D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[clearstream]

IMO, in relation to simulation, diegetic would seem to entail all stimulative mechanics/processes. Those outside the purview of the simulation would not be diegetic. Those in it would be.

I find myself responding yes and no to that. Yes, simulative mechanics would appear to be those that have diegetic consequences. And no, what's happening around the table in the process of enacting those mechanics isn't diegetic.

When we say game mechanics are diegetic, we're picturing what happens in the imagined world on account of those mechanics. Not what happens around the table. A case in point is that rolling dice is emphatically not climbing a wall even if that roll guides or entitles me to narrate that my character climbs the wall in the imagined world.

 

[Faolyn]

My problem is, you assert things that don't look like facts.

I can assert all day "this is a four-sided triangle". That doesn't MAKE it a four-sided triangle.

"This person instantly obeys another person in all respects regarding a particular object" isn't what "good friends" do. It just isn't. In inserting this bizarre restriction, you are asserting that absolute power is what friends exert over other friends. That is patently ridiculous. It just is.

Do you have any real world examples of GMs demanding complete and total obedience? Because ages ago, I asked you something similar and you had to make up an example? (And then got mad when I suggested compromise between the player and GM instead of the having GM offering a full and heart-felt apology to the player and completely giving in to the player's demands.)

 

[TwoSix]

And frankly, I find the whole notion of having very specific preconceived character concepts independent of the setting just weird. Like "elf" or "dragonborn" means basically nothing if detached from the setting that informs them.

Yes, but it's only weird if you're working under the assumption that the game is meant to be a toolkit, and there aren't any standard setting assumptions underlying them.

For 5e, my assumption is that the game will run in a setting that fits within the broader "D&D multiverse". And that playing an elf bladesinger wizard or a dragonborn monk will have a default expectation of being allowed. Just like I would expect to be able to play a Brujah in any V:tM game, or a goblin druid in any Daggerheart game. I would expect that I would almost certainly have to tweak details to fit the game and the other PCs (which is why I'm strongly against 20 page backstories), but not just be unable to play a core concept.

 

[clearstream]

Yes, there is a long history. And if you review that history, you'll see that games like RM, RQ, C&S, GURPS and the like are characterised as simulationist, generally in contrast to D&D. I 100% agree with @Hussar that this notion, basically dating from 2009, that D&D is a simulationist RPG makes no sense.

I've been focused on the lower bar of "does D&D support simulationist play of some sorts" which I really feel is unarguable (not that this stops anyone from arguing with it.)

 

[TwoSix]

Yes, there is a long history. And if you review that history, you'll see that games like RM, RQ, C&S, GURPS and the like are characterised as simulationist, generally in contrast to D&D. I 100% agree with @Hussar that this notion, basically dating from 2009, that D&D is a simulationist RPG makes no sense.

Hmm. Does that mean that we're classifying 2e era, Hickman revolution AD&D super-trad play as not simulationist? Or is that just style of play just functionally agendaless?

 

[Faolyn]

We call them roguelings now.

Rogue-folk.

 

[Emerikol]

Perhaps let me rephrase. Consider a setting that has, say, no elves, the most popular non-human race. (I'm aware official such settings exist. Assume this is homebrew, and recently-created, at least compared to when 5e came out.) Don't you think someone who did that would be pretty likely to expect pushback from their players? That they'd need to, I dunno, actually convince them that the exclusion was warranted and appropriate, given the immense popularity of that option?

I don't think even with elves it would be that big a deal. There really is an expectation amongst players of my playstyle that the DM is presenting a campaign that could include brand new races as well as exclude some standard races. Same for classes or anything else. D&D is a toolkit though I admit not to the level GURPS is. In games where the campaign really matters, the world is vitally important to the players as well as the DM.

 

[AlViking]

Yes, that's true. I fell because I failed to hit the target number. Now, since none of that has any actual meaning in the game world, as "target numbers" and "die rolls" don't actually exist in the game world, there is still that pesky middle part between me on the cliff and me now lying in a bloody, mangled mess at the bottom of the cliff that is completely unresolved. And the system provides zero guidance as to why I fell.

And, honestly, the reason you're having such an issue here is you really, really don't seem to understand what diegetic means. In an RPG, the clearest example of diegetic would be a player speaking in character. There is a 1:1 correlation at that point between what the player is doing and what the character is doing. That's about as diegetic as you can get. Another good example of something diegetic would be something like Bilbo's map from The Hobbit. That map in the book is meant to be the same map that everyone is looking at in the story. When they talk about the runes on the map (sorry, runes again) the reader can look at those actual runes on the map in the book. That's diegetic.

A typical D&D map, OTOH, isn't diegetic. There aren't numbers written on the floor in various rooms linked to a key. Which is fine. The DM's map isn't meant to be diegetic. That's the point. It serves a completely different purpose.

But, for skills or mechanics to be diegetic, the audience (the players) need to be able to see a correlation between what's going on in the game world and what they are seeing at the game table. The mechanics for a climb aren't diegetic at all. All we know, after the roll, is did you progress upward or did you fail to progress or did you fall. Why is entirely absent. We the players have no idea why we fell or why we succeeded, other than a number on a die roll (which obviously isn't diegetic). The narration of why the character succeeded or failed is in no way connected to the results of the die except to justify the results after the results are known.

Which is why these mechanics are not diegetic.

The issue is that you are really, really redefining the word and you have never once linked to a source that contradicts the dictionary definition.

 

[FrogReaver]

I find myself responding yes and no to that. Yes, simulative mechanics would appear to be those that have diegetic consequences. And no, what's happening around the table in the process of enacting those mechanics isn't diegetic.

Right. Kind of lends credence to the notion that diegetic isnt really the best word to describe both scenarios.

When we say game mechanics are diegetic, we're picturing what happens in the imagined world on account of those mechanics. Not what happens around the table. A case in point is that rolling dice is emphatically not climbing a wall even if that roll guides or entitles me to narrate that my character climbs the wall in the imagined world.

Yes but it’s more than that as any mechanic that allows authoring can be viewed as doing what you describe.

There’s the real world, the fictional world and the map of meaning between them. Straight authoring is one method to produce fiction. Simulative mechanics based on a map of meaning between the goings on in the real world and the fictional world is another way. I’m even a bit hesitant to call simulative mechanics authoring at all as they are such different things.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The point was, someone being real real persnickety about "absolutely NO dragonborn!!!" isn't just excluding some weird hyperspecific interest. They're excluding a large chunk of players--who have been used to seeing dragonborn for at least a decade. Seems like an unwise move, if it's being made for light and transient reasons--and if it isn't, it seems weird that they would bristle at needing to explain themselves, rather than, as Lanefan explicitly put it, deciding to "pull rank" at the first sign of disagreement.

Perhaps let me rephrase. Consider a setting that has, say, no elves, the most popular non-human race. (I'm aware official such settings exist. Assume this is homebrew, and recently-created, at least compared to when 5e came out.) Don't you think someone who did that would be pretty likely to expect pushback from their players? That they'd need to, I dunno, actually convince them that the exclusion was warranted and appropriate, given the immense popularity of that option?

Why doesn't that apply to dragonborn? Why is it that one gets to be the whipping-post (well, them or tieflings, who have been around even longer!), the one everyone is like "this should obviously be a trivial exclusion"?

"They're old" is a pretty lame excuse. Tieflings have now been a D&D thing for longer than the time before tieflings. Dragonborn are getting close; they first appeared as "Dragonborn of Bahamut" (and "Dragonspawn of Tiamat") in Races of the Dragon, a 2006 book. "They're common" is simply the previous thing restated; prior to Tolkien, "elves" were primarily little cutesy sprites (hence why the Keeblers are "elves" rather than gnomes or whatever).

So why is it excluding elves either never comes up, or gets the expectation that a GM is gonna have to work to sell their players on it? It's gonna be almost as much of an ask as dragonborn--because both are quite popular--and history/establishment is no longer a particularly functional excuse. What gives?

I don't think any species (except possibly human) needs special consideration regarding its inclusion or exclusion from any given setting. Popularity in the wider world of gaming is not a relevant factor for me.