D&D General The History of 'Immersion' in RPGs

D&D historian Jon Peterson has taken a look at the concept of 'immersion' as it related to tabletop roleplaying games, with references to the concept going back to The Wild Hunt (1977), D&D modules like In Search of the Unknown, games like Boot Hill, and Forgotten Realms creator Ed Greenwood speaking in Dragon Magazine.

Immersion and Role Playing in the 1970s

The idea that role playing involved a property called "immersion" occurred to the early adopters of the 1970s fairly early. The earliest e...

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[Thomas Shey]

But characters don't come up with anything, players do. That's how they play their characters and thereby play the game. Do you also tell players of low Strength or Dexterity characters that they can't make certain decisions because it seems like something a strong or a fast character would do? Or do you tell players of low Constitution characters that they can't decide their character goes into a dungeon because only a really tough person would subject themsleves to that type of risk? Because if not, you're applying an extra penalty to players of low Intelligence characters beyond what players of other types of characters have to endure.

And? Other types of characters already have the range of their attributes restrained by the game mechanics in a way that, outside of very limited context, social and intellect limited characters aren't.

I'm not sure I follow this. I already brought up how the 5E system places mechanical limitations on characters with low scores which I feel is fairly even across the ability scores that typically get dumped. Low-Intelligence characters have penalties on checks to determine the outcome of efforts to recall or discover information. That's essentially what the Intelligence score represents. Also, I'm not familiar with the use of the term token play, but I am familiar with pawn stance as it's used in GNS theory, and I totally disagree that roleplaying your character using only knowledge and perceptions that your character would have depends in any way on treating the ability scores as a limitation on action declarations.

Then you do. But I think if one is going to use your whole mental facilities in decision making for characters who do not have the same facilities, you're actively behaving out of character, and if that's what's required to do the kind of immersion you feel necessary, I think its more honest to either play with systems that don't use an Intelligence stat, or make sure you only play ones where that stat is congruent with what you feel your own would be.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Spot on. Not only that, but while we can imagine pretty easily what it's like to not be able to lift a heavy box, I don't think it's actually possible to know what it feels like to be, say, 20% less intelligent than we actually are, and thus it's impossible to roleplay it.

Two things:

1. By this standard, you can't roleplay someone who has significantly different senses than your own or even capabilities you don't have, and people do that all the time.

2. There's plenty of things to extrapolate from to get that place; most people have had their mental facilities impaired at some point or another, from fatigue, fevers or something as simple as taking heavy antihistamines.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Two things:

1. By this standard, you can't roleplay someone who has significantly different senses than your own or even capabilities you don't have, and people do that all the time.

Oh, I'm not saying you can't roleplay somebody with lower Intelligence. I'm just saying it's impossible to tell somebody they are doing it wrong.

Let's say I have a character who has tetrachromatic vision (as some birds do). If you disagree with how I roleplay my interactions with the environment, and how it affects my thought processes, are you really going to tell me I'm doing it wrong?

So how do you determine that, for example, a 7 Int character wouldn't have had a particular idea, whereas it would be fine for the 11 Int character to have that same idea?

2. There's plenty of things to extrapolate from to get that place; most people have had their mental facilities impaired at some point or another, from fatigue, fevers or something as simple as taking heavy antihistamines.

I'm trying to imagine a game in which people roleplayed low intelligence as if they were impaired.

 

[jgsugden]

Oh, please. Please just stop.

There is nothing in the rules that defines on what occasions the player needs to make a roll to "recall lore". The first time a player says, "I"ll order an ale" do you make them roll Int to see if they can "recall" what ale is? You are free to play that way, of course, but the rules don't dictate it.

The rules are explicit that Intelligence is used for accuracy of recall, education and memory. If the character needs to recall a key piece of information about monsters, this is something covered by these rules. Recalling ale might have a DC of 5, so even a very low intelligence creature can do it passively.

However - ARCANA specifies it is use to recall lore about planar creatures. NATURE is there to recall lore about plants and animals. These are examples of how it is to be applied - when you want to recall something you use these skills.

People complain that intelligence is a dump stat because they don't use it how it was designed - to be the thing you test when your character, as opposed to you, knows something about their enemy.

Man, I tried REALLY hard in my post to treat both approaches equally, and simply describe the difference in viewpoint, and STILL the actor-stance roleplaying police come out of the woodwork to insist their way is right and other ways are wrong. Next time I won't try to mask my derision.

Alternatively, you might consider whether the rules are actually different than you see them.

D&D is a role playing game. It is always a game. It is always role playing. When we play a role, we must pay heed to the limits of the role. When we give the role our capabilities, rather than those inherent in the role, we are not role playing. We are role ignoring.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Oh, I'm not saying you can't roleplay somebody with lower Intelligence. I'm just saying it's impossible to tell somebody they are doing it wrong.

If they don't seem to be playing the INT 8 and INT 16 character any different, all other things being the same, I kind of reserve the right to say that.

Let's say I have a character who has tetrachromatic vision (as some birds do). If you disagree with how I roleplay my interactions with the environment, and how it affects my thought processes, are you really going to tell me I'm doing it wrong?

So how do you determine that, for example, a 7 Int character wouldn't have had a particular idea, whereas it would be fine for the 11 Int character to have that same idea?

On a single decision basis I probably wouldn't. But I think I can very well see a pattern over time.

I'm trying to imagine a game in which people roleplayed low intelligence as if they were impaired.

I've done just that. I'm not talking about someone who's outright drunk, but if your decision making is the same when tired as when rested, you're quite unusual.

 

[Guest 6801328]

The rules are explicit that Intelligence is used for accuracy of recall, education and memory. If the character needs to recall a key piece of information about monsters, this is something covered by these rules. Recalling ale might have a DC of 5, so even a very low intelligence creature can do it passively.

However - ARCANA specifies it is use to recall lore about planar creatures. NATURE is there to recall lore about plants and animals. These are examples of how it is to be applied - when you want to recall something you use these skills.

People complain that intelligence is a dump stat because they don't use it how it was designed - to be the thing you test when your character, as opposed to you, knows something about their enemy.
Alternatively, you might consider whether the rules are actually different than you see them.

Player (I literally did exactly this two days ago): "I study it closely...without touching it...to see if it's a real green slime, or just slimy green moss?"
DM: "Roll Int"

I failed, badly. (Was getting assisted by another player, rolled 2 2's, and since I have 8 Int I ended up with 2 1's.). So I decided to conclude that it was a green slime, and that I "recalled" that green slimes can leap 20', so I backpedaled and watched it suspiciously from 25' while the other players searched the room.

Now, I haven't seen a green slime in a long time, so I actually couldn't remember what they do. Are they the slimes that destroy your weapons, or the ones that eat your brains?

Let's say I "remember" that they are the ones that destroy your weapons. I can proceed with that knowledge. I could be wrong, either because I really am wrong, or because the DM or the adventure changed things up, or because I mis-identified the monster.

But, instead of relying on my memory, I might say, "I wrack my brains to see if I can remember any stories about what green slimes do." And, again, the DM might ask for a roll. And that would be using the rules as written, as you mention.

In both cases those actions are perfectly in line with the rules, as written. Nowhere...NOWHERE...do the rules specify the narrow application that you are describing. There is no rule that dictates or constrains what players may decide their characters believe, or not believe.

D&D is a role playing game. It is always a game. It is always role playing. When we play a role, we must pay heed to the limits of the role. When we give the role our capabilities, rather than those inherent in the role, we are not role playing. We are role ignoring.

I'm willing to concede that there are multiple kinds of roleplaying, and all are valid (even if I find some of them rather dull and uninteresting.) But since you seem to be unwilling to grant the same, and insist that my sort is not roleplaying, let me turn that around:

When you are pretending to not know something that you have decided your character doesn't know, you aren't actually inhabiting your character, since your mental states don't align. Instead you are merely acting.

 

[jgsugden]

... while we can imagine pretty easily what it's like to not be able to lift a heavy box, I don't think it's actually possible to know what it feels like to be, say, 20% less intelligent than we actually are, and thus it's impossible to roleplay it.

Man, why do you have to set up a burn so perfectly? Saying that it is impossible to play a character 20% less intelligent than you are.... oh, man.

Regardless, role playing is acting. People have been acting out the roles of less intelligent creatures and people as long as there has been acting. There have been critics telling them when they are doing it wrong for nearly as long.

If you play a 6 Intelligence barbarian and the barbarian knows all the resistances of each demon, devil and elemental in the book - YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.

 

[Mannahnin]

Regardless, role playing is acting. People have been acting out the roles of less intelligent creatures and people as long as there has been acting. There have been critics telling them when they are doing it wrong for nearly as long.

Acting is not roleplaying. Acting can optionally be one of the components of roleplaying.

For example, Matt Colville defines roleplaying as simply making decisions for a character in a persistent world, and Roleplaying with a capital R as making those decisions based on the invented motivations and desires of a character who is different from yourself. This requires some empathy and the ability to conceptualize a perspective different from our own, but it doesn't require Acting.

If you play a 6 Intelligence barbarian and the barbarian knows all the resistances of each demon, devil and elemental in the book - YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.

And how about if I'm playing a 9 Int squire, and I figure out a word puzzle? Or an 8 Int Barbarian and I make a deduction based on the fact that heat rises?

I have no way of knowing what Int score I would be assigned if I were hypothetically statted-up as a D&D character, and neither do you. How can either you or I tell whether my 10 Int character should be able to piece together a couple of clues to solve a mystery, even if we take an arbitrary stab at defining my Int as 11, 15, or 8?

 

[Guest 6801328]

If you play a 6 Intelligence barbarian and the barbarian knows all the resistances of each demon, devil and elemental in the book - YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.

No, the DM is doing it wrong.

Fact: a 6 Int barbarian could easily know all that. (Honestly the "barbarian" part is a bigger hurdle than the 6 Int part.). He comes from a culture where battling demons and devils is part of their daily existence. Each night around the campfire, the elders tell stories and make sure the youngsters know this vital information. Anybody who is intelligent enough to learn, say, a spoken language, will eventually get it. And somebody who is just 10% less likely than average to succeed at an Intelligence task (Int 6) will get it fairly soon. There just aren't that many demons, devils, and elementals.

Any DM who doesn't like that, who doesn't want the players to have that information should....just...change...it. You only need to change the information a few times, to keep them guessing. Instead of forcing the players to pretend to not know stuff, make them genuinely question what they know. It's so simple. It's so much more fun to be genuinely in the dark, rather than being required to play act being in the dark.

But, instead, people keep trying to police player thought and enforce B.S. roleplaying standards.

That said, if you like playing the other way, keep at it. It's your game. But get off your one-true-way high horse because in reality it's the steaming pile behind the horse.

 

[Lanefan]

Dumb people can have bright ideas or flashes of insight on occasion. And despite amusing hyperbole and idioms, no one in our games is playing a character "dumber than a box of rocks", or of even animal intelligence, even if they have a 3 Int.

Not sure how you're defining Int 3 but to me that implies someone compromised enough to be unable to self-dress and maybe or maybe not capable of coherent speech. Remember, 3 is the extreme low end of the bell curve and thus implies great disability - way way beyond simply being a "dumb person".

"Animal" Intelligence used to be defined as the 2-4 range. Int 3 falls right in there.

I think the game functions much better when players can make good decisions for their characters, and it's left at their discretion whether they want to personify a low mental stat by dumbing down their own performance. A low Int score can be adequately represented by them portraying the character as generally not bright even if they do have the occasional good idea or spot the solution to a puzzle. And by the mechanics of not being good at Int-based skill checks to get info from the DM.

For low Int e.g. the 6-9 range, this is fine. When you get down to 3, however, you'd better hope there's another character telling you what to do in very simple words, 'cause otherwise you're pretty much acting on sheer instinct in matters of food, water, and self-defense and not really doing much else.