Author: Adrian Brooks

On another message board, a GM wrote “I liked [Dungeon World] fine … but my players didn’t. The dissociated mechanics were too weird for them.”

I didn’t know the term “dissociated mechanics”. It comes from http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/17231/roleplaying-games/dissociated-mechanics-a-brief-primer. The brief version is “look at the player’s decision-making process when using the mechanic: If the player’s decision can be directly equated to a decision made by the character, then the mechanic is associated. If it cannot be directly equated, then it is dissociated.”

Most DW moves are associated. Like, in Hack And Slash, “At your option, you may choose to do +1d6 damage but expose yourself to the enemy’s attack.” The character can choose to expose himself for a benefit and a cost.

Some others are disassociated. A Wizard “Cast a Spell” 7-9 option:

*The spell disturbs the fabric of reality as it is cast—take -1 ongoing to cast a spell until the next time you Prepare Spells.

That’s a player choice, not a character choice; the character didn’t choose to disturb the fabric of reality, but the player did. The sort of decision that’s only made GMs, rather than players, in many other RPGs. And some of my correspondent’s players find that weird.

What I’m wondering is: Does it have to be this way?

If the 7-9 Wizard cast a spell were instead:

“✴On a 7-9, the spell is cast, but takes significant extra effort. Choose one:

You make abnormally loud commands and wild gestures. This draws unwelcome attention or puts you in a spot. The GM will tell you how.

You force the spell out through sheer willpower. This disturbs your previous preparation —take -1 ongoing to cast a spell until the next time you Prepare Spells.

You use the spell’s own energy to release itself. After it is cast, the spell is forgotten. You cannot cast the spell again until you prepare spells.”

We get the same effects, recast as player choices. No disassociated weirdness any more.

So then the question is, can we do the same (or similar) for every disassociated move for the benefit of those players who don’t get along with them? Can we find examples where we can’t?

http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/17231/roleplaying-games/dissociated-mechanics-a-brief-primer

One of my players – the Wizard – expressed dismay at getting an experience point, as she “didn’t want to pass level 10 and have to stop playing [her character]”.

Clearly carrying on is an option, either in a new class or with an apprentice. But I’ve no idea how this works in practice.

Can anyone share experiences of (themselves or their players) passing level 10?

Magic Missile: What’s its range?

That is, given the rules don’t say, what’s its range in your game? Is it something other than “If you can see it, you can zap it”?

Can a cleric cast word of recall, then learn some other spell and still have the recall work on the command word?

How about casting a true seeing, and then replace that while its still ongoing?

Or a wizard with invisibility?

Most folk passing through Enoch Gap assume “the Gap” refers to the pass through the chalk downs where the village is located, or the inn of that name where they spend the night. Only those with knowledge of the secret histories of the world, or those who sufficiently annoy the locals, will be directed away from the main road and up the winding sheep path to the top of the escarpment where (it is said) Enoch made the Gap.

Surrounded by a low wall to prevent accidental ingress, two halves of a 30′ honey-coloured boulder jut from the meadow, split in two by some ancient calamity. In the split is the Gap itself; not a black void, but a fuzzy grey nothingness, a blind spot unresolvable by normal vision

.

Various truisms: Legend says that many years ago Prince Edric the Foolish led his men into the Gap, and none ever returned; the same goes for many less notable locals, sheep, birds, rabbits and the like. You can’t see through or past the Gap. It looks pretty much the same from all sides. Objects thrown or propelled into it don’t come out, even if their trajectory would imply they should. Poles, arms, and adventurers, half-thrust or dangled into the Gap, may be retrieved unharmed; persons retrieved report seeing, feeling and hearing an all-encompassing nothingness.

Such a thing can’t be just a route to annihilation, though, can it? It must lead somewhere. There’s only one sure way to find out…

Are the battle axe, long sword and flail in the rules – weapons that give +1 damage – supposed to be two-handed weapons? It doesn’t actually say so.

I’m not interested in historical or other game definitions; I know all that. Nor “Do what you want” answers. Merely this game’s authorial intent.