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

[FrogReaver]

I'm not really clear on simulating a world independent of the players. If the 4th wall is not being broken, then necessarily the fictional world is independent of any and all real people, isn't it?

How? A novel is dependent on its author.

If the players have no authorial control/influence other than the actions of their PCs, that's not a simulation but just a distribution of roles/functions in the play of the game.

that’s how you would simulate a fictional world independent of the players.

 

[pemerton]

To me it sort of seem like this is something dragonlance aspires to do, but sort of misses the point as it isn't the players creating the canonical characters.

<snip>

common wisdom for running APs indicate that some creative adjustments to accommodate for the actual characters in play is recommended.

I think DL shows the strengths of an integration between scenario and PCs.

Doing it DL style, with the same person authoring both elements, makes sense. If the players are going to author the PCs, and the scenario is meant to speak to them, I think there are issues with outsourcing DL-style authorship to the GM. I actually think this is where different approaches to play - say, BW-style or AW-style - show their strengths.

 

[pemerton]

How? A novel is dependent on its author.

The authorship of the novel is an event that happens in the real world, and is undertaken by the author.

But the story - unless it includes the author somehow (some old Marvel comics use to do this) - is, in itself (to the extent that phrase makes sense for a fiction), independent of the author. Eg it's no part of the in-fiction explanation for events in LotR that JRRT had this or that idea?

f the players have no authorial control/influence other than the actions of their PCs, that's not a simulation but just a distribution of roles/functions in the play of the game.

that’s how you would simulate a fictional world independent of the players.

But that's not a simulation. It's just a distribution of authorial responsibilities. I mean, the GM authoring everything isn't simulating a fiction in which the GM authors things. That, too, is just a distribution of authorial responsibilities.

 

[AlViking]

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.

The same would be true for the farrier, discussed upthread.

If the GM is forbidden, during play, from adding to the fiction non-diegetically, then the setting becomes extremely thin. Probably implausibly so in many cases. That is part of what makes the principles demanding.

Likewise the GM can't introduce an encounter because it "seems right" or even "makes sense". The GM's change in the fiction must be for a diegetic reason - map-and-key handling of encounter generation is the obvious example. It's not clear to me how standard random encounter tables would fit within the principles.

And principle 4 is also demanding. Eg suppose the player has their PC, who is fast and strong, open a door. The GM consults their notes, and sees there is a goblin behind the door. The GM narrates the goblin, and a door behind it on the other side of the room. The player says "I stop it before it can escape!" - and so the GM calls for an initiative roll. The goblin wins, and the GM narrates the goblin running across the room and through the other door - that is, they take their full 6-second turn while the PC just stands around doing nothing. Why can't the PC, who is bigger, faster and stronger than the goblin, try and run and/or jump and grab it? Principle 4 rules out as an answer "It's not your turn yet". But what is the in-fiction reason, that flows from the established circumstances and causality?

Some of those things that you describe the GM doing don't seem to conform to principle 3.

Adding fluff and detail does not change the essence of the fiction. No author of any book ever fills in exactly every detail. No plans can include everything possible. That doesn't mean that there are no cobwebs in an old ruin, it just means there is no mall kiosk inside my house showing where the exit is. The cobwebs make sense if it's an environment that supports spiders, a map to a building that doesn't have constant visitors does not.

Yes...

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

By that definition nothing can ever be diegetic. Watching a movie? It was recorded on a camera and then edited. Reading a book? There was an author, multiple drafts, and editor. No fiction whether it's movies, books, games, have no outside influence.

But these goal posts keep moving on this topic trying to find some angle to say "Nah, you're wrong and so is the horse you rode in on." By your criteria? No game could ever be considered simulationist.

 

[FrogReaver]

The authorship of the novel is an event that happens in the real world, and is undertaken by the author.

But the story - unless it includes the author somehow (some old Marvel comics use to do this) - is, in itself (to the extent that phrase makes sense for a fiction), independent of the author. Eg it's no part of the in-fiction explanation for events in LotR that JRRT had this or that idea?

Because the authorship of the novel occurs in the real world and depends on the author there then the resulting fiction was not independent of the author. Dependency on the author entails more than dependency within the fiction.

But that's not a simulation. It's just a distribution of authorial responsibilities. I mean, the GM authoring everything isn't simulating a fiction in which the GM authors things. That, too, is just a distribution of authorial responsibilities.

It depends on if the GM is establishing the fiction he narrates with simulation in mind.

I don’t count simulating as authoring even though both processes can establish fiction based on the power of the author or simulation creator.

 

[AlViking]

What definition? That the audience needs to be able to know what the characters in the story know? That's the definition of diegetic.

You still have failed to show a single example of something diegetic where the audience would have no idea how it happened. I've shown repeated examples of how it works.

The character doesn't actually know they're falling because, by the mechanics, all they know is that they FELL. As in past tense. They were climbing and now they are on the ground, possibly wounded in some fashion. There is no point in between because the mechanics ARE NOT DIEGETIC. They don't provide any information other than the result. The character has no idea why they fell.

Until, of course, the voiceover narrator backfills the narrative and explains to the character how they fell. So, unless you think that the DM's voice is actually diegetic, that the characters in the story hear the DM's narrative, which is ONLY provided after the result, and is based on absolutely no information provided within the world itself, then, no, you are still wrong here.

You keep repeating the same argument but have yet to provide one external source to support your definition. It's wasn't convincing hundreds of pages ago it's not convincing now.

 

[clearstream]

By that definition nothing can ever be diegetic. Watching a movie? It was recorded on a camera and then edited. Reading a book? There was an author, multiple drafts, and editor. No fiction whether it's movies, books, games, have no outside influence.

The camera is non-diegetic, right? As is the movie screen, the projector, and the auditorium. What is diegetic is that which the actors in the movie as their characters can pretend they experience, and the audience can share in that pretence.

Similarly the author, drafts, editor and book non-diegetic. Any outside influences aren't diegetic.

Of course, I might be missing what you and @EzekielRaiden are debating. Apologies if so!

 

[FrogReaver]

The camera is non-diegetic, right? As is the movie screen, the projector, and the auditorium. What is diegetic is that which the actors in the movie as their characters can pretend they experience, and the audience can share in that pretence.

By the strictest definition, even what the viewer sees on the screen isn’t actually diegetic unless it’s filmed completely first person perspective.

 

[clearstream]

By the strictest definition, even what the viewer sees on the screen isn’t actually diegetic unless it’s filmed completely first person perspective.

How do you mean?

Are you observing that the screen image is incidental to what is diegetic? It's simply the means by which the audience accesses the events related in the imagined world?

But then... why does first person change that?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

And I am in the same position with respect to hp attrition combat and stop-motion turn-taking action economy. If we are talking about simulationist mechanics, those mechanics are radically non-simulationist. The former is just a clock, not a model of anything. And the latter violates temporality and causation.

I mean, I don't think I can disagree here with particularly vigorously. With HP we can basically argue about whether they are non-simulationistic or just weakly simulationistic. I think that with my approach where they are always associated with some sort of actual injury they qualify for the latter. With common approach where they're just some nebulous plot armour and a character could be missing a significant chunk of the HP without even knowing it they're probably the former. And yah, turn taking is pretty much just a gamist convenience.

I dunno. But there seem to be multiple posters in this thread who think that the player having the capacity to be the one who establishes these elements of backstory is at odds with simulation: @Micah Sweet, @The Firebird, @Crimson Longinus, @FrogReaver, I think @Maxperson and possibly @Enrahim but maybe not in light of post 19374.

So I don't think deciding what the runes really mean is a simulation regardless of who does it. But once it is somehow decided then we can have simulation about the character reading them by comparing their rune reading skill to the difficulty of the runes, with possible outcomes of successfully reading them, failing to read them and perhaps some middle results of understanding some of them.

That you you have numbers that supposedly simulate the character skill and the difficulty of the runes but then draw from them odds of something unrelated to the either what makes it a clear non-simulation. Like you could have rules that perfectly simulate armour piercing capabilities of a Barrett M82 anti-materiel rifle, but if you use those to determine the chances of rain in Spain it is not any sort of a simulation.