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

[pemerton]

Just on target? How accurate is it? Where is it going to hit? What is the speed? These depend on the skill of the user.

But once they are established, there is then a chance to dodge.

We work out the first set of things by rolling the chance to throw on target. We work out the second thing - dodging, given those other things - by rolling to dodge.

(Speed is a weird case, because even in RQ the damage is rolled after the event, whereas for a spear it seems to be at least significantly a function of velocity and hence kinetic energy.)

If this merging of independent probabilities is so widespread, perhaps there is a more compelling example. Because this is not at all like the runes case.

I think it's very common in classic D&D reaction rolls, where the result of the roll - which is modified by the PC's CHA - is used to also establish backstory elements (everything from Hobgoblins recognising friendly gestures, as seen in Moldvay's example of play in the Basic rules, to this Ogre hates elves explaining a bad reaction roll).

 

[Maxperson]

The mechanic is not a part of the fiction, and so by definition cannot be diegetic.

And the watcher isn't part of the movie, yet...

More generally, if X represents Y, and Y is part of the fiction, it doesn't follow that X is part of the fiction.

Great! I never said it was. I said it is how we the players experience Y.

And not all parts of a mechanic in a RPG are representational. What does the d20 roll represent, for instance? Nothing that I can see.

You can't see that when you roll a climb check that it represents(along with proficiency and strength) the climb attempt?

 

[Maxperson]

Yes...

That's what makes it not-diegetic. Using the mechanic is not diegetic. That's...the point.

Then using our ears to experience the music in the movie is also not diegetic. The mechanic is just like our ears. It's how we experience what is happening in the fiction.

 

[pemerton]

And the watcher isn't part of the movie, yet...

Yet what? The watcher isn't an element of the diegesis.

(Unless the film breaks the fourth wall - like in the credits of School of Rock, where Jack Black says to both the students and the audience "I do not know that guy" - although my memory is that at that point there is not actually a person's name being shown on the screen, so the joke misfires a bit.)

You can't see that when you roll a climb check that it represents(along with proficiency and strength) the climb attempt?

Rolling the d20 is a decision procedure. What does it represent? I don't see how it represents "the climb attempt". The climb attempt is happening whether or not the d20 is rolled.

 

[Maxperson]

A character looks at the ceiling and asks "Are there any cobwebs?"

The GM needs to provide an answer. Unless the GM's notes indicate cobwebs, the GM has to answer "no" - because principle 3 forbids the GM from adding to the imagined world non-diegetically.

Wrong. If spiders are a part of the world, then so are spiderwebs. And spiders get everywhere.

This is an example of the off screen thing being a diegetic part of the in fiction universe. It's perfectly fine for the DM to realize that 1) spiders exist in the fiction, 2) they are all over, 3) the people in the house don't clean well, so yes there are spiderwebs on the ceiling.

 

[The Firebird]

I think it's very common in classic D&D reaction rolls, where the result of the roll - which is modified by the PC's CHA - is used to also establish backstory elements (everything from Hobgoblins recognising friendly gestures, as seen in Moldvay's example of play in the Basic rules, to this Ogre hates elves explaining a bad reaction roll).

Now that is a good example.

 

[FrogReaver]

I'm not sure what you mean by "giving meaning in a non-authorial ways". I'm also not sure what you mean by "fictional meanings".

1) by fictional meanings I simply mean meaning within the fiction.

2) not all fiction requires an author (individual or committee). Fiction can also be generated by simulation, by system, essentially by processes that map real world occurrences (say rolling dice) to fictional occurrences without human intervention to the fictional meaning.

Is this an example? (I borrow it from Hilary Putnam): walking along the beach, I see the name "Ted" scrawled in the sand. I assume that someone called Ted, or someone in the company of someone called Ted, wrote the name. But actually, it is the result of a crab walking on the sand and (by coincidence) leaving markings that look like writing.

Nope. Not at all what I’m saying or talking about. That would be assigning real world meaning to an unconnected real world event.

 

[pemerton]

Generating fiction by running a simulation is not the same thing as making up fiction absent that simulation.

What do you mean by "running a simulation"? When Gygax wrote the Greyhawk Gazetteer, or Tomb of Horrors, he wasn't running a simulation. This is just authorship.

Are you describing the use of those notes to decide what situations to present to the players based on where their PCs are - which is the core of map-and-key play - as running a simulation? I don't think that sheds much light on it - calling it map-and-key play seems clearer. But yes, using map-and-key to determine what situations to present is a distinct way of RPGing.

But I don't see that it is essential to simulationist RPGing, particularly if that is being used in the way that @clearstream is using it in this thread, to describe play aimed at a type of heightened appreciation of subject matter.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Then using our ears to experience the music in the movie is also not diegetic. The mechanic is just like our ears. It's how we experience what is happening in the fiction.

No. The mechanic is not our experience. Period. It is not in any way the thing in your head being imagined.

It is a pointer. An indicator. A menu screen, if you like.

A menu screen can be diegetic or not. Consider, for instance, when JC Denton is reading an email from a computer he hacked into. That's diegetic, because the thing the character is doing (looking at a screen in order to read a piece of text) is in fact exactly the thing the player is doing (looking at a screen in order to read a piece of text). Even though this pops up as a menu screen, which we typically assume to be non-diegetic, Denton himself would see it as a menu screen.

Conversely, when I hit the escape button to bring up the overall game menu, that is clearly non-diegetic. Denton is not seeing a menu with a screen that says "Save Game", "Load Game", etc.

The dice are not in, nor of, your experience of the world. Dice are a mechanic which determines the answer "yes" or "no" depending on whether the resulting value, with various modifiers, is greater-than-or-equal-to some number, or less than that number, respectively. At no part of this mechanic did the character roll dice, look at numbers, compare totals, or verify; to them, it is simply an action, and the result is inherent and automatic. They know what the one and only result could be as it is happening. The dice do not do that. The dice don't say anything at all about WHY the answer is "yes" or "no". Just that it is "yes" or "no". (I say "yes" or "no" because different perspectives change what the result is in terms of success vs failure. E.g. if a wizard forces a bulette to make a saving throw, and the bulette "succeeds", then the Wizard "failed" to apply the effect; but if we cast it as "yes" or "no", then the question is more easily understood symmetrically: did the bulette avoid my attack? Did I avoid the Wizard's attack? yes/no.)

The dice are not your ears. They are not your eyes. The GM is your eyes, your ears, your every-source-of-information. The dice, at most, simply answer yes/no questions.

 

[pemerton]

Wrong. If spiders are a part of the world, then so are spiderwebs. And spiders get everywhere.

This doesn't conform to Sorensen's principle 3, though. Which was my point.

This is an example of the off screen thing being a diegetic part of the in fiction universe.

The offscreen is, by definition, not part of the diegesis. it hasn't been narrated.