Quote from: LordVreeg;387949Immersion is quite simply the experience of being able to think, feel, and be the character, not the player.  
Not hard to explain at all.

It's the why and how that are tricky to figure out, and that's where people's personal preferences come into play.

Quote from: The Butcher;387958It's the why and how that are tricky to figure out, and that's where people's personal preferences come into play.

Why what? How... what? I don't understand.

Quote from: Benoist;387959Why what? How... what? I don't understand.

Why and how immersion happens.

Group A feels GURPS is an immersive system.

Group B thinks GURPS is too fiddly, but immersion happens when they're playing D&D.

Group C feels D&D is immersive, but only when playing with GM #1. GM #2 uses the same system, same dition, down to the same houserules, but his games just don't feel as immersive as GM #1's.

This is my personal, anecdotal experience.

OH. I see. I understand better now. Thanks.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;387953Maybe I'm stuck on the definitions here, but beyond a certain point (the ability to "play" the character imaginatively) I would consider that the sign of a serious delusion.

What would be the "sign of a serious delusion", exactly? The ability to understand how another individual - fictitious or not - thinks, how they feel, how they would react to a given situation, and make a good faith attempt to ignore your own thoughts and emotional state as well as whatever window (be it a game or social interaction) that the information regarding the other entity has been attained, in an effort to understand what that entity would do in a given situation, to act as that individual would act?

That that would be a "sign of a serious delusion" is absurd.

Quote from: LordVreeg;387949Immersion is quite simply the experience of being able to think, feel, and be the character, not the player.

I thought you were posting from work, not a mental institution...

Seanchai

Quote from: The Butcher;387960Group A feels GURPS is an immersive system.

Group B thinks GURPS is too fiddly, but immersion happens when they're playing D&D.

Group C feels D&D is immersive, but only when playing with GM #1. GM #2 uses the same system, same dition, down to the same houserules, but his games just don't feel as immersive as GM #1's.

Which is what makes it bunk. I don't doubt the sincerity of those reporting immersion, but if it's so highly variable and personal, if it's not tied to anything specific or concrete, what's the point of using it as some kind of measure or discussion?

Seanchai

Am I right in assuming that this is an actually position ? That some people on here think that those that chose to try and get in the mind of their PC and act in character have some sort of mental illlness?
Is that a genuine position or an amusing ironic meta-joke harking back to Ron Edwards finest hour?

Out of interest is there a direct correlation between 4e fans and those that regard in character roleplay a delusional state?

Just curious?

I've said it before, but there are also different ways in which people immerse.  I'm quite capable of immersing in a game when I'm the GM, but it's a different sort than when I'm a player.

QuoteAm I right in assuming that this is an actually position ? That some people on here think that those that chose to try and get in the mind of their PC and act in character have some sort of mental illlness?
Is that a genuine position or an amusing ironic meta-joke harking back to Ron Edwards finest hour?

Out of interest is there a direct correlation between 4e fans and those that regard in character roleplay a delusional state?

Just curious?

No correlations could ever be drawn because there will never be any studies.

Anywho, to answer your question, I think there's a definite difference between assuming the role of a character and trying to become the character, and the words people use may make it seem like they're trying to do one or the other, because there is no clear, concise nomenclature for what they're trying to do.

As some grognards elsewhere have noted, there was a definite "arms length" between you and your character in older editions of D&D.  You still used them as a device to explore the world and came up with a unique personality, etc, but you didn't try too hard to become them.  In the 90s, with White-Wolf and other high-drama/story games, there came about the notion that if you weren't trying to be and think like your character at all times (rather than just playing the role for fun), then somehow you were role-playing wrong.  Because you're trying to really act, and that required getting into the head of your char as much as possible, etc.

It's certainly possible to become immersed in the world without having a very emotional attachment to a character (or any of the method acting type stuff associated with it).

Even still, I don't think it's necessarily delusional to give characters their own life in your mind.  This sort of method is what a lot of authors use to create interesting and dynamic characters with a spark of "life."  I don't think the method is really necessary for "real" role-playing, though, nor do I think it necessarily requires a 1:1 relationship between player and character (otherwise my GMing would suck).

Quote from: Seanchai;387972I thought you were posting from work, not a mental institution...

Seanchai

Wow.  I don't even know where to start.  You are one serious fucktard, dude.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;387715

Quote1) I don't think so. We've spoken of this before, thee and I. I still see in-game logic as critical for immersion. The players need to be able to think as their characters, at some level, to immerse at any level.
Metagaming is the opposite. It is thinking of the rules, thinking like the player.

Well, I think players require less handholding than that. I know that there's a strong tendency to think "oh WE roleplay, but nobody else does..not like us" (and you might even believe that its having rules that allows for this to happen.
But the truth is, you don't know if the first condition is even true, and the second one is entirely a matter of opinion.

Immersion, by definition, requires the player to be making decisions as if they were the character. (Debates can certainly be waged over whether there's also a component of emotional identification or even a transubstantiation of consciousness. And, if so, to what degree those need to be established. And, in addition, whether or not that's healthy. But while all of that can provide interesting fodder for discussion, it all rests on the that fundamental foundation: Making decisions as your character.)

Dissociated mechanics, by definition, require the player to be making decisions which are only mechanical in nature -- the mechanics are disconnected from the game world (and, thus, the characters). Since the characters have no functional explanation for a dissociated mechanic, it follows that a decision made regarding a dissociated mechanic cannot be a decision made as if the player were the character.

This isn't a matter of "handholding" or a lack thereof. Nor is it a matter of opinion. This is a fundamental, factual incompatibility: If you're using dissociated mechanics you are, by definition, not immersed in your character.

Going beyond that, I'm willing to make an even more provocative statement: When you are using dissociated mechanics you are not roleplaying. Which is not to say that you can't roleplay while playing a game featuring dissociated mechanics, but simply to say that in the moment when you are using those mechanics you are not roleplaying.

I say this is a provocative statement because I'm sure it's going to provoke strong responses. But, frankly, it just looks like common sense to me:  If you are manipulating mechanics which are dissociated from your character -- which have no meaning to your character -- then you are not engaged in the process of playing a role. In that moment, you are doing something else. (It's practically tautological.)

You may be multi-tasking or rapidly switching back-and-forth between roleplaying and not-roleplaying. You may even be using the output from the dissociated mechanics to inform your roleplaying. But when you're actually engaged in the task of using those dissociated mechanics you are not playing a role; you are not roleplaying.

I think the distinction is important because, IMO, it lies at the heart of what defines a roleplaying game. What's the difference between the boardgame Arkham Horror and the roleplaying game Call of Cthulhu? In Arkham Horror each player takes on the role of a specific character; those characters are defined mechanically; the characters have detailed backgrounds; and plenty of people have played in sessions of Arkham Horror where people have talked extensively in character.

I pick Arkham Horror because it exists right on the cusp between being an RPG and a not-RPG. So when people start roleplaying during the game (which they indisputably do when they start talking in character), it raises the provocative question: Does it become a roleplaying game in that moment?

OTOH, I've had that same sort of moment happen while playing Monopoly. For example, there was a game where somebody said, "I'm buying Boardwalk because I'm a shoe. And I like walking." Goofy? Sure. Bizarre? Sure. Roleplaying? Yup.

Let me try to make the distinction clear: When we say "roleplaying game", do we just mean "a game where roleplaying happens"? If so, then I think the term "roleplaying game" becomes so ridiculously broad that it loses all meaning. (Since it includes everything from Monopoly to Super Mario Bros..)

Rather, I think the term "roleplaying game" becomes meaningful when there is a direct connection between the game and the roleplaying. In other words, when the mechanics of the game:

(1) Allow you to input a decision made as the character (in other words, a decision made while playing the role).

(2) Interpret that decision mechanically and provide a result which is also explicable to the character (and, thus, can be used to continue playing the role).

In other words, roleplaying games are specifically defined by the fact that their mechanics are associated with the game world and the character.

Of course, as I wrote in the original essay on dissociated mechanics, all game mechanics are -- to varying degrees -- abstracted  and metagamed. For example, the destructive power of a fireball spell is defined by the number of d6's you roll for damage; and the number of d6's you roll is determined by the caster level of the wizard casting the spell. If you asked a character about d6's of damage or caster levels, they'd have no idea what you're talking about. But they could tell you what a fireball is and they could tell you that casters of greater skill can create more intense flames during the casting of the spell.

So a fireball spell has a direct association to the game world. Which means that when you're making decisions about casting (or avoiding) a fireball spell, you are roleplaying those decisions.

It's very tempting to see this in a purely negative light: As if to say, "associated mechanics don't get in the way of roleplaying".

But it's actually more meaningful than that: The act of using an associated mechanic is the act of playing a role. No one's going to give you a Tony Award for it, but that doesn't change the fundamental nature of the act.

(Which doesn't mean you can't add a metagame component to it, of course. For example, "I know I can use my fireball because the DM never hits us with more than three encounters per day.")

At this point, I'd like to head off a couple of likely responses at the pass:

(1) "You're saying that dissociated mechanics are bad!" No, I'm not. I'm saying they're inimical to playing a role. That's not the same thing. There's all kinds of things that dissociated mechanics can be useful for. When playing an RPG, most of us have agendas beyond simply "playing a role". (Telling a good story, for example. Or emulating a particular genre trope.) And dissociated mechanics have been put to all sorts of good use in accomplishing those goals.

This becomes even more true when we consider that many things we call roleplaying games would probably be more accurately described as "storytelling games". (Wushu, for example. White Wolf's Storyteller, on the other hand, is an RPG. Which is why this useful distinction of terminology will probably never prove functional.)

(2) "You're saying that 4th Edition isn't a roleplaying game!" No, I'm not. Large swaths of 4th Edition's mechanics are still clearly associative and I feel perfectly comfortable in describing the result as an RPG.

But it's equally true that the plethora of dissociated mechanics in 4th Edition make the game entirely unsuitable for those of us who, at best, want a very light spicing of situational dissociated mechanics. You can't do much of anything in 4th Edition without having your roleplaying disrupted by dissociated mechanics. (Particularly since the core mechanic of skill challenges are inherently dissociated in their design.)

Which is fine if those dissociated mechanics are serving some function you find valuable. In the case of 4th Edition's dissociated mechanics, I don't find this to be true. In the case of Wushu or 3:16 - Carnage Amongst the Stars, I do. To some extent this is because I'm looking for something very different from D&D than I'm looking for in 3:16. But to a larger extent it's because I feel that everything 4th Edition does with dissociated mechanics could just as easily be done without dissociated mechanics (and more usefully so).

But that's a separate debate.

Quote from: Angry_Douchebag;387982Wow.  I don't even know where to start.  You are one serious fucktard, dude.

You're saying it like it's any surprise.

Justin, I actually have the Alexandrian as one of the few hotlinks on my dsahboard.
So that you know.  
And I read the Shakespearean bits with great enjoyment.

I think one of the problems with your argument is that you don't make it clear that Immersion is never 100%.
It is always a percentage.  The mood, a good GM, a good setting, an associated mechanic, can all increase the immersion, the same as a bad day, a crappy GM, or a disassociated mechanic can decrease immersion.

It's not that one system or another precludes Immersion, some jsut have more associative Mechanics.  And mechanics that force thinking like a player (we were talking about wishlists) disincline immersion, as it promotes metagaming.  
Or that is my take.

I like Justin's post. He puts it in his own way, and I find myself in general agreement with what he's saying.

Quote from: AM

Quote from: Originally Posted by LordVreegAnd Seanchai, I have NEVER declined to give a definition for Immersion, nor have most people on this thread. Immersion is quite simply the experience of being able to think, feel, and be the character, not the player.
Not hard to explain at all.

Maybe I'm stuck on the definitions here, but beyond a certain point (the ability to "play" the character imaginatively) I would consider that the sign of a serious delusion.

Ha.
No.  Thinking 'as' a role, becoming a role, being 'in character', these are all examples.  Serious delusion?  I suppose you'll want to go to calling us devil-worshippers next?
Mechanics that encourage in-game thinking help this.  Mechanics that encourage out-of game thinking (metagaming) hinder it.  Again, very simple.

The fact that you argue this is why you keep coming across as someone who does not/does not want to understand the concept of roleplaying.   I am sorry it comes across as an insult, but when something this basic and fundamental in the game is misunderstood, I don't know what else to think.  I understand you run and play/played diffferent variations of D&D and other games, you evince, at times, good knowledge of games, but you are really coming across, again, as being argumentative and keeping arguments going just for the sake of it.