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

[pemerton]

Mechanics mostly not being diegetic is one of them. That they are representative of something in the fiction does not make them diegetic.

If the mechanic of rolling whatever dice to make whatever skill check in whatever system you’d like is diegetic, then you absolutely are making the terms synonymous. The die roll is not being experienced by the character. It is non-diegetic. Whatever skill is being performed is diegetic to the character.

Some mechanical elements are, or at least are intended to be, representational: eg D&D stats; Burning Wheel skill ratings; and the like.

Some mechanical processes are supposed to be representative, too. Eg I think that in 3E D&D, rolling a Fort save vs poison is supposed to represent the character's toughness and resilience to toxins.

But some mechanical processes are not representational: I've already noted that most hp loss falls into this category. I think rolling the d20 for a check in modern D&D doesn't represent anything; it's a type of method of working out what happens in the fiction, but it doesn't represent fictional elements or events. Likewise at least some saving throws: the idea of a Reflex save alludes to representation, but given that by the rules the character doesn't move, and needn't be able to, its claim to be representational is pretty weak.

 

[pemerton]

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.

Right. The events of writing the story aren't part of the story; nor is being a member of the audience part of the story. That's all.

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

I think this quickly gets into the metaphysical weeds. The prop qua token is not part of the fiction. But the map-type that it instantiates is also instantiated in the fiction (assuming it's an accurate depiction of what the characters in the fiction are looking at).

This would be analogous to diegetic sounds: the sound waves in the cinema are not the same as the sound waves coming from the (imaginary) character's (imaginary) radio. But the same audial type is instantiated in both cases: that's why we can say that the audience and the character hear the same sound.

As Sorensen says "When the dragon reaches 0 HP and dies, it does not die because it reached 0 HP: it dies because it has suffered so much damage it cannot endure further. Your game’s abstractions are representative, not authoritative."

Well, this brings us back to the point that has been obvious since Gygax wrote his PHB and DMG: in D&D, hit points are frequently not representational. As I've posted already in this thread, they're just a clock. (Gygax does allows that for some monsters, which do get worn down by suffering many wounds, they are representational. But he is clear that that is not the case for all hp loss.)

The people who invented RQ, RM etc weren't confused about the way hp worked in D&D. They wanted the process for resolving combat to be representational.

So according to you, the guy who wrote a manifesto on what simulationism is has restrictions so strict that any game that claims to be simulationist can't actually be simulationist?

(1) Some people's manifestoes call for the impossible. So if that's the case here, it would hardly be unique.

(2) I think the manifesto's principles can be realised, or approximately so, under certain conditions. As I posted, they are very demanding. I don't really see how it is going to work beyond map-and-key play; and map-and-key play is fairly tightly constrained in what it can deal with.

I mean, it's not as if the example I gave is some random hypothetical. I've got 1000s of hours of GMing experience with one of the most simulationist systems around (Rolemaster). I have a fairly good sense of what its limitations are.

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.

I'm not sure how familiar you are with RPGs like RQ, RM, Classic Traveller, Bushido and the like. They all aspire to simulationism of the sort that Sorensen describes. Whatever their various limitations, they are completely different from D&D in the degree to which they achieve that aspiration.

 

[pemerton]

Given that it seems pretty safe assumption that no one thinks that mechanics are concretely part of the fiction so that the characters are aware of numerical values and die rolls, one could generously interpret that when people say "diegetic mechanics" etc, they do not mean that. Rather, they mean that the mechanics simulate diegetic things. Doing otherwise seems rather disingenuous and counterproductive.

Now the strange runes episode turns out to involve "diegetic mechanics": the mechanic simulates a diegetic event, namely, the making of a happy discovery.

There's a reason that the Sorensen manifesto focuses on change to the fiction as well as events within the fiction. It's not just about whether or not mechanics are "diegetic" - it's about a certain sort of constraint on authorship: the aspiration is that authorship not take place accept as a necessary component of spelling out consequences of in-fiction causal processes.

this whole thing feels like a diversion from arguing that player and character decision making should be aligned. It seems to me that the desirable thing is that players and characters share decision making incentives, information (or at least have strongly analogous information, like a +4 strength bonus and an understanding of their approximate athleticism, respectively) and make choices/take actions on the same time scale and in the same causal direction.

Frankly, I'm not sure that trait is best described as "simulation" but I think it is the desired player/character relationship that's being described.

The constraint that you state here is weaker than Sorensen's, as it focuses only on players. He applies the same constraint to GMs (principle 3).

 

[Old Fezziwig]

I want to say - tentatively, perhaps - that the analogue of this in a RPG would be the GM drawing a sketch of what the PCs can see. Or the GM telling the players that their PCs are handed an elaborate map, and handing them a rather plain hand-drawn or simply printed map.

That is, the representation is not the same as the way that (eg) words represent the things they talk about. (I can't remember all my CS Peirce semiotic categories, but he has terminology to describe this contrast in modes of representation.)

This is interesting. I think your example has a larger delta between the thing itself and the representation of it, but the switch in the mix in Reservoir Dogs does have meaningful differences in both loudness and fidelity, and the expectation for the audience's experience in both cases is that the switch shouldn't meaningfully change their experience of the thing -- like, it'd be rank jackassery to complain that the GM's hand-drawn map doesn't match the quality of the fictional map.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Now the strange runes episode turns out to involve "diegetic mechanics": the mechanic simulates a diegetic event, namely, the making of a happy discovery.

There's a reason that the Sorensen manifesto focuses on change to the fiction as well as events within the fiction. It's not just about whether or not mechanics are "diegetic" - it's about a certain sort of constraint on authorship: the aspiration is that authorship not take place accept as a necessary component of spelling out consequences of in-fiction causal processes.

I mean, the mechanics you use do not simulate that, or if they do, they're constructed in such an illogical manner that it is utterly crap as a simulation. This is because "happy discovery" odds are affected by things that should not affect it.

 

[pemerton]

there are elements in some genre conventions that cannot assumed to be present in the understanding of most characters of their world and action in those sorts of settings without getting degenerate results.

It's not just about degenerate results. It's about audience response.

Contrast the following two scenes:

In a Superman movie, a baddie shoots at Superman.

In a Mission Impossible movie, a baddie shoots at Tom Cruise's character.

In both movies, the audience knows - intellectually - that the main character is not going to die. But the emotional response is intended to be different, and - if the movie is well-made - will be different. The audience aren't scared for Superman; they know that - in the fiction - he is invulnerable.

But the audience should be worried for Tom Cruise's character. They know that, in the fiction, he can be shot and killed. So he has to care about the bullets, do something to avoid being shot which might have other costs or consequences, etc. The same thing applies when Conan is in a fight - even though REH is not going to kill off his character, the story only works if we (the audience) invest in Conan's vulnerability.

Hit points are an obvious issue here. Generally I think there effect is to depress the emotional resonance of threats to life and limb, and to foreground technical and tactical questions. They are wargame-y in this respect.

 

[pemerton]

I mean, the mechanics you use do not simulate that, or if they do, they're constructed in such an illogical manner that it is utterly crap as a simulation. This is because "happy discovery" odds are affected by things that should not affect it.

But once you introduce "affect" you are brining in something more than mere "diegesis". You are bringing in the Sorensen point about change.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

But once you introduce "affect" you are brining in something more than mere "diegesis". You are bringing in the Sorensen point about change.

Yes, as the causal process needs to be diegetic as well.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's not just about degenerate results. It's about audience response.

But the rest of that almost doesn't matter. The character knows things they are not supposed to know. Even if its a taken that certain things will happen, there are often things the characters are not supposed to know (its why characters like Deadpool or Ambush Bug are entertaining to some people and create serious dissonance in others). Among other things, there's usually no reason some characters should be aware of the metarules, and others not, and if everyone does, things should play out differently.

(There were serious discussions whether it was possible for some of the simulationist-immersionists in RGFA to actually play some games such as superhero games without either coming across as insane, or feeling internally like they were).

 

[Hussar]

For those of you debating diegetics, and also for those of you debating simulationism and the various other -isms, some questions (or maybe just another bone to fight over ):

But first, the scenario.

Recently, a PC in my game was gifted a treasure map via a Deck of Many Things effect. I hadn't foreseen this and thus didn't have a map right there ready to rock; but during the week I designed and printed out a map, and gave it as a physical object to the player next session; who then showed it to all the other players at the table and lots of other characters in the fiction during post-adventure downtime. They're running a small village worth of characters right now, so the players split 'em up with one group "A" doing the adventure I'm running now while the other group "B" goes off with the map's owner, seeking the treasure. This happens simultaneously in the fiction but consecutively at the table, I'll run group B once group A are done.

So - is the map diegetic because I printed it out for the player(s)? Would it be had I not printed it out but just described it and let the player(s) try to draw it from my description?

Is it simulationist or gamist or what that I printed out the map? Or that the map exists in the fiction at all?

Having the player whose PC got the map design it would IMO run smack into Czege; so is it acceptable that I-as-DM designed it?

What's you lot's take on this?

I'm assuming the map that you printed is meant to be the same as the map that exists in the game world. It doesn't have any information on it that would be impossible for someone in the game world to have? ((As in, number keys, as an easy example)). So, yes, the map is certainly diegetic. The printed map is an clear example of diegetic. But, even without a physical map, it would still be diegetic because it exists in the game world.

Is it simulationist? On it's own? Kinda? I mean, you altered your game world in response to a magical event. That treasure didn't exist in your game world before the drawing of the card (or you wouldn't have had to create a map to find it, you would have already known where it was). Now, the Deck of Many Things isn't supposed to do that. It's supposed to provide a treasure map to an existing treasure.

So, no, the mechanics here aren't diegetic or simulationist. After all, you are creating setting material for something that specifically does not allow for something new to be created. You get a treasure map from the Deck. The deck doesn't then create that treasure, location and guardians. Those are meant to have always existed in the game world. Which means the DM now has to go back and rewrite (in a very small part) his game world to accommodate this. And we've been told repeatedly that rewriting your game world is anathema to simulation. SImulation is a living world that reacts to the actions of the characters. Plonking down entirely new setting material without any explanation is the opposite of how simulation has been described by any camp.