What is a "Narrative Mechanic"?

[aramis erak]

I think there’s 2 methods for dealing with it. One is what Umbran described but that’s not the side I fall on. For me the knowledge check usually determines not just if I can recall in the moment but if I know altogether. In that sense I agree it’s retroactive.

I’d say this - I don’t particularly love knowledge checks, but in a game where the character can know stuff the player doesn’t I think they are essential. So much like hp, it’s not something I love but it’s something necessary. To me that changes the calculus.

Either way, the roll is potentially dictating a change to the fiction.

If the not now version, it creates a situation where it can be leveraged later to get the information.

If it's the didn't know version, it's establishing the fact of the matter, you did or did not know.

Either way, there's a change in the fictional state of the story following the roll.

 

[Umbran]

Is it? Or is luck or divine favor or whatever we might imagine is represented by having inspiration, actually something that exists within the fantastical world which D&D portrays?

As written, it is adiegetic. You may add a narrative afterwards, if you wish, but again, that narrative choice is not part of the mechanic. It is narrative spackle after the fact.

Spraying a coat of blue paint on a hippopotamus does not change the fundamental nature of the hippo.

This is yet ANOTHER thorn in the idea that we can define 'diegetic'

No, it is a repeat of the same thorn mentioned before, that had already been addressed as an ex post facto narration that has no impact on the mechanic itself.

 

[FrogReaver]

I'm not persuaded that "chance of an effect landing" is a thing.

But setting aside that metaphysical doubt, rolling the die is not a sign of that chance. Nor is the number that results on the die a sign of that chance. Whatever the nature of the correlation, it is not a sign.

Whatever the mode of representation, it is not a sign of those things. It is certainly not a description of those things. It is much closer to a substitute for those things in a reasoning process.

Fiction - Wizard Casts Hold Person at you -> Fictional proposition does he effect you -> the probability of the roll matches the in fiction probability based on the fighters Wisdom Save vs the Wizards save DC (ability to resist wisdom effects vs ability to land spell effects). As long as you accept that the chance of landing is a fictional thing then the saving throw mechanic precisely represents that fictional chance.

In this case, Come and Get It - which is supposedly the poster child for 4e D&D's "dissociated" mechanics - is diegetic: it represents a clear event in the fiction, namely, that the fighter does <whatever>, as a result their foes close, and then their foes get whacked.

IMO, come and get it is about as adiegetic as possible. How many times do I need to repeat that a mechanic can cause a fictional event and still be adiegetic. Thus bringing up that it does cause a fictional event isn't proof that it's diegetic.

Flashbacks in BitD are clearly diegetic under this criterion: the mechanic represents a clear series of events in the fiction, namely, the character having prepared themself.

Same as above...

Even spending inspiration can be diegetic, if a particular table takes the view that expending inspiration correlates, in the fiction, to trying harder.

I get where you are coming from but I disagree - not because you can't narrate it that way - but doing so leaves a wide open question as to why you need inspiration to try harder again. That's the part that reveals it to be adiegetic.

I've now lost track of what the word "diegetic" is being used to mean. But whatever it is being used for, it is not being used with the meaning of event that is experienced, or is amenable to being experienced, by the characters in the fiction.

It does - you just don't compare the events moment by moment. So of course some parts of the mechanic are diegetic. I don't think an RPG mechanic is ever going to get away from this, but by stopping when you find something that's diegetic, that prevents you from finding the moments that are not adiegetic. And yes - this is closely correlated with dissociated mechanics and also player authorial power.

I mean, suppose that a RPG worked this way: a player has a pool of tokens, and every time they want their PC to grit their teeth . . .must resist . . . and overcome some burden by sheer force of will, they can spend a token and their PC resists. The spending of the token would correlate to, or represent, something in the fiction, namely, the character resisting. So now is the spending of the token "diegetic"? But I thought that sort of "fate point" mechanic was what the label of "diegetic" was supposed to be excluding?

Hence why I have lost track.

I think the issue is that a characters ability to resist can never be truly represented by tokens that get expended when you resist something. Similar for 4e martial powers and 5e battlemaster maneuvers. Hence the adiegetic nature.

 

[FrogReaver]

Either way, the roll is potentially dictating a change to the fiction.

If the not now version, it creates a situation where it can be leveraged later to get the information.

If it's the didn't know version, it's establishing the fact of the matter, you did or did not know.

Either way, there's a change in the fictional state of the story following the roll.

Changing the fictional state doesn't mean something is diegetic or adiegetic. Why does it seem this concept is soo dang hard to grasp?

 

[FrogReaver]

In this specific instance, sure, but also there really isn't a reason why game couldn't take a stance on this. It could spell out what inspiration represents, if anything.

In my D&D game I don't use inspiration, but I use similar "divine favour" instead. At a temple or other suitable location characters can make sacrifices to gods or spirits, and they might grant them favours towards some particular task relating to their domain. They are represented by points that can be used like inspiration as long as it helps you on your stated goal. For example the characters made sacrifices to Vajurnu, the God of Journeys before embarking on an arduous trek across the desert, and gained some favour points to spend towards making that journey safely.

The mechanic is diegetic in a sense that the gods are real and the divine favour is real, and I even try to describe some glimpse of divine guidance when it is use, so the characters know it is working too. But it is still meta in a sense that it is the player who chooses when to use the reroll, even though their character is not making such a decision.

The problem for me isn't just whether the game says inspiration means 'trying harder' it's that the lack of that inspiration token means you cannot try harder and that's not how trying hard in any fictional universe has ever worked. Essentially it's a lie about what the inspiration actually represents in the gameworld.

Or to say it another way - such a mechanic gives the player the authority to narrate that their PC is trying harder now (hence the name 'narrative mechanic') - but there's no fictional reason a character cannot try harder even if the player is out of tokens - which is why such a mechanic is 'narrative' or 'adiegetic' or whatever you want to call that.

 

[Umbran]

Flashbacks in BitD are clearly diegetic under this criterion: the mechanic represents a clear series of events in the fiction, namely, the character having prepared themself.

For sake of argument, let us say you are correct.

What does that mean for the person who doesn't like adiegetic mechanics, and doesn't like flashbacks? Does your relentless reasoning mean that suddenly they will like flashbacks, QED?

No.

So what, exactly, was the point of the exercise?

Even spending inspiration can be diegetic, if a particular table takes the view that expending inspiration correlates, in the fiction, to trying harder.

The problem with that is that the narration would be arbitrary, not connected to the operation of mechanic. The mechanic and the narration would not be intrinsically associated with each other. They'd be... disassociated, if you will.

 

[FrogReaver]

The problem with that is that the narration would be arbitrary, not connected to the operation of mechanic. The mechanic and the narration would not be intrinsically associated with each other. They'd be... disassociated, if you will.

I guess the question I have now is, are narrative, dissociated and adiegetic mechanics the same. Is there anything that is one of these things but not another?

 

[Pedantic]

For sake of argument, let us say you are correct.

What does that mean for the person who doesn't like adiegetic mechanics, and doesn't like flashbacks? Does your relentless reasoning mean that suddenly they will like flashbacks, QED?

No.

So what, exactly, was the point of the exercise?

To ensure that people who don't like them are disliking an arbitrary set of random things, instead of a set of things with connected properties. This allows a following argument that those people can't actually put forward a coherent theory of design.

Unless it's more rhetorically convenient to be in an outgroup for the moment, in which case those design priorities are an intrinsic property of the majority norms in TTRPG design, particularly D&D, and hardly require consideration, as they're already so well represented in the field.

 

[aramis erak]

Changing the fictional state doesn't mean something is diegetic or adiegetic. Why does it seem this concept is soo dang hard to grasp?

Not fail to grasp. Fail to care at all. My only concerns are whether the mechanics are producing interesting effects in the story, not whether they represent something the character experiences.
In fact, I think the emphasis on the character's perception is probably a huge and fatal flaw in many discussions. The character literally only matter's as the player's piece in the game, and I don't describe for the character; I describe for the player.

 

[Umbran]

It may be… I would agree that recall can be part of it, or that there are some instances where it’s a matter of recall.

But to say it’s never about simply not having learned the info? That’s a really weird take that I don’t think stands up to scrutiny.

Maybe I’m missing some nuance in what you’re saying though?

No. This is not a matter of nuance. It is incredibly simple.

You said, and I quote: "There has to be more than just recall happening, right?" (emphasis mine)

I merely pointed out that it does not have to be more than just recall. That's all. One can operate with it just being recall, and that works. Some may find it more satisfying, for themselves, if it isn't just recall. That's fine, for them. But it doesn't have to hold for anyone else. Knowledge checks don't have to be retroactive, if one does not want them to be.

That was the pretty nuance-free point. Leave space for others.

Other people can have different ways of looking at things, and that should be okay, a non-issue! But, this thread seems to have become rather loaded with people trying to prove absolute truth values, as if human play preferences had anything to do with absolute truth.