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

It's OK.
It's the internet.  The place with little-to-no consequence for acting like no one ever would in public.  It lets out the 7th grade misanthrope in some people.

It's either that, or he actually did not understand the post, which is almost sadder.

Justin Alexander and LordVreeg speak the truth.

I find it puzzling that some people have difficulty with the concept of 'immersion', thinking that it must either be purely subjective or involve mental illness.

Quote from: Akrasia;388004Justin Alexander and LordVreeg speak the truth.

I find it puzzling that some people have difficulty with the concept of 'immersion', thinking that it must either be purely subjective or involve mental illness.

If anything I find it hard, as an actor and a writer and creator of things who is used to such modes of thinking, to imagine one is not capable of such imagination.

I mean seriously, that sense of involving myself in the fiction to let it flow where it may, is the whole reason I became interested in all of this shit in the first place.

Does it really surprise anyone that the 4e ideologues seem incapable of understanding immersion?  I mean if you really think that 4e didn't change so much on the roleplaying/immersion front, then that's sort of a given isn't it?

Some people are great at math, but couldn't tell you what two sentences of Paradise Lost meant.  Others are great at reading people, or telling jokes or doing something else.  Some GM's are great at tinkering with systems but can't write their own.  Some can come up with great ideas for Sci-fi campaigns, but their creativity hits a roadblock in Fantasy.  Why should the ability to use the imagination for immersive roleplaying be any different?

Quote from: CRKrueger;388007Why should the ability to use the imagination for immersive roleplaying be any different?

Because... we're talking about role playing games?

Quote from: Akrasia;388004I find it puzzling that some people have difficulty with the concept of 'immersion', thinking that it must either be purely subjective or involve mental illness.

It's not purely subjective, but it is possible to break it down into distinct categories.

Quote from: Akrasia;388004I find it puzzling that some people have difficulty with the concept of 'immersion', thinking that it must either be purely subjective or involve mental illness.

You really shouldn't, considering the line of thought has been around since plato, (who considered actors dangerous because "what if they started acting like the [admittedly jerktastic] gods they depicted in their plays").

Quote from: Logos7;388015You really shouldn't, considering the line of thought has been around since plato, (who considered actors dangerous because "what if they started acting like the [admittedly jerktastic] gods they depicted in their plays").

Ahh. If Plato said it then, that makes it perfectly "reasonable".

People who are predisposed to mental illness sometimes seek out total escape in things like RPGs or video-games (or method acting), but that doesn't make the rest of us crazy.

Of course, it's extremely hard for an insane person to admit they have a problem, so who knows.

All it is is a matter of knowing where to draw the line.  Most people know where the line is at.  Some people cross it and keep going until they hit the deep end.  If 'Krog' keeps talking to you well after the game about his bounty kills, even in Calc class, you may want to consider getting 'Krog' some help.

Funny thing, the RL example I'm drawing Krog from was a 4e player I met en passant.  There had to be some character immersion going on.  

Quote from: Peregrin;388017People who are predisposed to mental illness sometimes seek out total escape in things like RPGs or video-games (or method acting), but that doesn't make the rest of us crazy.

Of course, it's extremely hard for an insane person to admit they have a problem, so who knows.

Or they end up living like a hermit in the middle of nowhere, like Ted Kaczynski (the unabomber).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski

Quote from: Logos7;388015You really shouldn't, considering the line of thought has been around since plato, (who considered actors dangerous because "what if they started acting like the [admittedly jerktastic] gods they depicted in their plays").

:rolleyes:

Well, if it were still 4th century BCE you might have a point.  However, the past 24 centuries have demonstrated amply that one can engage in a variety of immersive activities (e.g., roleplaying, acting, storytelling, writing, etc.) without suffering from any kind of mental illness.

Quote from: LordVreeg;387996Justin, 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.

Thanks!

QuoteI 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.

Oh, I agree.

My personal opinions of immersion is tied up with my own experiences as an actor, particularly my interest in Stanislavski's and Meisner's theories/practices of acting. And nobody ever manages to be 100% immersed at all times.

But it all rests on a basic foundation of "thinking like/as your character".

QuoteIt's not that one system or another precludes Immersion, some jsut have more associative Mechanics.

And here we disagree. If you are using a dissociated mechanic you are not immersed. That is very much the system precluding immersion. If immersion is happening at some other point in the same evening, that's fantastic. But it doesn't mean that it wasn't precluded by the system in that moment.

And, personally, I find true immersion to be a very delicate state of affairs. Even the best actors in the world struggle with it. It can't just be turned on or off like a switch. So if you're interested in immersion, I think it behooves you to take the roadblocks out of the way.

Non-immersive roleplaying is a bit easier to flip in and out of, so it's probably easier to balance the non-roleplaying of dissociated mechanics with the roleplaying you're doing outside of those dissociated mechanics.

But one place where I still find this heavily disruptive are new players: IME, new players tend to glom onto the idea of roleplaying really easily. With associated mechanics they just tell me what they want to do, I interpret it mechanically, and we keep playing. With dissociated mechanics, OTOH, they're forced to interface with the game mechanics. It creates a less intuitive learning environment. It also has an impact on play styles: With associated systems, new players are some of the most creative and out-of-the-box roleplayers you'll ever find. With dissociated systems, OTOH, new players are quickly taught to focus on figuring out and using the mechanics -- which means they get stuck in the box. They play the game like a boardgame.

Quote from: The Alexandrian

Quote from: VreegIt's not that one system or another precludes Immersion, some jsut have more associative Mechanics.  

And here we disagree. If you are using a dissociated mechanic you are not immersed. That is very much the system precluding immersion. If immersion is happening at some other point in the same evening, that's fantastic. But it doesn't mean that it wasn't precluded by the system in that moment.

You misunderstood.

Restated, I don't want to say that you can't be immersed in a specific game, or that any roleplayig game absolutely precludes immersion.  Some games, however, have more associative mechanics than others.

In other words: yes, dissociated mechanics are the antithesis of immersion. Role playing game systems will have some mechanics that are associated, some dissociated, and will never absolutely reach either extreme of being constituted entirely of associated or dissociated mechanics.

That's what Vreeg means. Right?

Quote from: Benoist;388022In other words: yes, dissociated mechanics are the antithesis of immersion. Role playing game systems will have some mechanics that are associated, some dissociated, and will never absolutely reach either extreme of being constituted entirely of associated or dissociated mechanics.

That's what Vreeg means. Right?

That's what he means, yes.  Of course, why listen to Lord Vreeg, he like immersive roleplaying so he's obviously insane, despite his posts nearly always being the definition of measured, logical discourse.  

I think it's worthy to note that one of the most contentious RPGs, 4e, is also the one with one of the highest percentages of dissociative mechanics.