What is a "Narrative Mechanic"?

[aramis erak]

Was the whole Forge dedicated to obfuscation, or was it just Edwards.

Edwards certainly was a major factor in it, and his constant redefining of G, N, S, and their relationships to each other...

Towards the end, the jargon was so thick that it was impenetrable to many. And so pretentious that many wanted to jackslap the majority of the long-term participants.

 

[aramis erak]

I'm familiar with Pendragon (by the way, I'm reading the new boxed set right now, and it absolutely has skills that are rolled on whenever appropriate, so I'm not sure where you're getting that from). I wanted to know about Prince Valiant, also written by Kevin Stafford, which you spoke very little about, other than to say it's "stronger". I assume that means it fits your preferences better, as they're no other viable metric.

Greg Stafford, not Kevin.

How does Prince Valiant work compared to Pendragon, and how does it play? Please.

How it works is a two attribute d2 dice pool game, essentially using a mostly trad approach. The scope of individual tasks is supposed to be a bit broader than in Pendragon.

 

[clearstream]

Oxford Languages, via Google, gives me the following for diegetic:

(of sound in a film, television programme, etc.) occurring within the context of the story and able to be heard by the characters.​

So diegetic seems to be a way of describing whether or not an event that is experienced by the audience is also an event that occurs within the fiction and hence is apt to be experienced by the characters.

Given that it's almost always the case that the characters in the fiction do not experience any event which consists in the use or application of a RPG mechanic, it seems to follow that all mechanics are non-diegetic. Although my own inclination, rather, would be to conclude that diegetic isn't a very useful term for describing mechanics.

That's a good point. Seeking possible exceptions: perhaps a mechanic for flight in the game world, or for holding ones breath or starvation. The character can experience in-world that they starve in accord with the mechanic.

In any event, in most RPGing, rolling the dice is not a diegetic event. But sometimes it is - eg when, decades ago now, a PC in a game I was GMing played dice games against ogres in their castle, and we resolved those by playing a dice game at the table.

Agreed on rolling the dice, albeit the odds could be diegetic. By the same token, facts about the character on their character sheet aren't diegetic.

Unless one says that a diegetic game element is one with a supervenience relationship with something in the game world that characters can experience... which could include rolling the dice. Or one can just say (as you have) that it's not a very useful description.

But either way, a Devil's Bargain or Flashback is as diegetic as any other RPG mechanic.

In a film, a flashback may be diegetic - eg if the character is, now, recalling what happened in the past - or it may not be - eg if it is the author/film-maker revealing to us, the audience, events that are prior to the predominant "now" of the fictional work. I don't know enough about BitD to express a view, but in my example from 2008 the flashback is clearly diegetic:

In this example, the character is literally remembering, and inviting others to remember, a thing that happened in the past relative to when they are speaking, which is the "now" of the fiction.

I was thinking the same. The temporal sequencing isn't really at issue. One could even say that we just chose to play events out of order.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Greg Stafford, not Kevin.

How it works is a two attribute d2 dice pool game, essentially using a mostly trad approach. The scope of individual tasks is supposed to be a bit broader than in Pendragon.

Thank you. Sorry I got the name wrong. Didn't have the book in front of me.

 

[pemerton]

Seeking possible exceptions: perhaps a mechanic for flight in the game world, or for holding ones breath or starvation. The character can experience in-world that they starve in accord with the mechanic.

I'm not seeing how the mechanic is diegetic. The mechanic consists (I imagine) of tracking tokens or similar on a sheet of paper (eg for days without food or water); the character in the fiction is not experiencing any such thing. (Cf. The character is in prison, placing a chalk mark on the wall each sunrise; the player marks a tally on their PC sheet for each day their PC is in prison - that is at least close to diegetic.)

As for flight: the mechanic in many RPGs is a written record of a flight speed which is then activated the the controlling player saying "I fly". (I'm assuming a fairly typical RPG where most movement is accomplished via drama resolution.) Neither the written record, nor the speaking of the words, is a diegetic event. (Cf. The character is Superman, and the controlling player, to let the table know their PC is flying, declares "Up, up and away!" - that seems like it would be diegetic.)

The temporal sequencing isn't really at issue. One could even say that we just chose to play events out of order.

Exactly. I think this is also @hawkeyefan's point.

Assuming that the stress expenditure has some in-fiction correlate, there is an interesting question - when is the stress deemed to have been suffered? At the time of flashing back? Or at the time flashed back to? I don't know BitD well enough to know the answer to this question.

 

[clearstream]

I'm not seeing how the mechanic is diegetic. The mechanic consists (I imagine) of tracking tokens or similar on a sheet of paper (eg for days without food or water); the character in the fiction is not experiencing any such thing. (Cf. The character is in prison, placing a chalk mark on the wall each sunrise; the player marks a tally on their PC sheet for each day their PC is in prison - that is at least close to diegetic.)

As for flight: the mechanic in many RPGs is a written record of a flight speed which is then activated the the controlling player saying "I fly". (I'm assuming a fairly typical RPG where most movement is accomplished via drama resolution.) Neither the written record, nor the speaking of the words, is a diegetic event. (Cf. The character is Superman, and the controlling player, to let the table know their PC is flying, declares "Up, up and away!" - that seems like it would be diegetic.)

My thought here is that an abstraction such as tracking tokens supervenes upon the game world. Per supervenience, change to tokens matches change in world.

Suppose that I am a man and english speaking, and my character is a woman and sylvan speaking. We take my human male-voice english-language speech acts to be (say) elven female-voiced sylvan-language speech acts. They're evidently not, but they do supervene. My character surely does not experience my english-language wordings.

Or another example, I say that my character Jo jumps. I should think that Jo experiences jumping, but Jo surely doesn't experience my saying that Jo jumps. Therefore my capacity and acts as player in that regard are no more diegetic than if I rolled dice: both represent something in world without being that something.

Thus I'm speculating that any game element that has a supervenience relationship with stuff in game world can be said to be diegetic (or more accurately, I'm agreeing with your earlier intuition that it isn't a useful term.)

Assuming that the stress expenditure has some in-fiction correlate, there is an interesting question - when is the stress deemed to have been suffered? At the time of flashing back? Or at the time flashed back to? I don't know BitD well enough to know the answer to this question.

Stress is paid in order to flashback, but I guess you are thinking of stress arising from actions taken in the flashback. Say if you pushed yourself (there is an example of this in the game text.) SFAIK the text is silent, indicating that nothing exceptional happens such as retconning everything leading up to the flashback! Therefore both stress paid for the flashback and stress paid within the flashback are applied to character along the player's timeline, not the character's timeline.

That's quite interesting, in relation to the above discussion.

 

[pemerton]

Stress is paid in order to flashback

Taking it as a premise that this stress payment correlates with something in the fiction - let's say, very roughly, exertion by the character, then I asked: when did the character exert themself?

Option (1): in the "now" of the fiction, ie when the events of the flashback are now recalled.

Option (2): in the "past" of the fiction, ie when the events of the flashback occurred.

In the post I am about to quote, @hawkeyefan appeared to go with option (2), and indeed seems to deny that we need even suppose that the events of the flashback are recalled "now" by the character:

The player declares an action for the character, and then we use the rules to determine how it goes, with the GM narrating results. The situation took some effort on the part of the character, which is represented by stress.

<snip>

the player calls for the flashback. But the character doesn’t experience it. They experience the events of the flashback. But this is no different than the many other ways that games establish details retroactively.

As I said, I don't know BitD well enough to have an independent opinion.

 

[Umbran]

Given that it's almost always the case that the characters in the fiction do not experience any event which consists in the use or application of a RPG mechanic, it seems to follow that all mechanics are non-diegetic. Although my own inclination, rather, would be to conclude that diegetic isn't a very useful term for describing mechanics.

You take it a bit too far.

In D&D rolling a d20 to hit does not occur in the fiction - but the attack on the troll that roll represents does. That's a diegetic mechanic - the mechanic represents a clear action or event in the fiction.

However, in D&D, the granting (or spending) of a point of inspiration does not in general represent any causal change in the fiction. The player just declares they have advantage on that attack roll, without having anything in the fiction to indicate why the attack is more likely to hit. That's an adiegetic mechanic.

 

[FrogReaver]

You take it a bit too far.

In D&D rolling a d20 to hit does not occur in the fiction - but the attack on the troll that roll represents does. That's a diegetic mechanic - the mechanic represents a clear action or event in the fiction.

However, in D&D, the granting (or spending) of a point of inspiration does not in general represent any causal change in the fiction. The player just declares they have advantage on that attack roll, without having anything in the fiction to indicate why the attack is more likely to hit. That's an adiegetic mechanic.

As a side note i think the reason inspiration never became super popular in d&d is because of that.

 

[Umbran]

As a side note i think the reason inspiration never became super popular in d&d is because of that.

Possibly. The equivalent in Fate, of spending a Fate point, at least requires a statement of what Aspect applies, indicating some connection to the fiction.

However, fate points are also more central to the system - You can go forever in D&D without spending Inspiration, and do just fine. But you aren't expected to be very successful if you don't spend Fate Points. You get a few of them to work with, and they refresh at least every session, so even if the GM forgets to Compel, you have at least those few to work with. Hoarding Inspiration for that one time you need it contributes to it getting forgotten.