NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 9144494" data-attributes="member: 6785785">Just that I don't know if it's always easy to agree exactly on what may be diegetic or nondiegetic. Typically for me... and I don't think I'm unique here, though I expect plenty of others handle things differently... except for specific items, in D&D and similar games, I basically do my inventory at the very start of play, and then it barely ever comes up again. Obviously, I might gain a +2 sword and swap it for my +1 sword, and I'll accumulate other magic items or consumables. But aside from that, there's gonna be the backpack, the adventurer's or explorer's pack, and little else. I've yet to have a PC in 5e ever become encumbered. With Blades, loadout is much more meaningful. It comes up in every session. Players need to declare the size of the load... light, normal, and heavy. This is a meaningful choice which determines the number of inventory slots that they have available, and also how they appear, and likely impact on relevant moves. So if you've selected a Heavy Load, you have 6 inventory spots, and you are visibly geared up, so taking an action that requires speed or convincing someone you're going somewhere for perfectly normal purposes may be more difficult.All this to say that the "whole point of such an inventory system is so that the player doesn't have to engage with it in the game world" is misplaced. It works differently than more traditional approaches, but it's far more involved, far more integral to play. A player must actively engage with it routinely in meaningful ways. How is it not? If it's part of the game world, then it's diegetic by definition. Because a Devil's Bargain need not be diegetic. It's possible it may, as in the example you provided, but it's just as likely that it won't. The same for inspiration. It's a reward to the player for playing their character. Oh, you referenced your bond, here is inspiration! Then the player uses it for a skill check to open a lock. There's no connection among the things in play that are involved. We can't really explain what the inspiration is. I see what you're saying about the Flashback... but let me offer a comparison. So a player makes an attack roll in 5e, and that represents the character making an attack in the game world.The player makes a flashback in Blades, and that represents the character having made a preparation for this moment. There's certainly a distinction, but I don't know if it's along the diegetic angle. That's exactly what's happening. The chronology is different, but otherwise the games play similarly. I don't think the book offers a definitive answer, but the way I think of it is that the character incurred the stress in the past, when they took the action depicted in the flashback. I tend to think of this as the character recalling the events in the moment. Which is why I find it hard to make a distinction between this and Lore/Knowledge checks in a more traditional game.</blockquote>

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