for ignoring half that argument.

But lets use another game as an example of why this is stupid. In amber if you're fighter someone who's ten points under you in warfare then you can bitch slap them all day and there's not a damn thing they can do about it except try to cheat to even the playing field. If the person you’re fighting is of the same of close to your warfare you try to CREATE openings and exploit them. And if they’re a good ten points over you they can bitch slap you around as much as they want and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it except cheat to try and even the playing field.

The problem with D&D 4e's martial combat is that it doesn't matter how much higher your level is than the other guy, and it doesn't matter how good you are at making openings, you can't do any of your ecnounter or daily manuvers except for once between rest periods.

[Gx1080]

If Martial characters had been established to also include concepts like Ki and Anime physics, then there wouldn't be any issues to most of this... but they're not. They explicitly represent awesome, but otherwise mundane dudes.

Thanks for the answer.

The way I see it, there's no way to make the Martial Power Source of equal level as Magic without metagame explanations unless you introduce said Ki and Anime Physics concepts. See: Tome of Battle. Sorry.

Perhaps is because I'm a crunch guy, but from all the problems with 4e, like massive developer hubris on over hyping a mediocre product and talking shit about their playerbase and a bunch of crappy or useless mechanics, this one is less noticeable. Notice that so far in this thread, several people, including me, have come up with several explanations on the fly.

EDIT: Oooh. So that was it was.

[Psychic Robot]

fix your quote tags

[Draco_Argentum]

I have the perfect example of disassociation, its easy to grasp and non-controversial.

Homeopathy's in world explanation is the law of similars and water memory. Neither of these have any truth in the underlying mechanics of the world. Therefore homeopathy is completely disassociated.

Martial dailies are the same, the in world explanation given is skill. The mechanics do not bear this out.

[Swordslinger]

In that situation, it is seriously 'metagaming' to make that jump, because your character thinks, "fuck, this is going to kill me," and the only one who knows otherwise is the player. That playstyle forces you to play the game from the metagame perspective.

Very true, but some people actually want to have it be where the character doesn't know he's going to survive. In many cases in cinematic realism, characters really do play along with the plot.

We all know that the Stormtroopers aren't going to kill Han Solo. He's just not going to die that way. He could be dodging around and using cover or he could be standing there like a dumbass like Luke does on the Death Star. The characters on the other hand should be acting like they could die from a laser blast, because the flavor is that they're inherently human.

Superman on the otherhand doesn't have human weaknesses, so it's fine for him to stand there against some goon with a gun and take the shot to the chest.

But in both cases, the goons aren't going to kill the main character. It's just that each has a different flavor.

No. Dissociation does not mean what you think it does. Dissociated does not mean, "huh, that doesn't make sense," dissociation means, "the player and his character see the same event in fundamentally different ways." Being tough as whatever is not dissociative, because both the player and the character know he is. Having magic crap be immune to mundane combat damage in the hands of characters is arguably dissociative, though, but I'm not entirely sold on the idea yet. Magic equipment already uses its users saves, and it's trivially easy to invoke Magic Is Weird, but that doesn't help with mundane items.

But sometimes you actually want things to be dissociative as part of the story you're telling, because you're telling a story about a human who manages to persevere through skill, luck and destiny as opposed to a superhero whose just naturally indestructible. It's about the flavor of the story you want to tell.

And I think whichever way you choose you hit dissociation. If you say that hit points represent wounds instead of plot armor/cosmetic damage, one would wonder why the hero never suffers any penalties from these wounds? Why aren't we limping on a wounded leg or unable to use an arm that was crushed by a mace hit?

Why is a mighty hero with 61 HP who takes a 60 damage blow able to act at full strength even though a 1 hit point dagger thrust or claw from a cat could drop him. Yet somehow he's able to run full speed and swing his greatsword with no problem. I'd call that very dissociative. On the other hand if they're arbitrary plot armor, it makes more sense, because the dagger thrust is a lethal blow and the rest were just grazes and near misses.

Hit points by their very nature are a dissociative mechanic, whichever way you look at them. D&D (all editions) is a very dissociated system, but we still play it instead of GURPS, which is much more narrative friendly. There's a reason for that and we've just come to accept the dissociation as part of the game.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Why is a mighty hero with 61 HP who takes a 60 damage blow able to act at full strength even though a 1 hit point dagger thrust or claw from a cat could drop him. Yet somehow he's able to run full speed and swing his greatsword with no problem. I'd call that very dissociative. On the other hand if they're arbitrary plot armor, it makes more sense, because the dagger thrust is a lethal blow and the rest were just grazes and near misses.

This is not dissociative; the character can be well aware that he is a hairs-breadth from death but can still fight at full strength; dissociative would be if it were plot armor and the character *didn't know* if their plot armor was going to run out soon but the player did.

[CCarter]

Yeah we're getting some confusion here between 'abstract' (the rules don't describe exactly what happens) and 'dissociated' (stuff that happens is inexplicable from an in-character perspective).

We all know that the Stormtroopers aren't going to kill Han Solo. He's just not going to die that way. He could be dodging around and using cover or he could be standing there like a dumbass like Luke does on the Death Star. The characters on the other hand should be acting like they could die from a laser blast, because the flavor is that they're inherently human.

Superman on the otherhand doesn't have human weaknesses, so it's fine for him to stand there against some goon with a gun and take the shot to the chest.

If you want to build Han Solo, a system where Han gets a massive HP total that's actually 'plot points' isn't really the way to do it - since that's indistinguishable from how a system would model superhuman resilience. You'd be better off giving Han a limited HP total, plus a defined total of Luck/Fate points he can burn to reroll a dodge /make stormtroopers miss. This way, you can tell which hits are stabs to the face and need actual medical attention. and he may actually be in some danger, depending on how the mechanics are set up.

Other than that, not having wound penalties isn't realistic, but is generally going to be more realistic than 'plot armour'. In the context of a D&D type system, if HP are plot armour this raises rafts of other questions like 'why does CON give extra plot points' or 'why does being hit by someone with a greatsword even drain more plot points than someone with a dagger?' Shouldn't the damage instead be based on how important the bad guy is to the plot?

[fectin]

There is a simple solution, where the characters inhabit an Erfworld-style setting and are just aware of the ridiculous mechanics.

I find that unsatisfying, but it is coherent.

[RobbyPants]

Seriously, let's say you have a 20d6 fall ahead of you. From the player perspective, you know you can survive that if you're a level 10 fighter. From the character perspective, who only understands his hitpoints as plot armor, he has no idea what's going to happen. He knows people have like a .0000001% chance of surviving a fall like that, and he's debating doing it anyway.

In that situation, it is seriously 'metagaming' to make that jump, because your character thinks, "fuck, this is going to kill me," and the only one who knows otherwise is the player. That playstyle forces you to play the game from the metagame perspective.

Not really. You're giving the PC "real life" knowledge from our world, where the mechanics that govern how things work in their world dictate otherwise. In his world, people like him can jump off of cliffs and survive all the time. There would be stories about this. Bards would be telling tales of the guy who jumped off of a cliff and lived, and it would be common knowledge. People who believed that you only have a ".0000001% chance of surviving" would literally be insane.

The only part of the metagaming I can agree with you on is that only the player knows when the PCs HP have gotten high enough to survive the fall, but the PC still totally knows that badass, or epic, or destined (or whatever in-game term you want to use for high level) people can survive falls. It's built right into their world.

[echoVanguard]

There is a simple solution, where the characters inhabit an Erfworld-style setting and are just aware of the ridiculous mechanics.

I find that unsatisfying, but it is coherent.

This has been the source of some rather amusing character commentary in some of our games.

echo

[LR]

There is a simple solution, where the characters inhabit an Erfworld-style setting and are just aware of the ridiculous mechanics.

I find that unsatisfying, but it is coherent.

You don't need to do that. Critical existence failure and the ability to fight at 100% without a torso can just be part of the setting without anyone knowing the actual mechanics. Disassociation is not a break from reality; it's attempting to define A in the flavor text and ~A in the mechanics.

Not really. You're giving the PC "real life" knowledge from our world, where the mechanics that govern how things work in their world dictate otherwise. In his world, people like him can jump off of cliffs and survive all the time. There would be stories about this. Bards would be telling tales of the guy who jumped off of a cliff and lived, and it would be common knowledge. People who believed that you only have a ".0000001% chance of surviving" would literally be insane.

The only part of the metagaming I can agree with you on is that only the player knows when the PCs HP have gotten high enough to survive the fall, but the PC still totally knows that badass, or epic, or destined (or whatever in-game term you want to use for high level) people can survive falls. It's built right into their world.

Reread the post. He's making the point that associations like that are a good thing.

[RobbyPants]

Reread the post. He's making the point that associations like that are a good thing.

Oops. My bad.

I should have known something was wrong. I was agreeing with everything else he was saying up until that point!

[Almaz]

Has anyone actually read the source material for Vancian casting? It's not actually memorizing so much as struggling to contain the power of the spell in your brain. Your brain holds the spell like undischarged static, which then releases when you cast the spell. This incidentally somewhat resembles the mechanics of memorizing something and then spontaneously forgetting it, but really it's using the brain as a "magic circuit".

What's totally disassociated about the source material is that you can memorize more than about a half-dozen at a time without employing cheats, and the spells are not nearly as instantly fatal. Yes, they should be more dangerous to live up to The Excellent Prismatic Spray.

[DSMatticus]

But sometimes you actually want things to be dissociative as part of the story you're telling

No, you want things to be dissociative and I don't. And both of those are fine things. It's the difference between being a part of the narration and roleplaying your character. But we will not be happy playing the same game. And that's fine too.

And yeah, RobbyPants, LR already pointed it out to you, but we're saying the same thing. It doesn't have to be metagaming (if your character knows he's got bags of HP as physical toughness), but it can be (if your character thinks he's in an ordinary mortal body).

[Benjamin]

I think it is stupid to compare a roleplaying game with open outcome and rules for dying to a movie script or a story, before the game has ended. Because after the game has ended the script is ready. Before, it is not. So Han could be shot by a stormtrooper. There are billions of Han guys who were not that lucky like the actual movie Han.

Or maybe you just let the rules away, since you want to avoid them so hard, and tell a story.

Thanks DSMatticus for the interesting insight.

[Akula]

I'm not sure how you guys are making the claim that the character knows that he is close to death. If I just got hit with 20 arrows and was feeling fine, I don't know how you would craft the world so that I knew with absolute certainty that the 21st arrow would kill me. I think I would be far more likely to assume that arrows just did nothing to me. I totally find that "dissociative" because I don't know how the PC is supposed to realize that the umpteenth hit is different from all the ones before it without metagaming.

Just to recap:
PC is hit for the 21st time with an arrow, it takes him down even though the previous 20 did nothing to him. Why? How does the PC see it so that it matches with the player's perspective?

It seems to me that from the player's perspective that the last hit is different from all the others as it is the only one with consequences. Why is this not the case?

[LR]

PC is hit for the 21st time with an arrow, it takes him down even though the previous 20 did nothing to him. Why? How does the PC see it so that it matches with the player's perspective?

He's in pain. He's in enough pain to debilitate a normal person ten times over. But he's not a normal person; he's a Hero. So he grits his teeth and acts like he's fine because if he doesn't then the next arrow will most likely be the death of him.

[Akula]

Why can't he grit his teeth through the 21st arrow then?

[Almaz]

Why can't he grit his teeth through the 21st arrow then?

Same reason people will randomly keep going through the first five gunshots and then drop at the sixth.

Reality is unrealistic.

[LR]

Why can't he grit his teeth through the 21st arrow then?

Because he's taken enough structural damage that his current level of willpower and physical training can't pull him through.

[darkmaster]

Because his mother held him by the heal when she was dunking him into the river stix.

[Akula]

Why can't he grit his teeth through the 21st arrow then?

Because he's taken enough structural damage that his current level of willpower and physical training can't pull him through.

So his willpower is keeping him alive? That would imply that HP represents something in addition to physical toughness, which is dissociative.