D&D 5E What are your biggest immersion breakers, rules wise?

[Garthanos]

judging by this thread (and the countless "damage on a miss" arguments from the days of D&D Next.)

Hit points depleted representing luck loss = damage on a miss in some sense all the way back to every single attack and the AD&D description of hit points. Meat points for the win LOL

 

[Garthanos]

Would it help if HP were renamed "plot armor"?

Nods since at minimum huge amounts of them are exactly that indeed.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[iserith]

Wait.

Did you just say that you read my own posts more charitably than me?

We are done.

You can't speak for me. But to clarify, I was referring to Charlaquin's posts which I think I read more charitably than you did.

 

[Xetheral]

I guess it depends what you mean by “immersed.” And this is why I argue that it’s a meaningless buzzword. Is immersion a sense of internal consistency? Is it adherence to audience expectations? Is it a clear and consistent tone? Is it believable characterization? It seems to me that “immersion” is a uselessly vague catch-all term for a lot of separate issues.

To me, immersion describes a mental state in which I am not consciously aware of my sense of self. Importantly, I don't see it as a binary condition: there is a sliding scale of immersiveness depending on the degree to which I am consciously aware of my sense of self.

Immersion also comes in what I consider different flavors. In passive mediums like film or books, when I'm heavily immersed I have little-to-no conscious awareness of any self. By contrast, in a roleplaying game, when heavily immersed I have a conscious sense of a different self either existing side-by-side with my normal self-awareness or supplanting it. I've also experienced immersion in the context of work, where my conscious awareness of my sense of self drops away, and I start considering the current problem directly rather than through the lens of how I relate to the problem.

In all three contexts I find immersion wonderous. In the recreational contexts, it's pleasurable and (at the highest levels) profound. In the work context, my problem-solving ability (and speed) increase, and I'm less likely to over-analyze (or meta-analyze), so immersion can lead to my best work (it can also lead to really good work that isn't on-point, so there is a drawback too).

I agree with you and @iserith to the extent that with skill and practice, I have some control over my emotional reaction to becoming consciously aware that my immersion has been lost (or lessened). But even if I successfully choose to not let the loss bother me emotionally, that success doesn't restore my highly-immersed mental state. (Indeed, in my experience conscious control over one's emotional responses requires a conscious awareness of one's sense of self, so for me the process of consciously choosing an emotional state prevents re-immersion.)

As for what breaks immersion for me, it's anything I can't understand without resorting to conscious analysis. For example, when reading, if I encounter a word I don't know, but its meaning is obvious in context, I won't be consciously aware of it (and as a bonus I just learned a new word--hopefully the author used it correctly!). If the meaning isn't obvious in context, the immersion drops, and I scamper off to the dictionary (usually with an effortless positive emotional response because I really like learning new words). But the act of looking up the word to learn it does not retroactively restore my highly-immersed mental state.

In D&D, I can be happily immersed when some incongruity in the rules knocks me out of it. For example, having built a character that took the thief subclass partially to be able to apply poison to a weapon as a bonus action, only to encounter enemies whose blades do poison damage on every hit without requiring reapplication (or any application at all), but those blades somehow don't deal poison damage when wielded by the PCs. Maybe, after losing my immersion, I can indeed come up with a satisfactory explanation for how those blades works. If so, great! But that doesn't retroactively restore my highly-immersed mental state. And unless the explanation I came up with is intuitively satisfactory, it's going to be an ongoing obstacle to immersion whenever it comes up.

My views on the nature of immersion may be highly idiosyncratic, so I can't be sure I speak for anyone else here. But I do get the sense that others posting in disagreement with you may similarly view immersion is a mental state, and thus see your suggestion for dealing with its loss through conscious re-interpretation as closing the barn door after the animals have already fled.

Put simply: consciously reinterpretation (and/or voluntary emotional control) may be useful tools to addressing the consequences of losing a heavily-immersed mental state. But they don't do anything to help prevent losing that mental state in the first place. For those who value that mental state, your suggestions may thus appear to be addressing a different problem than the one they are trying to discuss.

 

[Bawylie]

Sometimes my neighbors are loud at night and keep me up when I’m trying to sleep. That sucks. There’s an extent to which their actions are stealing some peace from me. See, I didn’t consent to that arrangement of them being loud while I try to sleep. And there’s not a whole lot I can do to make them not do the things I don’t like them doing. There are some options, sure, but unless they voluntarily agree to keep it down, I can’t go on in their homes and turn off their music.

Also, sometimes I’m loud at night and keep them up while they’re trying to sleep and they didn’t agree to that arrangement and that sucks. And there’s not a lot they can do about it.

What I can do is pop in some ear plugs, close some windows, and/or run some white noise. That helps.

It’s different when you play d&d. In that case, you’ve all agreed to abide by certain rules and conventions. But there’s stuff happening all the time that causes me to lose immersion. Someone has a call from a spouse. Someone has a call from nature. Someone needs another beer (it’s me. I’m someone). Maybe the kids are at it again in another room. Real disruptions. I lose immersion all the time.

When it comes down to it though, that’s on me. It’s unreasonable to tell another player “hey don’t pee right now, I’m really into this scene.” It’s unreasonable to ask someone to ignore their spouse. All I can fairly do is re-engage my own immersion, knowing that I’ll lose it again at the next interruption, and deciding for myself how much or how little that should annoy me and whether it is worth it to continue playing under those circumstances.

Oh, and the most immersion breaking rule in the game is that every class is a wizard now.

 

[Bardic Dave]

You can't speak for me. But to clarify, I was referring to Charlaquin's posts which I think I read more charitably than you did.

You read a post you largely agree with more charitably than someone who disagrees with the content of that post? You don’t say!

 

[iserith]

I agree with you and @iserith to the extent that with skill and practice, I have some control over my emotional reaction to becoming consciously aware that my immersion has been lost (or lessened). But even if I successfully choose to not let the loss bother me emotionally, that success doesn't restore my highly-immersed mental state. (Indeed, in my experience conscious control over one's emotional responses requires a conscious awareness of one's sense of self, so for me the process of consciously choosing an emotional state prevents re-immersion.)

As for what breaks immersion for me, it's anything I can't understand without resorting to conscious analysis. For example, when reading, if I encounter a word I don't know, but its meaning is obvious in context, I won't be consciously aware of it (and as a bonus I just learned a new word--hopefully the author used it correctly!). If the meaning isn't obvious in context, the immersion drops, and I scamper off to the dictionary (usually with an effortless positive emotional response because I really like learning new words). But the act of looking up the word to learn it does not retroactively restore my highly-immersed mental state.

In D&D, I can be happily immersed when some incongruity in the rules knocks me out of it. For example, having built a character that took the thief subclass partially to be able to apply poison to a weapon as a bonus action, only to encounter enemies whose blades do poison damage on every hit without requiring reapplication (or any application at all), but those blades somehow don't deal poison damage when wielded by the PCs. Maybe, after losing my immersion, I can indeed come up with a satisfactory explanation for how those blades works. If so, great! But that doesn't retroactively restore my highly-immersed mental state. And unless the explanation I came up with is intuitively satisfactory, it's going to be an ongoing obstacle to immersion whenever it comes up.

My views on the nature of immersion may be highly idiosyncratic, so I can't be sure I speak for anyone else here. But I do get the sense that others posting in disagreement with you may similarly view immersion is a mental state, and thus see your suggestion for dealing with its loss through conscious re-interpretation as closing the barn door after the animals have already fled.

Put simply: consciously reinterpretation (and/or voluntary emotional control) may be useful tools to addressing the consequences of losing a heavily-immersed mental state. But they don't do anything to help prevent losing that mental state in the first place. For those who value that mental state, your suggestions may thus appear to be addressing a different problem than the one they are trying to discuss.

I definitely appreciate you offering your definition of "immersion," which is something that I think is sorely lacking in this thread. It's one of those words in our hobby that tends to be defined many different ways and makes communication difficult in my view. Your example of the poison is a good one and I think that sort of thing is addressed in part by something I mentioned upthread about learning to accept things as they are rather than how they should be. For you, it's one way. For someone else, it's another. That's just how it is in D&D world. This helps to avoid the loss of immersion rather than just the emotional response. One can create a post-hoc justification for why these things are the way they are (if desired) and, in my experience, one can get so fast at this that it doesn't interfere with maintaining immersion. But what truly helps in my view is if the DM does this for the players by establishing certain facts ahead of time.

 

[iserith]

You read a post you largely agree with more charitably than someone who disagrees with the content of that post? You don’t say!

I think it's a good goal to read every post charitably, even if one disagrees with the poster's position. It's not always easy, but I believe it is worthwhile. That's my take, anyway. Others may choose to do otherwise.

 

[Bardic Dave]

I think it's a good goal to read every post charitably, even if one disagrees with the poster's position. It's not always easy, but I believe it is worthwhile. That's my take, anyway. Others may choose to do otherwise.

Your virtue and sincerity are absolutely unimpeachable. Well done, you!