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

[clearstream]

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

Edit: added an important hyphen.

That can't be right. It has been known for centuries that it's turtles all the way down.

 

[clearstream]

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.

Certainly, in that group who made those beforehand agreements. But I am speaking across all groups, and from testimony in this thread it seems a certainty that acts that might establish X as diegetic for one group, will not do so for some other group. One that resists for example that GM establishes that X.

And sometimes I've observed a less problematic version within a group, where a neglectful player, or one who for one reason or another has a different picture than others, speaks up and says "that can't be right, I'm here by the door with a broken bottle in my hand, not over there by the pool table" or "wasn't there a knife on that side-table" and everyone nods and suddenly what is diegetic for the whole group changes.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

That can't be right. It has been known for centuries that it's turtles all the way down.

And what do you think operates the turtles? Bugs.

 

[Lanefan]

What does a simulation do?

It seems to me that the basic-english answer is, "It tells us how and why new things happen, when we put into it what things we already know about."

I'd say the answer to "What does a simulation do?" is more like "It models, as best as it can, how something would happen were it happening in reality."

A flight simulator is just that: a simulator that models, as best it can, how flying works in reality; with the goal of allowing people to practice piloting without all the resulting carnage and mess if they screw it up.

How does the flight simulator do this? By dint of lots of careful programming (analagous to out-of-fiction game mechanics) that within itself has no idea what it's doing or why, it just does it.

That programming then produces output - graphics and numbers - that appear on the screen and to which the user can then react; and it's this output-production phase that's analagous to the DM narrating the how and why of the mechanics-generated result.

Also, your answer above isn't so much defining a simulator; it's defining a predictive model like what weather-forecasting computers produce, and IMO there's a difference between a simulator and a predictive model in that a predictive model - due to its intended purpose - has to move beyond what's already known and in fact does most if not all of its work as educated speculation.

 

[Lanefan]

Now you've done gone and said it, the unasprechlichen! That raspy sound you hear is the knives being sharpened. Something is going to need blood!

In other news, it's Tuesday...

 

[Enrahim]

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.

I think the premise I am stumbling upon is number 4.

I would think I have heard somewhere (the proposal that) that willingness to put certain common principles and rules in force for oneself is more or less the definition of entering a game. That is if there is a difference here, the players has essentially failed to properly initiate a game.

Edt: Less controversaly they could be said to be playing essentially different games, maybe not even recognising so themselves. Similar to how players can seemingly perfectly well play a board game together until it is discovered they assume different rules for some edge case.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This is how you get Rolemaster. You don't want that.



You need the Misstepmaster supplement, then you can roll on the Manoeuvre on Loose Ground Debris chart IV to determine the exact method of slippage. It will take a lot of time, it will be very specific, and quite possibly not make any sense in the context, but at least we have an answer and no one has to strain their poor brains with any thinking, or worse, have the evil GM to make any sort of decisions!

What's wrong with Rolemaster? From what I've heard it sounds great.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Rolemaster is for cowards and communists. Real simulationists play HârnMaster.

(Full disclosure: I love HârnMaster on paper. I still need to run it to see if that holds up after playing it.)

If it ever comes down in price, I'll consider it.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

What's wrong with Rolemaster? From what I've heard it sounds great.

It is mind-numbingly cumbersome and overtly detailed spreadsheet hell with zero considerations for drama or narrative appropriateness. You'd love it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sounds good. You know drama and narrative appropriateness are not what I consider a priority for GMs. Let the players generate drama I say.

It is mind-numbingly cumbersome and overtly detailed spreadsheet hell with zero considerations for drama or narrative appropriateness. You'd love it.