Quote from: The Butcher;465954*goes and reads the blogpost*

I'm not sure I understand. So what Justin's labeling "dissociated mechanics" are those which involve out-of-character decision-making?

Not exactly. It's not that associated mechanics 'have to' involve in-character decision making, it's that they actually do on an instinctive level since the very act of using such a mechanic is part of the role playing process. Dissociated rules are those mechanics which you cannot explain in game-world terms (game-world terms, from the character's perspective, NOT some narrative, storytelling, whatnot standpoint instead). For instance the d6's for damage of a fireball. The rule and its processes are abstract - the act of rolling dice for damage, the code itself in terms of rules - but this abstraction translates something that exists in the game world : powerful magicians make big boom. Bigger magician, bigger, badder boom. It is associated with the game world.

Quote from: jhkim;465915There are a bunch of unrelated things being talked about here

Have to agree here.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;465906A matter of degrees, though, and I emphasise: even the crustiest old D&D grognard DM uses storygame elements in their game session. Gygax told them to, after all.
   "You do have every right to overrule the dice at any time if there is a particular course of events that you would like to have occur."
- AD&D1e DMG, p110That's story-gaming advice there.

True to a point. I read up on this though, and Gary didn't approve of fudging rolls where it directly harms a PC or NPC, though - only trivial random crap like 'did you notice a secret door'.
Also note this is advice to the GM only - he never condones players fudging their die rolls
Where I draw the storygame/RPG divide is pretty much whether a game lets you come at it from an In Character (immersive) vs. Out Of Character perspective...I don't see why this is so difficult?
 
As I rule I never fudge the dice rolls when GMing (I don't use a screen, either), but even if I did, I'm not sure it would significantly impact on how the players operate. [someone flame grill me if I'm mistaken...].

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;465906"You do have every right to overrule the dice at any time if there is a particular course of events that you would like to have occur."
- AD&D1e DMG, p110
That's story-gaming advice there. If something other than player choice or the roll of the dice decides the course of events, if DM or players are able to have outside-game-world concerns decide things - via GM fiat, Hero Points, or whatever - then they are shaping things to create a particular plotline - a story.

Actually that is the complete opposite of storygaming advice, because in storygames there are rules to which everyone adheres. There is no fudging of the dice, no safety net, just story.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;465952At best, you are talking about a completely different kind of dissociation than the association between mechanic and game world.

Nope.

When you are immersed in a cognitive task (for example, roleplaying a PC) and you switch to another (for example, looking in yor goddammed PC sheet what was your THAC0 and calculating how much you need to hit the orc) your brain  needs some time to adjust and get up to speed. There is a cognitive cost from switching that may range from mere miliseconds to minutes according to the task at hand. That is why multitasking is a bad idea, because we tend to suck at everything we're trying to multitask. Unless you are not using your brain to play, my point stands.

So, all RPG mechanics are dissociative. Each and every one. Now we can discuss that some mechanics (those who have a reflection in the game world, like an attack roll) are less dissociative than others (marking, which is unrelated to something the PC does), and in that regard your post is highly relevant. But every mechanic takes you out from immersion as a baseline.

Of course, you may want to disregard this due to another curious psychological phenomenon called confirmation bias, and it's OK. There are persons who still insist that the Earth is flat, or that homeopathy/astrology/tarot works, and most humans will go through any mental contortion to avoid information that may challenge their beliefs. But that is what research shows, and I'm sharing this with you.

QuoteI'm not sure if it's your poor English skills or your psychology degrees that are the problem here. But it's probably a correctable one if you're willing to fix it.

Though I'm well aware that I won't be as eloquent as a native English speaker, I work in English, I use English every day and I'm convinced that I can communicate in it well enough. Of course I can make mistakes and I'm happy to correct them as soon as someone points them out, thing that, by the way, you haven't done yet apart from dismissing what I say quite pretentiously.

And I doubt my psychology degree is a problem of any sort, specially when it comes to discuss a cognitive phenomenon like a game that happens in your imagination. You know, like, in your brain.

QuoteYour attempt to invoke an argument from authority, on the other hand, is just bad logic. Not much excuse for that at all.

That is fabulously absurd. It's like you are dismissing an argument against homeopathy because I cite research showing that it doesn't work. Since when citing scientific research is bad logic?

QuoteAnd here, of course, you're just pulling a dominickschwager. Unless, of course, you'd care to quote me making the claim that the pre-existence of my essay somehow conveys "absolute truth".

You asked me to read your essay, which I had done before this discussion. Of course I may be misreading you, but the perceived tone of your answer sounded to me like "read the essay and you will be convinced." Well, I did it and I'm like 80% convinced. Now I'm presenting you with facts that seem to run counter to some of your assumptions. What now?

Quote from: LordVreeg;465958Justin's point, and one I ascribe to, is that a dissociative mechanic is one that encourages/requires metagaming.   That is the litmus test.

This is a helpful litmus test, but I'm not sure it works every time. For instance, I consider the initiative roll in D&D 3E and 4E to be dissociated - it's a convenient mechanism to determine which in-game character goes first, but doesn't represent something specific happening in the in-game world.*

The initiative roll is of course determined by character stats [which can be optimized] - namely Dexterity and (where applicable) the Improved Initiative feat - but the roll itself does not correspond to any decision or action your character makes. Contrast the to-hit roll, where the same modifiers apply - stat and feat bonuses - but the roll represents your character attempting to do something in the game world.

*Or maybe it does, maybe it could - who is reacting quickly and so on. (Contrast a Reflex saving roll, which more straight forwardly represents your character trying to quickly react to things, such as dodge incoming fire balls.) I don't know. Which kind of feeds into my hunch that whether or not a specific mechanism x is dissociated depends on what one personally can make sense of in terms of x's representation in the game world. The basic definition of dissociated is perfectly alright, but it needs to be relativized to individual player's capacities to make sense of things (in the sense just specified).

Quote from: Imperator;465994When you are immersed in a cognitive task (for example, roleplaying a PC) and you switch to another (for example, looking in yor goddammed PC sheet what was your THAC0 and calculating how much you need to hit the orc) your brain  needs some time to adjust and get up to speed. There is a cognitive cost from switching that may range from mere miliseconds to minutes according to the task at hand. That is why multitasking is a bad idea, because we tend to suck at everything we're trying to multitask. Unless you are not using your brain to play, my point stands.

So, all RPG mechanics are dissociative.

No offense, but I seriously can't understand how you think that this constitutes a relevant response to Justin's blog entry. I'm perfectly fine if you want to re-define the (bolded) terms he uses, but it should be obvious to you that you then no longer offer a substantive disagreement of the position he offers (which the closing line suggests you take yourself to be doing).

Imagine reading a spirited defense of creationism on the internet, and then in the author's closing lines you find the caveat that by 'God' he meant 'random evolutionary process with no design intelligence or intent behind it, whatsoever'.

Quote from: Imperator;465994And I doubt my psychology degree is a problem of any sort, specially when it comes to discuss a cognitive phenomenon like a game that happens in your imagination. You know, like, in your brain.

On the contrary, I think few working psychologists are acutely aware of the explanatory limitations of cognitive science, and as a consequence overestimate the heuristic benefits of localizing phenomena 'in the brain' and so on to conceptually understand the things in question (on which, see above). That holds especially (but not solely) for phenomenal consciousness (knowing what it feels like to experience things, from emotions to smells), the very type of thing we need to consider when explaining immersion in RPGs.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;465971True to a point. I read up on this though, and Gary didn't approve of fudging rolls where it directly harms a PC or NPC, though - only trivial random crap like 'did you notice a secret door'.

Actually, immediately after that quoted portion he goes on to talk about fudging things so that PCs who are killed were merely maimed in some way, etc - provided their players were being sensible, were just unlucky.

So he's wanting to fudge things so that worthy players get to have success. That is, he wants to not so much create as help make easier the spontaneous creation of a plotline where the heroes win the day. It's a storygaming device, just a less blatant one than usually found.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid JohnsonAlso note this is advice to the GM only - he never condones players fudging their die rolls

Of course. The advice to the GM is explicitly that

   "BY ORDERING THINGS AS THEY SHOULD BE, THE GAME AS A WHOLE FIRST, YOUR CAMPAIGN NEXT, AND YOUR PARTICIPANTS THEREAFTER, YOU WILL BE PLAYING ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS AS IT WAS MEANT TO BE."
- AD&D1e DMG, p230 [Gygax's caps]

The "participants", ie players, will necessarily see priorities differently, only the DM can look at the game and campaign as a whole and think of what's good for it.

Quote from: DominikSchwagerActually that is the complete opposite of storygaming advice, because in storygames there are rules to which everyone adheres. There is no fudging of the dice, no safety net, just story.

Of course. Fudging of dice or rules happens when the rules or dice don't cover a situation, or don't give the GM/players the results they want. When a game becomes all about giving the GM/players exactly the results they want, the rules are created to support that. For example, since the dice may cause your character to fail, let's have Hero Points which the player can use to stop them failing.

"See? We don't have to fudge things anymore."
"Actually the fudge is now built into the system.
"So it's not a fudge anymore."

Sorry. It's still a fudge. It's the most basic storygame element. And as I said, present in most game sessions, in practice even if not in the rules.

Quote from: Windjammer;465997No offense, but I seriously can't understand how you think that this constitutes a relevant response to Justin's blog entry. I'm perfectly fine if you want to re-define the (bolded) terms he uses, but it should be obvious to you that you then no longer offer a substantive disagreement of the position he offers (which the closing line suggests you take yourself to be doing).

Let me try to clarify my position.

In his essay, Justin says:

QuoteRather, I think the term "roleplaying game" only becomes meaningful when there is a direct connection between the game and the roleplaying. When roleplaying is the game.

It's very tempting to see all of this in a purely negative light: As if to say, "Dissociated mechanics get in the way of roleplaying and associated mechanics don't." But it's actually more meaningful than that: The act of using an associated mechanic is the act of playing a role.

This is highly disputable. Many mechanics in an RPG make reference to factors that are unknown to a character (your own example of initiative rolls is a good one). Yeah, you can argue that a character may know that he's faster andhas better reflex than other character (similar to Justin's example of the fireball spell), but your character is not aware of the randomness of the roll, how variable it is and all that. It's not only that the variable is abstract and metagamed, it's that it has little or nothing to do with your character knowledge.

Justin cites Wushu as an example of the difference between an RPG and an STG. Fair enough: thing is, good description, good ideas and embellishments giving you positive modifiers is something that you may find in the Red Box D&D edition. And they also call it roleplaying because, mate, combat should not be only about "Roll to hit. 17. Roll damage. 5 hp. The orc falls." You will find this kind of stuff in a plethora of RPGs, as hard and fast rules, well before storygames appeared as a movement or whatnot.

On the other hand, many storygames use the character skills, capabilities, relationships, passions and the like to decide the outcome of actions and situations. And those things are strongly related to character decisions. Of course, we could argue that then those games (Burning Wheel, Dogs in the Vineyard or Sorcerer) are not really storygames but RPGs with some quirks, and all that.

I agree with Justin that there needs to be a game apart from the roleplaying exercise in order to an activity be considered as an RPG. I'm just not so sure that the game need always to be about mechanics related to in-character decisions to be an RPG, because every RPG contains lots of mechanics that lie outside the character's knowledge. For example, most development and experience mechanics, as Justin acknowledges. So, his definition, though useful, is far from universally valid. By that very definition, many RPGs could be STGs, and the opposite.

He mades extremely good points and, as I said, I'm probably 90% in agreement with him. For example, I consider that focusing on the quality of acting (talking in third or first person) is irrelevant: you are roleplaying the same.

QuoteOn the contrary, I think few working psychologists are acutely aware of the explanatory limitations of cognitive science, and as a consequence overestimate the heuristic benefits of localizing phenomena 'in the brain' and so on to conceptually understand the things in question (on which, see above). That holds especially (but not solely) for phenomenal consciousness (knowing what it feels like to experience things, from emotions to smells), the very type of thing we need to consider when explaining immersion in RPGs.

I love Chalmer's work, and psychology of consciousness is one of my favourite areas I like more Dennett, myself.

Thing is, the processes I'm talking about are not at such a high-level. I'm just talking about low-level processes that are widely tested and contrasted in research.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;466002Of course. The advice to the GM is explicitly that...

Well, I agree its a storygame mechanic but I wouldn't say that makes D&D a 'storygame'. D&D gives very different powers and responsibilities to the GM and to the players (or as some would say, the 'other players'). In the instance here, only the GM gets the storypowers.
Most of the hate you see hereabouts (and, OK, I'm not always the most reasonable of people either) is about how 'storygames' are a problem from a perspective of immersing in character. A GM exercising power behind the scenes doesn't directly interfere with this - making a system what I'd call a storygame as I'd understand the definition -  although it can potentially interfere with willing suspension of disbelief if the coincidences they set up are too improbable, and/or mess up character free will.

If you like, you could divide games along a continuum into
1. Traditonal Player/Trad GM    ('sandbox')
2. Storygame GM/Traditional Player (Railroad/Dragonlance)
3. Storygame GM/Storygame Player (?Wushu?)
4. Distributed GMing duties (whatever you call that)(?)

Just thinking out loud here. Anyway, I should let the main thrust of the thread continue onward to whatever trainwreck awaits.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;466002Of course. Fudging of dice or rules happens when the rules or dice don't cover a situation, or don't give the GM/players the results they want. When a game becomes all about giving the GM/players exactly the results they want, the rules are created to support that. For example, since the dice may cause your character to fail, let's have Hero Points which the player can use to stop them failing.

"See? We don't have to fudge things anymore."
"Actually the fudge is now built into the system.
"So it's not a fudge anymore."

Sorry. It's still a fudge. It's the most basic storygame element. And as I said, present in most game sessions, in practice even if not in the rules.

Unless you go with the crazy Benoist style of defining story games then story games actually only rarely feature hero points or something similar.
From the 10 or so storygames I own only fate uses hero points all others have no mechanics for taking undue influence on the development of the story save for the capabilities of your character.

Quote from: Imperator;465994When you are immersed in a cognitive task (for example, roleplaying a PC) and you switch to another (for example, looking in yor goddammed PC sheet what was your THAC0 and calculating how much you need to hit the orc) your brain  needs some time to adjust and get up to speed. There is a cognitive cost from switching that may range from mere miliseconds to minutes according to the task at hand. That is why multitasking is a bad idea, because we tend to suck at everything we're trying to multitask. Unless you are not using your brain to play, my point stands.

So, all RPG mechanics are dissociative.

Sorry Ramon, but one doesn't follow the other. I completely agree that the abstract nature of game mechanics requires you to adapt cognitively, and that this time of adaptation can vary from people to people using different mechanics and so on - I'd guess it's on the order of the millisecond to a second when we're talking about most RPG mechanics.

This means that with all RPG mechanics, there is a level of abstraction to interpret live as you play the game.

The difference now is that with an associated mechanic, this translates in instantly figuring what the mechanic represents in the game world, and thus role playing instinctively by the very act of letting your mind interpret such cues, whereas there are no such game world explanations for dissociated mechanics, in which case you are not role playing, but instead explain the use of the mechanic by some sort of authorial logic, narrative structure and bending, whatever the case may be.

Quote from: Benoist;466015The difference now is that with an associated mechanic, this translates in instantly figuring what the mechanic represents in the game world, and thus role playing instinctively by the very act of letting your mind interpret such cues, whereas there are no such game world explanations for dissociated mechanics, in which case you are not role playing, but instead explain the use of the mechanic by some sort of authorial logic, narrative structure and bending, whatever the case may be.

Fair enough... to a point I can think of some counterexamples, but I have to run now.

I think this discussion could benefit inmensely if we could post some examples of those stroy mechanics to see if they can or not produce a bigger or lesser dissociation.

Quote from: Imperator;466021I think this discussion could benefit inmensely if we could post some examples of those stroy mechanics to see if they can or not produce a bigger or lesser dissociation.

A classic one that I remember was when I first played Vampire: The Masquerade.  

Me (in-character voice): "How long does this invisibility of yours last?"

Player 1: "It lasts for one scene."

Me (out-of-character voice): "No, I was asking in-character."  

Player 1: "A scene lasts until there is a dramatic break in the action."  

Me (out-of-character): "No, my _character_ was asking your _character_ how long he can keep up being invisible.  I'd like to make our plans in-character.  He's over a hundred years old and does this all the time, so he should know how long he can keep up his invisibility."  

Player 1: "It doesn't work that way."  

That was a very in-my-face case where there was a clear problem of handling things in-character.

The "encounter" game unit of later D&D editions is comparable. The rules justify it from a tactical rather than a dramatic standpoint (which blur into each other as far as 4e's concerned, at least, with encounter = interesting stuff = conflict = drama), but fundamentally, it may create the same types of dissonance in play. Hence the "encountardization" expression.

My 2 cents about Justin´s blog entry:

If he takes the liberty to associate the term "roleplaying" with only the "world simulation" aspects of the game, I think a more honest and coherent label for such activity would be "World Simulation game" or "Alter Ego Immersion Game", or something like that. But definitely NOT "roleplaying game" ( as the term "roleplaying" is much wider in scope than that ).

And while I understand (and agree) with Benoist point of authorial/story-logic mechanics characterizing storygames, I smell a strong odor of circular logic in Justins "associative-dissociative" argument.