Quote from: Christopher Brady;903318The sheer amount of mental gymnastics needed to get to this point just boggles my mind.  I simply get my little mind around this.  I must be an utter moron for just not being able to understand how it's not a major mechanical dissociation.

I just can't do it.

Unrealistic doesn't equal dissociated.

Abstract doesn't equal dissociated.

Meta-level decisions by the player above the head of the character equals dissociated.

Quote from: Enlightened;903319Unrealistic doesn't equal dissociated.

Abstract doesn't equal dissociated.

Meta-level decisions by the player above the head of the character equals dissociated.

Realism is not the issue, it's amount of accepting that HP is not just health, despite a whole slew (until 5e consolidated them into a single level based packet) Magical Spells that restored 'health', especially since nothing happens until you hit 0.  You're totally fine until that last drop, and then you keel over.  I've always found it dissociative.  To claim otherwise, just blows my little brain from my skull.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;903321Realism is not the issue, it's amount of accepting that HP is not just health, despite a whole slew (until 5e consolidated them into a single level based packet) Magical Spells that restored 'health', especially since nothing happens until you hit 0.  You're totally fine until that last drop, and then you keel over.  I've always found it dissociative.  To claim otherwise, just blows my little brain from my skull.

But where is the meta-level player-only decision? There isn't one. Ergo, it's simply unrealistic, not dissociative.

You're conflating unrealism with being dissociative.

If a particular mechanic contains no "decision point" then it can't be dissociative. It can be abstract and/or unrealistic, but with no decision being made, it can't be dissociative.

EDIT: I think we're just simply using the words differently here. Your internal definition for dissociative seems different from mine.

Quote from: Enlightened;903322But where is the meta-level player-only decision? There isn't one. Ergo, it's simply unrealistic, not dissociative.

You're conflating unrealism with being dissociative.

EDIT: I think we're just simply using the words differently here. Your internal definition for dissociative seems different from mine.

The decision is, mostly, derived from the fact that he can determine his/her next course of action by knowing 100% how much health he has. A real person might know he's hurt or injured, what does that translate to meta-game hit points? 4 HP left? 7 hp? 1? He might try another attack with 10 hit points, but not with 7, out of 55 hit points but in character he's still "injured/hurt/etc" the fact is its abstract AND dissociative  (to me at least) because I don't subscribe to the notion that people are perfectly and instantly aware of their own health, down to the 1%.

Quote from: Batman;903323The decision is, mostly, derived from the fact that he can determine his/her next course of action by knowing 100% how much health he has. A real person might know he's hurt or injured, what does that translate to meta-game hit points? 4 HP left? 7 hp? 1? He might try another attack with 10 hit points, but not with 7, out of 55 hit points but in character he's still "injured/hurt/etc" the fact is its abstract AND dissociative  (to me at least) because I don't subscribe to the notion that people are perfectly and instantly aware of their own health, down to the 1%.

Well, there you go. That's the issue. You see something as unknowable to the character, and thus only knowable to the player. That's nearly the definition of dissociated.

Associative/dissociative is largely a function of point of view.

If you play as if the character knows their health (as I do), then decisions based off that are associative.

If, on the other hand, you play it like the character doesn't know it (and only the player is aware) then, for you, they're dissociated.

That's exactly what I meant in my first post in this thread. "What are Superiority Dice from the point of view of the character?"

Meaning, is there a paradigm shift I could acheive to start seeing them as something known and controllable by the character? Thus turning them from dissociative into associative for me.

Quote from: Enlightened;903325Well, there you go. That's the issue. You see something as unknowable to the character, and thus only knowable to the player. That's nearly the definition of dissociated.

Associative/dissociative is largely a function of point of view.

If you play as if the character knows their health (as I do), then decisions based off that are associative.

If, on the other hand, you play it like the character doesn't know it (and only the player is aware) then, for you, they're dissociated.

It's empirically observed that people in real fights seldom or never know their own health, unlike virtually all PCs do.

QuoteThat's exactly what I meant in my first post in this thread. "What are Superiority Dice from the point of view of the character?"

They could be "tricks of the trade'' you haven't used yet against that particular enemy. Or they could be your reserves of inspiration and improvisation that allow you to pull of the impossible. Or they could be how relaxed you are, allowing you to pull off smooth tricks on the enemy, but tiring you and wasting that same relaxation you need, although that steps on the toes of Dx and HP;).
It could even be a mix of all of these, for it is true that not all technical fighters rely on all of them in equal measure, and even the same fighter would rely on them in different proportions in different parts of his training and career.
Regardless, making it a resource is always going to grate against believability for some people, IME.

QuoteMeaning, is there a paradigm shift I could acheive to start seeing them as something known and controllable by the character? Thus turning them from dissociative into associative for me.

I made a whole thread about this. People aren't sure it's at all possible, it seems, but nothing prevents you from trying:D!

Quote from: AsenRG;903377It's empirically observed that people in real fights seldom or never know their own health, unlike virtually all PCs do.

In general though you do know when you are close. People still overextend themselves or are novices and run into deadly exhaustion unaware.

Just last year I came very very close to dropping dead on the spot because it caught up with me about all at once. Now though I know some of the symptoms and pace myself.

One small observation though. Some DMs keep players HP unknown to the players. And that practice goes back to nearly to the start. Gronan can chip in and relate if it any of the DMs he knew did it too.

Quote from: Enlightened;903309By virtue of the fact that all damage and fatique is comepletely healed with a single nights rest, it is clear that there are many kinds of real world fatigue and injury types that PCs are not subject to. There is nothing dissociative about this.

There are other stamina counters for PCs in D&D, like using up hit dice; another counter for stamina is death saves (counting up to 3 failures or successes, whichever comes first; I've seen players delay healing a downed PC based on calculating the odds implied by the precise mechanic, albeit not without risk). Just as I can distinguish sore feet from a sore back from eye strain from overall exhaustion, PCs can distinguish all the different stamina counters they have.

QuoteI personally haven't looked too closely at the exhaustion mechanic, but it doesn't seem dissociative. There doesn't appear to be any meta-level decision being made. You could have any number of exhaustion/stamina depletion methods that are not dissociative.

"Superiority dice" are just another form of stamina; just as my druid character (133 HP) can jump off any cliff and know he will be able to walk away, and how long he can go without water before dying of exhaustion, and how long he can delay healing the character with only 61 HP who didn't walk away from the bottom of that cliff, the battlemasters know how far it is to their limit of that form of stamina.

Fine if you don't like the battlemaster; I have not played one or with one, so I don't have a strong opinion about it. But conflating your dislike of something with it having an intrinsic flaw that other people should acknowledge is as pathetic as falsely claiming you don't know what a bard is when the real issue is that you don't like them.

Quote from: Omega;903380One small observation though. Some DMs keep players HP unknown to the players. And that practice goes back to nearly to the start. Gronan can chip in and relate if it any of the DMs he knew did it too.

That was how we played when I started in 1977, with HP re-rolled every adventure and known only to the DM. An uninjured third level cleric died from one claw attack that did d4 damage, much to everyone's surprise (and the player's annoyance). One DM was so invested in this unknowability that she changed hit dice size for constitution bonuses rather than adding to each, so that players could not even reason about their minimum HPs as being higher than the character's level.

Quote from: rawma;903391But conflating your dislike of something with it having an intrinsic flaw that other people should acknowledge is as pathetic as falsely claiming you don't know what a bard is when the real issue is that you don't like them.

I never claimed that it is an intrinsic flaw. In fact, I directly said the exact opposite.

I said in post #64 that "dissociated/associated is a matter of point of view" and in post #56 I said "There is nothing objective about it. It's a completely subjective preference".

Being subjective is the exact opposite of being intrinsic.

And that bard thread from way back you're mentioning, you just misunderstood what I meant.

You strangely took my exasperated "What is this I don't even" literally instead of to mean "This is weird/stupid/meaningless, etc." I even explained that to you in a later post in that thread.

As I expained in the thread as soon as I realized you had taken me literally, at no point did I not know what a bard was. My point was that it is mind-boogling that bard exists as its own class.  Here's the thread.

Quote from: Enlightened;903397I never claimed that it is an intrinsic flaw. In fact, I directly said the exact opposite.

Really?

Quote from: Enlightened;903023That doesn't show that this isn't dissociated. It just shows that the game has other dissociated mechanics (some mechanics more than others).

That's pretty much claiming that there is an objective standard for dissociated. Perhaps you meant to say something else, about persuading you to abandon your subjective opinion, but you didn't.

Quote from: Enlightened;903397I said in post #64 ... and in post #56 I said ....

It's on you, not me, that you aren't consistent in what you have to say.

QuoteAnd that bard thread from way back you're mentioning, you just misunderstood what I meant.

You strangely took my exasperated "What is this I don't even" literally instead of to mean "This is weird/stupid/meaningless, etc." I even explained that to you in a later post in that thread.

As I expained in the thread as soon as I realized you had taken me literally, at no point did I not know what a bard was. My point was that it is mind-boogling that bard exists as its own class.  Here's the thread.

Better to quote the actual statement than your later revision:

Quote from: Enlightened;795946I don't even really get what a Bard is.

What the fuck is a Bard?

You knew exactly what it was and you just didn't like it, but you preferred to waste people's time explaining and giving you examples rather than just stating and owning your opinion in the first place.

Quote from: rawma;903473Really? That's pretty much claiming that there is an objective standard for dissociated. Perhaps you meant to say something else, about persuading you to abandon your subjective opinion, but you didn't. It's on you, not me, that you aren't consistent in what you have to say.

I don't see how that was claiming that there is an objective standard for disociation. And even if that can be round-about interpreted as me saying that (which I wasn't), I don't see how that trumps the other times I overtly said the exact opposite. I haven't changed anything. You are just reading something into that post that isn't there.

Quote from: rawma;903473Better to quote the actual statement than your later revision:
 You knew exactly what it was and you just didn't like it, but you preferred to waste people's time explaining and giving you examples rather than just stating and owning your opinion in the first place.

To be honest, I was surprised when people tried to actually define it. I didn't imagine that people would take it that way. I admit my wording in the first post was vague (though, I feel, understandable as "this existing is dumb"), but just a few posts after that I clarified to you saying "Why is it its own special, separate thing? That's what I don't understand." And then later saying "I meant it in a "What the fuck is this shit supposed to be? I don't even..." sort of way."

Actually re-reading that thread, it went like..

Me: What is this? (=This is dumb)
You: [Definition]
Me: Er...I just meant it's dumb.
You: [More explanation]
Me: No seriously. I knew that. I just meant it's dumb.
You: Why are you wasting my time?
Me:

If I can chime in a little.

For the most part (D&D is a big game, there are many exceptions to everything), hit points are an abstraction. A very bad abstraction (one that I like, because of the extreme simplicity), but an abstraction.

When you're hit with a sword, you lose hit points. The fact that you can't tell if you've taken a scratch, ruptured an internal organ, or sliced a muscle is because the abstraction is so weak...but it's an abstraction. Whatever the actual wound, as a player I know it's a wound, and thus I can figure I can do something about it by rest, seeking a medical practitioner, or cleric...even if the abstraction is terrible, I know my hit point loss is due to damage from a sword, and I respond reasonably to that.

Now let's consider the "sneak attack" mechanic as defined in 5e.

If you attack an enemy that's next to an ally, you do extra damage.

Why?

Is it because the enemy is distracted? If so, then mindless enemies shouldn't be affected, and super-genius (or multiheaded) enemies might not be affected, either.

Is it because the enemy has vulnerable points? If so, then enemies that have extra armor or lack vulnerable points shouldn't be affected.

Now we can rationalize about this being disassociated rather than abstracted, but now put yourself in the mind of player, being mauled by "sneak attack" damage.

Can he focus on the thing doing the damage, so he's not distracted? Nope.
Can he fight defensively or something, so as not to be so vulnerable? Nope.

The player can do *nothing* because the mechanic is so heavily disassociated from the game world. It's extra damage, more damage than before, because the rules say the damage is more, and that's that.

At least, that's my take on the difference between "abstracted" and "disassociated."

Quote from: Doom;903491Can he focus on the thing doing the damage, so he's not distracted? Nope.
Can he fight defensively or something, so as not to be so vulnerable? Nope.

The player can do *nothing* because the mechanic is so heavily disassociated from the game world. It's extra damage, more damage than before, because the rules say the damage is more, and that's that.

At least, that's my take on the difference between "abstracted" and "disassociated."

Interesting point, but my take on it is that the crux of association/dissociation is in who makes the decision. The character/player or only the player. And if there is no decison to be made (as in your example) then there can be no dissociation. There is only unrealism and abstraction.

In other words, in your example, the player isn't given a choice or a decision to make. It's preset. You just simply take the damage. No choice and no decision necessarily means that it is not a case of the player making a meta-level decision over the head of the character.

Quote from: Enlightened;903493Interesting point, but my take on it is that the crux of association/dissociation is in who makes the decision. The character/player or only the player. And if there is no decison to be made (as in your example) then there can be no dissociation. There is only unrealism and abstraction.

In other words, in your example, the player isn't given a choice or a decision to make. It's preset. You just simply take the damage. No choice and no decision necessarily means that it is not a case of the player making a meta-level decision over the head of the character.

Sometimes there are mechanical effects completely dissociated from what is happeneing in the setting, but there is no player-facing choice per-se.  Like tripping slimes.

Quote from: CRKrueger;903494Sometimes there are mechanical effects completely dissociated from what is happeneing in the setting, but there is no player-facing choice per-se.  Like tripping slimes.

I see. I guess I've just been using the word differently.

To me, tripping slimes is unrealistic (and dumb) but not dissociative. The dissociative part of that is that you can only trip the slime once a day and it's the player who gets to determine when the slime was in the perfect once-a-day position to be tripped.

EDIT: I think I may need a new word, then, to describe what I don't like about a lot of the 5E mechanics. I have no problem with absraction, unrealism or even mechanics that are dissociated from the world as long as it is not the player who is deciding and controlling them. I prefer for the player's only interface with the game world to be the actions of their character. If the word "dissociative" includes more than just player meta-decisions, then I need a more specific word. Maybe I'll go with "player meta-decisions." It has a nice ring to it...

EDIT Part Deux: Actually, if you define dissociative as "mechanical effects completely dissociated from what is happeneing in the setting" then you get into what rawma was saying about them being objectively determinable intrinsic aspects.