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

[CreamCloud0]

Very specifically species (races, ancestries, whatever) are the point that looks extremely weird to me. Classes I can grok, that's about powers in the universe (to at least some extent).

in a similar situation to two other posters earlier in the thread (twosix and someone else i believe it was) i actually see this in the opposite way, it's much more justifiable IMO that someone somewhere in some small corner of the world managed to cultivate some new source or application of power in a way not seen in a setting than it is to have a whole new species that literally nobody has ever heard of before be sprung out from over the horizon, if a species exists in a setting then there's a good likelihood that it's at least known about, people get around, i'd find the idea odd that there was a civilization that just so happened to exist in isolation from [main gameplay location] right up until this point.

 

[Hussar]

You are the only I've seen that adds the bolded.
Diegetic: existing or occurring within the world of a narrative rather than as something external to that world AND explains how things happen

Again, it's not that I've added anything because you don't need to. Something that exists both within and without the fictional world MUST have some explanation for how it works that is visible to the audience. I've repeatedly shown why this is true. Why did the music stop in the movie? Because the character turned off the radio. - Diegetic. Why did the music stop in the movie? Because the shark ate the swimmer. Non-diegetic.

I am not adding anything.

 

[AlViking]

Again, it's not that I've added anything because you don't need to. Something that exists both within and without the fictional world MUST have some explanation for how it works that is visible to the audience. I've repeatedly shown why this is true. Why did the music stop in the movie? Because the character turned off the radio. - Diegetic. Why did the music stop in the movie? Because the shark ate the swimmer. Non-diegetic.

I am not adding anything.

You're adding words and requirements that are not in the definition. Soundtrack in a movie? Not diegetic. Person getting eaten by a shark? Diegetic. A player hoping that the runes give directions? Not diegetic. Person falling off a cliff? Diegetic.

Diegetic: existing or occurring within the world of a narrative rather than as something external to that world.

 

[bloodtide]

So after a few dozen pages of people talking about the primacy of the setting and the role of the GM as the near-sole contributor of the setting... is anyone really surprised that for many of us, what's being described is a GM-focused and/or GM-led game?

Well, it is what is being described.....

 

[Maxperson]

And all that stuff? Not diegetic. Where the camera person is standing? Not diegetic. The props people who build the set and put stuff in it? Not diegetic.

So, what's your point?

Good grief. The definition of diegetic isn't rocket science. For something to be diegetic it must exist for BOTH the audience and the in world characters. That's what the term means. So, when the character turns off the radio and the music stops for both the characters and the audience, that would be an excellent example of diegetic. Note, most music in movies is NOT diegetic. After all, when the killer's theme music starts to play in a horror movie, it's not like that music is diegetic. But, when the little girls start singing the Freddie song and the characters in the movie can hear it, that WOULD be diegetic.

So, again, how can something be diegetic without the audience being able to see how results were achieved? If the music suddenly stopped for no reason, that wouldn't be diegetic. That music only exists for the audience, not the characters in the movie. @AlViking is apparently unable or unwilling to bother to learn what the term actually means and it is causing a break down in conversation.

A diegetic mechanic would look something like this. The characters come across a puzzle - maybe a code on a wall. The DM hands the players a handout that shows the code. The players try to decipher that code. But, the players aren't actually their characters who, frankly, are often significantly smarter than the players - sorry, not many of us have 18 or 20 Intelligences after all. So, the DM allows the player to make a couple of rolls based on their characters to give hints or possibly extra information about the code that helps the players to solve the code.

That would be an example of using diegetic mechanics. A non-diegetic way would be for the player to simply make a check and get the answer to the code. How did the character break the code? We don't really know. We just know that the character did. The character went from unable to read the code to being able to read the code without any real explanation or idea about how they did that.

Removing traps is often done this way. The PC finds a trap, the player rolls to disarm the trap and the trap is disarmed. How is the trap disarmed? No idea. Doesn't matter. We just know that the trap is now disarmed and no longer a danger. It's not diegetic at all. It's 100% in game world and opaque to the players.

You don't have to know how the results were achieved. Like at all. In order to be diegetic, all that needs to happens is 1) the thing happens entirely within the fiction, and 2) the audience can see or hear it happen.

If there's a bang in the fiction and neither we nor the people in the fiction know how the bang was achieved(fireworks, explosion, accident, et), it is still diegetic as it happened entirely in the fiction and we the audience heard.

By the definition, everything in the fiction of an RPG happening to the PCs is diegetic. It happens entirely within the fiction and we the audience "see" it happen through our imaginations. There is no need to hand the players a paper of the code, because they already experienced it in the real world, making the code diegetic.

 

[Maxperson]

What is it that I don't understand? All the actions and reactions happen in the fictional world without outside metagame influence. Diegetic, despite your insistence, is silent on whether you know why something happens. You have nevertheless shown one source other than your repeated declarations that why something happens matters.

Because there is no requirement to know WHY it happened. Only that it happen entirely within the fiction, and that we the players can "see" it happen in our imaginations. So if in the fiction a lightning bolt came out of nowhere striking the PCs, even through we have no idea why it happened(in the fiction or outside of it), it's still diegetic.

 

[AlViking]

Because there is no requirement to know WHY it happened. Only that it happen entirely within the fiction, and that we the players can "see" it happen in our imaginations. So if in the fiction a lightning bolt came out of nowhere striking the PCs, even through we have no idea why it happened(in the fiction or outside of it), it's still diegetic.

Yep. There are things that have happened to me all the time where I don't know the cause. I guess my life is not diegetic.

 

[Maxperson]

Yep. There are things that have happened to me all the time where I don't know the cause. I guess my life is not diegetic.

Technically it wouldn't be, because your life presumably isn't also happening in a fiction with you aware of it.

 

[AlViking]

Technically it wouldn't be, because your life presumably isn't also happening in a fiction with you aware of it.

I like to think that but I can't help thinking now that I'm just in a version of The Truman Show being run by pixies thanks to @Maggan.

 

[Maxperson]

How do we know this post was not written by pixies?

It was in fact written by a close relative of the pixies........the pixels, natives of Pixar.