The Gaming Den

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

The same logic says that boxers are always either KOed on the first hit or never KOed.

fectin wrote:

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

The same logic says that boxers are always either KOed on the first hit or never KOed.

Only if you ignore the parameters of the question. But I won't stop you from attempting to apply my arguments to situations where things like wound penalties are most definitely on the table. For instance, if a boxer's eye has been hit and is swelling shut, under the guidelines proposed he would have no penalty to vision. But he is definitely impaired over the point where he was when he had clear use of both eyes, so he must be getting more awesome as he gets more hurt. Because otherwise he would be able to use whatever it is that is allowing him to see clearly through a swollen eye to see even better when he could use that eye freely.

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

It represents a high-level character's ability to be a complete badass and survive wounds that would have killed the mortal man he used to be.

Jesus Christ, how many times do I have to say this? This is ridiculous.

Dissociation is the difference between the mechanics and the character's perspective.

The relevant perspectives:
Player perspective: There are no mechanics for being wounded hindering your abiliy to fight.
Character perspective: Injured people are no less dangerous.

The irrelevant perspectives:
Character perspective: Injured people are no less dangerous.
Real world: Injured people are fucked up.

If you have to make your argument using an appeal to the way the real world works, you're not talking about dissociation and your argument is worthless for this discussion. If you want to make a thread about, "Vancian casting is unrealistic" or "HP as taking serious injuries is unrealistc," be my guest, but as long as we're talking about dissociation what you're saying isn't worth a damn.

DSMatticus wrote:Jesus Christ, how many times do I have to say this? This is ridiculous.

Dissociation is the difference between the mechanics and the character's perspective.

The relevant perspectives:
Player perspective: There are no mechanics for being wounded hindering your abiliy to fight.
Character perspective: Injured people are no less dangerous.

The irrelevant perspectives:
Character perspective: Injured people are no less dangerous.
Real world: Injured people are fucked up.

If you have to make your argument using an appeal to the way the real world works, you're not talking about dissociation and your argument is worthless for this discussion. If you want to make a thread about, "Vancian casting is unrealistic" or "HP as taking serious injuries is unrealistc," be my guest, but as long as we're talking about dissociation what you're saying isn't worth a damn.

If you notice, I didn't talk about that. But please, shout louder and strawman more. It makes you moar rite.

EDIT:

myself wrote: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?

Akula wrote: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.

How doesn't matter - argument from realism. It's hard to tell how far you are from death in real life. It is not in D&D land.

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

No it isn't, it doesn't matter how you represent it as long as the player and character version give the same results. If players see, "no wound penalties, and the characters think, "people have the willpower to overcome their wounds in a fight," it still completely works out. There is no dissociation.

You are in fact not using the word dissociation correctly, because your complaints are coming from the real world as opposed to D&D land.

DSMatticus wrote:

Akula wrote: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.

How doesn't matter - argument from realism. It's hard to tell how far you are from death in real life. It is not in D&D land.

How does matter, you seem to get to assume that whatever you want holds in DnD land and that there is no argument, but if I say something like, "poison blades always hit in a manner which allows their poison to be effective" then I have to jump through hoops to justify it to you. So fuck you, examine your own views.

You are in fact not using the word dissociation correctly, because your complaints are coming from the real world as opposed to D&D land.

No I am not you idiot, I am asking you to justify your arguments that X is not "dissociative." So far you have failed and just given me more of the "it isn't dissociative because I can assume the precondition that it isn't dissociative." I never referenced "reality" in my post.

Akula wrote:"poison blades always hit in a manner which allows their poison to be effective" then I have to jump through hoops to justify it to you

No, I'm not asking you to justify it. I'm asking you to say it at all - to sit down at a table, and explain to PC's why hitpoints aren't dissociative by telling them, "your players know poisoned weapons are harder to dodge." If that's the route you're willing to go, it defeats dissociation.

If you aren't willing to say, "poisons make weapons more accurate and this is a part of the world the characters live in," with a straight face, then you're still playing a dissociative (but more realistic) game.

Akula wrote:I am asking you to justify your arguments that X is not "dissociative."

I have explained why. I have provided you with the player perspective, and the character perspective. These are the only things necessary for considering dissociation. You are asking me to show you, "how is this setting not dissociated from reality," when it is in fact dissociated from reality (and I don't give a shit).

Here it is again, for reference:
Player: "I'm low on hitpoints."
Character: "I know I'm close to death. I don't feel like I can take much more."

P.S., here are associative poisons.
Player: "Hm. I seem to get hit more often by poisoned weapons than regular ones."
Character: "Poison makes weapons more accurate."

It gets rid of the dissociation problem instantly, but I get the feeling it wouldn't be very popular.

Akula wrote: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.

In DnD-land, powerful people who get shot with arrows feel pain, loose blood and take damage, but are able to continue fighting without being meaningfully hampered until they take enough damage that their willpower gives out, causing them to collapse and usually fall unconcious from the pain and physical beating that they have received. Your character is aware that they can only block out the pain and stress from injuries to a limited extent, and if they go over their own personal limit, they will fall over and maybe die. They are also aware that these limits are bigger for people that are more powerful, and that only recent, unhealed wounds have any meaningful effect on if someone can keep fighting or if they'll succumb to their wounds.

DSMatticus wrote:Here it is again, for reference:
Player: "I'm low on hitpoints."
Character: "I know I'm close to death. I don't feel like I can take much more."

But how (as a character) do you know you are "close to death?" The "Grit and bear it" is, frankly a bullshit argument. If you were really gritting and going through the pain, that very process would make you less able to do the shit you do (because you are concentrating on ignoring the pain) but that's not reflected in the rules.

As a character, the only real methods of viewing the world is through cause and effect. You can tell how strong you are by how much you can bench press, for example (and people do that in the real world). You can tell how tired you are by how your reactions slow down (at least in the real world). But since none of your actions are impared by any damage until you go negative, there is no in character way to determine how severaly damaged you are. That's dissassociation.

4E does have the bloodied status, which does give you a benchmark for how much damage something can take. Alone, it won't tell you when you're one arrow away from getting incapped, but if it takes 11 arrows to bloody you, then you can logically assume that 10-11 more is going to take you out of the fight.
The mechanics support characters being able to tell how much damage they can take. It is clunky, but it is there.

tzor wrote: But how (as a character) do you know you are "close to death?" The "Grit and bear it" is, frankly a bullshit argument. If you were really gritting and going through the pain, that very process would make you less able to do the shit you do (because you are concentrating on ignoring the pain) but that's not reflected in the rules.

This is not a wierd thing. There's even songs about it:
http://www.mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=5970

And plays:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_on_a_Hot_Tin_Roof

And so forth.

tzor wrote:As a character, the only real methods of viewing the world is through cause and effect. You can tell how strong you are by how much you can bench press, for example (and people do that in the real world). You can tell how tired you are by how your reactions slow down (at least in the real world). But since none of your actions are impared by any damage until you go negative, there is no in character way to determine how severaly damaged you are. That's dissassociation.

Carry that all the way through though, and it becomes obviously false. If characters cannot know anything except what is reflected in mechanical penalties/bonuses, then characters are all colorblind, mostly without a sense of smell, have no sense of taste, etc. Your assertion is flawed.

Incidentally, most of "feeling tired" is a function of adenosine buildup. That has little to nothing directly to do with reaction times.

Tzor wrote:But how (as a character) do you know you are "close to death?" The "Grit and bear it" is, frankly a bullshit argument.

In what sense? That it's unrealistic? If so, I don't care and it's off-topic. Are you trying to say it's a dissociated mechanic? Because I showed you clearly why it's not, and you haven't refuted that other to say, "that's unbelievable," which is an entirely different claim.

Here's an example of an unrealistic setting which is completely 100% associated: the Erfworld comic. It is a setting modeled after a Heroes of Might and Magic style turn-based strategy game. And the characters know the rules of the gameworld they live in. They know their own stats. Or that they have stats, anyway. They know the rules. This is literally the most associated it can possibly be. This is like, exactly as associated as we are to life.

So I don't give a shit if you think an explanation is bullshit based on how you regard reality. That has nothing to do with dissociationed mechanics.

DSMatticus wrote:This is like, exactly as associated as we are to life.

Actually, I think it might be more associated; I'm pretty sure that our understanding of the fundamental mechanics of the universe is significantly inferior to our understanding of the fundamental mechanics of a tabletop wargame.

DSMatticus,

I think what you might be missing is that most games don't spend much time explicitly describing the way that characters in the game perceive and interact with the game's mechanics. As a result, when people need to know how their character sees things, they tend to fill in whatever they think is "realistic" i.e. the way they imagine an earth human would perceive an analogous situation. You can't always predict how this gets filled in, and it often creates dissociations.

So let's look at HP. You're arguing that D&D-style HP is not dissociative, because characters in the game can know roughly how much health they have left, and know that they can keep fighting until unconsciousness. The problem is that the D&D books have never explicitly said, "D&D characters know how many HP they have left" (or said the opposite), so people are forced by the system to fill something in. Unless they know the rules well and are specifically trying to associate all the mechanics, most people are going to assume that you don't necessarily know how many HP you have--which is why we've all played in D&D groups where each fight was followed by a ridiculous song and dance in which the players awkwardly try to tell the cleric what healing spells they need without speaking OOC about it.

I think that defaulting behavior is why you're getting a lot of people calling "dissociated!" on mechanics you rightly point out are not inherently dissociated. So what's the moral of the story?

A: RPG books should spend more time than they do explaining what it's like to see through the eyes of an adventurer, and do a better job of flagging which mechanics are part of the game world's physics and which are part of narrative causality.

B: Recognize that the space you have to do this in is limited, and that the more alien you make the game's assumptions, the harder it will be for players to stay in that mindset. Therefore, mechanics which are not "realistic" (in the eyes of your target market) are by nature somewhat dissociated.

Ah-ah, careful RadiantPhoenix. We don't have to understand, we just have to vaguely know they're there and be subject to them as a part of our world. Explanation is nice, but not actually necessary for association. Life is still pretty associated, it's just a lot more confusing. The game designer is an ass who likes obscure mechanics.

Orion, that's actually pretty fair. All mechanics have the potential for association OR dissociation. What I mean is that pretty much all of D&D 3.5's mechanics can be explained in an associative way that does not contradict the setting or what we expect out of a fantasy hero genre (whereas with 4e, we can associate the mechanics but it involves contradicting existing fluff).

PoliteNewb wrote: I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest you never actually read any of Vance's books? Because if you replace "gandalf" and "Lina Inverse" with Rhialto the Marvelous or Iuconnu or other wizards who use Vancian magic (like D&D presents it), your substitution makes no sense. Because the answer to "since when?" is "since always".

AD&D wasn't designed to model every wizard ever...it specifically was NOT meant to model magic-users who could do the same shit over and over once they learned it. It was meant to model a very specific type of magic system.

The D&D magic-user was designed to model the D&D magic user. It's astoundingly bad at emulating the wizards of the DE books, where wizards are well-rounded adventurers with a handful of potent magic tricks, not walking weapons platforms.

The D&D magic-user was invented to emulate a siege weapon from Chainmail.

DSMatticus wrote: No, you want things to be dissociative and I don't.

You just refuse to see the dissociation in the portrayal of hit points you've chosen.

I mean okay. Here's an example. Your human warrior gets shot with a ballista for 12 damage. In the plot armor interpretation, it was a grazing hit and nobody really has any problem with that.

In the toughness interpretation of HP, you've now got this giant ass cross bolt sticking out of you, which oddly doesn't hurt your ability to fight in any way and whose injury is somehow minor. It doesn't damage your armor, it doesn't rip your cloak, no all your crap is perfectly fine and it just passed through your equipment like it wasn't there, despite the fact that the game says your equipment can be sundered, so it's obviously a physical object.

As far as fucked up storytelling, I'm thinking that's way worse than the plot armor explanation where you describe the hero barely dodging a lethal blow.

Before we get bogged down with the minutia of the physics involved with ballista bolts, are actually you arguing that the concept of Toughness HP is dissociative because there are no wound penalties in the system?

If so, we can stop right there because those are two completely separate (albeit related) mechanics. The lack of Wound Penalties is unrealistic and probably dissociative. Toughness Hit Points are probably realistic and probably associative.

Also related are going to be Powers and their Effects. If you have Attacks that will cripple people as they deal damage, then you're going to get Wound Penalties as a result, even though it's not explicitly labeled as such.
So, taking your example, if the Ballista Bolt's attack also had a rider effect called "Fucking Impaled by a Giant-Ass Ballista Bolt; You're going to Die and you need a new cape," then everything comes together neatly.

It's all part of a system. You can't change one piece of it and expect the rest of the system to account for the change.

-e-
Also associated: Expected Maximum hit point values. 12 damage may or may not be a lot of damage. We don't actually know. If characters are only expected to have like 10 hit points, then good. If characters are expected to have hundreds of hit points, then I'm going to kick the shit out of the guy who thinks that Ballistas only do 12 points of damage.

TL;DR: Step back from your ugly tree and look at the forest.

if the Ballista Bolt's attack also had a rider effect called "Fucking Impaled by a Giant-Ass Ballista Bolt; You're going to Die and you need a new cape,"

I want to write up a new system just to incorporate that effect.

Swordslinger wrote:
I mean okay. Here's an example. Your human warrior gets shot with a ballista for 12 damage. In the plot armor interpretation, it was a grazing hit and nobody really has any problem with that.

Ahem. If its a grazing wound this is actually a hybrid interpretation (HPs that are half real and half plot armour - not a plot armour interpretation. In the full Plot Armour interpretation the ballista bolt misses him entirely (he's not 'bloodied' yet), but the cleric still knows he's lost hit points from it and so zaps him with a healing word.

CCarter wrote: Ahem. If its a grazing wound this is actually a hybrid interpretation (HPs that are half real and half plot armour - not a plot armour interpretation. In the full Plot Armour interpretation the ballista bolt misses him entirely (he's not 'bloodied' yet), but the cleric still knows he's lost hit points from it and so zaps him with a healing word.

Plot armor can have grazing hits. You can take minor cosmetic cuts that don't slow you down and be okay. Plot armor just says that you don't take any lethal or debilitating wounds because your plot armor reduces them to either outright misses or minor blows.

Healing is always somewhat dissociative, because you'll always wonder why it's harder to heal superman than it is to heal a peasant.

Wrathzog wrote:Before we get bogged down with the minutia of the physics involved with ballista bolts, are actually you arguing that the concept of Toughness HP is dissociative because there are no wound penalties in the system?

Yes. Having wounds implies sections of your body are getting outright destroyed. Now I don't care if you do happen to be the terminator, Superman or an everyday soldier, wounds are going to slow you down. Sitting there at 1 hit point where a cat's bite or claw could disable you should not be you walking around fine.

If so, we can stop right there because those are two completely separate (albeit related) mechanics. The lack of Wound Penalties is unrealistic and probably dissociative. Toughness Hit Points are probably realistic and probably associative.

The two are inter-related. If Hit point loss doesn't come with wound penalties and it's supposed to be toughness based, that's dissociative.

Also associated: Expected Maximum hit point values. 12 damage may or may not be a lot of damage. We don't actually know. If characters are only expected to have like 10 hit points, then good. If characters are expected to have hundreds of hit points, then I'm going to kick the shit out of the guy who thinks that Ballistas only do 12 points of damage.

Okay, don't move the goalposts here. Obviously toughness HP makes sense if it's a static value like GURPS and you have the possibility of wound penalties and debilitating injuries. Seriously I can buy GURPS HP because when you get shot in the eye, you go blind.

We're talking about D&D and similar games here, where a human can have more HP than a stone wall. Now either those HP represent "plot armor" where the human is actually avoiding most of the real damage, the human is like superman where attacks arbitrarily bounce off, or the guy behaves much like a super-zombie where he can get full on impaled through the heart with a lance and keep coming.

Swordslinger wrote:the human is like superman where attacks arbitrarily bounce off, or the guy behaves much like a super-zombie where he can get full on impaled through the heart with a lance and keep coming.

It's a combination of these two, and it's not dissociative. A higher level character has more HP because his body can just flat out take more damage before it shows up. Call it an increase in toughness density, if you like, but a sword swing that might cleave a level 1 fighter from shoulder to hip leaves a shallow cut on a level 10 fighter's shoulder. The same amount of damage is turned into a less severe effect.

Meanwhile, heal effects restore that toughness, and in doing so wounds disappear. It takes more to heal juice to heal a tougher person because they have more toughness to potentially restore, even though the apparent wounds are identical.

It's unrealistic to a great extent, but it's entirely associative.

I mean, hell, "cure light wounds." What kind of spell name is that, anyway? 1d8+1 isn't "cure light wounds" to a level 1 character. That's "save you from mortal injury." 1d8+1 damage is only a light wound if you've got 50 HP 'of wounds.'

Swordslinger wrote:Having wounds implies sections of your body are getting outright destroyed. Now I don't care if you do happen to be the terminator, Superman or an everyday soldier, wounds are going to slow you down. Sitting there at 1 hit point where a cat's bite or claw could disable you should not be you walking around fine.

Swordslinger wrote:The two are inter-related. If Hit point loss doesn't come with wound penalties and it's supposed to be toughness based, that's dissociative.

Swordslinger, I had you down as the only reasonable member to join during the Great 4rry Raid of '11 but your stubborness regarding this is making me rethink that. I will say this in big letters so you can read it:

YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT DISASSOCIATED MEANS.

Disassociated means the mechanics cannot be described in the game world. Thats it.

It is not disassociated if D&D characters (who can punch through stone walls and survive 30' drops onto concrete) are supposed to be tougher than real humans and don't suffer wound penalties. It isn't disassociated if D&D magic works in a set way that isn't like anything in the real world. These can all be described and talked about by characters in the world.

Now, almost any mechanic can be made to be associative by describing the fluff in the right way. Earthdawn had character levels described in-universe as "circles" you progressed through and Exalted has Motes as something the characters know about. What makes a mechanic disassociative is when the fluff does not explain or line up with the mechanics, like 4e Martial dailies or 3e Barbarian Rage. Let's say 3e Barbarians had a gift from their totem-god which caused a tattoo to appear on their face. Parts of this tattoo then faded away each time they called on their rage until it had totally disappeared when they were all used and returned when the character slept. Barbarian Rage would be totally associated, and the barbarian would be able to say, in character, "I can only call on the rage of the gods once more this day, so we had best rest soon".

Do you understand?