Diegetic guardrails for OSR games
Making the table rules inside the game itself + free stuff!
Okay, that’s a ten-dollar word — diegetic — but it’s probably a familiar concept. I often encounter it watching movies when I hear and react to sound the characters also hear. The best example for me is in Alien when the Nostromo announces its imminent self-destruction.
I hear it and react. Ripley hears it and reacts — that’s a diegetic sound. It makes the terror immersive.
This interplay between audience and character occurs in RPGs too. It takes form whenever the characters understand (narratively speaking) that events in their world will determine the rules in ours — that’s a diegetic rule.
Here are some examples:
The player and her sorcerer know the physical limits of a spell
The diabloist goes insane when the player fails his sanity check
The fighter must rest, so her player can roll some hit dice
The rain forces the party to stop, so the players must set a watch
Diegetic table rules
My players took some twisting on the rack to love OSR. I found a way to help them by making the “rules” of OSR play into diegetic rules — rules their characters would follow just like them.
Instead of table rules, they’re knightly vows sworn by those who wish to join the Supernal Order (and play an OSR-style game)
If you want to use this in your own game, I’ve included a downloadable PDF.
Go forth.
Watch for the Wenderweald watching…
—Odinson
Great vow! Very stylish and clear.
I have a diagetic "Hush" spell that makes the party silent, and if any player speaks above a whisper or the PC speaks at all, the spell breaks. It's quiet and controlled at the table, and quiet and tense in the fiction.
Love this!