This poll has more or less run its course now:-

QuoteWhen I'm immersed in character, what breaks or strains my immersion in character is [multiple choice poll, results after 122 people voted]...
stuff like dissociated mechanics and "author stance" 35.25%
stuff that breaks my suspension of disbelief - when what happens in the game isn't believable 45.08%
clunky mechanics, having to think too much about the rules 45.08%
being railroaded or not having a sense of ownership of my character 54.10%
absence of theme/premise in the Lit 101 sense 8.20%
not having shared narrative authority or not having a sense of ownership of the "story" 10.66%
I don't experience immersion in character or I don't care about it 19.67%
something not listed above, or special snowflake 11.48%

There are a few noticeable flaws in my poll. The first option, which is probably the most interesting/important for game-design purposes, is obscurely worded. I suspect a lot of people who might have voted for it if they had understood it won't have voted for it because the terms used are jargon which they may not have understood. I should have included options for hard or soft personality mechanics, which several posters specifically mentioned. I should have included options for social conflict mechanics and interruptions to natural dialogue, which are huge barriers to immersion for many people. I should have included options for "not having enough information about my character / not having a solid-enough character concept", which I have personally found to be a barrier to immersion. Arguably I should have included options for background noise, malodorous gamers, two-year-olds running around under one's feet etc. Of course, there's a limit of 12 questions on TBP polls.

And some will say, I should have left out the anomalous marginal cases of ABSENCE of shared narrative authority and absence of theme/premise in the Lit 101 sense. But I set up the poll to settle an argument as to whether immersive gamers tend to be distracted from their immersion by the same sorts of things as each other. I think the poll supports my view that they do - the first four options in the poll being the big hitters. Obviously, it's not science, it's not perfect, the sample (122 voters of whom nearly 20% don't get immersed and more than 11% go special snowflake) isn't huge, and then it's skewed to the TBP demographic. But the results are still broadly in line with what I expected and with what I would expect from a representative group of committed tabletop gamers (including in that phrase RPGs, storygames and hybrids of the two, and including hack-n-slashy games with minimal actual roleplay or story). Bearing in mind of course that the title of the thread was designed to get people to vote if they actually game immersively, since that's the only people whose votes on this topic are interesting.

I've posted this in the Design thread because I think it's useful to know what to avoid in game design if you're interested in promoting immersion.

What is "author stance"?

Quote from: MGuy;586309What is "author stance"?

I had a shot at defining it in the OP on TBP. Basically, when you have to think in an out-of-character way to decide your character's actions or the outcome of your character's actions or something else that happens in the game-world. For instance, having your character do a certain thing not because your character WOULD naturally do it, but because it'll make a better "story".

Alternatively it's the concept used on rec.games.frp.advocacy. [JHKim's archive of this is on darkshire.net or something.]

Quote from: JHKim on darkshire.netOriginally part of Kevin Hardwick's Narrative Stance Model, where is was also known as "Director" stance. It implies playing with a eye towards changing the game or affecting its development on a metagame level. ...

Basically, it's metagaming in an RPG, or normal play in a storygame.

M'k. Sounds legit. The percentages look about right all things considered. All of these things, from doing math to being railroaded, are all things that yank me right out of character. However I will say that I'm a lot more forgiving of breaking immersion during battle. Doing the maths, having  to remember positioning rules, etc is "ok" for me when the combat music is up.

Quote from: MGuy;586341M'k. Sounds legit. The percentages look about right all things considered. All of these things, from doing math to being railroaded, are all things that yank me right out of character. However I will say that I'm a lot more forgiving of breaking immersion during battle. Doing the maths, having  to remember positioning rules, etc is "ok" for me when the combat music is up.

Me too, thinking of MET-LARP V:tR combat, which can be obscenely crunchy when you have large numbers of participants involved (12+). I can even keep the immersion going during that, depending on the circs.