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

[Thomas Shey]

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.

Its hard in D&D because magical transport is so vigorous; in slightly less magically potent settings, isolated on a continent away from the rest and someone just had a breakthrough in seafaring technology. I mean, at one point no one in the Americas had seen white guys.

 

[Maxperson]

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 mysteriously stop in the movie? We don't know and neither does the character. - Diegetic.

All it takes is for both the character and the audience to be experiencing the same thing. There is no requirement to know why.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Except for the part that it does get pointless. Sure you can call anything and everything an "elf". But what go does that do?

Are you arguing with me? Or are you arguing with a straw man?

Because this looks like a CR 0 straw golem to me, and I'm not going to respond to that.

True. Most DM stick with the tropes. They don't make two headed reptile people and say "they are elves".

Again, a straw man. Before Tolkien, "elf" meant something like Thumbelina or Tom Thumb. That's a dramatic shift: human-sized, immortal, powerfully magical, blessed by divine beings, remnants of a better and brighter age, etc. Maybe instead of inventing things to show how others are stupid, it would be better to actually respond to the arguments I make.

Well, I would say that just like that author go write your own book and you can make anything anything. That does not work in a shared social RPG though....

Oh, so NOW not everything will fly? Now GMs don't have absolute power and the freedom to do whatever they want whenever they want?

It sure as heck looks like you're now changing your tune when it is inconvenient for your argument, rather than because your previous argument was actually serious.

It is great to make all sorts of variations of elves. Re-imagine them in to all sorts of elven related things. But when you get past a point, they are not "elvels" any more. Then you should just make a new race.

Okay.

Why are you assuming that this automatically and inherently crosses that line? I never said that that would be the case. My arguments have in fact been quite different. Perhaps it would be more effective to respond to them, rather than inventing an idea you claim I'm using, showing how that invented idea is stupid, and thus showing that I have to be wrong.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The way I've always had it, Llolth killed off any other deity the Drow ever tried to raise against her, thus ensuring she's the only in-culture one they've got. Ditto with Gruumsh and Orcs.

A Drow could, of course, go out-of-culture to find a deity, but that would pretty much amount to self-exile.

Oh, I most certainly am not.

Same as Dwarves are PC-playable but Duergar are not, or Gnomes are PC-playable while Svirfneblin are not, Elves are PC-playable while Drow are not. Each of the non-PC species are the "underdark mirror" of their surface equivalents.

That said, if the game was set full-time in the underdark I'd be tempted to reverse all that.

Okay, but do you not see how all of this still comes back to "this is the Lanefan-specific thing"?

Someone coming to this with no knowledge except what 5e is (whichever version, both include playable drow) wouldn't know these things. Meaning, as I already argued, explaining yourself is kinda important. You need to get the player on board, not shout at them that you're pulling rank and they'd better fall in line.

Side question - and this came up at our last session - what's the underdark mirror for Hobbits?

AIUI, formally, there isn't one. But for my own personal concept, I would say Ghostwise halflings.

I get that for Drow in particular, which is part of the reason they're pretty much gone from my current setting. But other monsters IMO should be just that: monsters, until and unless an individual proves itself otherwise.

Okay. The problem is, several of the species that have been "monsters" really do look exactly like "demonized groups of IRL humans". Orcs are another good example, because (unfortunately) from their very inception, they've had some unfortunate Orientalist tropes woven into their story, and a big part of why they're getting a huge injection of nuance is...we'd like to keep what makes orcs cool, without making them "see, these humans are okay to murder indiscriminately because we asserted that they're a different species, and they're green!" Because that has unfortunately been an all-too-common failing of human nature across history.

Orcs, for example, are usually kill-on-sight in my game, but tell that to the party who ended up taking surrender from some Orcs then taking those surrenderees in as paid party henches. Those Orcs turned out to be loyal to a fault - all they needed was someone to treat 'em right - to the point where the party Ranger (who mechanically gets combat bonuses against Orcs) ended up leaving the party to join the Orcs and become their liaison with the neighbouring Humans.

Which is super cool! I love that stuff.

To add perhaps a bit of clarity to my previous stuff, "monsters" include things like mindflayers (inherently horrible creatures that literally need to murder to live), undead, constructs, vampires, and things like mutants. Now, one can change the concept and demonstrate the truly inhuman nature of something that hasn't been super great in the past, e.g. actually showing that one's "orcs" are grown in labs and programmed by fantasy computers or the like. (Though even then, there's something to be said for "why does it need to be 'orcs' then? Couldn't it just be human clones altered to be mindless shock troops?" Aka, one can do a lot with pig leather, but there comes a point where one must recognize it won't make a silk purse.)

 

[Hussar]

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.

That is not what diegetic means. That is actually the opposite of what diegetic means. Again, I'm sorry, but, you are just wrong here. You really, really are just wrong. If something only exists in the narrative an not external to the work, then it is not diegetic. That's the opposite of what that word means.

Look up the term diegetic music. The reason we cannot make any progress here is because you are straight up wrong. Can someone please help me out here? Apparently I'm not explaining this clearly enough and I'm really unsure how to be clearer.

 

[Hussar]

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.

That's not what diegetic means. For something to be diegetic is has to exist for the audience AS WELL. Simply being observed within the fiction does not make something diegetic. Again, take a minute to look up the term "diegetic music". If something in the narrative exists for the audience but not for the characters in the story, it is not diegetic. If something exists purely in the narrative but not for the audience, it is not diegetic. Hearing the internal monologue of a character is diegetic, because it exists for both the audience and that character. But, the theme music for that killer in a horror movie isn't diegetic because it exists for the audience but not the character.

For a mechanic to be diegetic, it has to exist FOR THE AUDIENCE as well as the character. Simply existing in the narrative isn't diegetic.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Whereas to me it is perfectly clear that intelligent species of the setting are on of its most defining features, and the idea that you should shove tortle into a gritty gameofthronesque human-only world or a Tolkien dwarf into a Kung Fu Panda inspired animal people world is ludicrous.

Is it the human-only-ness that really defines GoT? I certainly wouldn't think so.

Also, note how you are intentionally crossing different fixed settings. That isn't what we were talking about, is it? It's homebrew worlds where space may or may not be left for things. Hence the desire to have space left open, otherwise feeling like one is being left only with a handful of PC-shaped holes to fill.

Which, I dunno about you. Bit I find that harmful to my immersion.

How on Earth you ever manage to play in games with published settings that come with their own set of species? Or games set on our real Earth, where playable species options tend to be a tad limited?

Well. Two huge differences, that break the analogy you're trying to assert?

First, the setting is written out independent of any of the participants. All of us are coming to it having to accept parts we might not like or lamenting absences we wish were not so. Even the GM. We're on an equal playing field there.

Second, all the information I need is inherently laid out for me to peruse first. It's not "the GM is reality" anymore, is it? There is a separate source. I can read and digest it independently of the GM and draw my own conclusions, including whether or not I want to interact with that setting or not. (You'll be shocked to learn I don't really care for GoT, I'm sure.) Indeed, it is quite possible for me to make a case that the GM was simply wrong about something, by referencing what is there.

Just between those two things, an independent published setting is already a long way off from a homebrew one.

Whereas to me player whose first reaction is to ignore the premise is an obvious red flag.

You have yet to demonstrate that that is actually what's happening. Proof by assertion is not exactly an effective argument.

Also players who have the one pet character idea they need to try to shove into everything are a red flag too, and even worse if it is something as superficial as fantasy species. Like countless authors throughout human history have somehow managed to come up with a bunch of interesting characters even though most of them have been just boring old humans.

Ah, so now it's superficial? Funny how it's incredibly important when it suits you, and utterly superficial when it suits you. Seems like if it's important in one place it should be important in the other...and if it's superficial in one it's hard to see why it's so essential in the other.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

They're not rewriting anything. The GM said themselves the information isn't fully fleshed out, and the GM has final say on whether or not the players suggestions are followed. Given that, I'm actually surprised you're in favor of it.

Compromise!

Okay...

So when I said I think it's best for GMs to leave a "beyond the horizon" space where things aren't fully fleshed out, why was that a problem?

 

[Hussar]

D&D:Athletics. Your Strength (Athletics) check covers difficult situations you encounter while climbing. You attempt to climb a sheer or slippery cliff, avoid hazards while scaling a wall, or cling to a surface while something is trying to knock you off.

This is just DC.

D&D doesn't say these two words, no.

Use strength.

Rope and pitons are in the equipment portion of the book.

There's pretty much no difference between that and D&D. D&D just puts it in various areas and the mechanics refer to one another to give the simulation.

If that's simulationist, so is D&D's athletics skill used to climb.

Moving back to this because this caught my eye.

If you want a more sim leaning example of skills from D&D, you'd have to go back to 2e Non-weapon proficiencies or thieves skills (either would work). The reason you fail a check on either of these is because you lack the skill to succeed. Your thief is climbing a wall and you roll the percentile check - a failure means that that wall is too difficult for you to climb. You don't get to reroll in most cases. We are told, by the system, why you failed - you were not proficient enough to succeed at this task. Until your skill increases, you may not try again.

No crumbling rocks. No cut ropes. No being hungry. You failed because your skill wasn't high enough. And note, it's only a measure of your skill because typically, there are no modifiers to the check. If you want to open a lock, or climb a wall, or move silently, you have a percentage chance of success that is entirely from your character. Success or failure is 100% (or at least 99%) because of the skill level of your character.

That's what a simulationist leaning skill system looks like. It actually provides some information about why you succeeded or failed and doesn't require the DM to simply "make naughty word up" to justify success or failure after the fact.

 

[Hussar]

Why did the music mysteriously stop in the movie? We don't know and neither does the character. - Diegetic.

All it takes is for both the character and the audience to be experiencing the same thing. There is no requirement to know why.

For that to be diegetic, the characters in the movie would have to react to the music stopping. We might not know why the music stopped, that's true, but, there would need to be a source of that music in the fiction (a radio, someone singing, whatever). It would be non-diegetic if the music suddenly stopped, the characters make no reaction to the music stopping and it is never explained - IOW, it doesn't actually exist in the world of the story.

So, again, for it to be diegetic, it needs a tiny piece of information explaining why it stopped. For example, the characters are in a bar, there is music. The characters walk out of the bar. The music stops when the door closes. Diegetic. Why did the music stop? There is no way to hear the music anymore for the character or the audience. Even if the music is just muffled because the door closes, that would make it diegetic. No problem.

But there is no way to end diegetic music in a story without making it clear to the audience why the music stopped.