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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 9033319" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Ok, this is feeling like a regression.  I don't know how your first sentence above is responsive to how I've defined procedures.  I'm feeling like clarity and understanding is actively decaying with the deconstruction and struggling communication we're undertaking here.  I'm going to take this moment to do something I really don't have any interest in doing, but maybe it will help...something.  I'm going to define rules, procedures (again), mechanics (again) and give screenshots of examples.RULES:  The entire corpus of language and ephemera that substantively informs and directs play.  These include agenda, principles, best practices (or "meta"), authority distribution, all procedures, all mechanics, and possibly some ephemera (like maps, handouts, possibly some illustrations, etc).  Taken together, you have "system" or "game engine."[ATTACH=full]286403[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]286404[/ATTACH]PROCEDURES:  A formal sequence of actions undertaken in order to derive a distinct play experience and output novel to that procedure. Any given component part of the sequence typically (though sometimes a step may just be color, whether structured or freeform) entails referencing features/relationships of the play space/gamestate and/or invoking and resolving a mechanic.[ATTACH=full]286405[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]286408[/ATTACH]MECHANICS:  A function of system that resolves or facilitates the transition from one distinct gamestate to another.  This might be one part of a full combat procedure; a single roll of a dice + modifier to signal combat and dictate turn order like D&D initiative.  This might be a discrete mechanic that interacts (could be amplifies...could be mitigates...could be triggers...could be resolves...etc) with another discrete mechanic like Acting Outside of Your Nature (mechanic) in Tochbearer to gain a large dice pool at the risk of taxing your Nature if you fail the Test (another mechanic; the Test).  This might be a nested mechanic within a larger mechanical framework (typically conflict resolution) like the pulling of a block of a Jenga Tower in Dread to coincide with action taken in the fiction, the act of which either increases tension or triggers calamity.[ATTACH=full]286409[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]286410[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]286411[/ATTACH][HR][/HR]Whether anyone agrees or not, hopefully that makes my position on these matters clear.  I'm probably done with this part of the conversation as I feel like this is already well-trodden ground that doesn't need to be examined or deconstructed.  This is the basic substrate of all TTRPGs.</blockquote>

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