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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bawylie" data-source="post: 6307554" data-attributes="member: 6776133">I'm on my phone so forgive any format issues. Let's say that I feel mimesis is the representation of an internally consistent game world that is portrayed according to its nature (along with any elements therein). And that for purposes of RPGs, diegesis is the assumption of narrative control outside of the mimetic frame. So you have a world that, by default, operates according to its nature except where a player or DM exercises some power to author the situation. For instance, combat. Or, in some more extreme cases, player authorship of game elements (the "Yes, and..." approach).  In which case, play departs from what would theoretically be expected to happen, and we say "This happens," and it's so. Let's leave it at this for now. We're either playing things according to how we truly feel they should be played or we decide to depart from expectation. Simple, but I don't want a novella here. As a player, portraying my character, my only real burden is to set a goal, and decide how I want to achieve it. I can do this mimetically (acting as my character and speaking in their voice) or diegetically (simply stating what happens, picking powers, meta-gaming, and conveying my PC's desires outside of dialogue). As a DM, my goal is to portray a fantastic world, adjudicate fairly, identify my players' goals, and set obstacles in their paths. Doing these, I have a sandbox (mimetic) world, but very experience-driven adventures. Meaning that events and plots that unfold in the world are tailored to a specific experience I want the players to have (vs what would strictly make sense in the world). I switch frameworks depending on how we're playing the game at the moment, appropriate to the moment - not in service to the mechanics. While mechanics exist and help me adjudicate fairly, that's not where I go first when DM-ing. This brings us to Luke. I wasn't clear enough when I said he was spared by Deus ex Machina. See, he chose death rather than evil and dropped what is established as a lethal distance (functionally bottomless). But instead of plummeting down to the planet or going splat at whatever the eventual bottom of the place was, he sort of curved Into a chute and came sliding to a stop, right over a trap door that deposited him beneath the city. THAT is the d.e.m. It's the diegetic moment in which the author decided that, instead of splat, this series of implausible events would happen. So you asked what good are rules if they don't work out for the circumstances in the game. I'm saying we're to quick to jump to the rules, FIRST, instead of our judgement. If Luke was my player, and I present him with a choice of falling down a bottomless pit  or conversion to evil, I should NOT give him the odds of survival. I want Luke's player to decide what to do based on the situation & circumstances, not the rules and math.  If Luke chooses death, I may well take narrative control and let him slip down a chute and get stuck in a pickle from which he may or may not escape. I may kill him. In either case, using the system has not added anything to this moment.  That doesn't mean the rules are broken. It means they don't apply here and shouldn't reasonably be expected to. The "right story" is the one that's created by the diegetic action (the departure from the true nature of the game world). Luke's player, beaten within an inch of his life, looks at me and says "I'd rather die," then let's go and falls. I need to honor that decision somehow. And the system is too heartless, too arbitrary, and does not match the frickin metal Luke's player just laid down. The right story matches that metal. That's not to say the system is broken. Obviously, we use the system to adjudicate fairly those situations with unclear outcomes.  It's just that sometimes, the possibilities are more important than the dice might grant. In other words, if Luke is going to die from being so metal, it's not going to because he rolled a 2. If he lives, it's not because of a 20. It's because the DM must decide between the two and faithfully say what happens. Mimesis (epic fall to death) or diegesis (any outcome). Let's leave Luke and assume Vader is the PC. Vaders goal is recruitment of his son, and accumulation of power. He's defeated Luke (an NPC) and put him in a bind. Does Vader's player roll to see whether Luke joins him? Is that what diplomacy checks are for? I don't think so. So I don't dip into the rules. Instead, I rely on Luke's nature. Vader tells me he wants to seduce or manipulate Luke into joining him. And, he's clearly got leverage. Luke's beaten and has no escape route. However, I know Luke cannot be corrupted in this way and Vader doesn't even get a cha-check. This is an auto-fail. I simply play Luke true to himself. He falls. Vader's player curses as he's just let his whole goal slip from his grasp. This could be game over for Vader, but later, I tell him he senses his son in the force, alive, and reaching out for him. I've played Luke mimetically, and then turned diegetic to re-up Vader's player on his quest. I turned a total fail into a setback. Vader redoubles his resolve. No system. I get your hesitation to compare disparate media. But I'm saying we can run better games if we actually understand what we're doing, dramatically, or imitatively, instead of jumping to the system first. Dang. I ran long. TLDR -part of  The Fine Art of DM-ing is asking "What would be metal RIGHT NOW?" before reaching for the dice.</blockquote>

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