What is a "Narrative Mechanic"?

[Umbran]

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?

Well, it is pretty clear that we aren't all using the same lexicon. But, for me...

Narrative and diegetic/adiegetic are orthogonal. Specifically, not all adiegetic mechanics are narrative ones.

I haven't yet seen why I'd want to determine if disassociated mechanics are all adiegetic, so I don't have a position.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yes, but ideally you'd roll when the whole broader topic first becomes relevant to prevent the weirdness. Like you definitely should roll to know whether trids can eat trix way before you are deep in the trid lair.

Yeah, ideally GMs would take great care with this kind of thing, but its VERY easy to get caught out. Its not like narrativist techniques necessarily address this either, though some narrativist games like BitD do deploy techniques which can usually obviate these problems (IE flashbacks, oops, yeah, I actually DID bring oatmeal instead of Trix!). However that's hardly universal. PbtA games, for example, don't typically include a mechanic like that (though they certainly can).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Luck and divine favor may very well exist but the PC has no ability to call on them. So while I agree in principle I don’t agree with the specific example.

How can you say this? I mean, there's certainly no such canonical statement in any fantasy RPG that I've ever played. D&D, according to Gygax, very explicitly DOES contain such in the form of hit points, amongst other things.

 

[pemerton]

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?

See my post 481 upthread. I think more progress might be made by discussing what seems to me to be the actual issue, which is who exercises "ownership" over which bits of the fiction.

I continue to take the view that "diegetic" is not a useful adjective applied to mechanics, because none of them are experienced by the characters in the fiction.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Indeed! Though it’s worth noting that in moment to moment play it’s much less a big deal to me. For example, had no issues with flashbacks while playing blades.

Yeah, as I mentioned above, flashbacks can actually fix things that 'went wrong' in certain situations, and I'm not too surprised you found them OK in at least some game, as its been pointed out they don't actually necessarily take us out of character.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

At its core, this is a "whataboutism" argument - using a supposed inconsistency to suggest that an argument is weak: "You are big on chronology? Well what about THIS CASE?!? Where's your issue with chronology now?"

Setting aside the fact that nobody has to be perfectly consistent for their position to be valid, the cases at hand are not comparable. For example:

It is quite possible to list all the objects that a character carries on their person on a given day.
It is quite impossible to list all the bits of knowledge that exists in a character's mind.

Meh, it isn't a rhetorical contest. I was just noting an interesting point.

 

[pemerton]

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.

But it can be truly represented by a WIS saving throw, and hence those are "diegetic"? That makes no sense to me. What makes a player rolling a die a part of the fiction, in a way that a player spending a token is not?

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.

There is no "fictional proposition" does he affect you?. In the fiction either the spell does or doesn't affect the character. The question "Does he affect you?" is one asked by the participants, in their capacities as audience and authors.

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.


Same as above...


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.


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 can't follow your analysis here. I don't see what bit of CaGI makes it adiegetic, whereas rolling a saving throw is diegetic. I don't see how the player exercising their will to spend a token is adiegetic vis-a-vis the character's will, but putting the outcome of the character's will to the test via a saving throw is diegetic.

What if the fiction is one in which the gods have determined all outcomes in advance? Or even one in which, on this occasion, the gods have decided that the hero will resist? Does that mean that we can't roll the dice? Does that mean that a game in which dice are rolled is never one in which divine favour is exercised?

I find the whole analysis just muddled.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

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.



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.

Yeah, I reviewed the rule, it isn't explained AT ALL, so you can call it some kind of pure abstract mechanic if you want, but there's no particular reason to accept this, or reject it. The mechanic is even named 'inspiration', which to me sounds like an explanation for what it represents in game! Granted, it may not be very realistic, but it is certainly QUITE arguable that it is 'diegetic' as you all seem to commonly understand the term.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

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.

I have to call you on this. You are now using 'diegetic' to mean "my imagination is going to be satisfied that there is a suitable explanation provided." You may not consider Come and Get It to have the degree of verisimilitude you prefer (for whatever reasons that may be inherent to it's description or lie within how you envisage that) but that's an ENTIRELY separate issue from whether it represents something in game.

 

[hawkeyefan]

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.

I’d say you’re more guilty of absolutism. I’m saying that though there may be instances that we can attribute to recall, others must be about what the character has learned, not just if they can recall it.

Saying that it’s all always recall? Every instance of a Knowledge based skill, the character knows the answer, and the roll is just about whether they remember it or not? What does the DC represent, then?

I just don’t get why that’s the stance you’d want to take, except for the sake of arguing.