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

[Old Fezziwig]

Right, which is why I narrate all player actions as the outcome of a small army of bugs that follows them around, puppeting their PCs, and they nod along.

I see you've somehow acquired it my yet-to-be-published game, Skin Suit, the RPG. You'll be hearing from my lawyers, sir.

 

[Lanefan]

So skills have nothing to do with skill?

Oftentimes, this is indeed correct.

That's pretty messed up then, to call them "skills" when they aren't "skills"...

Starting with 3e the game has taken professions (armourer, baker, etc.), natural abilities (athletics, persuasion, etc.), common life skills (swimming, riding, etc.), and trained abilities (open locks, hide in shadows, etc.) and lumped them all under the catch-all "skills" label. Prior to that, professions were "secondary skills", trained abilities were class-dependent, and the other things handwaved if existant at all.

Whether putting them all under one banner is a good thing or not is open for debate, but if nothing else it's convenient.

 

[AlViking]

I see you've somehow acquired it my yet-to-be-published game, Skin Suit, the RPG. You'll be hearing from my lawyers, sir.

The real question is, who controls the bugs? Ah, who am I kidding, it's pixies. It's always pixies.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

The real question is, who controls the bugs? Ah, who am I kidding, it's pixies. It's always pixies.

Smaller bugs, like some sort of weird-ass mechas. It's skin suits and exoskeletons all the way down.

Edit: added an important hyphen.

 

[AlViking]

Smaller bugs, like some sort of weird-ass mechas. It's skin suits and exoskeletons all the way down.

Edit: added an important hyphen.

 

[Lanefan]

Aren't they? Do you say this based on your own expert knowledge of runes in dungeons?

Eg do you not think an archaeologist might be better at conjecturing what some writing is likely to be about, before they read it, based on what else they can observe about it, its location, etc, than a non-expert?

When a real-world archaeologist walks into a chamber that has some runes on the wall those runes already say something, and what they say was locked in when they were first carved. The archaeologist just has to figure out what they say; and either can or cannot do so.

In the game example, it's clear (in the metagame) to all participants that what the runes say is not locked in and never has been; and won't be until someone succeeds on their "Hey, maybe they say this!" roll. This to me is the equivalent of the real-world archaeologist simply fabricating what the runes say and then convincing the world he's correct; and that just doesn't sit right.

 

[Maxperson]

You don’t think that an archaeologist , contacted due to a discovery of ruins in Jordan with pictographs on the wall would have a better guess than anyone else about what those symbols might mean?

Not without looking at them and being able to read them.

What they hope those pictographs say won't have any influence whatsoever.

 

[Lanefan]

In 5e it depends on what is being rolled for. For ability checks we are told what it represents and luck isn't on the list.

Not our fault the designers got it wrong.

For a luck reroll it's entirely luck. And so on.

IMO Luck - as in the Halfling trait - is a hideous mechanic.

 

[clearstream]

Clearstream seem to caution against fragmentation in the meaning of the word while you seem to be cautioning against that a proposed meaning of the word could allow for two individuals correctly identifying something as both diegenic and not.

I think both concerns should be possible to acheive.

I don't think the second -- two individuals correctly identifying something as both diegetic and not -- can be ruled out for TTRPG. Roughly

1. Given X is diegetic if players can pretend their characters know that X
2. And to pretend in play requires players to willingly entertain beliefs... to voluntarily imagine X, in other words
3. Where the voluntary imagining is done in accord with principles and rules put in force for oneself, so that things in discord with those principles and rules will not be imagined... not entertained or pretended to be true
4. And there are differences between players in willingness to put some given principles and rules in force for themselves
5. So that there are differences in their willingness to entertain certain beliefs... those players may differ in their willingness to imagine X, in other words
6. It is entirely possible that some player A will have a willingness to pretend their characters know X, so that X is diegetic for player A, whilst player B does not share that willingness, so that X is not diegetic for player B

Such differences in willingness as I describe have been abundantly testified to in this very thread! Importantly, I do not think it does any harm to the concept of what is diegetic in TTRPG that there should be such differences. It seems inevitable for a form of narrative whose medium is the imagination.

Unlike the shared experience of watching a film and hearing music in the auditorium, some players could refuse to imagine that music. It can scarcely be described as diegetic -- it would not even exist! -- in the world they are imagining.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I don't think the second -- two individuals correctly identifying something as both diegetic and not -- can be ruled out for TTRPG. Roughly

1. Given X is diegetic if players can pretend their characters know that X
2. And to pretend in play requires players to willingly entertain beliefs... to voluntarily imagine X, in other words
3. Where the voluntary imagining is done in accord with principles and rules put in force for oneself, so that things in discord with those principles and rules will not be imagined... not entertained or pretended to be true
4. And there are differences between players in willingness to put some given principles and rules in force for themselves
5. So that there are differences in their willingness to entertain certain beliefs... those players may differ in their willingness to imagine X, in other words
6. It is entirely possible that some player A will have a willingness to pretend their characters know X, so that X is diegetic for player A, whilst player B does not share that willingness, so that X is not diegetic for player B

Such differences in willingness as I describe have been abundantly testified to in this very thread! Importantly, I do not think it does any harm to the concept of what is diegetic in TTRPG that there should be such differences. It seems inevitable for a form of narrative whose medium is the imagination.

Perhaps this might happen to some degree, but also I think most of this could and perhaps should be agreed upon beforehand and then everyone treats it in the same way. Like for example the spell levels either are or aren't diegetic in the setting.