Yeah, sorry HJ, I don't buy it.  All I have to go by is your posting history on the 3 or 4 boards that I've seen you post.  Any time you get into a disagreement with someone, you go running back to SA and quote the offending post to call them an idiot or similar because you can't do that on the forum that the quote came from (except here, but then everyone else could see what you were doing and would call you out on it.)

And sorry, when you spend so much time and posts calling someone an idiot and laughing at them, do you honestly expect them to take you serious when you want to have an "honest talk"?

In my observation, you like to troll other forums for the purpose of adding stuff to the grognard.txt thread for your own little circle jerk there.  Hell, it it weren't for discussions here and at TBP, grognard.txt would still only have about a dozen pages instead of over 2000.  You can try to explain or deny all you want, but that's the reputation I have of you based on what your actual behavior is.  I doubt I'm the only one who has come to this observation either.  But if I'm wrong, maybe the other posters here will correct me.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;564476But if I'm wrong, maybe the other posters here will correct me.

You are not wrong. HJ is a douche who trolls here and there to then run back to SA and post his collected "best of" to get pats on the back from the likes of Ettin, Cirno and Red Mage. He's a whore, in other words.

Quote from: Benoist;564455I can't but have a smile come to my face when a guy like you, silva, who posts about storygame this, narrative that, and so on, not seeing the difference between them and trad RPGs, then comes up and says "hey, there's no difference in terms of association between daily spells and daily powers for everyone!"

Kind of falls flat on my ears, in a kind of "well, duh, of course you would say that" sort of way, if you see what I mean.

Ben, I really strugle to see what my opinion about storygames has to do with the matter at hand. And I really think youre getting too obsessive with this story vs trad bullshit.

About daily spells/powers and association, its simple: both mechanics arise from "gamey" needs, not immersion/simulation ones. They exist for making the game more fun or tactical or etc. Thus both are artificial to in-game/fiction reasoning, both have a hi degree of dissociation. You can give all excuses in the world for linking these artificial mechanics to the setting, but in the end its just that: excuses. Its like coming up with an in-setting explanation for the bishop of chess moving only diagonally.

Compare that to Runequest mechanics, that thread the opoosite path, and you see the difference.

Quote from: silva;564487Ben, I really strugle to see what my opinion about storygames has to do with the matter at hand.

Well yeah. That's exactly what I'm saying: you don't see anything. For you it's all the same.

It's really the color blind going "yeah, that's RIGHT! There's no difference between red and green! What the fuck does it have to do with color blindness anyway??"

Quote from: silva;564487Compare that to Runequest mechanics, that thread the opoosite path, and you see the difference.

Why do you get the number of Power Points you get in RQ?  
Why do certain spells cost certain amounts of Power Points in RQ as opposed to others?

Is it because that makes perfect sense from the point of view of Campbellian myth as perceived through the Jungian subconscious?  Here's a hint:

Spoiler

Now you want to point out that the RQ skill-based system is less abstracted then a Class system, well of course it is, all Classes are abstracted, even very broad archetypes like in Barbarians of Lemuria.  That doesn't make them automatically dissociated, you have a poor concept of the term, which as Ben pointed out isn't surprising since you don't see much difference between in-character immersion and player metagaming.

The "Vancian" system of spellcasting in D&D didn't pick up the name because they yanked it out of a hat after a wild Wisconsin night of whores and blow.  The system is attempting to follow the structure of magic in Vance's novels among other sources.  Did the levels of power available get tuned so that a 1st Magic-User can't rub two twigs together and set the world on fire - yeah, so did every edition of Runequest and every other game worth playing.  Does that make it automatically dissociated?  Here's a recap:  

Spoiler

Quote from: CRKrueger;564437Dissociated methods are letting the player choose when to do it for narrative punch by limiting it to once/day.

The fact that to you those look the same does not in fact mean they are.  

IIRC D&D from 1e-3e says you can only cast so many spells per day before you become exhausted despite there being no mechanic for this.

You could just as easily say that you can only Roundhouse Kick once and then become too fatigued to do it again, which is exactly how spellcasting limits are justified.

Ultimately it doesn't matter.  It might be easier to justify spellcasting because it is literally magic, but its' still a justification.  There might be some difference between them but only a hair's breadth.

QuoteAs far as the other snarky cocknocking crap, well, you like 4e, it's a dominant gene in your DNA apparently.  

Over my head here.  I don't particularly care for 4e.  I like it in the sense that it would have been okay as its' own heroic fantasy RPG, and I don't think that it is entirely non-salvageable.  For me personally it doesn't feel like it has enough continuity from earlier iterations of the game though.  Going from 2e to 3e I still felt that 3e was D&D where as 4e seems to only have any connection to D&D because it had to have certain 'sacred cows' in order to use the brand name.  

Given conceptual space to have been anything the designers wanted to make it probably would have made for a better game.  It's worse than it could have been and it's not 'real' D&D.  To me it really feels like someone wrote a D&D adaptation for another system, and I'd be interested in that other game the system was actually made for if it actually existed.

Quote from: CRKrueger;564492Now you want to point out that the RQ skill-based system is less abstracted then a Class system, well of course it is, all Classes are abstracted, even very broad archetypes like in Barbarians of Lemuria.  That doesn't make them automatically dissociated, you have a poor concept of the term, which as Ben pointed out isn't surprising since you don't see much difference between in-character immersion and player metagaming.

And I didnt say otherwise. Associated/dissociated is not a binatry/0 or 1 thing, its a gradient. Classes tend to the 0 of that spectrum, while skills tend to the 1. That doesnt mean there cannot be situations where the opposite s true, though.

QuoteThe "Vancian" system of spellcasting in D&D didn't pick up the name because they yanked it out of a hat after a wild Wisconsin night of whores and blow.  The system is attempting to follow the structure of magic in Vance's novels among other sources.

..which just makes the point even more bizarre - you get a very specific element from a very specific setting with its own very specific internal logic.... and then go out and apply it to a multitude of vastly different settings, from high fantasy to post-apoc to gothic horror to sci-fi.. and you want me to believe this element is there to try and simulate better the internal reality of those settings ?

Oh man, is that hard to admit the vancian system exist for gamey/flavour purposes ? :rolleyes:

Quote from: Sacrosanct;564476Yeah, sorry HJ, I don't buy it.  All I have to go by is your posting history on the 3 or 4 boards that I've seen you post.  Any time you get into a disagreement with someone, you go running back to SA and quote the offending post to call them an idiot or similar because you can't do that on the forum that the quote came from (except here, but then everyone else could see what you were doing and would call you out on it.)

The last thing I quoted from here was reactions to the new edition of CoC. The first several posts in the thread were wailing and gnashing of teeth, which I thought was funny, so I quoted it. Why bother jumping into that?

QuoteAnd sorry, when you spend so much time and posts calling someone an idiot and laughing at them, do you honestly expect them to take you serious when you want to have an "honest talk"?

I usually only copypaste stuff from threads I don't care to get involved in or where I've given up, or if two other people in the thread are having a different conversation.

Look, people on RPGsite go on...and on...and on about what the 4vengers are doing, how such-and-such must really be pissing off the 4vengers, how everybody on SA is a 4vengers, how 4vengers do this because that's how they think, maaan, and I even see people saying that SA posters are cowards because we won't come have a debate with you. Well, when we do that, you guys are the ones who don't have the stones to actually debate without the conversation devolving into use of phrases like "fucking retarded" and accusations that we only come to troll. By and large, RPGsite doesn't really have the stomach for the fights it likes to pick. I gather that most here don't really want to debate 4e vs. pre-4e, or green mechanics vs. red mechanics, and so on, but to set up a straw dummy labeled "4venger" and take turns tilting at it. Much the same way BT didn't really want to engage with feminism or liberalism or anything else, he just wanted to rail against his exaggerated idea of what a feminist or a liberal is.

QuoteIn my observation, you like to troll other forums for the purpose of adding stuff to the grognard.txt thread for your own little circle jerk there.  Hell, it it weren't for discussions here and at TBP, grognard.txt would still only have about a dozen pages instead of over 2000.  You can try to explain or deny all you want, but that's the reputation I have of you based on what your actual behavior is.  I doubt I'm the only one who has come to this observation either.

Your observation is understandable, but way off the mark. See, trolling people is pissing in the pool; practically, it generates multiquote and line-for-line responses that then don't make any sense when you paste them someplace else. The finest purestrain grog usually comes from the OPs of threads (like that goddamn crazy rape knight guy over at ENWorld) or in blogs, where people can vent their spleen at length to no one in particular.

Sometimes people post quotes from threads in which they're participating in, but the idea that we'd get involved in threads just to provoke people into posting grognardy crap...it's silly because it's unnecessary. It would be like taking buckets down to the spring to set them out to collect rainwater. There's plenty right there for the taking.

Quote from: Halloween Jack;564556Your observation is understandable, but way off the mark. See, trolling people is pissing in the pool

And here I thought it was a big flag waving round with "hasn't lain with a woman yet" printed on it, giving nobodies a sense of having had an impact on the world when in fact it merely highlights their pitiable condition.

Speaking of, I'm not sure what your post has to do with associated game mechanics.

Quote from: Wolf, Richard;564017It doesn't really strike me that 4e is that much more 'disassociated' than its' predecessors.  

No edition of D&D had an accurate wound system.  It takes a week or so to heal a near fatal battle at level 1 without magic, and a month or more at level 10.  Also, at no level should you be able to take a dagger to the gut and then 'walk it off' to continue your day, so I'd be forced to assume that higher level characters missing a quarter or half their HP but still adventuring haven't actually been severely wounded (despite the fact that it might take them weeks or months of downtime to recover after they have completed their objective).  

I don't think Healing Surges are any more 'disassociated' than the X/Day mechanics or Vancian spell slots or traditional D&D HP mechanics.  There can be a contrived reason for any of these mechanics, but they are ultimately all pretty 'disassociated'; it's just that when you see an ability like Smite Evil 3/Day in 3e, while it's not identical to earlier editions it's also not completely novel either, like Healing Surges are.  


I wouldn't consider any edition of D&D close to being 'associated' at all.  Almost everything is highly abstracted.  I've got my own gripes with 4e but it being 'disassociated' would be pretty far down my list.

4e went a step further I think. Not healing surges, becuase HPs are abstract so definign the abstract gives you lots of openings, but some of the attack powers. Trip for example was the classic. Trip stopped being an actual trip and became a combat option that resulted in the application of an in game status 'prone' so you were able to trip an ooze, or a gelantinous cube. Like wise sand in their eyes that required neither sand nor for the oponent to have any actual eyes.
This happens in CCGs all the time. In VTES the rules say you can equip allies. the HellHound is an ally, a sports bike is a peice of equipment therefore you can give the hellhound a sports bike. 4e used the same logic. To achieve balance you ensure there are categories of things that interact in set ways. So Monsters are a thing and combat moves are a thing, because everything is designed on an exception basis, which is to say each monster or combat move will have its own rules and will rarely reference other 'elements' because those elements and constantly being modified and growing, therefore all combat moves can be applied to all monsters unless otherwise stated.

So Levels are an abstraction of increasing skill, HP are an abstraction of the ability to take more damage and border on disassociated but 4e combat powers through their very design were never meant to be associated to any real world event.

In answer to the OP... FGU systems like Daredevils or Aftermath were highly associated. You only increase the skills you sucessfully use in play. You note successes and after so many spend them to get a roll against your inverted skill to increase it (so high skills are difficult to increase). In addition instruction is a skill and there are comprehensive rules for training and learning skills based on the instruction score and the skill score. For other mechanics firearms damage are worked out through a formulae based on the weight of the bullet in grains and the muzzle velocity, this yeilds a numeric that in turn generates a dX+modifier. A load of guns are given but they are all built from same formula. There are similar 'real' physics types rules for disease, poison, etc.

Quote from: silva;563756This got me curious. Runequest seems the more "associated" game system I know of. But what other games out there are like it ? (I suspect the more realism-focused games are proner to be more "associated", but Im not sure).

Not quite the same thing, but another example of unusual* associated mechanics in character creation is Traveler: To build your character, you make actual, in-character decisions about your career.

*Unusual because the vast, vast, vast majority of character creation and advancement mechanics are dissociated.

Quote from: TomatoMalone;563821Or hit points can be said to be dissociated: The wizard doesn't know, in character, that there's a specific number tied to his vitality, that this number increases mysteriously with the equally mysterious 'leveling up' process.

You are talking about the metagame aspect of the mechanic. All mechanics are metagamed and abstracted. "Dissociated" does not refer to either metagamed mechanics or abtracted mechanics.

I recommend checking out Dissociated Mechanics: A Brief Primer. If you're honestly confused by these issues it should clear up a lot of your misconceptions.

Quote from: TomatoMalone;563833...but so far it's been largely used as an edition warrior term.

This is unsurprising, of course. Dissatisfaction with dissociated mechanics is consistently cited by people who didn't like 4E as the reason they didn't like it. Those lacking the terminology will often struggle to explain it in other ways (complaints that a fighter's daily power isn't "realistic" because they should be able to do it multiple times per day, for example, are common).

Frankly it baffles me when people like you claim that all of these people are somehow deluded or lying about their preferences. When someone says, "I don't like this" responding with "Nuh-uh! You do too like it!" seems both disrespectful and bizarre.

I'm equally confused when people point to a handful of dissociated mechanics in 3E (e.g. barbarian rages) and say, "If you're okay with that, then you should be OK with the plethora of pervasive dissociated mechanics in 4E." That's like saying, "You like ketchup? Then you must be OK with having a diet consisting entirely of tomatoes."

It, of course, doesn't surprise me that some people don't have an issue with dissociated mechanics. But it baffles me when they have such immense egos that they're incapable of recognizing that other people might have different agendas, different goals, and different tastes.

Quote from: Wolf, Richard;564518IIRC D&D from 1e-3e says you can only cast so many spells per day before you become exhausted despite there being no mechanic for this.

You could just as easily say that you can only Roundhouse Kick once and then become too fatigued to do it again, which is exactly how spellcasting limits are justified.

The problem with this, of course, is that if you have a Roundhouse Kick 1/day, Aerial Kick 1/day and Cock Punch 1/day, every one makes you a very specific kind of tired which only applies to the particular maneuver but not to anything else.

Which is why a more associative method is having a pool of points that represent something from an in-character perspective (be it fatigue, supernatural power or whatever) even if their particular number does not.

CRKrueger's histrionics about Runequest power points upthread nonwithstanding.

Quote from: CRKrueger;564337Why does my fighter get to roundhouse kick or whirlwind strike or mortschlag once a day?  Umm...because?

I can see it as a representation of "this is an opportunity that won't come up in every fight"... but x/day is a shitty way of representing that mechanically.

Anyway. Exalted would be incredibly associated, because things in-setting work in a similar way to the mechanics; characters talk about motes and essence, they know of skill and health levels, the charms are in-setting terms, etc.

Quote from: Wolf, Richard;564518You could just as easily say that you can only Roundhouse Kick once and then become too fatigued to do it again, which is exactly how spellcasting limits are justified.
.

I find it much easier to accept that spells either enervate you in this way or follow some kind of physics that requires something ike sleep in order to reuse. Its mystical, its magical, etc. It is isn't much of a problem to believe these sorts of explanations with magic because its made up. But roundhouse kicks are real. I know from experience that they may take more energy than a punch, but you should certainly be able to attempt them multiple times in a single combat encounter (and certainly a day)---thai boxers are trained to throw ten rapid fire round house kicks with each leg for example as standard part of pad work and sparing. I just don't think x/day or x/encounter are very good ways to represent this sort of thing. For me it is highly disruptive.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;564643I find it much easier to accept that spells either enervate you in this way or follow some kind of physics that requires something ike sleep in order to reuse. Its mystical, its magical, etc. It is isn't much of a problem to believe these sorts of explanations with magic because its made up. But roundhouse kicks are real. I know from experience that they may take more energy than a punch, but you should certainly be able to attempt them multiple times in a single combat encounter (and certainly a day)---thai boxers are trained to throw ten rapid fire round house kicks with each leg for example as standard part of pad work and sparing. I just don't think x/day or x/encounter are very good ways to represent this sort of thing. For me it is highly disruptive.

For melee/physical skills I agree. A seperate fatigue mechanic might go well with 'at will' phisical abilities.

I would apply the same logic to casting spells. Make the spells 'at will' but when you get fatigued from casting too much your spells get much weaker.

Consuption of fancy spell components might be a way to keep certain spells from being overly useful as well.

Just a thought.