jhkimrpg: Immersion Links

jhkimrpg (

jhkimrpg) wrote,
@ 2006-08-30 00:39:00

Entry tags:

immersion

Immersion Links
So there has been some discussion of immersion lately. I haven't been referencing Kuma's Elsewhere in a while, which is a shame. He has been posting brilliant stuff there.

See first his AGE Model Wiki for general AGE Model stuff. I've just belated added this to my RPG Theory page. He's had a few recent posts on immersion:

"The Forces of Immersion" (August 11, 2006)

"Fostering Immersion" (August 18, 2006)

In the former, he references Allen Varney's article for the Escapist, "Immersion Unexplained".

Also, Thomas Robertson has made July 2006 his Immersion topic, see the archive of July on his blog:

July 2006 on "Musings and Mental Meanderings"

Lastly, there's a Story Games thread started this week by Stuart Robertson, titled "Immersive Story, RPGs, and Puppetry". He references my essay, "Immersive Story" -- picking up in particular on the puppetry analogy, and specifically identifying more traditional RPGs like D&D as more immersive and indie narrativist RPGs as less immersive.

This is a common disconnect that I have with people. My experience had been that traditional play -- particularly D&D -- is not at all character-immersive. There's typically a lot of chatter around the table about cheetos, dice, and other topics. There is usually a fairly explicit metagame direction: i.e. there is an obvious "adventure" which is prepared, and the expectation to pick up on that as the task to pursue.

My experience has been that highly immersive play is seen as problematic in most traditional RPGs. Immersively played characters will frequently break the rules: by splitting the party, by questioning other PCs, and by failing to follow the meta-game cues for the direction of the adventure. In the past, I've had multiple fights with the GM because my character went off to do something which broke the assumptions of the adventure. The stereotypical case is when an NPC approaches the PCs with a job offer. A player who suggests refusing the offer is quickly labelled a troublemaker.

This is about what I call "character-immersion" (what James Wallis called "Mask Play"), but Brian makes good points that immersion is a broader concept than that. For example, immersion in video games that Varney talks about is quite different. He suggests the immersion in general refers to the internalization of gamespace.

I don't have a whole lot of analysis at this point -- mostly I'm just pointing to the good stuff by Brian and Thomas.

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mertenvlach
2006-08-30 10:34 am UTC (link)

I identify with character-immersion you described very much; it's the way we play and it's encouraged. The drawbacks (splitting the party, refusing obvious plothooks, etc), if they can be considered such, are usually handled in two ways: either by preparation (characters are done in a way which discourages party splitting) or just running with it (your character splits the others, that's fine, so either the character is out of the game or maybe we can build another game around that character. Or just run multiple storylines for a while).

But what I really meant to say is that I like the fact that immersion-oriented stuff, in all variety, is out, in open and under discussion.

(Reply to this)

Immersionst / Narrativist
(Anonymous)
2006-08-30 01:12 pm UTC (link)

The problem with splitting the party in a traditional RPG is that the GM can't split themself, and the game would slow down for all the players. I think that's a related but seperate problem from character-immersion... it's more related to down-time. If all the players had characters who wanted to stay together instead of wandering off, it wouldn't be an issue for that game.

~Stuart

(Reply to this)(Thread)

Re: Immersionst / Narrativist

jhkimrpg
2006-08-31 07:44 pm UTC (link)

Larps often solve this by having a physically limited scope: i.e. the PCs are forced to be in physical proximity. (Sometimes referred to as a "cage" in larp theory talk.)

The reason why it is a problem for immersion is that downtime is ultimately a metagame concern. You can come up with good reasons why the PCs should stay together at the beginning, but without a hard cage, often there are good in-game reasons for them to leave physical proximity to each other. You can limit this to a degree by having a narrow scope, but usually there are still good reasons to split up. I'd recommend my article in Jonathan Walton's Push, Vol. 1. I'll post it online eventually, but right now I want to promote Push and the good other stuff in it.

It's interesting -- I wonder that while cages are common in larps, there is rarely an in-game mechanism for enforced party unity in tabletop RPG play. For example, a premise of play might be that the PCs are magically cursed, dependent on being close to a single artifact. That would work better for immersives than constantly having to find excuses to remain in proximity.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

The setup needs to be GOOD
(Anonymous)
2006-08-31 06:53 am UTC (link)

Just as the GM needs to create a good campaign world (most campaign worlds are *not* good at all) in order for Simulationism to produce events that are intrinsically interesting, so the players need to create *good* characters in order for Immersionist play to produce useful situations and conflicts, i.e. produce a mostly coherent party, and produce PCs who actually pursue goals that have dramatic potential.

The problem with Immersionism (apart from lame-brain GMs who reject anything that is not ultra-traditional in the sense of "The GM tells the players what goals their characters will pursue, session by session") is that if the player does not *think* *through*, and utilize his or her foresight, wisdom and intelligence to make a character who is *likely* to stick with the party (or to join up with a group of friendly-seeming strangers) and who is *likely* to pursue interesting goals, then you get that which the ultra-traditional (but still lame-brain) GMs rightly fears: Boredom, and utter absence of focus. Player characters wandering aimelssly around within the campaign world, either having no goals at all, or else having goals that are completely devoid of dramatic potential ("I want to grow carrots...).

The setup needs to be good. A good setup, whether it is a GM setting up a campaign world or a player setting up a character, is one from which one can reasonably expect interesting things (using the word in a broad sense) to *emerge*.

When it comes to characters, many players do not know that they are to create character with dramatic ambitions. They lack this knowledge on a very fundamental level. That's a problem, and educating players so as to erase that attitude is exceedingly difficult, especially given the sad fact that ultra-traditional play works - it works only after a *very* *lame* fashion, but work it does.

--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org

(Reply to this)

	jimboboz 2006-08-31 08:52 am UTC (link)
	Commented on in my lj here. In short - I don't think we're talking about "immersion", but about being an Attention Junkie. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	jhkimrpg 2006-08-31 07:32 pm UTC (link)
	OK, I've replied over on your blog. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	jimboboz 2006-09-01 12:12 am UTC (link)
	Thanks for that. I also made the same post, linking to your LJ, over on the RPGSite. Because the responses have been mostly agreeing with me, it might be good to have others pop in to balance things out. Discussions don't go very far when people are all agreeing ;) (Reply to this)(Parent)

Immersion controversy
(Anonymous)
2006-09-01 09:56 pm UTC (link)

I think much of the controversy is a result of imprecise use of language (and I blame the anti-Immersionists for starting it.) There are a set of standard conventions for role-playing that, among other things, permits immersion, such as a division of duties for invention between GM and player where each player is responsible for inventing a character's actions, and the GM for the ``external reality''. This convention is not PRIMARILY used for immersion, and most games that obey this convention are not played by most players immersively. But most immersive games use this convention, and many immersive players defend it as being good for immersion. At some point, this ``first person/narrator'' convention became identified with Immersion by the anti-immersives, perhaps because many of them were authors of non-first person/narrator games.

An analogy is to first person in other media. First-person narration in literature can often (but not primarily) be used in literature to foster reader identification with the main character and to give the character psychological depth. Faced with this argument, a critic could have three
valid responses arguing against (only) first person narratives:

``But I'm not interested in psychological depth. I like adventure stories, myths, or stories that make a political point.''

``Yes, but there are other narrative styles that also allow psychological depth.''

``Yes, but in this story, the convention of first person narration is actually defeating your purpose of psychological depth. For example, when the main character goes over and reads the encyclopedia article about diamonds, when he already is a diamond cutter, you really just want to break the convention and give the reader straight exposition about diamond mining, even if it means stepping out of first person''.

All of these could intiate interesting discussions about the role of person in literature.

What's not helpful is a comment such as ``I am sick of the literary bias towards psychological realism, such as found in the works of Arthur Conan Doyle and Mickey Spillane''. This comment makes as much sense to me as talking about ``immersive games like D&D and Champions.''

I am interested in games that explore other GM/player divisions, but I find the attacks on immersion used to justify such games annoying and unnecessary. I also think there are times when a non-traditional division can foster immersion, such as when a player invents the culture of a foreign character's homeland, rather than the GM providing this world information.
So I'd like there to be a more general and less heated discussion about the effects of the GM/player division on game experience, rather than a pro/con
argument about immersion.

Russell

(Reply to this)(Thread)

	Re: Immersion controversy bruceb 2006-09-03 04:34 pm UTC (link)
	Hey, that's good stuff, Russell. I particularly like your take on the connection between GM/player division of labor and immersion - yes, one use among several is exactly right, but I'd been missing words for it. (Reply to this)(Parent)

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