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

[EzekielRaiden]

I thought it seem like you and @clearstream agree in this regard? You are just elaborating on different ways this can be lost. 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. One simple improvement might be to bake in some requirement against logical contradictions into the term. Another could be to recognise that the context of the game (not just game system, but entire play, social contract and all) is important to aproperiate understanding the term given the dynamic nature of the medium. (This possibly not to dissimilar to how Saruman's fate is diegenic in the extended cut of LotR, while more debatable in the original teathrical release)

I think this can be done in a way that is universal and objective enough, that it do not fall into the definition from preferences problem.

I don't really see how that helps with the things I was pointing out. Because the GM is reality, all it does is force them to take like, one or two extra steps, as far as I can tell. Doesn't mean that functionally anything can be forced to be diegetic, just means the GM might have to put in the tiniest bit more than zero effort to achieve it.

Also, hard to not see "Use this and never do anything illogical" as being kind of a cop-out. It's like instructing someone to use a certain test for whether something is a prime number...but to ignore it every time it's wrong, and use some other test instead. That doesn't make the problem go away, it just asserts by fiat that we will now only pay attention to that slice of the universe that only contains the situations where it never goes wrong.

 

[clearstream]

I also found this point confusing. The point of the mechanic is to say what happens. How and why are design level questions that guide which whats are appropriate. A point of critique from the simulationist perspective is often whether the results sufficiently encode for those questions, and do so consistently enough. An outcome that strains credulity too far (say, the surprisingly non-lethal falls in D&D) gets side-eyed for that reason.

There is some back and forth about whether it's appropriate to supercede the rules with on the fly design to do a better job when they fail. I would say that's never acceptable and a poorly simulative rule is a design failure that requires a mechanical solution (or must actually be reflective of a consistent change in the setting being modeled) but some people seem convinced having the GM as an on the fly designer is adequate or even preferable.

For process-simulation, that could even be right. What I most resist is attempts to norm "simulationism" to mean "process-simulation". The latter amounts primarily to qualities of the text. "Simulationism" historically includes qualities of the play.

To me it's coherent to say that GM as on the fly designer isn't the preferable way of implementing process-simulation. To go from there to saying that it cannot be the preferable way to achieve other simulationist-gameplay is dismissive of valid modes of play.

Additionally, I think the weakness of process-simulation is closely connected with its strength. Focus on qualities of the text over qualities of the play. Sam Sorensen's manifesto speaks to that.

 

[FrogReaver]

For process-simulation, that could even be right. What I most resist is attempts to norm "simulationism" to mean "process-simulation". The latter amounts primarily to qualities of the text. "Simulationism" historically includes qualities of the play.

To me it's coherent to say that GM as on the fly designer isn't the preferable way of implementing process-simulation. To go from there to saying that it cannot be the preferable way to achieve other simulationist-gameplay is dismissive of valid modes of play.

Additionally, I think the weakness of process-simulation is closely connected with its strength. Focus on qualities of the text over qualities of the play. Sam Sorensen's manifesto speaks to that.

What is the actual difference between simulation and process simulation. That’s not a distinction I’m particularly familiar with.

 

[clearstream]

I don’t think I agree but let’s assume I’m wrong for a moment. At best all this does is show d&d can be played in a larger variety of ways than I initially gave it credit for. But since my point is really that d&d in X playstyle doesn’t do this, then I’m not sure how this counterpoint has any broader implications. Maybe you can explain.

It illustrates that your objections aren't based on the way these rules systems actually work. They're internal, not imposed by the texts themselves. Following the rules and principles of D&D can lead to the same resolution of the runes example.

A player hopes or conjectures some ancient runes indicate the way out
DM rules that it's possible and narratively interesting
DM calls for a roll
The result of that roll determines that they do/do not indicate the way out

To be candid, I think folk are cherry-picking between types of illusion. Ways in which they're prepared to pretend things that are false, are true. And ways they are not. That's understandable and tallies with preferences, but doesn't give a coherent picture of the whole domain.

 

[clearstream]

That's what a model is, though...? A model tells you how and why things happen. Or, rather, it predicts how and why things will happen. A good model predicts very accurately and precisely, and thus does in fact tell you how and why things happen.

That's not entirely accurate. Some simulations (Monte Carlo sims) don't tell you how and why things happen, they focus on following the distribution. A good model produces results with a distribution that will match observations. A feature models can have (e.g. Integrated Assessment sims) is to expose sensitivies for the purpose of comparing scenarios. In all cases, the cost of running the model is a factor: a good model produces its results at a cost that can be afforded (this is as true for process-simulation mechanics as for other kinds of simulations).

 

[FrogReaver]

It illustrates that your objections aren't based on the way these rules systems actually work. They're internal, not imposed by the texts themselves. Following the rules and principles of D&D can lead to the same resolution of the runes example.

A player hopes or conjectures some ancient runes indicate the way out
DM rules that it's possible and narratively interesting
DM calls for a roll
The result of that roll determines that they do/do not indicate the way out

To be candid, I think folk are cherry-picking between types of illusion. Ways in which they're prepared to pretend things that are false, are true. And ways they are not. That's understandable, talles with preferences, but it's not in a strict sense coherent.

Even if they are internal instead of text based that doesn’t mean I’m cherry picking anything?

That is there can be additional non-text based rules to how I and other players the game, to the point that we are essentially playing different games depending on how different those additional rules are? This would be a case of, the text is insufficient to fully describe the game being played.

 

[clearstream]

What is the actual difference between simulation and process simulation. That’s not a distinction I’m particularly familiar with.

Process-simulation means that what is desired is that all significant features of the phenomena are associated with features of the game process that will be invoked to resolve it. There's also some sort of sensitivity to the process timeline's mapping to the imagined causal timeline, although as I've illustrated above this is very often so janky that it surprises me anyone cares about it.

Process-simulation has numerous fairly well known (or so I thought) weaknesses. Not least of which is a sort of blindness to what is actually going on at the table compared with what is imagined to be going on in-world. And failures to see narratives as such. There are also cost of implementation barriers that early designs fell afoul of. When one deconstructs process-simulation mechanics for analysis, one often reveals glosses or elisions and calls for human decisions that are supposed to be absent... it's seldom supposed that the mechanics text literally maps to what is going on in-world. Rather the mechanic sustains a pretence or self-deception that satisfies folk.

I take this to be a form of noetic satisfaction with the text and the process rituals which is of course a perfectly respectable simulative-experience. Implying that my account of "simulationism" applies to process-simulation. (I take it to.)

 

[clearstream]

Even if they are internal instead of text based that doesn’t mean I’m cherry picking anything?

If you noticed you were cherry-picking you wouldn't do it. That's the point. As I wrote above

To participate in TTRPG is to serially pretend that things that are false are true. The debates are not  whether folk are kidding themselves, it's under what conditions and evidencing which features.​

That is there can be additional non-text based rules to how I and other players the game, to the point that we are essentially playing different games depending on how different those additional rules are? This would be a case of, the text is insufficient to fully describe the game being played.

Yes. Not only do I think so too, I think it is respectable, coherent even, to play in accord with such rules. In fact, it's only on account of such rules that play can occur in the first place.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

This differs from my view of simulation.
My basic English answer would be, when we put into the things we know about, it will output what would occur in a real situation.
Whether it tells us how and why is less useful, but often a simulation model is built on understanding why certain things occur for certain inputs, to then replicate outcomes and ideally be able to come up with correct outcomes for set of inputs that hasn't been observed in real life yet.
But where it is only replicating known outcomes (like id argue some computer simulations do) we dont need to know how/ why, as was already built in model, we just want to know that outcome for given inputs.

But in a TTRPG-specific context, it is almost exclusively generating things where we don't already know for sure what the outcome will be. That's...why we use it. So it will tell us. If we already knew without doubt what the outcome would be, we would just do it, and skip the rigamarole.

 

[Enrahim]

I don't really see how that helps with the things I was pointing out. Because the GM is reality, all it does is force them to take like, one or two extra steps, as far as I can tell. Doesn't mean that functionally anything can be forced to be diegetic, just means the GM might have to put in the tiniest bit more than zero effort to achieve it.

Also, hard to not see "Use this and never do anything illogical" as being kind of a cop-out. It's like instructing someone to use a certain test for whether something is a prime number...but to ignore it every time it's wrong, and use some other test instead. That doesn't make the problem go away, it just asserts by fiat that we will now only pay attention to that slice of the universe that only contains the situations where it never goes wrong.

Would you agree that RPG with absolutely no player input or rules would reduce to the activity of one person telling a story?

In the case of one person telling a story my understanding is that it is relatively well defined and accepted what "diegetic" means?

That is it should be a reasonable test for a proposed definition of diegetic in context of TTRPGs, to see if this definition reduces to match the well established definition in that edge case?

I have not really grasped your suggested definition of diegetic, so could you help me understand it better by explaining how it would be evaluated in light of the above?