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

[Hussar]

That's not what the definitions and explanations say.

I'm actually going to agree with you here re: @pemerton's examples. A shark bites a character's leg off. The audience see it. That's diegetic. It exists in the world and for the audience. I agree.

Now, what people are claiming though is that mechanics which do not provide any narrative explanation are diegetic. Which would be like if a swimmer suddenly lost a leg. No reason, no explanation. The swimmer just now has one leg. Then, a few moments later, a voice over, completely removed from the story, possibly by Morgan Freeman, starts talking to the audience directly to explain what happened to the leg.

That is very much not diegetic. But, that's EXACTLY how D&D mechanics work. You have one scene. Then you have the result. Then, a few moments later, the voice of the narrator explains how this result occurred. Note, the character in the story has no idea how this occurred. Not until it's explained by the narrator. And, no matter what, any narration that the narrator chooses is equally valid. Doesn't matter if it was a shark that bit the swimmer's leg off, or it spontaneously vanished. It's all the same.

And this is supposed to be diegetic mechanics in action.

 

[Hussar]

The rope broke and he slipped... The rock crumbled and he slipped... There are many reasons for slipping, but slipping itself isn't a reason. You can slip because it's wet. Because you didn't grip hard enough. And so on.

What caused him to slip? Slipping! Doesn't work.

He fell because he was not skilled enough. Why can't he try again if the rock crumbled? Why can't he get another rope and try again? That's the part you're missing. No retries. You failed because your skill was not enough. Heck, I don't even NEED a rope to climb. You've just added that in because it's convenient.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Well, and the guys who work making toys for Santa Claus at the north pole.

Thumbelina was more seen as a sprite or pixie, I think. Ditto Tinkerbelle.

Main counterpoint: remember that the Keebler cookie-makers are elves. They're tiny. "Elf", "sprite", "pixie", etc. were more or less synonyms. "Elf" could sometimes verge up toward "gnome" territory, as in "child-sized as adults" or the like. But the point was that they were usually understood to be that size.

Thing is, Tolkein didn't invent his elves from whole cloth. He based them on, I think, the Norse concept of the alfar, among other things. He got his Dwarves from somewhere else (and they ring true with Snow White's Dwarves, which pre-date his work). Hobbits, however, are I think entirely his own creation.

I didn't say he invented them from nothing at all. But he absolutely did reinvent what "elf" meant to us in general. He actively defied conventional wisdom of his day, completely reinventing something from its existing context that had a clear, well-established character and nature.

If it's impermissible to make that many changes, then why were Tolkien's fine? Changes that transform "humanoid from child-sized to thumb-sized working sprite-like being that hides from humans and conducts both mischief and miracles depending on how they've been propitiated" into "adult-human-sized humanoid who is literally as old as the world, ancient and full of power, longing for ancient days and a society that can no longer exist in this fallen world". Clearly, Bloodtide not only accepts but highly approves of what Tolkien flagrantly changed with only the slimmest of mythological support--snippets and fragments and heavily suspect records. Why is it then unacceptable to do that now? Tolkien isn't somehow uniquely permitted to rewrite mythology in ways that suit him. I quoted his own Mythopoeia for a reason: "We make still by the law in which we're made."

Which means that for Elves and Dwarves one could go to Tolkein's sources, distill them through one's own creative mill, and maybe arrive at something much the same as he already did.

Big problem: There aren't any. Or near as.

Like this is genuinely a serious problem with scholarship of Norse mythology. We basically don't have sources.

We have exactly two sources, both of which are inherently suspect: the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda. Both are suspect because they weren't written down until after all Norse lands had been Christianized for something like 100-200 whole years. The ancient/medieval Norse had their own writing system, the Elder Futhark, they just...never USED it to write down their myths. And, unfortunately, the Alfar are almost never mentioned in the works we have. Snorri Sturluson literally recharacterized them as angels, like literally Christian angels, which we can be preeeetty confident that any appearance of theirs in the Prose Edda is heavily tainted. And then the Poetic Edda? Yeah it mentions them in passing maybe a dozen times at most, and has exactly one story about them (Völundarkviða, the tale of one of the only named alfar, Völundr.)

Almost everything we "know" about Norse alfar is speculation built on flimsy splinters of information and extensive inference. So, sure, one can say that Tolkien took inspiration from the alfar! And we can also see that...you could do literally almost anything with the Norse alfar, because they're so completely character-free that we have no real way of knowing what they were or weren't. Some even theorize that "Alfar" was just an alternative name for the Vanir in ancient times, hence why Freyr had "lordship of the Alfar", a title that (these people theorize) survived the otherwise overall renaming of "Alfar" to "Vanir".

 

[EzekielRaiden]

In a non-magical world, I'm fully on board with this.

D&D worlds, however, almost without exception not only have magic, they have lots of it; and some of it involves long-range travel.

We had the ability to traverse the Silk Road from ca. 200 BC to ca. 1400 AD. Nearly two thousand years of traversing a road.

During most of that time, things not even a quarter of the way along the Silk Road were shrouded in myth and legend, despite us having incontrovertible genetic proof that there was small but measurable genetic intermixing between these populations (likely "merchant A marries into family B, has kids, those kids stick around and thus create a group of descendants related to A's distant homeland").

Magic certainly helps, but remember, these are worlds where medieval stasis is in full swing. If we're saying China should've been a well-known, well-reached area for over a thousand years, gunpowder weapons emphatically should not be a rarity. They should be commonplace. Since that is almost always not true of these fantasy worlds, and indeed enormous other swathes of technology move even more slowly than they did in our actual world? Magic seems to make it harder to see beyond the horizon, not easier!

Toss in the idea of generations of curious adventurers wanting to explore everywhere even if only to loot it and no, there won't be many if any truly secret cultures or peoples left on the planet by the time the PCs come along.

There have been "curious adventurers wanting to explore everywhere even if only to loot it" in our own world for literally five thousand years. Why do you think Tutankhamen's tomb was the first one we'd ever found that wasn't burgled? Its location was quickly lost and he was relatively poor as far as pharaohs went, so there was less (not zero, just less) interest from grave-robbers.

If literal thousands of years of "adventurers" IRL didn't make India a well-known, well-understood place to ancient Greece, why would their presence in D&D-alike worlds make a dramatically different impact?

Our own real world shows that local problems and local concerns are far more immediate for the vast majority of people, and even with magic, it's an established fact that much knowledge gets lost or forgotten in the stereotypical medieval-stasis worlds so many GMs (and very particularly old-school D&D GMs) tend to favor.

 

[clearstream]

I actually referred to faerie gold, taken from the dark elves in my MHRP game. MHRP doesn't rate treasure in the same way that D&D does: it was a persistent asset, with a die size that I can't recall.

On your remarks about "faking a simulative experience": I'm not sure what you're suggesting. I mean, the events of play had led the PCs to the bottom of the dungeon, where they found the dark elves. The player (as his PC) thought that dark elves would have gold, and wanted for himself. So while the other PCs fought dark elves, this player had his PC trick one of the dark elves into taking him to the treasure room; and then he had his PC steal the gold.

I'm trying to work out why this is not simulationist. Mechanically, the existence of the treasure was established by the player making the necessary role to create an asset. (MHRP does not use map-and-key resolution.) But I don't see how that makes it not simulationist, if the measure of simulationism is immersion, noetic satisfaction etc.

Apologies then, as I most likely misapprehended your post. Someone (maybe @FrogReaver) had raised the notion of a player authoring an unembellished one million gp into a dungeon.

When play has a preexisting subject, I suppose one could 'test' appreciation by seeing what players feel and know about it. When play has an incomplete imaginary subject that is to be completed as part of play, how can one 'test' appreciation? What if some narration seems at odds with the imagined subject to everyone else at the table?

If someone lays claim to a simulative experience following processes one discounts from being "simulationist" then are they to be suspected of "faking" that experience? One worry I have about @Hussar's definition is that if D&D processes are excluded then must I say that every D&D player who tells me they have simulative experiences is lying to themselves?

I don't think @Hussar is talking about game texts. I think he is talking about actual processes of resolution.

I felt that if it leads to a claim that certain texts are more "simulationist" than others, it must at least be about their content. I take @Hussar to be pursuing "process simulation", if I understand correctly how others have used that term. That implies to me a standard for processes embodied in texts with notional consequences for play. With in mind @Crimson Longinus' emphasis on an association between the mechanical process and the process that takes place in the fiction, I ventured a description upthread of what that might amount to (rephrased here)

One way [to understand a game mechanic] is to deconstruct the mechanic picturing that each element is assoicated with something in the imagined world. Processing the mechanic can then be pictured to track with diegetic objects and events.​

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Phenomena felt to matter to subject ought to receive treatement this way. An element of a mechanic should be associated with each significant feature. The result of enacting the mechanism ought to depend on each such element at the point and to the extent that whatever it is associated with is intended, predicted or observed to bear upon it. How that goes is then available to be revealed in narration.​

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RQ combat attempts that sort of arrangement. A hit location table is associated with each creature. Modifiers to things like dodging are associated with what characters are carrying. Strike ranks are associated with weapons and actions. But no one should picture that just because statement of intent and movement of non-engaged characters are processed before melee, missile and spell resolution, that's how combat plays out in the world.​

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I don't see why that needs to be muddied by worrying about what is done with those mechanics in play. What if they fail to be productive of simulative experiences? One of the challenges for process simulation has always been the cost of achieving it. I found the "Redbook" magic rules for C&S nigh-unplayable due to the effort demanded to bring them to the table, but I wouldn't rule C&S out as a landmark in process simulation.

And I posted about episodes of play, not game texts. Those episodes of play fostered immersion, and fostered understanding of the subject matter of the shared fiction. Here's an example:
Here are the instances of resolution that multiple posters in this thread have characterised as "non-simulationist":

*Narrating the consequence of a failed Aura-Reading test as the observation of an undesirable trait ("Stubborn").​

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*Narrating the consequence of a failed Sing test while wandering the streets at night, trying to must up some degree of self-possession, as being harassed by a guard.​

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*Narrating the consequence of a failed Circles test, hoping to have a friendly or at least helpful Elf turn up, as another guard turning up to join with the first.​

But as I've posted, I don't see why these wouldn't be simulationist on your account. The whole episode focuses attention on the town at night, what happens in its underbelly, and the character of Aedhros who is part of that underbelly but is bitter and spiteful about it. It is immersive, and it generates noetic satisfaction (by enhancing the intellectual as well as emotional grasp of the town, the characters, the events).

Apologies, but I am not grasping your doubt here. Why would my account of simulationism exclude your example?

EDIT to bring the two examples of play together:

One way to gain increased understanding of a fictional place is to learn about it via maps, lists of what items are found at what places, etc. Similarly, one way to gain increased understanding of a fictional being is to learn about their physical capabilities.

But those are not the only ways. Another way to gain increased understanding of a fictional place is to learn that its underbelly - including guards who will harass you unless you bribe them - reaches even into the supposedly elite quarters. And one way to gain increased understanding of fictional beings is to learn things about them like, they were so stubborn that they burned to death in the ship fire because unwilling to evacuate or they will take revenge for a small slight, even if this serves the ends of Thoth whom they hate.

Or these things might be combined: we learn about the dark elves, and their faerie gold, and the trickster who has come to visit them, by witnessing - in play - how he tricks them out of their gold.

I don't see that these immersive, noetically satisfying experiences need to be confined to the sorts of wargaming-esque concerns that animated D&D in its original form.

I don't either. My conception of "neosim" goes far beyond those wargaming-esque limits. Or to put it another way, why would war be the only proper subject for simulation? (Surely a rhetorical question, if ever there was one!)

 

[AlViking]

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.

Diegetic music: the characters in the film an also hear it. So? The character falling off the cliff also knows they're falling.

Show me one definition, one explanation, one blog post, anything at all anywhere other than your repeated statements that support your addition. Just one. Shouldn't be hard since you believe it is the definition.

 

[clearstream]

As I've posted upthread and reiterated in this post, I don't see why there is any relationship between "simulation" and "separate from the player". Playing referee-less Classic Traveller is pretty simulative - it combines elements of Tuovinen's dollhouse (the starship and crew, travelling from world to world) with elements of mechanical simulation ("purist for system"; Edwards also identifies "setting-creation and universe-play mechanisms" as a mode of simulationist play: The Forge :: Simulationism: The Right to Dream)

Generally your post contains no conflicts with my account, but I wanted to respond to this because it seems based on a misapprehension.

The separation I have in mind is one conjectured to exist between the lusory-means for simulating (whatever that is) and the simulative-experience itself. In your #18,028 you lay out three ways such separation may be achieved. I proposed a fourth way, which avoids assuming that an independent GM is the only means by which that players could "receive the fiction from "outside" of themselves, rather than "inputting" into it".

Based on @Gimby's and @TwoSix's testimony, and my own experience, I think that "outside" (a separation) can be achieved internally. That chimes with the lusory-trinity: player is author, actor and audience. My conjecture is that those roles are cognitvely separated; in the way we are conscious of them, at a subconcious level, or both.

Another way is where players take turns to simulate and to enjoy simulative experience. To my reading you describe that in your actual play examples, e.g. "I told my friend (now GMing) that I wanted to use Stealthy, Inconspicuous and Knives" (emphasis mine.)

 

[pemerton]

I am not grasping your doubt here. Why would my account of simulationism exclude your example?

The widespread view in this thread appears to be that, of necessity, those episodes of play could not be or involve simulationism because of the role of the player in contributing to the shared fiction.

It's interesting that your view is different!

 

[AlViking]

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.

Wait ... rolling a percentile dice is diegetic but rolling a D20 is not?

 

[pemerton]

I'm actually going to agree with you here re: @pemerton's examples. A shark bites a character's leg off. The audience see it. That's diegetic. It exists in the world and for the audience. I agree.

I'm not going to argue criticism with you - my handle on it is modest.

But if by "diegesis" we mean simply what happens in the world of the fiction, then by definition there can be no diegetic mechanics. And there will be very few diegetic resolution processes even if they're non-mechanical - eg as soon as a player describes their PC doing something, the mechanics creates or constitutes an event that is not part of the world of the fiction.