Dissociated in 3E

[Prak]

Most of the problems you're bringing up are about the mechanical interpretation of Freedom of Movement; i.e., "the mechanics of this spell are written really vaguely. WTF does it even do?" The list of restraints in the spell is intentionally non-exhaustive ("even under the influence of...", not "only under the influence of..."), so I believe it works on pretty much anything you would call a restraint, including mundane ones. The matter of what happens when a FoM character hits water is also pretty weird, but I think there's a FAQ somewhere which clarifies that swimming is considered normal movement. If the character fails their swim checks, buoyancy holds and the character sinks at the normal rate to the bottom. Walking is considered normal movement at that point, and the character can stroll across the bottom without problem. None of this means it's dissociated.

But coming up with fluff for FoM seems really straightforward. Once you figure out what it mechanically does (the task that seems to be the problem here), you can seriously just say those things verbatim when you're describing what happens to the character. A wizard can sit in a laboratory and play Freedom of Movement Houdini and take notes, and at the end his notes will come pretty damn close to mirroring the spell write-up. That's a perfect example of association; the mechanics are the fluff.

Though, you are totally right to point out that the lack of flavor text is a problem. It leads to some reality-bending edge cases. Imagine this example:
1) Put on manacles.
2) Cast freedom of movement (manacles do not come off).
3) Stretch arms out as far as possible to either side (manacles are not damaged).

That makes pretty much zero sense and it's not obvious how you would describe what the characters are seeing in that situation. And if you can't even describe what characters are seeing, dissociation is pretty much a given.

"You see the mage gesture furtively with his fettered hands, then stretch his arms out to either side. The cuffs still wrap firmly around his wrists, but when you try to look at the chain, your eyes just slide away, as if they were unwilling to look at the rend in the laws of the universe that stretches from one cuff to another."

[Caedrus]

Normal movement is not a metagame concept.

Yeah it is. It's the kind of thing where you yourself have stated you have to go to FAQs to figure out what it means when you jump in a lake.

You're pretty good at pointing out the flaws in your own arguments, heh.

If you asked a character if he was able to move around normally at the moment, he could answer that question.

Sure, based on his opinion of normally. But FoM won't stop all impediments to everyone's opinion of moving about normally. In fact, according to many definitions of normal movement, FoM makes you move *abnormally.* Being able to ignore solid material in your way is not normal. Being able to move unimpeded in water is not normal. And you are only unimpeded in some ways and not others. The list goes on.

It would be pretty conceivable to get a list of impediments that nearly mirrors what FoM will work against.

No shit, it's called "the rule description for Freedom of Movement."

There is a reason I tried to describe FoM's fluff as a bunch of different effects; that was my point.

No, that was you missing the point. All of those different effects that you tried to describe are connected only by a metagame category and no sensible in-world factor, which makes writing consistent fluff for it a bitch. You pretty much HAVE to treat it as a swiss army knife where you describe players seeing actually completely different things occur for pretty much every thing it negates, and unlike Guards and Wards these things are not themselves readily specific effects. There comes a point I've seen repeatedly when players who try to describe what's happening in character just stop and have to jerry rig something like what Prak_Anima just said. And then do it again and again each time something is negated. If you don't want to use the word dissociated, that's fine by me, I don't care about the jargon argument. But it is really messy in terms of applying fluff to it.

The way FoM protects you from grapples is probably not the way it helps you move in water. If you think that is somehow unbelievable, well... do you have a problem believing that someone would make Swiss Army knives, a collection of different tools used to perform separate but related tasks rolled into neat one package? D&D even has precedents for spells as a collection of related but different effects: see guards and wards or any prismatic spell ever.

Didn't I already agree with this in previous posts? Why are you still arguing it? I already said that it's possible to make consistent fluff for it, just that it's a bitch about it.

It's also possible to make consistent fluff for eye gouge, or pretty much any ability ever.

[DSMatticus]

"You see the mage gesture furtively with his fettered hands, then stretch his arms out to either side. The cuffs still wrap firmly around his wrists, but when you try to look at the chain, your eyes just slide away, as if they were unwilling to look at the rend in the laws of the universe that stretches from one cuff to another."

Yeah, you can come up with fluff for it. But coming up with your own fluff is an explicit complaint in The Alexandrian article, because the task of coming up with consistent fluff becomes a burden. Once you decide that fluff, you've introduced facts about the world that potentially weren't there before. E.g., say the manacles have inscriptions on them. Can people read that while the character is doing this?

Normal movement is not a metagame concept.

Yeah it is. It's the kind of thing where you yourself have stated you have to go to FAQs to figure out what it means when you jump in a lake.

You apparently don't know what a (strictly) metagame concept is. A metagame concept is something characters cannot understand, like fate/plot points or d6's of damage. Whether or not normal movement includes swimming is an issue of mechanical interpretation, and once you decide the answer ("yes"), that is a concept you could describe to characters.

You are proposing that "the ability to move (climb, jump, swim, fly) and attack normally" is something a character cannot understand. As in, if you told a character "you can use any of your forms of movement normally" he would get glassy-eyed and confused and have no idea what the fuck you're talking about. What on earth makes you think that?

Sure, based on his opinion of normally. But FoM won't stop all impediments to everyone's opinion of moving about normally.

Uhh, what's your point? FoM is one spell created by one wizard to stop one list of impediments, and that list of impediments is the list of impediments he had in mind when he created the spell. Are you saying that it is unbelievable that a wizard would sit down and create a list of impediments he wanted to counter that turned out to be the list of things FoM works on?

All of those different effects that you tried to describe are connected only by a metagame category and no sensible in-world factor

How is "stopping things from restraining your available forms of movement" NOT a sensible in-world factor? Point out the thing FoM does that is inconsistent and totally, unreasonably out of place.

Didn't I already agree with this in previous posts? Why are you still arguing it? I already said that it's possible to make consistent fluff for it, just that it's a bitch about it.

Most of the fluff (what you describe to characters) follows immediately from the text of the mechanics. If you want to describe someone who moves normally underwater, you just describe the dude walking and swinging his arms around like he was in air. That doesn't provide any mind-blowing inconsistencies that need further description. Characters already have a non-zero chance of succeeding any grapple check or web, so automatically succeeding is just being guaranteed to do the thing they already could do. The fluff writes itself except for the one instance I've already admitted is a problem.

tl;dr Everything FoM does is linked by a common theme; they restrain your normal forms of movement. That is a theme characters can understand, and it is a theme some wizard might decide to make a spell around. The fluff for everything FoM does except for the one problem we're discussing can really just be you repeating the mechanics of the text, because that is what the characters are seeing. It's not a dissociative problem, it's not a believability problem, and it's not hard to come up with the fluff?

[violence in the media]

Going back to the Evasion argument, the issue I've experienced most with Evasion is some variation of "If I can evade X, why can't I evade Y?"

"Why can I Evade Green Dragon breath, but not Cloudkill?"

"Can I research new versions of Fireball and Lightning Bolt that require Fortitude saves instead of Reflex saves?"

"How can I dodge an explosion, but I can't use that same awesomeness against one asshole with an axe? Why can't I dodge a magic ray?"

Though it is entirely one's own issue, speculating about (and operating on) the implied or imagined capabilities of an inherent ability like Evasion is something a lot of people do. IME, I haven't gamed with a lot of people that operate solely under the paradigm that an ability does only what it says and nothing more. It's like having an ability that only says that it lets you lift a locomotive and have people rightfully wonder whether you could lift a car. And if not, why not?

[nockermensch]

So, about action points:

If IC the character knows they can "challenge fate" or "trust their luck" if they still have APs, then is the AP mechanic (I use APs for re-rolls mostly) still dissociative?

About FoM, I'm curious to see how Frank and K would state this spell using the tags mentioned on another thread. I can imagine it would say something like: While the spell lasts the subject cannot be subjected to the [grappled], [pinned], [held], ... conditions. Fluff for this would require an advanced theory of how is magic exactly bending the physical laws, and would be better left for a fluff-only sourcebook (ask Terry Pratchett to write it )

[Lago PARANOIA]

If IC the character knows they can "challenge fate" or "trust their luck" if they still have APs, then is the AP mechanic (I use APs for re-rolls mostly) still dissociative?

Probably not. I mean there are classes like the Luckbender who have explicitly quantified Luck and Fate and can manipulate it, but very few characters with access to Action Points have as their in-universe fluff manipulating luck on demand.

Action points would be associated in a universe like Order of the Stick however.

The thing to keep in mind that it's really quite possible that an associated mechanic can very well break WSoD more than a disassociated one. Making action points associated would require characters having in-universe knowledge of a universal on-demand reality-warping mechanic, which bangs up against WSoD harder than just quickly admitting to the player that the mechanic makes no in-universe sense but that it's cool as hell anyway. And moving on.

[DSMatticus]

There are no mechanics that cannot be associated. But like Lago says, you may not want to associate every little mechanic because the association will force you to dictate facts about the game world that may be displeasing.

You can associate the typical action point where it's just affect die outcomes/extra actions in a bunch of ways, including fate-warping or just good ol' bursts of heroism/determination/adrenaline. It's not hard to get it to the point where the character knows they're doing something and it's not even "weird" in-setting. Some AP schemes are harder to associate, like the plot-affecting type where you can pay points to affect the narrative. If a character knew they could do that, they'd know they had reality-shaping abilities and that might be completely out of theme/genre/etc, etc.

But yeah, it wouldn't be strange for characters to know "they're special" and that by their own awesomeness/being fate-chosen/unnatural luck they can just depend on things to go right every now and then.

[Vnonymous]

I already provided an awesome way to make action points an in universe thing and not dissociated at all. Does everyone just have me on ignore or something?

[DSMatticus]

I already provided an awesome way to make action points an in universe thing and not dissociated at all. Does everyone just have me on ignore or something?

Yes. (No.)

I'm not even sure what you said, I hadn't really been paying attention to the AP thing until now. But looking back, I have to say your idea is a potential problem. It works, but you're still solving the problem by introducing a new fact to the setting, so you have to deal with people who don't like the idea of magical fate tattoos and hate what you've added.

Besides, action point recovery is still pretty dissociated; players know they get them when they level up or can negotiate one from the DM in exchange for doing something awesome or at the start of a session (whatever your particular recovery system is). The character doesn't know what a "level up" or a "session" is, and "get magical tattoos by doing something awesome" is a weird fact to introduce to the setting that might give people problems.

It's very heavily a ymmv solution.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

I don't give a shit that this thread is a decade old and got necro'd by a bot. This is still surprisingly relevant even outside of the tabletop space. I was just spitballing ideas for an early-access video game that just recently introduced classes. They're bare bones in mechanics but mostly solid thematically, so people were offering suggestions on how to make them more interesting. I immediately went "what if the warrior class had a rage mechanic where instead of just having a passive increase to his stats, he builds rage by attacking and getting hit and how angry he can replicate the passive bonus but with more player interaction?"
Instantly I get hit with "it's too fantasy", "that's magic", "how much cock do you inhale before breakfast?", that sort of thing. Except not that last one because most places are boring now.
Some people are simply not willing to perform any suspension of disbelief or thinking about mechanics whatsoever. This is in a game with dimensional portals, fucking time magic, and lovecraftian mechanical horrors. But a warrior who moves faster after he gets stabbed is too far? We're going to be arguing about this in 2052.

[deaddmwalking]

Undoubtedly! But part of that is that there will be people born between now and then, they'll have missed the discussions, so we just have to educate them. There are lots of things that are expected that people think when they're young, but they'll think otherwise when they've experienced more of the world. And us old farts may miss the days of innocence when we thought that 'being able to swing his sword all day' made a Fighter comparable to a wizard with 'limited spell slots'.

Personally, I think that getting rage powers based on taking damage makes sense. Mystery Men is a way underrated movie, and Ben Stiller's character believes that he gets super-strength from anger. And even if he doesn't, believing in yourself can give people incredible power. So to me, it tracks.

In our game system, we have many special abilities activated by spending a limited resource (we call it mana). A rogue can do 'dirty fighting' by spending 2 mana. There are actions that can allow someone to get mana back in a fight, but those take actions. So our rogue has 8 mana, and can blind someone 4x in a given fight under normal circumstances. In a sense the mechanic is narrative - finding circumstances where you can throw sand in someone's eye, or pull their cloak hood over their face are plausible at any time, but not EVERY time. The idea that they're able to spend a limited currency to find/exploit a favorable situation tends to reduce objection to the idea.

For the 'increasing rage', there are almost certainly ways to build it that reduce 'resistance'. For example, getting +20 STR (meaning you can now lift a Abrams Main Battle Tank) may cause objections, but giving +10 to attack/damage likely wouldn't. Partly it is because attack/damage are more abstract concepts generally and the idea that sometimes people hit particularly hard/well is baked into the system with variable damage, sneak attack, etc. Giving a raging berserker a 'retributive strike' (an attack that triggers when they're attacked/take damage) would be a way of making them more powerful when they're attacked/take damage (more attacks) but because it is a triggered ability even though it effectively makes the character more powerful (more attacks, more powerful attacks) people won't necessarily consider it to be 'Super-Saiyan' style 'power-up'.

If your fluff descriptions are general enough, people will build reasons why they should work. If your fluff descriptions don't make any sense, there'll be problems. But something like 'you don't want to make him mad - you wouldn't like him when he's mad' is pretty good for lots of berserker style stuff.

[Zaranthan]

Some people are simply not willing to perform any suspension of disbelief or thinking about mechanics whatsoever. This is in a game with dimensional portals, fucking time magic, and lovecraftian mechanical horrors. But a warrior who moves faster after he gets stabbed is too far? We're going to be arguing about this in 2052.

The answer is the same today as it was sixteen years ago when we started saying Fighters should be allowed to have Nice Things: if the only justification for doing superhuman feats is "it's magic, I ain't gotta explain shit", then EVERY PC needs to have magic. Period. If the game setting dictates that people without magic can't do awesome stuff, then that means people without magic are not acceptable player characters.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

The answer is the same today as it was sixteen years ago when we started saying Fighters should be allowed to have Nice Things: if the only justification for doing superhuman feats is "it's magic, I ain't gotta explain shit", then EVERY PC needs to have magic. Period. If the game setting dictates that people without magic can't do awesome stuff, then that means people without magic are not acceptable player characters.

I genuinely think the guy I was talking to may have just been on the side of "no one can do awesome stuff". He seemed to think removing basic gameplay mechanics from various classes would help differentiate them.
Yeah, what if the barbarian couldn't read or if the fighter was the only one who could trip people. Or if every wizard was also blind. Great idea.

[Foxwarrior]

The regular old fit and broadly competent Marvel heroes do start feeling kinda samey after a while despite having unique power sets and sometimes the fun happens when the psion gets strength drained to 0 and has to repeatedly fling himself back to town with telekinesis. Having a weakness like not being able to speak or read or see is neat sometimes and actually maybe if all the magic users were majorly inconvenienced in one way or another then the non magic guy could have a useful function by being able to open doors and talk to people, too.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

then the non magic guy could have a useful function by being able to open doors and talk to people, too.

Now you could have defended weakness as a fun little quirk that has potential pitfalls that need to be avoided.

But... you actually instead just outright suggested non-magical characters should just be personal servants/butlers/assistance dogs for wizards in need of a personal carer.

"Fighter! Boy! Open the door and introduce me! I'M BLIND OR SOMETHING!"

"But you are legally required to let my Barbarian into the restaurant because she's my emotional support animal! I HAVE DRUIDISM!"

Quality stuff that.

[Koumei]

We're going to be arguing about this in 2052.

I'm confident we'll have wiped ourselves out by then. I'm an optimist like that.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

The regular old fit and broadly competent Marvel heroes do start feeling kinda samey after a while despite having unique power sets and sometimes the fun happens when the psion gets strength drained to 0 and has to repeatedly fling himself back to town with telekinesis.

Please tell me Professor X did this. Please.

[erik]

The regular old fit and broadly competent Marvel heroes do start feeling kinda samey after a while despite having unique power sets and sometimes the fun happens when the psion gets strength drained to 0 and has to repeatedly fling himself back to town with telekinesis.

Please tell me Professor X did this. Please.

Did what? Acquired new telekinetic powers? Probably happened in some alternate universe/timeline.

Or dominated someone to carry him? Probably happens a lot. But usually he has a wheelchair/hover chair.

[Foxwarrior]

"Fighter! Boy! Open the door and introduce me! I'M BLIND OR SOMETHING!"

"But you are legally required to let my Barbarian into the restaurant because she's my emotional support animal! I HAVE DRUIDISM!"

Quality stuff that.

That is what the concept of party roles boils down to, right?

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Did what? Acquired new telekinetic powers? Probably happened in some alternate universe/timeline.

Or dominated someone to carry him? Probably happens a lot. But usually he has a wheelchair/hover chair.

No. I mean used his immense psychic power to just fling his body around like a ragdoll. That's way funnier.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

That is what the concept of party roles boils down to, right?

That could be true. If your intended party roles were basically "Have amazing magic powers that help with exciting adventuring" and "I'm just the guy who chews the clerics food for her".

Those ARE roles...

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

But the cleric would starve to death without the fighter chewing her food and spitting it into her mouth!

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

But the cleric would starve to death without the fighter chewing her food and spitting it into her mouth!

Yeah, but then some god damn splatbook designer goes and lets the spell blade have actual teeth and the fighter becomes redundant.

[Kaelik]

Still don't believe in party roles and I'm going to have all the enemies target Fox next session as punishment for his posts.

[Foxwarrior]

Nooooo! Getting hit is supposed to be the other party members' roles!