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

[Crimson Longinus]

At that point wouldn’t a world in which genre was the world truth, wouldn’t simulating those genre elements through process be diegetically simulating the world?

Yes, but genres almost always contain things that are not diegetic to the world.

 

[AlViking]

9Really? The only reason you missed the shot is because you didn't hit the cue right? There is no other possible explanation?

But, again, the mechanics in D&D DON'T TELL YOU THAT. All they tell you is that you missed the shot. They are completely silent as to why you missed the shot. They don't, at any point, provide a single piece of evidence as to why your shot missed. Not only that, but the die roll that we use to randomize attempts DOES NOT REPRESENT ONLY SKILL. Despite @Maxperson's claims, that's simply not true. The die roll includes every possible reason why you missed the shot. Maybe there was a loud noise that distracted you and you missed your shot. Maybe the table is not perfectly true (a very real possiblity in any public venue) and you missed because the cushions are dead. Maybe your cue isn't true - again a very real possibility when playing on a bar table or whatnot.

There are many, many reasons you might miss that shot. That's what the die roll represents. What the die roll doesn't tell you though, is WHICH explanation is true. All you are told is that you missed. And any explanation you come up with for why you missed is just pulled out of thin air. It's not connected to anything because you have no information with which to base your narration off of. A simulationist mechanic actually DOES provide that information. Not all of it of course. Just enough to discount some of the very large number of possible explanations.

GURPS, with it's levels of success and failure rules presents this information in a pretty clear way. Old school D&D does it by saying that the mechanics only give one possible reason and thus retries are impossible. There's a million ways a system COULD provide that information. It's just that D&D doesn't do any of them.

Yes, really. There are a couple other variables of course like the friction imparted because of the amount of chalk on my cue tip and how fuzzy the tip is.

But as far as the 8 ball going in the corner pocket? It all comes down to that momentary connection of cue tip and the cue ball. How well I determined optimal trajectory, calculated the spin I impart or do not? All of those come down to some combination of skill, mental and physical aptitude, and variability caused by the fact that I am imperfect analog biological being.

Sometimes after the shot I may realize my aim was just off or I calculated angles wrong, misjudged whether or not I could get that 8 ball past the 2. Most of the time it's some combination and I have no clue.

But when I'm making the shot? I'm just trying my best to get that 8 ball in the corner pocket to win the game. Whether I succeed or not relies on a wide range of factors that determines whether or not i hit the cue ball correctly in order to make the shot.

 

[Enrahim]

Perhaps I did not speak clearly.

This is a situation where people often claim they would, solely because they are direly pressed, choose to fudge. Namely, that they know with absolute certainty that a player is having a Bad Time, would have a Significantly Worse Time if their character were suddenly one-hit-killed by an enemy, and the stars just happened to align against them in that moment. Under those circumstances, the GM will simply lie to the player and tell them the attack missed, or hit but did minimum damage, or whatever else. That's fudging. They straight-up ignore the mechanics and declare the world is different by pure fiat. That choice, to fudge, is not and cannot be a diegetic part of the world, because in its very act, it is secretly denying the players the ability to connect cause and effect within the world.

Agreed. In my conceptulation they are not following the directive produced by the mechanics. So this absence of diegetics is not reflecting upon the mechanics, but the GMs decission to ignore them.

By instead explaining how (even if "you don't know!") the character SHOULD have received a lethal blow...but somehow didn't, somehow survived an attack that they're certain would have been lethal, it is now known both to the character that they survived a thing they shouldn't have, and known to the player that a GM intervention occurred for reasons that will be relevant to the future of the campaign (whatever those reasons might be, ideally prepared in advance, but if necessary improvised in the moment and fleshed out later.)

In my conceptualization you honor the prescription of the mechanics. However you immediately bake in something more on your own. The powers prescribed to DM in D&D allows for this.

The instruction to make a diegetic narration is the milquetoast thing. It's a non-entity.

Like if that singular instruction is enough to make a mechanic diegetic, then literally all mechanics ever can be made diegetic by inserting a single sentence, and the very concept of "diegetic" becomes meaningless, as literally anything can be wished away simply by the GM paying attention to the content of the scene. If that's an adequate measure, "diegetic" never really meant anything to begin with. I'd rather keep "diegetic" as meaning something and expect a higher standard.

I fully agree. I tried to get clarification on someone else's concept. A major motivator for me to do that was that my then understanding of their concept didn't seem to pass such standards.

What does a climb check tell you about the specific details of the result from the process? What does the perception roll tell you about the specific details of the result from the process?

As far as I can tell--nothing. Nothing whatsoever. You can elect to use incidental modifiers, should any apply. You can elect to describe on the basis of the particular sense that the player described using (assuming the player did in fact describe this, and the roll wasn't called for other reasons). But nothing about the mechanic actually tells you anything about how the success or failure happened. It simply tells you that it did.

I would say the check mechanics do provide some information, if we accept certain GM guidelines is in play. For one thing it has been argued that what the inputs to the check is (skill, particular difficult or simplifying circumstances, magical bonuses etc) should inform the narration. I would argue that what is considered valid inputs to a mechanic is part of the mechanic. The "output" of success/failure is an important modulator, but it isn't the entirety of the mechanic.

With my example (of the goblin surviving the critical hit), that is the GM turning their fudging from an unequivocally non-diegetic GM action, into an unequivocally diegetic one, because there is now interference within the world. Instead of fudging being a split-second retcon, it's a thing actually part of the game reality, which players can learn about. Players could ask questions like, "Why did the goblin suddenly hulk out?" or "Can we do that when we take lethal damage?" or others.

I think the players can ask the same kind of questions on a check, and the DM can use the inputs of the mechanics allongside the exact roll to inform their answers. If the players can ask any question in wich there is impossible to find an answer consistent with what is expected from the fiction, I would consider that instance of mechanic use not diegenic from my current understanding of the term. (My understanding is still evolving, as this is a new term for me, that I can not remember having encountered outside this thread)

I called that instruction--your "Make a diegetic narration that describe[s} a failed climb attempt"--"milquetoast" for a reason. It makes every mechanic diegetic whenever the GM declares it to be. That's an inadequate standard to me. There needs to be something more than that. With my example, the GM is taking something genuinely invisible to the rules, invisible to the players, and giving it concrete, observarble-within-the-world weight. That looks a heck of a lot more like the "establishing that this music is actually being heard by the characters" of diegetic music, than, for lack of a better analogy, the director having a voice-over which tells the audience "yes, Jane was directly aware of the music you're hearing, she'd heard it all her life." The latter is at the very least too ham-fisted and external to qualify as achieving diegesis, even if the technical effect is that we now know that Jane is aware of the music.

Agreed.

 

[clearstream]

But using conjecture even more highlights the difference between d&d and the runes because we can easily spot the differences from conjectures in d&d and the runes conjecture.

A conjecture in d&d is either supported by actual fictional details or not. If not (as in the runes example) then the single detail that the conjecture was made by a supposed expert isn’t the relevant fiction, it’s that a supposed expert made a wild guess based on no evidence at all other than a gut feeling. In this case the expert status of the conjecturer is unrelated to the truth of the conjecture.

In the case where the conjecture is based on relevant fictional facts, then an expert is more likely to form the appropriate conjecture. But it isn’t true that whatever conjecture he makes is more likely. The mechanics in the runes example would simulate the later (whatever conjecture he makes is more likely true, as evidenced by the notion that he could have declared any number of other conjectures). That’s a subtle but important difference. In 5e d&d the investigation check would simulate the former, having relevant facts and forming the appropriate conjecture based on them.

Important note: if it actually is true in the fictional world that no matter what an expert says it’s more likely true, then I’d agree that the runes example was simulative in such a world, but that’s not the case in the runes example and thus why it’s not a simulation of the fictional world.

I think we always have some things that are settled in the game world and some things that are not settled. One question that raises is whether it can be a feature of a "simulative mechanic" that it can migrate something from not-settled, to settled? When I reflect on that I wonder how simulative mechanics are to matter to play at all, if their results cannot settle that which was not-settled?

 

[Thomas Shey]

According to GURPS 4e Campaigns, modifiers are applied often. No idea where the idea comes from that this isn't the case.
View attachment 412517

It then goes onto discuss Task Difficulty (ranging from +10 for Automatic to -10 for Impossible) and Equipment Modifiers (quality modifiers, missing equipment modifiers) as well as more obscure things like cultural and tech level modifiers. And these are just the generic ones; there are plenty of specific modifiers for various specific skills, actions and circumstances.

That was more or less what I remembered, but I haven't run the system in decades (and it was always possible I was conflating it with the Hero System which I've run more recently and more frequently) so I didn't want to say so authoritatively.

 

[clearstream]

Like I've said before, I think that is the only coherent definition of simulationism. Edwards made a big mistake in lumping genre emulation and other such things in simulationism, as it just leads to "everything is a simulation" and the term becomes utterly useless.

I'm more inclined to believe the term irredeemably vague, which I picture to be in the neighbourhood of "utterly useless"!

I wondered though, do you count played-experience into the standard for simulationism (so that there are simulative-experiences) or is that beside the point? So that you can focus on the game text itself?

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yes, but genres almost always contain things that are not diegetic to the world.

I know you said "almost" (and I want to acknowledge that because it annoys me to no end if I qualify something and people act like I didn't), but I think there are some "realistic" ones where if that's true, you could act like its diegetic without causing any harm in play--Westerns come to mind here.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I'm more inclined to believe the term irredeemably vague, which I picture to be in the neighbourhood of "utterly useless"!

I wondered though, do you count played-experience into the standard for simulationism (so that there are simulative-experiences) or is that beside the point? So that you can focus on the game text itself?

Not sure I quite understand what you mean. "Played experience" immersion etc, is very subjective. I don't think that has bearing on whether the mechanic is a simulation or not. More simulative mechanics feel more immersive to many people (to me as well, to a certain point) but that is just a personal quirk, not a quality of the mechanics.

 

[clearstream]

I fully agree. I tried to get clarification on someone else's concept. A major motivator for me to do that was that my then understanding of their concept didn't seem to pass such standards.

How else is something made diegetic in the world players around the table are imagining, if it is not through the right person narrating that thing at the right time? Is it supposed to transmit from text to imagination by osmosis? Relatedly, is the definition of "simulationism" to be a quality that game texts might possess, to which played-experiences are incidental?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I know you said "almost" (and I want to acknowledge that because it annoys me to no end if I qualify something and people act like I didn't), but I think there are some "realistic" ones where if that's true, you could act like its diegetic without causing any harm in play--Westerns come to mind here.

I agree it so for certain genres, which probably are along realistic "slice of life documentary" styles. Not sure I'd count western among those though, albeit it is broad genre with some versions running more on genre conventions than others.