What is a "Narrative Mechanic"?

[Pedantic]

Perhaps I misunderstood what you were trying to press on.



I expect most folks view them as typically establishing what the character can recall at the time of the check, rather than retroactively. But maybe I'm wrong.

I prefer to roll the obscurity of facts (when introducing a scene/new info) against a passive knowledge score and then just relate everything relevant a character knows as part of the description. Like perception, it works much better as a "defense".

 

[soviet]

Perhaps I misunderstood what you were trying to press on.



I expect most folks view them as typically establishing what the character can recall at the time of the check, rather than retroactively. But maybe I'm wrong.

But you can only recall what you already know.

And I don't think people generally rule that failure means 'you knew it but just don't remember it at that moment'. It means you don't know or haven't experienced it. It's definitive.

So, the player doesn't know in advance of the dice roll whether their character knows this thing, or doesn't. Has seen this phenomenon before, or hasn't. That's retroactive determination of the character's mind.

 

[soviet]

I prefer to roll the obscurity of facts (when introducing a scene/new info) against a passive knowledge score and then just relate everything relevant a character knows as part of the description. Like perception, it works much better as a "defense".

I just never ask for these kinds of rolls.

Even as a player in D&D, if it's something I don't think my barbarian would have heard of I opt out of the 'everyone make a knowledge check to see if you recognise the symbols' checks.

 

[FrogReaver]

But you can only recall what you already know.

And I don't think people generally rule that failure means 'you knew it but just don't remember it at that moment'. It means you don't know or haven't experienced it. It's definitive.

So, the player doesn't know in advance of the dice roll whether their character knows this thing, or doesn't. Has seen this phenomenon before, or hasn't. That's retroactive determination of the character's mind.

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.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Perhaps I misunderstood what you were trying to press on.

I expect most folks view them as typically establishing what the character can recall at the time of the check, rather than retroactively. But maybe I'm wrong.

There has to be more than just recall happening, right? I mean, if I have "History +4" it doesn't mean the character knows everything about history and the question is whether they can recall the relevant bit. We're establishing what the character knows or doesn't know, but no until the point it's needed.

It's quantum knowledge!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

And at least from my own experience I get far more immersion and bleed from PbtA games than I ever have from D&D.

I'd be lying if I said I can't identify well with a PC in trad D&D style play, its certainly possible and I've done it. OTOH I find it a long and difficult process when compared with games which put character at the center of things. Like our BitD game, where my character is basically a troubled guy with a curved sword and a Japanese-sounding name. Its an almost throw-away trope, but the character has specific traits and is part of a rich social milieu by default. He doesn't do anything TOO surprising in the sense of "If I read this in a comic it would probably not surprise me at all" but I can instantly identify with the character, I know what he's ABOUT, and then we play and I'm disabused of some of my notions about Takeo, and other things emerge. So its fun, kind of unpredictable, and fairly immediately engaging.

 

[Umbran]

There has to be more than just recall happening, right?

Nope. Not at all.

I have some decades of life, study, and inquisitiveness behind me. I could not just vomit up everything or anything I know for you, and neither can anyone else - the human brain isn't a filing cabinet with perfect access to all contents at all times. At any given moment, if you ask me about some some obscure fact, I may or may not be able to recall it, even though I know the topic was covered in some course I took 20 years ago, or was in a nature documentary last week.

So, yeah, that die roll can totally be about recall in the moment, and/or about being able to properly do mental gymnastics in the moment, and be perfectly acceptable to me.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I know flashback mechanics from Leverage, but it sounds like they are much the same, given the similar genres.

I think, though, I see some bits here that speak to what I think about when I consider "narrative mechanics". A lot of what we seem to discuss is use of a mechanic in what sounds like otherwise fairly traditional play - the mechanic is being used to gain some added degree of success on a specific test. Largely, then speaking of a mechanic feeding into another mechanic. The narrative control isn't actually the point - the point is to influence a particular tactical situation, most likely a specific success test.

ELIOT: Damnit! There's four guards here. How am I supposed to get past them without a ruckus?
HARDISSON: What, don't you remember the fake FBI badge I handed to you before you left? That'll give you what you need, bro.

But those aren't the only "narrative mechanics" out there. Let's consider some narrative mechanics in which the narrative change is the point. I'll start with one example:

In Fate - let us consider a Conflict (for simplicity, a fight). There are two ways for the conflict to end - the player/GM (not the character/NPC) Concedes, or one of the characters is Taken Out.

If someone is Taken Out, whoever inflicted the final Stress gets to narrate how this happens, and the state of the character removed from the scene - they could be dead, unconscious, fallen off a cliff and their body not found, turned over to the cops, or whatever.

We also note that the narrative choice is not the character's choice. If the villain Takes Out a PC, and the GM may have made it clear that the Villain wants the PC dead, the narration might still be that the PC is knocked out, but alive, because the GM thinks continuing the drama is preferable to just killing the PC.

Similarly, if someone Concedes, the person who did so gets to narrate the state for the character as they depart the scene. It is important to note that this is the player/GM who Concedes - it is not that the PC or NPC in the story is willfully retreating or has given up. So, a reasonable Concession might be that, as they battle the BBEG, rocks fall from the cavern roof, cutting off the villain from the PCs while the villain rages because they still want to try to kill the PCs.

Whatever it is, this narration does not change the success/failure state of the conflict. The conflict was already won or lost. This sets only the narrative/story state of the conflict. It is all about the Narrative.

I don't think flashbacks are necessarily, nor maybe even especially, agenda-specific. They could be used to evoke a particular genre (Genre Sim), or in a gamist fashion as you suggest (as a type of strategy used to gain advantage), or in a more narrativist sense perhaps (as a way of portraying a certain type of character, or as an element of stakes setting etc. I can see an argument that, despite any particular degree of diegetic nature, an instance of flashing back might feel out of place to a player while they are in character. However even this is somewhat situational and personal. For instance when I was doing flashbacks in BitD I tended to imagine that my character was being reminded of something he did earlier.

In terms of other narrative mechanics you mention, they often do seem a bit gamist, but they also can and do serve narrative purposes. They might also fit well with certain sorts of sim agendas. Genre Sim is always one that is easy to pick on, but others can make sense too, even process type sim considerations can be applied here, with concessions or similar things evoking a wider variety of possible outcomes instead of the sort of typical D&D-ish "you fight until one side is all dead." which is frankly pretty rare in the real world!

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I think it is kinda fair what @hawkeyefan said about knowledge rolls. I guess in my mind they're part quantum like that but also in large part how @Umbran described. It is abit fuzzy. But at least I generally don't know why I know something I know, nor can I recall where I learned it, so it working a bit weird in the game doesn't seem particularly noticeable. Quantum gear is more obvious, and quantum wizard towers even more so. I would call the latter two narrative but I wouldn't do so for knowledge rolls. But it indeed is somewhat imprecise and depends on how you interpret things.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That's a good point. Seeking possible exceptions: perhaps a mechanic for flight in the game world, or for holding ones breath or starvation. The character can experience in-world that they starve in accord with the mechanic.


Agreed on rolling the dice, albeit the odds could be diegetic. By the same token, facts about the character on their character sheet aren't diegetic.

Unless one says that a diegetic game element is one with a supervenience relationship with something in the game world that characters can experience... which could include rolling the dice. Or one can just say (as you have) that it's not a very useful description.

But either way, a Devil's Bargain or Flashback is as diegetic as any other RPG mechanic.


I was thinking the same. The temporal sequencing isn't really at issue. One could even say that we just chose to play events out of order.

Hmmm, it SEEMS TO ME, and I haven't given this a huge amount of deep thought, that the useful way to use diegetic in RPG play is in the sense you mention, things that are supervenient over something in the game world, but I'm not sure this is 'enough' for some people. You could think of this in terms of the 'strong' and 'weak' forms of supervenience. Weak supervenience would allow for a given element to be considered 'diegetic' if it can only change when the thing in the game world changes, but in that case it doesn't necessarily have to be the same relationship in all cases. If you would play that game again, and arrive at the same fictional position, the element which is supervenient on it might not be the same. Strong supervenience would demand that it is. So for example in a strongly supervenient definition mechanic X is only diegetic if it always represents fact Y within that world. We see this is a COMMON objection, generally described as mechanics that don't represent the fiction, such as the famous "I inflict the prone condition on a jelly" from 4e, which is widely panned. So, 4e demands that, for the jelly's prone condition to change, some fiction about the jelly must change, but not WHAT fiction.

Of course ALL RPGs (at least a wide assortment) have this character to a degree, and this is endlessly discussed (in this thread even). Hit Points are 'weakly diegetic' by my proposition above, for the hit points to change SOMETHING in the fiction must also change, but what that is, isn't strictly defined, in one instance it could be a decrease in luck, in another a wound. To some degree this will also be a question of granularity. Often we simply don't define the exact fictional outcome of things, "I killed the orc" and we know I hit it with my mace, but we don't really know what sort of injury was produced, a head wound, crushed ribs, broken back? It may be counter-productive to label such things 'weakly diegetic' however, so perhaps there are additional constraints that would be useful, or maybe its just a fuzzy boundary.

But in a more practical sense, this fuzziness is really why I was never that interested in the whole question. It can be debated forever, but in the end something either does or does not strike a particular player as strongly diegetic or not, weakly diegetic, or not diegetic at all.