D&D 5th Edition: the fifth edition of the discussion thread

[claddath]

This seems like a hair-splitting definition.

I'll grant you we're getting into a fine line here, but one that, none the less, exists.

So if the Immobilize power said, "This power represents your attempt to immobilize your opponent on your turn in a round. It does not represent a single swing of the sword, for example. Rather, it indicates whether, over several attempts in the round, you managed to keep your opponent still," would it cease to be a plot coupon and become a fully associated power? It still does not touch on what you actually did, just what you tried to accomplish.

This is still missing something, so no, it's still a plot coupon. In the attack roll I know (or at least have general idea) of specifically what my character is doing to achieve their goal when (s)he makes an attack, swing their sword (fist, or whatever) on order to hit their opponent. I have no idea of what a character is doing to stop someone from moving in your rule, is the character grabbing them? Getting in their way every time they take a step? Gluing their feet to the floor with paste? Therein lies the dissociation with this rule.

It's no less abstracted than an attack roll, no?

We aren't speaking of levels of abstraction. As Kurald Galain pointed out, ALL rules are abstracted to one degree or another in an RPG, and that really has no bearing on whether a rule is dissociated or not.


EDIT - Ninja'd by jseah. And possibly better explained than mine at that.

[Oracle_Hunter]

The difference is in the implied properties of "hitting" as described. Generally, when you hit things with a sword or weapon, they get hurt. There are virtually no exceptions. And for those things that logically do not (eg. ghosts), they are listed as immune to whatever damage a sword deals or have DR.

And yet, with enough muscles (i.e. STR) or leverage (i.e. Power Attack) you can still make a ghost bleed

Y'see, your assumptions are hardly universal and, IMHO, unique to the D&D mindset. In real life when you hit someone with a sword they are indeed "hurt" but "hurt" usually implies a variety of conditions which are not at all related to HP loss, no matter how construed. Most likely your combat ability will be impaired either by torn muscles, punctured viscera, or cut tendons -- indeed, one of the most common results of a skillful sword blow is your target "holding still." And yet, you claim that hitting something with a sword "hurts" it but would not naturally do anything to impair its movement or ability.

This is exactly why I hate "natural reasoning" or "verisimilitude" based arguments.

* * * *

In the past I would have called this a failure of imagination -- if you can't think of why Icy Terrain might impair an ooze's ability to move and defend itself there is no way to force you to imagine it differently -- but today I'll call it "hard-wired assumptions." It is simply true that human beings tend not to study the axioms that their statements are based on: even the statement that swords should not "logically" hurt ghosts reveals certain assumptions that have literally no basis in objective reality (i.e. there are ghosts to try and cut with swords) and therefore could easily be otherwise.

When it comes to game design, I find it most helpful to either try to justify axioms or at least argue from axioms that can have some basis in a shared consensus. Since shared consensuses are rare, it is more helpful to make a utilitarian or even flavor-based argument why mechanics should be one way or another.

N.B. This post is not intended to pick on jseah personally, but he has provided a rather concise example of a particular issue I see with the discussion at hand. If the best we can get with "disassociated mechanics" is that "the divisions are very finely made" then perhaps we need a reason why those fine distinctions are important, if they are at all.

[claddath]

And yet, with enough muscles (i.e. STR) or leverage (i.e. Power Attack) you can still make a ghost bleed

No, you can't.

Incorporeal: Can be harmed only by other incorporeal creatures, +1 or better magic weapons, or magic, with a 50% chance to ignore any damage from a corporeal source...

In real life when you hit someone with a sword they are indeed "hurt" but "hurt" usually implies a variety of conditions which are not at all related to HP loss, no matter how construed. Most likely your combat ability will be impaired either by torn muscles, punctured viscera, or cut tendons

All things that HP were designed to simulate. HP represents the general whittling down of combat ability through fatigue and small injury until you make that one mistake that proves fatal.

-- indeed, one of the most common results of a skillful sword blow is your target "holding still." And yet, you claim that hitting something with a sword "hurts" it but would not naturally do anything to impair its movement or ability.

OK, I've got to call "citation needed" on that one. I've NEVER seen anyone stop moving after being hit by a sword. In fact I'd say the most common reaction is to recoil from it. If your body doesn't react to pull away from pain stimulus then there's either a)something wrong you or b) you're trained to resist such things and hold your focus. Either way you aren't immobilized.

if you can't think of why Icy Terrain might impair an ooze's ability to move and defend itself there is no way to force you to imagine it differently

He didn't say impaired ability to move, he said trip. In fact I'm willing to bet that that 5 min stop in game play was because they all agreed that the terrain should impair the ooze in some way and the discussion was on how. The fact that the rules specifically said trip, caused the delay as the group was forced to re-write the mechanic on the fly to make it make internal sense.

even the statement that swords should not "logically" hurt ghosts reveals certain assumptions that have literally no basis in objective reality (i.e. there are ghosts to try and cut with swords) and therefore could easily be otherwise.

This is neither here nor there because now we're not talking about mechanics but about creature design. Furthermore, ghosts were used as an example of incorporeal creatures (ie: creatures that, given the internal logic of the game world, would not be affected by a sword blow)

[Fatebreaker]

All things that HP were designed to simulate. HP represents the general whittling down of combat ability through fatigue and small injury until you make that one mistake that proves fatal.

...except that losing HP doesn't "whittle down" your combat ability.

[claddath]

...except that losing HP doesn't "whittle down" your combat ability.

It does, just not in the way you seem to be looking for. A character with 40 HP is likely to last a good long while, he's going to have to screw up 7-10 more times before he's dead, whereas a character with 4 HP is weakened enough that his next misstep will kill him.

I agree that having penalties to hit as well would be more realistic, but the abstraction of the "To hit mechanic" isn't in large enough numbers to allow for it.

[Fatebreaker]

It does, just not in the way you seem to be looking for. A character with 40 HP is likely to last a good long while, he's going to have to screw up 7-10 more times before he's dead, whereas a character with 4 HP is weakened enough that his next misstep will kill him.

No. HP loss does not represent a whittling down of your combat ability. HP loss only represents the whittling down of your HP. All other factors remain unchanged. Your accuracy, your damage, your initiative, your fortitude, your reflexes, your willpower, your movement, all of these things are part of your combat ability, and if HP is associated with combat ability, then they should be tied in to your physical health. As it decreases, so should they. Hit points don't do that.

A character who swings once at 40hp and once at 4hp is, functionally, the same character. He hits just as hard and he hits just as often. Then, 4hp later, he magically drops dead.

[Oracle_Hunter]

This is neither here nor there because now we're not talking about mechanics but about creature design. Furthermore, ghosts were used as an example of incorporeal creatures (ie: creatures that, given the internal logic of the game world, would not be affected by a sword blow)

This is one of the few times Begging the Question can be used correctly.

Aside from the fact the creature design is mechanics, the "internal logic" of the game world has defined Ghosts to be Incorporeal which means they have certain immunities (which you correctly cited). However, jseah's point was that "those things that logically do not (eg. ghosts) [get hurt by swords]" are not, in fact, hurt by swords. But the question is raised: why is it "logical" that ghosts would not be hurt by swords? Your response is that the internal logic dictates it, so of course it makes sense -- the question begged is that the internal logic of the world be a given way. It need not be, and the failure to notice this necessary logical leap is a great hindrance in discussing game design.

As for swords -- well, let me say that when somebody cuts your leg properly, you are unlikely to be moving anywhere with any speed. Rather than get into a "what is real life sword-fighting like" contest, let me just note that the way HP deals with damage is not "logical" based on what is observed in real life and the contrary (i.e. that sword blows are very good at dazing, immobilizing, etc.) is far more common. The fact that anyone would argue the opposite shows how easy it is to adopt axioms without examining them.

[Stubbazubba]

I could try and counter jseah's reply by saying that the attack roll never mentions 'hitting' your opponent, but that's a whole new level of semantics, which this debate already has enough of.

I still feel that the attack roll and, even more so, AC, are no more dissociated than an Immobilize power; you decide for your character the effect you want to achieve and the exact hows are decided purely by narrative. So I was arguing that if the attack roll and AC are abstract but still associated, then so is Immobilize. Immobilize is possibly more or less abstracted than an attack roll, depending on the situation, but no less difficult a task for my character to figure out how to do than landing a solid blow. I will concede that landing a blow always involves hitting with something while immobilizing does not always look the same, but I'd say that's just a level of abstraction, not association. The player made an associated choice of tactic; the character used his skills to accomplish it.

Regardless, at this point it's best to simply agree to disagree, as we're now backed up to the walls of "yes it is" and "no its not" and I don't think we'll understand each other any more than we do now. If any of you think there's more to be gained by continuing, though, I'll gladly keep responding.

Re: Death Spirals

It would be a significant change to D&D to include a positive feedback loop in combat efficacy; without changing the numbers it would mean the tactically important range of health is now smaller, with everything else there just to make battles last longer, or make you surrender, or whatever else. But even though it encourages a wider variety of outcomes, the winners and losers are decided after much fewer dice rolls, increasing the role that randomness plays in combat. It would make getting first blood extremely important, and that puts the emphasis on initiative and Nova-ing early.

However, what I would find interesting is if the health-based effects were not uniform across all classes; the barbarian takes a penalty to his attack roll but any hit is considered a crit chance, the sorceror gets 1 highest-level spell back, the rogue has a higher movement speed, the fighter doesn't take any negative effects until he takes more damage, etc., etc. Stuff that would change your tactics once you're Bloodied or whatever, but not flat-out end the battle for all intents and purposes. While it should still be harder to win when the odds are that much against you, you actually get some benefit from it that you can use to try and bring them down with you, if they're close to the threshold and you have no other choice. After all, relatively few monsters in D&D take prisoners; players need to be able to come back after a bad start.

[Fatebreaker]

However, what I would find interesting is if the health-based effects were not uniform across all classes.

-snip-

Stuff that would change your tactics once you're Bloodied or whatever, but not flat-out end the battle for all intents and purposes.

Now this is an idea I can get behind. More incomparable abilities helps make class balance a question of preference rather than math, and letting players feel a mixture of excitement (cool abilities!) and worry (low health!) is a positive improvement over watching numbers tick down without any substantial change.

[claddath]

However, jseah's point was that "those things that logically do not (eg. ghosts) [get hurt by swords]" are not, in fact, hurt by swords. But the question is raised: why is it "logical" that ghosts would not be hurt by swords?

The problem is it WASN'T his point. jseah was never claiming that it was logical in any other sense internal game logic. It was an aside, intended to cover outlying cases to that his point didn't cover, so that no one could say "Aha! but what about ghosts! You can't hit THEM with a sword!". But I suspect you knew that.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Now this is an idea I can get behind. More incomparable abilities helps make class balance a question of preference rather than math, and letting players feel a mixture of excitement (cool abilities!) and worry (low health!) is a positive improvement over watching numbers tick down without any substantial change.

Interestingly, this can be used to give Mundanes nice things too.

Imagine, if you will, that being "Bloodied" (1/2 max HP or less) gave most things a modest penalty to ATK, DEF and Saves (say, -2 with this "Bounded Accuracy" thing). That's the default. Now make it so that Mundanes depart from this rule in interesting ways:

Barbarians/Berserkers get only a -2 ATK but all of their attacks deal 1/2 damage on a miss while Bloodied. Call it "Bloodlust."

Fighters suffer no penalties at all while Bloodied. Call it "Steadfast."

Rogues get instead -2 ATK, -2 Saves, +2 Damage and +2 AC while Bloodied. Call it "Cornered Rat."

This will makes Casters best while relatively healthy and cause differing levels of damage to be appropriate for the Mundanes. Fighters, in this example, are actually "the best at fighting" because they function the same whether at 100% HP or 1% HP, meaning they don't flag before the fight is done.

@claddath -- if that was indeed Jseah's point, I appreciate some clarity. Usually when you're doing something according the the rules of the game you say "by the rules" and not "logically" particularly when speaking in the abstract as he appeared to be. And, please, do not assume I am being disingenuous when I am making arguments -- I may be mistaken but I do not intend to put words in the mouths of others.

If I am wrong, please correct me. I am only human, after all

[claddath]

Regardless, at this point it's best to simply agree to disagree...

Yes I think we've hit that point. For what it's worth I enjoyed the debate with you. It forced me to really think about my position on the matter, and I understand it better as a result.

However, what I would find interesting is if the health-based effects were not uniform across all classes;

Oooh, I like this. Nicely simulates the surge of adrenaline in a dire situation*
And I love the idea that it's class based, gives the feel that the reaction is based in the characters training.

*(Monsters of the Jersey Shore p. 56 )

[Kurald Galain]

I still feel that the attack roll and, even more so, AC, are no more dissociated than an Immobilize power; you decide for your character the effect you want to achieve and the exact hows are decided purely by narrative.

That is incorrect. When making an attack roll, you are deciding on the action your character is taking, in-character. The effect you probably desire is making your opponent dead, but the action you're taking is attempting to whack him with your sword. As a result, it is clear what happens in-universe, and what logical measures your opponent can take to avoid being hit (e.g. if he's very dextrous or has a tough hide, he's harder to hit; if he's out of your reach, you can't hit him, etc).

For the immobilize effect, your character doesn't know what he's doing nor what's happening. The player, out of character, decides to use one of his "powers" that places the "immobilize" condition on the enemy. Since this condition is purely a rules construct, you don't know what has happened in-universe. You can make something up, but, and here's the important point, whatever you make up makes no difference on what your enemy can do to avoid it or get out of it. For example, you can make up that your character is dancing aroud his enemy to keep him still. However, your character still isn't moving, and if your character gets immobillized or teleported away himself he's still somehow doing that. You could instead decide that you've wrapped a rope around him, and the rules won't care whether you're holding or even carrying a rope. Basically, the enemy is immobilized because I say so.

That's the difference. You're making a decision out-of-character that doesn't make sense in-character, and the fluff of what you're saying has no bearing on what happens by the rules. And no, making up random fluff to justify what happens doesn't make it associated again, because your fluff won't match the crunch involved.

It's okay if you don't get this or don't mind this. The point is that numerous people do get this and do mind this, and this is a major reason why 4E sales are eclipsed by Pathfinder's. So if a game designer wants to increase his target audience, he would do well to avoid disassociation.

[lesser_minion]

Most likely your combat ability will be impaired either by torn muscles, punctured viscera, or cut tendons -- indeed, one of the most common results of a skillful sword blow is your target "holding still." And yet, you claim that hitting something with a sword "hurts" it but would not naturally do anything to impair its movement or ability.

Slice someone's leg open, and they're "holding still" because they're on the floor screaming and probably bleeding out.

That's an incapacitating injury. It is, in fact, related to hp loss, in that the central assumption of D&D hit points is that this is precisely what you can't do to someone while they have any hit points left.

Being immobilised simply by the effects of being injured is right out because the game says it is, not because it's somehow perceived as unrealistic.

[Saph]

It's okay if you don't get this or don't mind this. The point is that numerous people do get this and do mind this, and this is a major reason why 4E sales are eclipsed by Pathfinder's.

I think this was the major mistake the 4e designers made – they created a system that was great if you didn't care about verismilitude or mechanical variety or dissociated mechanics, but which was pretty unsatisfying if you did. Problem was, a good amount of their customer base were in the second category. I'm still not sure how they didn't pick this up in playtesting. It's not like it was hard to spot – within a week of the first 4e leaks there were hundreds of people saying the exact same thing.

There's a trap that a lot of people fall into in system design – I don't know the exact name for it, but it's so common that I'm sure there is one. Basically, if you understand and like a system but someone else doesn't, there are two ways you can respond: you can blame the system, or you can blame the user. Blaming the user is much easier, and it's never hard to come up with reasons – after all, some people do like the system, so whatever problems the user has, they can't be impossible ones. But the problem with that attitude is that a system isn't just supposed to be usable, it's also supposed to be accessible.

I suspect at some point the 4e designers started doing that. They decided that the issues with 4e's mechanics and verisimilitude weren't a problem for them if they approached the game in a certain way – which was true. But then they decided that since they were happy, they could afford to disregard the opinions of everyone else. And so they ended up with a split customer base.

[Kurald Galain]

I think this was the major mistake the 4e designers made – they created a system that was great if you didn't care about verismilitude or mechanical variety or dissociated mechanics, but which was pretty unsatisfying if you did. Problem was, a good amount of their customer base were in the second category. I'm still not sure how they didn't pick this up in playtesting. It's not like it was hard to spot – within a week of the first 4e leaks there were hundreds of people saying the exact same thing.

The echo chamber effect, I'd say. Everybody thinks that his personal opinion is the majority opinion.

They were also vastly overestimating how many people actually had problems with game balance in 3E. True, there are some vocal forum users (especially over at WOTC) that scream bloody murder about any perceived imbalance in the game, but the point of actual fact is that millions of people play lots of 1E/2E/3E/PF and have no issue with balance. So the balanced game that WOTC designed is what people asked for, or at least the vocal people, but not what people actually wanted.

[Kurald Galain]

Being immobilised simply by the effects of being injured is right out because the game says it is, not because it's somehow perceived as unrealistic.

Yes. Furthermore, you know the enemy isn't immobilized because he's fallen on the ground, because the ruels of the game tell you that fallen on the ground is known as the "prone" condition, which has its own clear rules about how you can crawl around and get up.

And you know you're not holding your enemy in place, because that would be the "grabbed" condition, which again has clear rules about how to break out of there.

So what "immobilized" tells you is that you aren't on the ground, aren't held fast by someone, there's no magic involved (assuming a martial power) and still you are unable to walk... somehow.

Incidentally, 5E's playtest does have a "prone" condition, but doesn't have "immobilized" anymore. Guess why

[Oracle_Hunter]

I think this was the major mistake the 4e designers made – they created a system that was great if you didn't care about verismilitude or mechanical variety or dissociated mechanics, but which was pretty unsatisfying if you did. Problem was, a good amount of their customer base were in the second category. I'm still not sure how they didn't pick this up in playtesting. It's not like it was hard to spot – within a week of the first 4e leaks there were hundreds of people saying the exact same thing.

The real problem is how to design around this, since everyone's "verisimilitude," "mechanical variety," and "disassociated mechanics" is different. I mean, nobody cared about HP, AC, XP or any of the dozens of basic "disassociated mechanics" before 4e came out -- it was only after that these terms came into vogue and somehow were never applied to previous editions.

If I were a game designer I'd have fits if I were told to design a game to satisfy the former: my only choice would be to slavishly adhere to what had come before rather than try and design a game.

If this sounds heated, it's because it is. The only way to design around taste is via focus grouping or "taste testing" by an elite group. The former is what we're doing right now and I, for one, dislike the nostalgic tone that a putative new game is taking. By focusing on these taste sensations, WotC is neglecting the sort of game design that will make them stand out in field for modern RPGs and sacrificing a chance to attract new Players (who appreciate a well-designed game) to cling to those who have already decided to go with Pathfinder.

[Reverent-One]

It's okay if you don't get this or don't mind this. The point is that numerous people do get this and do mind this, and this is a major reason why 4E sales are eclipsed by Pathfinder's. So if a game designer wants to increase his target audience, he would do well to avoid disassociation.

Lots of *citation needed* in this paragraph, including whether or not 4e sales acually were eclipsed by Pathfinder's or whether that's just a conclusion drawn from incomplete data.

They were also vastly overestimating how many people actually had problems with game balance in 3E. True, there are some vocal forum users (especially over at WOTC) that scream bloody murder about any perceived imbalance in the game, but the point of actual fact is that millions of people play lots of 1E/2E/3E/PF and have no issue with balance. So the balanced game that WOTC designed is what people asked for, or at least the vocal people, but not what people actually wanted.

Also interesting how you think you're qualified to say you know what people actually wanted when WoTC didn't.

[Knaight]

They were also vastly overestimating how many people actually had problems with game balance in 3E. True, there are some vocal forum users (especially over at WOTC) that scream bloody murder about any perceived imbalance in the game, but the point of actual fact is that millions of people play lots of 1E/2E/3E/PF and have no issue with balance. So the balanced game that WOTC designed is what people asked for, or at least the vocal people, but not what people actually wanted.

Or millions of people played those games, had an issue with balance, but continued to play them due to them being a general positive. Plenty of people who play them consider the balancing something they need to work around, as this forum indicates, and trying to equate people who play with people who don't have balance problems is disingenuous.

[Clawhound]

I don't remember who said this, or something like it. I think it was Ronald Moore of Battlestar Galactica. It went something like, "My job is to write the show that you don't know that you want to see."

I feel that this game design process is the same thing. The job of the game designers isn't to give us exactly what we want, it's to give us what we don't know that we want. We've become blind to many aspects of the game, and something redesigned can give us a better experience.

For example, "advantage" does that. Many folks like advantage because they like the simpler set of limited rules replacing the more complicated numerical rules. It's just easier to understand and implement when you already have a myriad of rules to learn.

That's what I want. I want the fundamentals reexamined and those things which are awkward or produce too many unintended results to get redesigned. The game might lose something that I like, but on balance I like to think that I'll get lots of better stuff in return.

[Ashdate]

It's okay if you don't get this or don't mind this. The point is that numerous people do get this and do mind this, and this is a major reason why 4E sales are eclipsed by Pathfinder's. So if a game designer wants to increase his target audience, he would do well to avoid disassociation.

While I'm sure that the "feel" of the game was part of it, I would also chalk up part of 4e's problems being that the previous edition decided to release the bulk of their rules for free, for use by other companies (the d20srd). One of which (Paizo) used to make a modification of the 3.5 rules (Pathfinder), which itself, has a free SRD (and for a while, the entire PHB was a free download too).

I think we all enjoyed the 3e SRD, but honestly; it seems like a terrible business decision in hindsight.

They were also vastly overestimating how many people actually had problems with game balance in 3E. True, there are some vocal forum users (especially over at WOTC) that scream bloody murder about any perceived imbalance in the game, but the point of actual fact is that millions of people play lots of 1E/2E/3E/PF and have no issue with balance. So the balanced game that WOTC designed is what people asked for, or at least the vocal people, but not what people actually wanted.

I think this is true to a point; no edition has truly been "balanced" prior to 4e (although whether 4e balance exists is certainly debatable), but the one thing that really has changed from 3.5 to 4e is the introduction of the Internet. 3.5 Wizards aren't inherently broken compared to fighters until you visit an optimization guide

[Siegel]

Hey everyone, lets just go and play dungeon world!

[allenw]

While I'm sure that the "feel" of the game was part of it, I would also chalk up part of 4e's problems being that the previous edition decided to release the bulk of their rules for free, for use by other companies (the d20srd). One of which (Paizo) used to make a modification of the 3.5 rules (Pathfinder), which itself, has a free SRD (and for a while, the entire PHB was a free download too).

I think we all enjoyed the 3e SRD, but honestly; it seems like a terrible business decision in hindsight.

I think (based only on my perceptions) that the 3e SRD and OGL worked fine for it's intended purpose: increasing D20 market share, and thus D&D's overall sales and influence. If Wizards/Hasbro had stuck with the concept, it might still be benefittting them (and almost certainly Paizo would still be making D&D products, rarher than it's own OGL game).
The business problem with the OGL/SRD is that it limited future options. In particular, it meant that if D&D evolved in a direction that a significant portion of its fans (and content producers) didn't like, they had much less reason to follow along.

[jseah]

I won't specifically respond to points Oracle Hunter brought up, save to say that he was right that I was thinking in terms of "ghosts aren't material! the sword will just go right through!"
I had not gotten as far as making the connection that "ghosts aren't material!" was really an in-game definition.

Which DOES bring up a rather important point. In order for mechanics to be associated, the mechanics must be tied to and logically consistent with a set of internal definitions. *Most especially when the situation is not common in RL or simply hard to imagine (eg. ghosts)
In this case, the ghost is defined by game rules to be non-material and thus material things (like swords) go right through them. This contributes to keeping things like "attack rolls with a sword" consistent and associated.

Its when you have ghosts that can walk through walls (clearly non-material) be able to be hit by 100% material things because "my character has a power that deals damage!"... and this part is important, *without further explanation*, that it becomes inconsistent and disassociated.

The bit about Icy Terrain tripping an ooze was that my image of an ooze was a lump of amorphous goo (which is pretty much like the 3E picture of it), with no limbs or facing and clearly stable center of gravity. 3E oozes were also immune to the prone condition.
At the time that occurred, we eventually agreed to keep going because 5 minutes was a bit too long to have a discussion about how making the ground icy could make a blob trip. If we had actually decided to rewrite Icy Terrain, I might have stayed "in" for a little longer, but because we did not, I essentially stopped playing an RPG and just went for the social event and abstract tactical wargame.


I might also like to mention that my usual standard of consistent would demand that hp also model disabling injuries, probably through the imposition of status effects (with increasing probability as hp goes down) like broken limbs or torn muscles.

Obviously hp is a bad model, and most people can tell that. But how do you tell when something is a bad model? Is the rules for the 3.5 fireball a bad model?
Hence why I had the idea of writing down the RAI for rules. If the designers had written down their mental image of fireball, then the edge cases and consequences of fireball would be far far easier to work out. Instead of arguing about whether it has any pressure wave and would knock a glass vase (glass is quite resistant to heat) over.

[Menteith]

I think this is true to a point; no edition has truly been "balanced" prior to 4e (although whether 4e balance exists is certainly debatable), but the one thing that really has changed from 3.5 to 4e is the introduction of the Internet. 3.5 Wizards aren't inherently broken compared to fighters until you visit an optimization guide

It's also worth pointing out that (in my experience) many groups actually enjoy the different levels of play that can occur as a result of this. If everyone wants a lower power game, people start to use Healers and Warmages as the primary casters alongside Barbarians and Knights. If everyone wants a higher power game, then parties with Beguilers and Dread Necromancers show up with Warblades and Crusaders. It was only a problem because the classes in the PHB were, for the most part, the most poorly designed and presented material in D&D3.5, with classes like the Wizard and Cleric being presented as equal as the Monk. There's nothing wrong with having variable power level across a system, so long as it's clear to the players that certain classes shouldn't be in the same group.

[kyoryu]

That's the difference. You're making a decision out-of-character that doesn't make sense in-character, and the fluff of what you're saying has no bearing on what happens by the rules. And no, making up random fluff to justify what happens doesn't make it associated again, because your fluff won't match the crunch involved.

Why doesn't it make sense? According to what standard?

(I see we're using the 'dissociated means it doesn't make in-world sense' definition of the term, rather than the 'based on information the character couldn't know' definition. Those seem to be the two main ones thrown around.)

Why can't the fighter know that he can immobilize somebody? Experimentally, he can determine that he can.

We can describe *how* that happens for any scenario, in addition to the default 'fluff'. You may not be sufficiently invested to try and find a fluff description that fits, but that's not the question here.

When people get hit, they tend to recoil in pain. THat's modeled in many systems. Why is that unrealistic in 4e?

And if your point is an abstraction doesn't make sense in some scenarios, therefore is dissociated and bad, then tell me: In what 'real-world' sense does it make sense for anybody to ever say "you know what, it's okay if that trained warrior hits me, because it won't really do enough damage to count"... not to mention the million other ways in which hp "fluff" doesn't match reality.

And that's why I don't buy the "dissociated mechanics" cry. I *do* believe that 4e pulls people out of their suspension of disbelief though. But, objectively, the nonsensical bits of 4e come up much less frequently than hp, which is nonsensical in every version of the game ever published.

And I think that's the key. We've internalized hit points. We've internalized some of the other weirdnesses of D&D, have gotten past them, and moved on. But the new weirdnesses of 4e, combined with what I think is something of an uncanny valley effect (the game looks similar to D&D, but things are often just slightly different in weird ways) is enough to cause people to just rebel against it.

[Fatebreaker]

It's okay if you don't get this or don't mind this. The point is that numerous people do get this and do mind this, and this is a major reason why 4E sales are eclipsed by Pathfinder's. So if a game designer wants to increase his target audience, he would do well to avoid disassociation.

(emphasis added)

That's a pretty big leap to take. There are plenty of other reasons folks might have stuck with Pathfinder. It was a familiar system. It was compatible with all their old material. It has a free SRD. WotC aggravated older players with their marketing campaign.

Connecting 4e sales vs. Pathfinder sales to something like "disassociation" is the kind of accusation which first requires accounting for other factors before you can try to prove that correlation is also causality.

I think this was the major mistake the 4e designers made – they created a system that was great if you didn't care about verismilitude or mechanical variety or dissociated mechanics, but which was pretty unsatisfying if you did. Problem was, a good amount of their customer base were in the second category.

Funny. I find 4e superior because it lets you customize and tailor the fluff of your abilities to your preferences. I get why folks would not like this style, but I'd be really curious to see how the same mechanics would fair in the court of public opinion under different marketing.

Or, to paraphrase and expand on Oracle_Hunter's bit, there are plenty of disassociated mechanics in previous editions, but they seem to get a pass. That suggests, to me at least, that the problem isn't associated vs. disassociated, but something else entirely.

They were also vastly overestimating how many people actually had problems with game balance in 3E. True, there are some vocal forum users (especially over at WOTC) that scream bloody murder about any perceived imbalance in the game, but the point of actual fact is that millions of people play lots of 1E/2E/3E/PF and have no issue with balance. So the balanced game that WOTC designed is what people asked for, or at least the vocal people, but not what people actually wanted.

(emphasis added again)

People who play can still have issues with balance. Moreover, judging by the commentary from the 3.x section, not only can people both play and have balance troubles, but they do. Let's not be deceptively simplistic about how and why people play the games they do.

Incidentally, 5E's playtest does have a "prone" condition, but doesn't have "immobilized" anymore. Guess why

5e's playtest doesn't have a lot of things. In fact, it includes so few things that the absence of any single rule doesn't actually mean anything.

[Kurald Galain]

That's a pretty big leap to take. There are plenty of other reasons folks might have stuck with Pathfinder.

No, really not. The fundamental difference between 3E and 4E is that 3E bases the rules on the fluff, and 4E bases the fluff on the rules (or on whatever you like, really, and it's also acceptable if there isn't any). This is the design principle, and most criticism of 4E boils down to people not liking this in an RPG. Disassociated mechanics are just a symptom; but note that if you base rules on fluff, you won't get disassociated mechanics in the first place.

It is also clear that the 4.4 design team tried to step back from this, although it's hard within the 4.0 framework; and that the 5E design team (which is mostly the same people) is once again trying to make a game that bases rules on the fluff - simply because sales figures indicate that the majority of players prefer this. And WOTC can continue selling 4E fo the minority of players that don't.

[jseah]

Funny. I find 4e superior because it lets you customize and tailor the fluff of your abilities to your preferences. I get why folks would not like this style, but I'd be really curious to see how the same mechanics would fair in the court of public opinion under different marketing.

Or, to paraphrase and expand on Oracle_Hunter's bit, there are plenty of disassociated mechanics in previous editions, but they seem to get a pass. That suggests, to me at least, that the problem isn't associated vs. disassociated, but something else entirely.

The problem here is that you get to rewrite your fluff. Which, for me and other people, can result in disassociation far more easily than edge case occurrence.

EDIT:
To me, this is incompatible with the sense of being "in" a world. Rather than making up whatever you feel like.