Of course it is. Someone becoming Restrained who therefore "can't run" is a mechanic. Writing down that you have become "Wanted" and therefore must avoid LOS to guards is identical. Write down a tag, what applies it, what it's effects are, and how to remove it. That's most mechanics in D&D.
... wow... not even close.
The mechanic is the RULES you EXECUTE. Writing down a note to remind you to execute the rules is just note taking.
In some cases like the sorts of things you record on a character sheet it is perhaps very important note taking and you are unlikely to be able to remember enough details to correctly execute a mechanic without those notes which are best organized using a formalized and specified set of shorthand conventions.
And if you went there with your examples then the line would be easier for you to obfuscate and confuse for no helpful reason.
But your examples, as always, are the greatest weaknesses in your arguments. No, you do not write down EVERY temporary status effect in combat like Restrained. You can. But for most competent GMs and players it isn't something you would bother doing at least most of the time, and writing the note or not is nothing to do with executing the game mechanic of the restrained status.
And your "social equivalent" of a formal social status called "Wanted" that means you MUST avoid LOS to guards is, frankly, the usual insanity of a basic failure to draw the line clearly between a formal mechanic and arbitrary fairy tea party well. No thought or consideration went into that example period but especially not into that aspect of it, you know, the most important one. I can just stand behind a potted plant and have a chat with them about my crimes, apparently. It isn't even written right because as it is for some reason it means I am not allowed to look at guards rather than anything to do with needing to hide from them.
But I'm getting caught up on the social example being straight up ass in every respect. The important part is the restrained status example. How you remember or note that a temporary status effect applies IS NOT THE GAME MECHANIC.
- The rarely observed alternative timeline Phonelobster
You know. Actually I would like to address a better example of Dean's confusion over notation and mechanics.
So I will provide a real steel man example rather than the piss poor attempts at examples presented, one that REALLY blurs the lines and tries to present a formalized notation methodology as if it were the game mechanic.
The Steel Manned Example
Right in the rules of the example game there is a mechanic for Bleed effects.
It refers specifically to Bleed Tokens, real physical objects, as formal game mechanical objects.
When a character is hit with a Bleeding attack, you take a Bleed Token and place it in a special allocated box for Bleed Tokens on their also formally game mechanical and also real physical object Character Sheet.
Then. At the end of each Combat Turn each Character with at least one Bleed Token has one Bleed Token removed from their Character Sheet, and if they do so they add one Damage Token to their Damage Token box on their Character Sheet.
This is about as hard coded and formal and integral as you can make your notation methodology with your game mechanics.
That feels kinda familiar...
I have played games with almost this exact mechanic. They were board games, but whatever, fuzzy line, this is where overly formalized mechanics will take you anyway, having a design goal for your TTRPG to be more like a board game than some is fine. So who cares.
The point is now we try a couple of use cases, or possibly misuse cases if you are Dean, that can still demonstrate the divide between what is a game mechanic and what is an entirely optional notation methodology. Even though our Steel Manned example treats it ALL as formal game mechanics.
Playing without the paraphernalia
Our first use case group here does not actually HAVE any (official) character sheets or tokens. They have the rules though and claim they use them.
When this group has a character hit by a Bleeding attack they use their home made printed character sheet that does NOT have a box fit for tokens but DOES have some sort of space for recording a number or tally in pencil and increase the value next to Bleed by +1. Then at the end of the Combat Turn if that is greater than zero they rub it out, reduce it by 1, and find their Damage value, rub it out and write in the new damage value incremented by +1.
Did they fail to use the game mechanic? Did they use the rules wrong? No tokens even existed. But the same status effect did the same thing to the same values.
I think it is very clear that this is an example of the same rule execution, with different notation methodology.
Doing it in your head
Our second use case group has the paraphernalia.
But, they are resolving a combat with only one Bleeding attack user, and that attacker HAS just hit a PC, but, has next to zero chance of surviving to attack again (and as it turns out very soon after and before attacking again, is as predicted, destroyed).
And I guess the Bleed Tokens are inconvenient to find, or not, who cares why get fiddly with it, say our use case players.
They don't bother recording the Bleed Token increment in ANY physical way, just remember it at the end of the Combat Turn, which wasn't long to wait anyway, and just increment the PCs damage by +1 at that point.
Did THIS group fail to use the game mechanic? They even flat out sat there and opted not to use technically available formally referred to tokens. They didn't even record ANYTHING except the final result of the mechanic.
WORSE, Bob, the player whose PC was damaged, notes the combat is over entirely, isn't happy with the known, eventual, damage total, declares they are drinking a potion of heal all damage and just swipes off all the damage tokens/rubs out the entire damage total BEFORE EVEN RECORDING THE DAMAGE INCREMENT!!@!
Does THIS make it clear to you what was an optional notation methodology compared to a game mechanic?
Again, I think this is very clearly an example of a group using the same set of game rules, executing the same formal mechanics, and using a more convenient notation methodology as the need arises. In this case. No notation method at all.
This STILL looks really familiar...
If you haven't seen these exact things actually happen at the table, if you haven't personally used these differing notation methodologies to execute the same game rules... Do you even game bro?
Players of TTRPGs do this with large amounts of even formal game rule material all the time and just remember stuff. It's still the same rules. And outside of the rules, for informal arbitrary story stuff they ALSO both take notes about things AND just remember it without taking notes, ALSO all the time, its STILL the same fairy tea party.
But more to the point. This is the better way to use examples to show the difference between what a Status effect game mechanic IS and DOES and whether, and even how, you NEED to write down or record a note about it or whether you could also just remember it instead and whether that decision about notation IS the game mechanic, which it rather clearly is not.
- The rarely observed alternative timeline Phonelobster