Quote from: The Traveller;567628Who wears a beret and a cravat together? Talk about mixed signals.

Injured paratroopers?

Jack, playing his character named Thrud
Bill, playing the DM
Penny: playing her character Illandria


Jack: I slowly open the door and peer inside.
Bill: The room is an inky pitch black.  You can't see anything
Jack: I slowly put one foot in front of the other feeling my way in.  Do I feel anything?
Bill:  Well, Thrud feels something slippery on the floor, but nothing major.
Jack:  Ok, well I slowly make my way into the room, axe at ready.
Penny: Be careful.
DM: As you enter, Thrud suddenly feels a slimy appendage creep up his leg.
Jack:  Holy!  Illandria!  Get in here!  I feel something attacking me!
DM: Well, no.  Thrud feels something attacking him.  You don't feel anything do you?
Jack:  Well....no I guess.
DM:  Ok.  Well anyway, The slimy warm tentacle slowly makes its way up Thrud's leg.  You feel a tingly probing sensation, as the tentacle seems to be covered by hundreds of little knobs, each one coated with some sort of anesthetic.  The probes work further upward.  The tingly sensation reaches Thrud's testicles.  Then his anus.  They...
Jack:  Whaoh!  Now I totally feel something, and it's called major awkward discomfort.
Penny:  So you do feel what Thrud feels.  Argument solved.

Quote from: soviet;567632That kind of deep immersion isn't my thing. It's a perfectly valid way to play a roleplaying game, albeit not one I really understand. But would you accept that it's not the only way to play an RPG?

To me, if you are not interacting with the game world from a 1st person POV by default (whether you are assuming a different identity/persona in the process or not), playing in situation as the events unfold as though they were real in your mind's eye, you are not playing a role playing game, but something else, the nature of which depends on what the actual point of the game is to you.

Quote from: The Traveller;567628When a group of people are collectively deciding the way the plot should work out, you don't have surprise.

That's not how storygames work.

Quote from: The Traveller;567628In order to get surprise, you need someone not attached to the group, outside the group, doing things for and to the group that the group has no say over. You know, like some sort of... master... of the game...

Not to say the group should have no say, quite the opposite, but interacting on a first person level. A good GM then plays to that and throws more interesting challenges as the game develops.

All of those things happen in storygames as well.

Quote from: The Traveller;567628My point is that you may as well discard the rules entirely and just do impromptu theatre. Its a fine tradition, nothing to be ashamed of.

No, again, the rules are essential to what storygaming is about. They create surprise and tension; part of the excitement of a storygame is not knowing what direction the story will go in. Theatre would be the exact opposite of that.

Quote from: soviet;567626No, obviously not. Thrud is a fictional character.

Mike Vronsky is a fictional character from the Movie Deerhunter.
20+ years after pretending to be Mike Vronsky on film, Robert DeNiro almost broke down describing playing that character.

Do you think possibly that the act of pretending to be another can be done in various levels of depth?

If so, do you think possibly that for someone who pretends in a different way then you do, that something that may not interfere with your level of in-character may very well interfere with someone at a different level?

Quote from: Exploderwizard;567633So now you're saying that Gygax played storygame style because he wasn't fully, immersively, method-acting?

Those goalposts getting heavy yet?

Seriously? I didn't say that Gygax played storygame style. I said he didn't play deep immersion style. There's a difference.

Quote from: soviet;567632That kind of deep immersion isn't my thing. It's a perfectly valid way to play a roleplaying game, albeit not one I really understand. But would you accept that it's not the only way to play an RPG?

Absolutely not, there are ways to role-play in "first-person" or "third-person".  However, if there are different ways to role-play with differing levels of immersion, then you can't really argue that a narrative mechanic doesn't break immersion for first-person roleplaying if you do third-person roleplaying, can you?  I mean you don't have a frame of reference to make that determination.

Quote from: soviet;567632That kind of deep immersion isn't my thing. It's a perfectly valid way to play a roleplaying game, albeit not one I really understand. But would you accept that it's not the only way to play an RPG?

It would be the RP in RPG. See now why everyone is saying shared narrative games aren't RPGs, any more than WoW is an RPG?

Quote from: soviet;567639Theatre would be the exact opposite of that.

I said impromptu theatre. Its an activity used in some circles to promote acting skill and I guess a few other attributes.

Quote from: CRKrueger;567640Mike Vronsky is a fictional character from the Movie Deerhunter.
20+ years after pretending to be Mike Vronsky on film, Robert DeNiro almost broke down describing playing that character.

Do you think possibly that the act of pretending to be another can be done in various levels of depth?

If so, do you think possibly that for someone who pretends in a different way then you do, that something that may not interfere with your level of in-character may very well interfere with someone at a different level?

Sure, I guess I can see that. And for people who play like that, yeah, storygames might not work out too well. But it's not the way I play, and I don't think it's the way plenty of other people play either. Deep immersion roleplay isn't the only valid way to do it, is all I'm saying.

Quote from: The Traveller;567644It would be the RP in RPG. See now why everyone is saying shared narrative games aren't RPGs, any more than WoW is an RPG?

All you do is throw out non sequitors and then touch yourself when someone else makes a valid point.

Quote from: Benoist;567638To me, if you are not interacting with the game world from a 1st person POV by default (whether you are assuming a different identity/persona in the process or not), playing in situation as the events unfold as though they were real in your mind's eye, you are not playing a role playing game, but something else, the nature of which depends on what the actual point of the game is to you.

I'm not sure what playing from a first person POV but with your own persona would look like. I feel like I nearly understand you but we're still talking past each other a bit.

Quote from: soviet;567646All you do is throw out non sequitors and then touch yourself when someone else makes a valid point.

And the intellectual-aspirant attracted to shared narrative games with delusions of sagacity aforethought once again rears its head.

Quote from: CRKrueger;567643Absolutely not, there are ways to role-play in "first-person" or "third-person".  However, if there are different ways to role-play with differing levels of immersion, then you can't really argue that a narrative mechanic doesn't break immersion for first-person roleplaying if you do third-person roleplaying, can you?  I mean you don't have a frame of reference to make that determination.

I agree with all that. I'm not saying that people who do roleplay in a deep immersion style are wrong, or that they would like storygames. I'm just saying that people who don't roleplay deep immersion style are still roleplaying, and therefore that storygaming is (or can be) still roleplaying.

Quote from: soviet;567645Deep immersion roleplay isn't the only valid way to do it, is all I'm saying.

and there I would agree with you.

However, a lot of times, someone (a deep immersion roleplayer) tries to explain how a mechanic can be metagame, dissociated, immersion-breaking, and gets downright curbstomped for being anything from dishonest (you're just inventing shit to justify "not liking it"), to downright insane (as in delusional).

Do some searching on the topic, key poster the 4venger Seanchai, you'll see what I mean.

Morrow, Ben, Vreeg, me, Traveller, et al might sound crazy sometimes, but we've had entire thousand post threads where people went to the mattresses fighting tooth and nail every inch to try to prevent the kind of communication and agreement you and I just had in a few posts.  I'm not joking or exaggerating either.

Quote from: The Traveller;567648And the intellectual-aspirant attracted to shared narrative games with delusions of sagacity aforethought once again rears its head.

See what I mean?