When playing a class-based fantasy RPG, are classes diegetic for you?

[Umbran]

... I tend to assume that the reason the technical jargon got adopted is because people like sounding smart and technical jargon can be a "look at me" surrogate for intellectualism.

Mod Note:
Are you sure that passive-aggressive insult is the way you wanna go here?

Because I don't know that it will serve you particularly well.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I suppose, but from my perspective, you've got that backwards because you don't go back far enough. Games being tied to setting wasn't a thing until at least the 80s, and was even more pronounced in the 90s. Games in the 70s rarely had a built in setting. "In setting" just wasn't anything that I ever heard anyone talk about, so it was a moot point.

I think that's only true if you require formal setting inclusion. Both OD&D and Traveller had setting based assumptions galore baked into them..

 

[Micah Sweet]

A bold take to throw out there among the conversation around it. Do the people in your game world talk about choosing to take sorcerer, or dipping a level of rogue?

The concept of class and the concept of class level are two different things. I believe classes are often diagetic. Class levels can be diagetic, depending on the class in question and it's organization.

 

[pemerton]

I would generally view "the fiction" as a specific table instantiation of a "setting".

Forgotten Realms is a setting. My D&D table running a game in the Forgotten Realms creates a specific fiction.

For reasons you can probably infer (based on my posting history), I'm a little sceptical about the "reality" or "ontological heft" of a setting like (say) the Forgotten Realms, or Greyhawk, as having "definition" and content - for RPG purposes - independent of some particular instantiation in someone or other's use of it in play.

To try and be a bit clearer: I don't mean to say that we can't talk about (eg) what Ed Greenwood wrote in a book. But suppose Ed Greenwood once wrote a book in which one character said to another "Hey, watch out for that magic-user - if you're not careful, she'll fireball you!": it doesn't follow that, just because I choose to use that book as a basis and framework for my own play, that I'm committing to game elements like the magic-user class and the fireball spell being discrete and identifiable elements of the fiction I'm imagining and sharing with my fellow players.

But the preceding is something tangential to this thread, I think. Though I'm very happy to discuss it further if it's of interest!

"Diegetic", as the jargon has been adopted, is discussing something more specific than simply "is the mechanic representing a concept within the fiction".

Well, this did come up in the thread. And the OP indicated a usage of the term "diegetic" that fit with what I suggested, not what you've said here:

When asking if a game mechanic is diegetic we're not asking if the mechanic itself exists in the game world, but whether it has a referent in the game world.

I think a series of posts in the 70s expressed a similar view.

It's describing whether the mechanical element exists as a descriptor that can be used for in-character discussion and communication.

<snip>

The concept of "class", and whether or not class is something identifiable and recognizable within the fiction, is where the term "diegetic" is doing the bulk of its work.

For this, I think I still prefer is in the fiction or is an element of the fiction. As per my post 151 upthread, and also this post from earlier upthread:

a lot of the mechanics that characterise classes, in modern D&D at least, are really only metagame ones. For instance, in the metagame (that is, the mechanical play of the game) there's a difference between two attacks vs one target for (say) d6 damage, and one attack vs that target for (say) d12+1 damage. But in the fiction - where the action economy, rates of attack, hit point loss, etc are not literal elements of that fiction - those do things could be very much the same.

The reason I've requoted that is to foreground my earlier remark about which mechanics are metagame and which are not. I think a lot of mechanics that are often not recognised as metagame actually are - in the sense that they don't particularly represent or model anything in the fiction - and once we recognise this it should shape our thinking about what other stuff is part of the fiction.

For instance, if we think about a fighter vs a rogue in the fiction, how do they differ? First, the difference is most noticeable - and, perhaps, only noticeable - in the context of how they fight. Because the way that skills are resolved in 5e D&D isn't mechanically "tight" enough to extrapolate anything concrete into the fiction. In a fight, a fighter likely wears heavier armour than a rogue, and perhaps also wields a heavier weapon. The rogue is more dangerous when fighting alongside a friend, or when attacking from some sort of cover/surprise.

And so the question are rogues and fighters real things in the fiction becomes something like in the fiction, is there a difference between an opportunistic skirmisher and a hold-the-line heavy infantry-type? To which the answer is probably "Yeah, I guess so" but I don't think that takes us very far. The differences between the two classes are much more mechanically intricate than this, but those differences - that define the classes as components of game play - don't manifest in the fiction.

(And the mechanical viability of DEX-based fighters using hand crossbows or whatever only reinforce the preceding point.)

 

[Micah Sweet]

Assuming that a class is something mappable to a real-world vocation is doing a LOT of implicit worldbuilding, which is why it raises some hackles.

So what? It's your world and your worldbuilding. My preference is that as much of the mechanical part of the game maps directly or indirectly (preferably the former) to the fiction as possible. Your preference doesn't have to match mine, and that's ok.

 

[pemerton]

In the real world, people talk about being an engineer, and accountant or or a teacher, for example.

Assuming that a class is something mappable to a real-world vocation is doing a LOT of implicit worldbuilding, which is why it raises some hackles.

In my case, there are no hackles raised! But I don't find the comparison very plausible.

Being an engineer (or carpenter, or whatever) normally means (i) having some set of skills or training, and (ii) pursuing endeavours that draw upon that skill/training, typically (iii) in order to earn one's livelihood. The analogue in the typical fiction of D&D is "I'm a mercenary" or "I'm a scholar" (who weirdly enjoys the company of mercenaries and routinely gets into serious fights).

There are exceptions - eg I'm an unemployed engineer or I'm a carpenter, but can only get work as a brickie's labourer or the like - but these tend to simply reinforce that D&D classes aren't the same sort of thing. There's no real concept of I'm a fighter but not working as a fighter at the moment or I'm a rogue, but I'm working as a minder because it's the best work I could get.

 

[Thomas Shey]

There are exceptions - eg I'm an unemployed engineer or I'm a carpenter, but can only get work as a brickie's labourer or the like - but these tend to simply reinforce that D&D classes aren't the same sort of thing. There's no real concept of I'm a fighter but not working as a fighter at the moment or I'm a rogue, but I'm working as a minder because it's the best work I could get.

I find that more plausible with the rogue than the fighter, because people do the equivelent with synonyms for it fairly frequently.

 

[cranberry]

In my case, there are no hackles raised! But I don't find the comparison very plausible.

Being an engineer (or carpenter, or whatever) normally means (i) having some set of skills or training, and (ii) pursuing endeavours that draw upon that skill/training, typically (iii) in order to earn one's livelihood. The analogue in the typical fiction of D&D is "I'm a mercenary" or "I'm a scholar" (who weirdly enjoys the company of mercenaries and routinely gets into serious fights).

There are exceptions - eg I'm an unemployed engineer or I'm a carpenter, but can only get work as a brickie's labourer or the like - but these tend to simply reinforce that D&D classes aren't the same sort of thing. There's no real concept of I'm a fighter but not working as a fighter at the moment or I'm a rogue, but I'm working as a minder because it's the best work I could get.

Didn't WoTC publish an adventure that centered around a Wizard School? That would seem to imply a strong correlation between class and profession (in-game), at least from the writers perspective.

 

[TwoSix]

For this, I think I still prefer is in the fiction or is an element of the fiction.

Sure, I don't think we're differing much here on concept. I'm just happy to assign that definition to "diegetic" as a term of TTRPG jargon.

For instance, if we think about a fighter vs a rogue in the fiction, how do they differ? First, the difference is most noticeable - and, perhaps, only noticeable - in the context of how they fight. Because the way that skills are resolved in 5e D&D isn't mechanically "tight" enough to extrapolate anything concrete into the fiction. In a fight, a fighter likely wears heavier armour than a rogue, and perhaps also wields a heavier weapon. The rogue is more dangerous when fighting alongside a friend, or when attacking from some sort of cover/surprise.

And so the question are rogues and fighters real things in the fiction becomes something like in the fiction, is there a difference between an opportunistic skirmisher and a hold-the-line heavy infantry-type? To which the answer is probably "Yeah, I guess so" but I don't think that takes us very far. The differences between the two classes are much more mechanically intricate than this, but those differences - that define the classes as components of game play - don't manifest in the fiction.

(And the mechanical viability of DEX-based fighters using hand crossbows or whatever only reinforce the preceding point.)

Yea, that's not exactly the point I was leaning towards. A diegetic class is more about the flow of character conversation, if statements like "We need healing, let's go ask that guy with a holy symbol over there, he looks like a cleric." are statements that make sense within in-character channels as opposed to metagame channels.

 

[TwoSix]

So what? It's your world and your worldbuilding. My preference is that as much of the mechanical part of the game maps directly or indirectly (preferably the former) to the fiction as possible. Your preference doesn't have to match mine, and that's ok.

It's not really about worldbuilding. It's that this question is fairly central to how players should approach discussion of PC and NPC capabilities in class-based games, especially D&D. AND that there's a fairly wide spectrum of assumptions on how this topic is handled by the wider player base, and it's pretty easy for individual members at a table to have widely divergent approaches that can cause communication issues at the table.

We discuss these issues because unstated assumptions can cause problems, so it's good for people to be aware that others might think totally differenly on this topic!