What is a "Narrative Mechanic"?

[AbdulAlhazred]

It may just be a matter of preference, overall. I don't find out of character discussion to ruin immersion for me. But, I also don't think that my BitD game have required the kind of discussion you're talking about. I'm sure it happened a bit, but I don't think it's a necessity.

I would expect it would become less so for your group as you guys get used to the game.

Right, in our game, by the 3rd session say, Beaker would just step up and lob a smoke bomb (maybe it would require a flashback to get it, maybe not) and then Takeo would be like "OK, the guards moved away, I'm on standard load, I can probably run by quickly while they're not looking." Like, we just got to the point where it felt like the plan already existed, or at least we were like a SFO unit, just getting it done (and sometimes it went belly up in hilarious ways).

 

[clearstream]

I think effectively you are though. Since 'diegetic' becomes nothing but an opinion, and one where there's a clear preference, there's a very strong tendency to simply see what appeals to you as having these 'good attributes'. Mushy definitions lead to mushy analysis.

Effectively and actually, I am not. My definition is perfectly concrete: it defines exactly what it is to be diegetic. Most importantly, it incorporates the voluntary and performative nature of TTRPG play. Definitions that fail to do that are indeed mushy, as they cannot speak to an abundance of putative "edge cases". Furthermore they are stifling: skirting a pretence that everything that will be known about TTRPG is known today.

I'd vastly prefer if you'd simply put examples of actual play out there which illustrate things. I may not be as good about doing that myself as some people, but I do try to relate instances of play to my specific points and build on grounded experience. Just so I can raise some more hackles (J/K) I'd point out that this was the core ethos of The Forge, describe the actual play and THEN theorize about it!

I currently prefer to work from my own experiences at the table, and video accounts of play such as the Blinding Light series by Jeremy Strandberg for Stonetop. Written accounts typically have a paucity of detail (see the account of BitD in your last few posts) and are quickly quibbled (see responses to @Crimson Longinus's account in this thread). While some groups making videos are visibly playing to the camera, there is such an abundance of material that it's possible to find useful documentation of play. John Harper has recorded almost fifty videos of BitD actual play: recommended viewing! As an exception, @pemerton writes up well-detailed reports that I count equivalent to video. Unless you're posting something as extensive as their Torchbearer 2 write-ups, I don't count it of any special value to analysis beyond testimony to subjective experience.

I'm happy to identify actual play videos as evidence. The two I already referred to are fair examples, and I can suggest some for a trad game if that would also be helpful. How We Role has some excellent actual play videos: including Burning Wheel run by Luke Crane and Apocalypse World run by Vincent Baker.

EDITED Added links to videos.

 

[aramis erak]

Look, by any defensible definition of 'diegetic' there can be NO game mechanics who's operation by a player fits that bill. That's my conclusion. Rolling dice is not diegetic (aside from your peculiar case, perhaps), marking off hit points of damage is not diegetic, no forms of manipulation of a currency are diegetic, etc.

And this is why I consider digetic/non-digetic utterly irrelevant to a game. From where I sit, almost no mechanics are known the the characters, except in some pretty in your face requirements. The odds of those mechanics might be, but it doesn't matter. Such as Jonny Archer knows that he can hit a man sized target about half the time at 100yd, and a walking one to 60yd... He doesn't know that the decision is made by a being rolling an icosahedron with 20 numbers on it... nor his THAC-0 is some specific number. He knows only the outcomes of the mechanics, not the mechanics themselves.

So D&D wizards, given that spells fall into ranks, and until you can cast 3 spells a day, you can't learn the second tier spells... guilds would require a demonstration for access to the spellbooks of the guild of ability to learn it before trusting you to study it from the tutorial book, get it in your brain, then intersect it with your spell book meaningfully to you, and apply the magic goodies at the intersections to inscribe it in... Especially since accidental casting of the spell from the book directly results in both books lacking the spell... (then someone has to go and re-add it to the instruction copy...

But in the end, digetic or non doesn't affect how I run, nor how most of my players play; it's far less relevant than the player's choices being reasonably informed.

Except they don't overall make the situation worse unless you are playing badly. They overall make it better - but at the rate of two steps forward and one step back rather than always going forward cause we can't find reverse.

Which, for many, myself included, sounds absolutely «bleep» «bleep» totally «bleep»ing miserable a way to spend an evening.
I don't care IAB episodes in cop shows, either, unless IAB are the main cast. (cue BBC's Line of Duty about AC-12)

Just, like, use your imagination, guys.

Much as I allow use of techniques for retroactively bringing things, I genuinely dislike them. It's not a lack of imagination, it's that I now have to reimagine the inbetween... and that some players use it to avoid Encumbrance penalties... Cue Shinobu and her extridimensional pocket hammer, and ability to partially manifest extracorporally via phone line... it's funny in the visual medium, but not something I want happening in games without everyone being both into and capable of such.

One of my friends called the Destiny Point spend "Quantum Rocket Launcher" ... especially after I docked his character's credits for the cost of said weapon.... I let him have it on the spot, tho'.

I usually have a fairly decent mental view of things... much better than most of my players... I don't use meeples for myself; I use them for my players; a way to reduce arguments. Using abstracted tokens like meeples also reduces the misconceptions about what's what - since it's abstract, they're going to ask if they don't remember, not assume it matches the mini.

 

[clearstream]

And this is why I consider digetic/non-digetic utterly irrelevant to a game. From where I sit, almost no mechanics are known the the characters, except in some pretty in your face requirements. The odds of those mechanics might be, but it doesn't matter. Such as Jonny Archer knows that he can hit a man sized target about half the time at 100yd, and a walking one to 60yd... He doesn't know that the decision is made by a being rolling an icosahedron with 20 numbers on it... nor his THAC-0 is some specific number. He knows only the outcomes of the mechanics, not the mechanics themselves.

Jonny Archer strictly speaking doesn't know anything. We pretend that he does. Therefore what Jonny knows is down to what we pretend that he knows.

But in the end, digetic or non doesn't affect how I run, nor how most of my players play; it's far less relevant than the player's choices being reasonably informed.

On the basis of my observation above, you could even say that it's the only thing that's relevant. There is no means of ensuring Jonny is reasonably informed, other than via the player. Ergo, anything that player doesn't know, Jonny can't know.

EDIT What I resist is that Jonny necessarily doesn't know about dice. Jonny doesn't know anything. Players know about dice, and therefore it is open to them to act as if their character does. Whether they ought to do so is entirely another matter. One that can be fruitfully discussed with a solid definition of what it is to be diegetic in TTRPG in hand.

 

[pemerton]

And this is why I consider digetic/non-digetic utterly irrelevant to a game. From where I sit, almost no mechanics are known the the characters, except in some pretty in your face requirements. The odds of those mechanics might be, but it doesn't matter. Such as Jonny Archer knows that he can hit a man sized target about half the time at 100yd, and a walking one to 60yd... He doesn't know that the decision is made by a being rolling an icosahedron with 20 numbers on it... nor his THAC-0 is some specific number. He knows only the outcomes of the mechanics, not the mechanics themselves.

This I agree with. I made a similar point upthread.

 

[pemerton]

Jonny Archer strictly speaking doesn't know anything. We pretend that he does. Therefore what Jonny knows is down to what we pretend that he knows.


On the basis of my observation above, you could even say that it's the only thing that's relevant. There is no means of ensuring Jonny is reasonably informed, other than via the player. Ergo, anything that player doesn't know, Jonny can't know.

This isn't right.

I don't know the lyrics to any Elven lays. But my BW PC does. I don't know the rites of the Iron Tower. But my other BW PC does. He also knows the layout and environs of his ancestral estate.

The same thing is true for fiction - King Conan knows much more about his palace in Aquilonia, for instance, than REH did or any reader does.

 

[FrogReaver]

This isn't right.

I don't know the lyrics to any Elven lays. But my BW PC does. I don't know the rites of the Iron Tower. But my other BW PC does. He also knows the layout and environs of his ancestral estate.

The same thing is true for fiction - King Conan knows much more about his palace in Aquilonia, for instance, than REH did or any reader does.

I find this position jarring especially considering the previous times I’ve been told that PCs don’t do anything because they don’t exist.

 

[FrogReaver]

Right, in our game, by the 3rd session say, Beaker would just step up and lob a smoke bomb (maybe it would require a flashback to get it, maybe not) and then Takeo would be like "OK, the guards moved away, I'm on standard load, I can probably run by quickly while they're not looking." Like, we just got to the point where it felt like the plan already existed, or at least we were like a SFO unit, just getting it done (and sometimes it went belly up in hilarious ways).

This is how I would imagine blades best being played. For that matter. ‘Just doing stuff’ usually makes for a better d&d experience as well.

 

[FrogReaver]

This isn't about abstraction - almost the opposite. This is because hit points have a concrete effect (or lack of it) that has a direct concrete effect on any simulations.

Both Fate Core/Accelerated/Condensed and Blades in the Dark have fairly abstract combat rules - but in both games when you actually take an injury you then specify that and it has direct game mechanical implications whenever that injury is relevant even if in Blades it's normally something like -1 die. But it's there. And it gets in your way. And it can be examined.

By explicitly not having any penalties to anything for hit point loss D&D makes a concrete decision about world building and how mundane the characters aren't. And no it's not "a quantum state" and examining it isn't "quite jarring". It's a direct, concrete, clearly defined state. And it's not jarring in the slightest unless you were expecting something other than the clear and deliberate design decision to not have D&D characters take significantly injuries and becoming escalating networks of scars because it would lead to a less fun game. The only jarring thing is the mismatch between your expectations and what the D&D mechanics do.

Another game that makes a concrete decision that goes even beyond the D&D one is Tenra Bansho Zero. In that game you have three hit point tracks. You normally only use the first one that works more or less as D&D's. To open the second hit point track you just choose to say "I am willing to be injured for this" and get some bonuses - and to open the third you have to say "I am willing to die for this" and get bigger bonuses.

Still seems the abstraction, or rather inspecting the abstraction is the problem. Abstraction being any time a mechanic is left open to multiple possible fictional interpretations without being immediately defined in this particular case.

Thus, I wouldn’t say blades has abstract combat rules as the effect of every action is immediately determined. I don’t know fate well enough to comment. Blades combat rules are more generalized, but not abstract.

D&d hp is the same way - or rather can be. There’s many sessions where hp abstraction doesn’t matter because it just doesn’t get examined. Also note a technique to reduce the issues with inspection - define at the moment of being hit that the hit didn’t cause any injuries that an overnights sleep couldn’t recover - but at that point you are deabstracting the fictional meaning. At that point hp might as well not be an abstraction as you’ve went out of your way to remove all abstraction.

 

[Moonmover]

I find this position jarring especially considering the previous times I’ve been told that PCs don’t do anything because they don’t exist.

You're supposed to pretend that they do exist and do things.

This is pretty basic stuff, my friend.