Do you even remember the original statement you made that was refuted? The one below...
That was objected to rather than refuted. And that I stand by. If you want a good challenge centric game you don't treat the players like adults any more than a football (any form) referee treats the players like adults. If you want character immersion rather than fiero or flow you do.
I am claiming it is impossible to be immersed in something you are not doing.
And I am pointing out that if you say "I look round the room" you are not doing that. Therefore by your definition you can not be immersed in it. If you say "I attack him" you pick up dice. By definition you can not be immersed in either the attacking or the dice rolling. In fact by your definition you can literally never be immersed in a tabletop RPG that is about anything other than sitting round a table talking and rolling dice.
I therefore find your proposed boundaries utterly meaningless. On the other hand working through your post I have been able to work out where you are coming from - even if there are adequate words in the English language (
flow and fiero) to capture this and that don't cause the confusion with the character-immersion (sometimes called Bleed) you also see in RPGs and that is my default understanding of the term as applied to RPGs.
What allowing the players to author the fiction does is allows them to behave much more accurately to what someone there would do than otherwise. To illustrate:
When I walk into a bank, it takes me a second or two
Case 1: "I look round the bank. DM, what do I see?" The player then stops moving and waits for thirty seconds for the DM to describe things. "So the information desk is on the right hand wall? And there is a door behind it? Are any of the staff waiting in line parents? Where exactly are the security cameras positioned? Could you draw it on a map? Does the main door open inward or outward? Is anyone in the bank line carrying a wide open handbag? Where are they exactly in relation to the cameras?"
Case 2: "I walk into the bank and glance round, noting the position of the security cameras. I then, keeping away from the baby buggy, walk round the line of people waiting to deposit their checks, drop the package in the open prada handbag carried by the posh pearl-wearing lady, and head calmly and confidently past the information desk into the employee area as the confusion starts."
The plan is simple. The PC wants to get into the employee area of the bank and they've decided to do it by creating a distraction as they simply walk through. The details of the diversion involve a can of coke and a packet of mentos primed to go off, creating a fairly spectacularly irritating but non-violent mess to draw attention with plausible deniability. It's a flexible enough plan that the exact implementation doesn't matter. As long as the bank is relatively full (and you can know it will be by time of day) there is almost certain to be a good patsy and you should be able to spot them in a second or two. And the security cameras are a pain but easily spottable.
In case 1 you are spending a couple of minutes on descriptions of the bank, turning the part of the operation that will take you personally a couple of seconds at most into a game of questions that lasts at least a couple of minutes. To me decompressing two seconds into an awkward two minutes is utterly non-immersive.
What is going on in Case 2 is that you are describing what you see in your mind's eye. Which is a
lot closer to what happens when you look round a bank (seeing things with your real eyes) than turning to your companion who is being your eyes and ears for you and asking them to tell you what they see. Seeing things is not a power you lack. Describing and responding to what you see is not a power you lack. And what your power of player authorship allows you to do is actually see things where you would expect to find them.
Case 2 is therefore far closer to what I consider an immersive experience. It is however immersive in an emotionally involving sense rather than a challenge-centric one.
As I said to you, I make no dispute in your sense of immersion in the game and narrative. I can become completely immersed in a novel. And clearly I'm not sensing the same feeling as the idea of being in character and dealing with situations using only the abilities and resources of that character. And neither is the same as playing a character but having abilities to change how a situation is resolved that their character does not have. And as I said to P, if you don't like to word "immersion" pick something else. To me it is the correct word.
It is untrue and ridiculous to claim you can be immersed in something that you are actively rejecting doing.
First "immersion" might be the correct word to you - but there is a lot of theory of games that provides useful and unambiguous words for skillfully overcoming challenges by use of limited resources at a high degree of skill. Fiero and flow. It is clearly and obviously a confusing word as several of us use it to mean character immersion - thinking and feeling as your character does. Which is both something that has no terminology outside RPGs (because it is this aspect that make RPGs distinctive) and something that is to me implied by the word immersion. I therefore suggest that you pick something else.
And you are not understanding what you are doing. Asking questions of the DM
is not a power or resource you have in the real world. Therefore by your definition of immersion you can not do it. Seeing things and responding to what you see is a power you have in the real world.
And I'd say that your method of immersion (responding to the DM's descriptions) is much closer to immersion in a novel than creating emotional links with the setting, seeing things in your mind's eye based on everything that has gone before, conveying what you see, and responding to everything seen. While seldom having to use the power of "Stop and ask the DM" when your character would know what to expect.
Indeed if I assume that you are talking about immersion in exactly the same sense as reading a novel, with the DM replacing the pages and stepping outside the box is ... problematic, and I am in the indy RPG sense of "bleed" where I feel what my character feels (and indeed my character's emotions cross over to me in the real world), everything makes perfect sense.
(Note: Before you suggest I start using bleed, bleed refers specifically to your character's emotions and thought processes spilling over to your real world ones. Therefore it is not an applicable term).
Eh, I'm not buying the "exploiting" myself. But, trying to look at it from your point of view, that may be exactly the right word to communicate the point. The thrill of success comes from knowing this character achieved this in a way that I can vicariously say *I* achieved it as-if in his shoes.
Now I
know that we are talking about different things here when we talk about immersion. Your description, including the word vicariously, is precisely the same description that can be used to describe a keen sports fan watching a sports game. And despite the fact you are not actually even personally playing you feel as if "we" achieved the triumph. To me immersion is bleed. I move as my character moves. I feel as my character feels. I think as my character thinks. I act as my character acts. And one thing very few characters actually do is stop and ask the DM questions
So if you do something that you couldn't do in that guy's shoes then you have "cheated". Again, that tone doesn;t describe how I feel it, but it kinda works. The obnly thing you ahve really cheated is yourself out of the opportunity to achieve "as that guy".
You are missing the point. In your description you are aiming after a mix of gamist fiero and the sense of achievement of a sports fan. Arguably that of a successful boardgamer. Me, I'm aiming with immersion to get inside my character's head and match myself to them (which on one occasion has been deep enough that first my character turned out to be bulimic entirely to my surprise and then the next day I contemplated it).
Interesting point. But I don't agree that this steals from the ability to solve problems "as that guy". I had not thought about it, but we did have a PC become blind for quite a few sessions several years back. I do recall a notable amount of side conversation dedicated to capturing that feel. I'd point out first that the PLAYER drove this restriction far more than I did and second that this level of micromanaging a situation was very much an outlier.
Of
course the player drives the restrictions when going for emotional investment. This is normal.
I'm fairly sure this is now already covered. You are certainly immersed. But you are not immersed in anything you reject doing. Please suggest another word that adequately captures the point.
A mix of
flow and fiero work for you. You're describing the same form of immersion as in a chess match or video game. Almost in the same words other than when you use the word "immersion". Please use the mainstream words that adequately capture your point rather than terminology that's RPG specific and clearly confusing.
