An alternate paradigm

I really enjoy seeing how other people view tabletop role-playing games, and I'd love yo know more about the rationale behind his diagram that showed up in my feed.

It was generated by John Errwin (@johnerrwin.bsky.social), and when I saw it on my bluesky feed I knew I had to critique it and try to intuit where it was going.

I really like the notion that it's a cycle, and that various parts of that cycle influence sequential other parts of the cycle. From the perspective of my own "three-way tension" and "vector theory" about TTRPGs, this whole thing would fit into the "Rules" part of the structure. It's not a perfect fit, but it certainly gets me thinking about how the breakdown falls apart, whether that's my own theories breaking down, or the theories that seem to be alluded to in this diagram.

I'll give a description of what I see, then delve deeper shortly. 

Starting at the top of this diagram, we have "characters", who seem to influence the next segment of the cycle (the "mechanics" of the session) through "physics".

The "mechanics" then influence the "adjudication" through "procedure".

The "adjudication" then influences the  "fluff" through the "setting".

And finally, the "fluff" influences the "characters" through the "lore" .

It all seems fairly self contained, and I can kind of see how it all works, with influences of a diegetic and non-diegetic nature impacting on one another as the session unfolds. 

It's just a personal thing, and I know this is a reflection of the baggage I'm bringing to the table, but there's a few issues with definition that I'm wondering about.

I'd always considered the "fluff" and the "setting" to generally be synonymous with one another in the diegetic part of the process (as a part of a cluster of elements that put tension on the unfolding session narrative from within the imagined space). Much the same as I had considered "procedure" and "mechanics" to generally be synonymous in the non-diegetic part of the process (as a part of a cluster of elements that put tension of the session's narrative from outside the imagined space).

Still, it's an interesting way to view the cycle, with a distinct link between diegetic and non-diegetic elements taking turns to impact the session space.   

I do really like the way that "setting", fluff", and "lore" all basically lead their influences into the choices of the characters , but that's counterbalanced by my dislike of the "physics" placement in the cycle. I kind of feel like this could be a two-way arrow where the characters are impacted by the physics of the world at least as much as the world is impacted by their choices (assuming a game where the characters do have a distinct agency within the story). To resolve this part of the cycle, I think I'd bundle "physics" in with "mechanics", especially when we're looking at game rules that work to simulate reality, or at least simulate a set of genre expectations. In place of the current "physics" arrow, I'd probably place an "agency/choice" arrow, because it's the actions of the characters that activate the mechanics, leading through their procedures which may involve randomisers or other elements as defined by the system before informing the adjudication and bringing their influence into the environment around the characters. It then kind of works like the clouds and boxes of Vincent Baker, but is a bit more rigid in its interpretation of how different game elements impact one another (for better or worse).

I do like that the diagram hasn't genre-locked itself (or system-locked itself) by referencing specific ephemera of the game space, whether dice, or saving throws, or anything else that might be linked to one game but not to others. 

I'm probably overanalysing this, but I can see some cool ideas here.