What is a "Narrative Mechanic"?

[clearstream]

@clearstream, I don't think your suggested usage of diegetic, as a property of mechanics, is very close to that suggested by other participants in this thread. I don't think they had in mind corner cases of the sort your usage captures.

Well, strictly speaking I am saying that it is open to imagine mechanics diegetically, and I can recollect cases where we have done so at the table. Mostly, we've done so for humour, but we've also designed takes on specific mechanics like dice and inspiration that have made them diegetic. If anyone feels able to offer a robust definition that excludes my corner cases, I will gladly embrace it, but I don't think "game mechanics aren't allowed to be diegetic" works!

My definition states what diegetic looks like when applied to roleplaying games rather than movies or books. It incorporates the fairly obvious point that unlike a movie or book, participants (via the ludic-duality) get a say over what their characters know. That in itself is useful. For example, BitD flashbacks have the glitch that a cost incurred in the past such as the ongoing consequences of trauma can't reasonably be retconned to already-played scenes that fell chronologically between that past moment and now. At least, not without replaying them, which is something I have never seen anyone talking about or doing. That continuity glitch is not explained in world, it's solved through participants simply acting as if their characters don't know it.

We're still discovering ways to adequately describe games, so there is value in getting our terms right even when we don't immediately see what that value will be. In this case I can certainly see glimmers of value right now, let alone what might be discovered in future.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I really don't think we need more jargon, but if we must, then I'd say that "diegetic mechanic" is a mechanic that represents something that exists in the fictional world (which is most mechanics, but not quite all.) Mechanic that literally exists in the fictional world is an utterly useless definition, as that really isn't a thing.

 

[soviet]

I really don't think we need more jargon, but if we must, then I'd say that "diegetic mechanic" is a mechanic that represents something that exists in the fictional world (which is most mechanics, but not quite all.) Mechanic that literally exists in the fictional world is an utterly useless definition, as that really isn't a thing.

Which mechanics are you thinking of that don't at least represent something that exists in the fictional world?

 

[pemerton]

I'd say that "diegetic mechanic" is a mechanic that represents something that exists in the fictional world (which is most mechanics, but not quite all.)

I think this is something we don't agree on. I think that the typical RPG mechanic doesn't represent things in the fiction - it is not a sign. It's a process used by the game participants to mediate between signs.

Eg the roll of the saving throw die, and then looking up the chart (in AD&D) or adding the bonus and comparing it to the DC (in 3E onwards) doesn't represent anything. It's a device for working out what happens in the fiction.

Which mechanics are you thinking of that don't at least represent something that exists in the fictional world?

In my case, nearly all of them. To be clear, by mechanic I'm meaning a process such as rolling dice and feeding the result of the roll through the appropriate steps to generate an overall result.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Which mechanics are you thinking of that don't at least represent something that exists in the fictional world?

It is indeed super rare, so I am not really convinced usefulness of the term. But I'd say the sort of events that are completely meta would suffice. Like points you spent to get rerolls that do not represent your willpower or anything like that, or ones that let you insert things in the scene without it representing capability of any person in the fiction. Like inserting a wizard tower via a wises check would still be diegetic as the wises rank represents the character's knowledge of where wizard towers are, but if the same was done just by some drama point without reference to the characters capabilities, then it would be extradiegetic.

In any case, I am really not sold on the concept, but as people won't stop using the word, I tried to make some sense of it.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I think this is something we don't agree on. I think that the typical RPG mechanic doesn't represent things in the fiction - it is not a sign. It's a process used by the game participants to mediate between signs.

Eg the roll of the saving throw die, and then looking up the chart (in AD&D) or adding the bonus and comparing it to the DC (in 3E onwards) doesn't represent anything. It's a device for working out what happens in the fiction.

This might be mostly a semantic disagreement, but I think the saving throw clearly is a representative mechanic, albeit somewhat abstract. Your chances of success are tied to your character's capabilities. More agile people are better at dodging things, and you can train to become better at it. It is something that can be knowable to the characters. "You guys wait here, I'll run past this trap and see if there is a way to disable on the other side. I'm way better at dodging things than you, so hopefully I get through alive."

 

[clearstream]

I really don't think we need more jargon, but if we must, then I'd say that "diegetic mechanic" is a mechanic that represents something that exists in the fictional world (which is most mechanics, but not quite all.) Mechanic that literally exists in the fictional world is an utterly useless definition, as that really isn't a thing.

The game world is a confection of things that stand for other things. Nothing literally exists in the fictional world.

 

[pemerton]

This might be mostly a semantic disagreement, but I think the saving throw clearly is a representative mechanic, albeit somewhat abstract. Your chances of success are tied to your character's capabilities. More agile people are better at dodging things, and you can train to become better at it. It is something that can be knowable to the characters. "You guys wait here, I'll run past this trap and see if there is a way to disable on the other side. I'm way better at dodging things than you, so hopefully I get through alive."

But what represents the agility is the saving throw bonus, which serves as a type of regimented or graded descriptor. It's not the roll of the die that represents anything.

(Of course, in AD&D the saving throw bonus - or rather, target number - also represents relational properties of the character, like luck and divine favour. But those are still parts of the fiction.)

 

[Crimson Longinus]

But what represents the agility is the saving throw bonus, which serves as a type of regimented or graded descriptor. It's not the roll of the die that represents anything.

The die roll represent all the hidden variables that lead outcomes to be unpredictable in the real life too. Not particularly precise, but good enough for me. Like if in the real life someone is throwing tennis balls at you and you're trying to dodge, sometimes you do and sometimes they hit you. Same in the game.

 

[clearstream]

The die roll represent all the hidden variables that lead outcomes to be unpredictable in the real life too. Not particularly precise, but good enough for me. Like if in the real life someone is throwing tennis balls at you and you're trying to dodge, sometimes you do and sometimes they hit you. Same in the game.

That draws attention to what sorts of things one might picture characters know about a saving throw (depending on game text it subsists in)

Their odds, much as you outlined above
What sorts of things influence those odds
That their odds change, depending on what they're evading or resisting
That they experience an evasion or resistance interaction with some things, but not others
That they can learn things that persistently improve their odds
That others can learn things that persistently worsen their odds
If the mechanic is assumed to play out with fidelity in world, then the scientifically-minded in that world could derive the mechanic. They might measure for example that the probabilities are stepped, rather than continuous, say by casting spells requiring saving throws at test subjects.
They might perhaps realise that there is a simple theory that is statistically predictive, despite the myriad of details it apparently elides.
That if they fail to evade or resist initially, they might do so in time.

Alternatively, one could say that the saving throw prompts narration, but does not truly represent anything in world. The problem is then to answer how said narration is constrained, if in fact nothing in world accords with that prompt? How do I say that the mechanic is not possibly diegetic while in fact it successfully predicts what will happen and that seems like something that could observed by characters astute enough. This sort of dilemma leads to sequences of play in games in which characters wryly discuss their circumstances in terms of what they know about the game mechanics.

I'm thinking of moments in the scripts of Red vs Blue, or play at the table when we've been the unhappy victim of system and resolve our sense of dissonance by breaking the fourth wall, or moments when we're just having fun with it. I'm also thinking of the inhabitants of Duskvol's blanket blindness to discontinuities arising from the flashback mechanic. It seems to me that as author-audiences, we choose to act as if game mechanics are generally non-diegetic in order to sustain playfulness. That is, it is part of our lusory-attitudes to maintain a separation between saving throws and what's going on in world. Not because they're not tied together, but because to acknowledge they're tied together breaks play just as much as a cheat or spoilsport does. And there are moments when our play wryly embraces them.