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

[EzekielRaiden]

Suppose the game text for climbing were excised from D&D. I would nevertheless be quite able to imagine my character climbing in the fiction. Here is that text for reference

While you’re climbing, each foot of movement costs 1 extra foot (2 extra feet in Difficult Terrain). You ignore this extra cost if you have a Climb Speed and use it to climb.​

​

At the DM’s option, climbing a slippery surface or one with few handholds might require a successful DC 15 Strength (Athletics) check.​

The purpose of the game text for climbing isn't to make it possible to climb in the fiction. Its purpose is that, because I want to climb in the fiction, I'm interested in how fast I can climb and whether that could fail or become complicated. Game mechanics are teleological: their purposes precede their design.

Exactly. They take a scene we know could happen, and give us a way of removing ambiguity without merely declaring what happens.

Climbing occurs. Falling occurs. When we care about which thing happens, we either declare it, or we involve something that determines without us declaring which. The mechanic is not the action, it is simply and exclusively the resolution of a process we already know has started, which we wish to know about, and which we specifically wish to not declare the answer to. It maps to the action, yes; but that does not make it the action. It is simply one specific piece of information which we have elected to resolve external to ourselves, and (as I previously said) it is merely "yes" or "no". That we do not know which path will occur does not somehow transmute this mechanic into being the act of climbing!

 

[AlViking]

My proposition is that the map in the fiction is diegetic, whilst the prop representing it isn't.

Rather everyone agrees that the prop is associated with the map in the fiction.

If I show a picture of an NPC to the players it is just a mechanism used to convey information to the players instead of just a verbal description. It has nothing to do with the ongoing narrative within the fiction other than to give the players a more precise picture.

 

[AlViking]

Sure it can.

As noted: diegetic music. You are hearing it. Your assumption is that you're hearing it and the characters are not. But then the narrative actually demonstrates that no, the characters are hearing that music. That's clearly the thing you're doing, also being one and the same thing as what the character is doing.

And I gave an example, albeit from a video game, where a specific mechanic could be diegetic in one case and not in another: Deus Ex and its character JC Denton reading emails (or other computer files), which is done through a menu screen, and the player saving and loading the game, which is done through a menu screen.

The mechanic is functionally identical in each case, apart from changes to shape and location. Some parts are literally identical up to the width of the menu itself and what words appear. It's a menu screen either way. But the former is diegetic, because Denton is in fact interacting with a menu, and the characteristics of that menu are tailored to be what he sees. Same goes for, as an example, interacting with medical or repair bots; you can even see the menu screen objects on their chassis. But, and I should hope this would be obvious, the game menu is objectively not diegetic. JC Denton doesn't have the power to Save Game where he feels like it. He cannot adjust the brightness of his world. He cannot alter difficulty settings. Etc.

Clearly, some mechanics can be diegetic. A lot of them can't be, just like how a lot of film elements can't be diegetic. I wouldn't actually say that cutting and editing is non-diegetic a priori, but it is almost always so. Long "single take" shots are rare because they're exceedingly difficult to pull off well, even though that is actually what humans experience. However, if a film is being recounted as a visual depiction of a story a person is telling, then it can be diegetic to have cuts or skips because that's the nature of human memory. (Or, in the case of something like The Princess Bride, the grandpa is actively "editing" the story down for digestibility for his young grandson, so although the "cuts" are not diegetic for Buttercup and Westley etc., they can be for the boy, because that's the story he's actually experiencing.)

But yes! This does in fact mean that essentially every mechanic used in D&D isn't diegetic and almost certainly can't be made so. That shouldn't really be a surprise. We are still primarily using slight variations of mechanics invented around 50 years ago primarily to let some wargamers get up to some silly shenanigans with swords and sorcery. They weren't meant to be diegetic at all; they were simply meant to be adequate to get useful information across.

I don't accept your reasoning because if I did then no TTRPG I can imagine could be considered simulationist and the word has no meaning.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

The term comes from film, right? Specifically about sound that is heard by both the characters and the audience, rather than just the audience (like a score, or narration, etc.).

Right, it's mostly used for sound, but it can be applied to other aspects of film, too (I think it's most useful for sound). I think the defintion you're using here is the upshot of things, though I've generally started earlier in the process -- if something is diegetic, it has to exist within the fictional world of the film. Generally, the score is considered nondiegetic sound while music played on a radio is diegetic sound. Narration can be either, depending on how it's portrayed -- contemporaneous first person narration, such as a character narrating her own thoughts, is diegetic, but third person narration is probably not.

It was adopted as an RPG term, by Cavegirl on her blog. The term doesn’t perfectly fit RPGs, and some of the other examples offered in the blog aren’t the best, but Cavegirl does a decent job of explaining her use.

I'll have to check out her blog.

But here’s the thing… as originally used, it is describing something being part of the world portrayed in the film, that normally would not be part of that world. It is the exception. Most film scores and/or soundtracks are not diegetic. They’re separate of, if complimentary to, the story being told. Having music that is actually diegetic is the exception rather than the rule.

Soundtrack and score are the classic examples of nondiegetic sound, though this isn't categorically the case -- we've talked about music on radios (I think this really became a thing with the American New Wave, and Tarantino really runs with it in the 90s), and that's diegetic sound.

This is a digression, but you bring up the torture scene in Reservoir Dogs later in this post. There're probably conversations to be had about how to read the way Tarantino's sound mixing of "Stuck in the Middle with You" changes and how we're supposed to think about that -- it's clearly diegetic at the start of the scene, but when it comes up in the mix later in the sequence (0:46 or so in this clip), I think things get a little muddy. I think it's a misreading of the film to say that the music actually becomes louder in the warehouse, but I do think its increased volume could be read as reflecting Mr Orange's fear and heightened attention to Mr Blonde. Overall, I'm inclined to read the switch in the mix during the dance sequence as a switch to nondiegetic sound -- the music's representational of something in the fictional world but no longer the same as it is in the fictional world -- but I could be convinced otherwise.

As such, it’s not really meant to be used as a term for everything that’s happening in the fiction of the film… the actions of the characters and the events of the film, the story… they aren’t diegetic in the same way as music would be. There’s no need to point out that they are part of the film… they are evidently so.

I think they are diegetic in the same way -- they take place in the diegesis. But I agree that they're evidently so and that it's not the most interesting thing in the world to talk about. I was trying to think of examples of nondiegetic elements in films that aren't (a) the score or soundtrack or (b) title cards or credits, and there aren't a ton of them that come to mind right away. The two I thought of that seemed relatively memorable were Mia Wallace's square in Pulp Fiction and the travel map sequences in the Indiana Jones films.

What needs a term is something that normally would not be part of the story, but in this case is. That’s a soundtrack or score. The torture scene in Reservoir Dogs is a famous example. The song being part of what’s happening in the scene is an important element for that scene. It’s diegetic for that reason.

I agree that the song is important (I would argue that all songs in films should be important, else the filmmakers have made grave mistakes, but we can't always have what we like and sometimes choices are kind of uninteresting, though I expect the readers of Horse and Hound might disagree with me), but I disagree that importance has anything to do with whether an element's diegetic or not. The background music at 2:05 of this clip from Groundhog Day is diegetic sound, but it's not important. It's just meant to evoke setting.

 

[Maxperson]

Exactly. They take a scene we know could happen, and give us a way of removing ambiguity without merely declaring what happens.

Climbing occurs. Falling occurs. When we care about which thing happens, we either declare it, or we involve something that determines without us declaring which. The mechanic is not the action, it is simply and exclusively the resolution of a process we already know has started, which we wish to know about, and which we specifically wish to not declare the answer to. It maps to the action, yes; but that does not make it the action. It is simply one specific piece of information which we have elected to resolve external to ourselves, and (as I previously said) it is merely "yes" or "no". That we do not know which path will occur does not somehow transmute this mechanic into being the act of climbing!

The mechanics BECOME the action, because without them there is no action.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

I wouldn't actually say that cutting and editing is non-diegetic a priori, but it is almost always so.

I'm inclined to agree, but how about an eyeline match cut being used to show that a character is looking at something? That is, Shot A of Character looking at Something offscreen, Shot B of Something. The editing becomes the action.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I don't accept your reasoning because if I did then no TTRPG I can imagine could be considered simulationist and the word has no meaning.

Sure they can. Their simulation simply cannot be diegetic. Which should not be that surprising. Navigating across a map is inherently distinct from physically traversing a territory. Simulation, particularly if it aims to be immersive, is pretty heavily entrenched in exploiting as many tricks and foibles of human perception as possible to evade awareness that the thing that one is doing is distinct from the thing that one is imagining.

Hence why I keep talking about the feeling of groundedness rather than the objective and inherent quality of "realism" or the like. The exact same concept, process, and result can feel grounded to one person and completely un-grounded to another purely on the basis of differences in knowledge (e.g. picking locks as repeatedly mentioned before, or legal issues, or cooking, or how poisons work, or...), or differences in presentation (richly detailed descriptions vs dry mechanical summaries), or differences in preference (e.g. someone who loves sci-fi may be more willing to let techno babble slide, while someone who is merely neutral to sci-fi may get that "this doesn't make sense" itch).

What matters is that the participants feel that the experience is grounded, not whether we can conclusively and objectively prove that the experience has to have some specific nature or characteristic. The downside of this is that that means we are subject to the whims of taste, which cannot be argued over and which we are limited in how much we can adjust for. The upside, however, is that we don't have to chase the chimera of an objective singular correct method or characteristic; we just need to get close enough and the innate mental "fill tool" of the human brain will take care of the rest.

 

[Maxperson]

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 would argue that they are always weakly simulationist. Even when they are "plot armor," they are not just plot armor, but rather represent non-physical ways of avoiding injury. Those represent skill, luck, etc. All things that happen in real life combats. Skill plays a role in real life combat. So does getting lucky/unlucky. Gygax did add in divine intervention, but even then the hit points represent something specific preventing harm for that attack, and not nebulous plot armor.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I'm inclined to agree, but how about an eyeline match cut being used to show that a character is looking at something? That is, Shot A of Character looking at Something offscreen, Shot B of Something. The editing becomes the action.

I certainly think that this is very good for a feeling of groundedness. But, generally speaking, one does not get a bird's-eye view of oneself looking at something, and then one's own view of it; nor does one see a person looking at something else, and then somehow see from that person's perspective.

It can be fine to look very, very similar to what we as humans would do, if it's not a total PoV jump, but instead standing from more or less the same point, just looking in two directions...but cuts are still instantaneous and that's a bit hard to square with the continuous nature of (conscious) human experience. Unless the things are close enough together, in terms of arc distance, that a mere eye-flick is enough. Then I suppose that could in fact actually correspond to what a real person would actually do. The head movements required for some types of eye match cuts would be a bit too sharp to really be something humans do.

 

[Faolyn]

It's not about pedantry. You're assuming a map-and-key-esque approach to play, similar to a D&D module. And your questions don't really make sense for the MHRP approach.

I mean, unless you're asking something like "If I told the players 'You see a sign saying <stuff>', would that fiction be established"? In which case the answer is yes.

It's also you dodging the questions like a pro.

If you put down a sign, written in a language the PCs could read, can the PCs/players roll to hope that the sign means something? Or would you have established the meaning of the sign already, since the PCs know the language?