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Suppose we take this approach. Then there is absolutely nothing "non-diegetic" about the runes case, or the startled cook, or anything else that has been discussed in this thread. Because each involves the introduction of fictional elements (along the lines of telling a story) but mediated via a...

My sense is that this sort of thing would be reasonably uncommon in 5e D&D play. Whether or not it breaks any rules is something for those more familiar with the rulebooks to answer. It doesn't break any rule of 4e D&D (assuming the appropriate translations of the technical terminology are...

I don't think this is a very accurate description of how resolution in 4e D&D works. And I don't think it's accurate for combat in any version of D&D, where success on a roll to hit triggers a damage roll. which depletes the opponent's hp, taking the overall situation closer to the player's...

Because it's a dungeon. With Strange Runes on a wall. And the player, as their PC, is conjecturing their meaning. All of that suggests to me that there is evidence on which an inference has been based.

Why is there no evidence? I mean, do you assume that your 8th level D&D fighter wins bouts against Orcs without moving their feet, feinting, parrying blows, etc?

All "not locked in" means here is not yet established as part of the shared fiction. It's obvious that there is something or other that, in the fiction, the runes say. But it isn't known yet, because hasn't yet been authored. Just as a GM might tell the players "From atop the wall, you see an...

I know why it matters to you: you're playing a game where a principal goal is for the players to (i) learn what obstacles/challenges has placed into the setting, and (ii) overcome them. This is no more "simulationist" than anything I'm doing. As I've posted upthread, it involves a lot of...

In the fiction, what caused the Orc to not dodge the attack? What caused the Orc's footwork to be anticipated by the attacking PC? All the mechanics do is correlate likelihoods: the likelihood of this character beating this Orc correlates to the likelihood of this roll of a d20 and a damage die...

The Cunning Expert conjecturing what the runes say is abstracted. It isn't disconnected from the in-universe fiction - namely, that this person, being a Cunning Expert, is apt to make reasonable conjectures about what Strange Runes say.

What's more interesting to me is the hoops that people will jump through to try and argue that a player affecting the direction of the game can't possibly be plausible or logical or "simulationist" or whatever, even when - for instance - the likelihood of their character's conjectures being true...

Obviously. Einstein being more likely than me to be right isn't because he causes the world to be as he thinks it is, but because he knows a lot about the world and that knowledge informs the beliefs and conjectures that he forms. Likewise a Cunning Expert who has travelled widely knows a lot...

What do you mean by "already established"? I mean, of course the Cunning Expert is basing their conjecture on the things they know and have learned. That these are not known to the game participants doesn't mean that they're not known to the PC. (Similarly, my PC in a sword fight with an Orc...

I think I've explained it in excruciating detail. In the play of the game, the player is aware of the scene distinction Strange Runes, which (i) corresponds to their PC seeing the runes, and (ii) flags the runes as salient; the PC is lost in the dungeon, which in mechanical terms is expressed as...

Aren't they? Do you say this based on your own expert knowledge of runes in dungeons? Eg do you not think an archaeologist might be better at conjecturing what some writing is likely to be about, before they read it, based on what else they can observe about it, its location, etc, than a...

But that wasn't my post, was it? So I don't see how it relates to my RPGing.

I don't follow. The declaration of actions, and their resolution, is something that happens in playing the game. It's not part of the fiction.

I've posted, upthread, how Marvel Heroic RP works. It's not mysterious. Like, I don't ask you about the scene distinctions that you use in your D&D games. Because I know that you don't use them. But you keep asking me about stuff in MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic play that only makes sense if you are...

The players already know how the resolution system works. They've played the game, they know the rules. It's not kept secret from them.

As I already posted,

This seems to exclude some fairly common mechanics, like (in D&D) casting a spell be crossing it off your list of memorised spells, or (in D&D) moving X squares where X is a number established (as part of the build process) as the character/creature's movement rate, or (in D&D) pushing over a...