When my character figures a puzzle because I really figured it out then that is skilled play that I am doing through my character. I am being my character.
If I come up with an imaginative plan to ambush the enemy orcs then that is very much being in character. My character came up with that plan so to speak.
Whereas if I weave in a flashback or invent new fiction, that is a player activity but not a character one.
In Burning Wheel, when my PC meets his brother when he was hoping to do so, I am being my character. I think this is more immersive than solving a puzzle - because solving a puzzle (I'm thinking here of, say, a number puzzle or a typical riddle) is a cognitive task that is largely independent of my character's distinct personality, whereas hoping to meet my brother is intimately connected to the details of
this character's history and relationships and aspirations for his future.
It is true that, but for me expressing my hope and then me and the GM resolving a Circles check, the shared fiction would not include my PC's encounter with his brother. That does not change the fact that
I (my character) had a hope to meet his brother.
I have never read nor played BitD, but I don't see that the flashback mechanic involves any sort of stepping out of character. Here and now, my character is confronted with a problem. I as my character recall what I planned for, in anticipation of the problem; and the GM and I now resolve the operationalisation of that plan. That is
me being my character.
Can you explain the difference you see between having a good imagination to weave outcomes (whatever it is you think that means) versus having a good imagination to think the things you do as a player are things your character is doing?
Like you, I struggle to see any contrast. In all these cases I (pemerton, the player) am using my imagination to imagine what I (pemerton's PC) am doing.
We don’t inhabit our characters and experience anything like an actual cognitive continuity (and again, there is no such thing). If one PC asks another PC “what were your dreams like last night” or “did you try my coffee I brewed over the spit this morning” or “when was the last time you were sick” or “you’re from here...where is the farrier...we need to get our horses taken care of”, the Player in question is going to have to make something up for the PC to recall. There are dozens and dozens of instances like this that can/will come up in play
Um, at least as I experience them, they might be discontinuous, but they're in chronological order. I do not experience the past after the present. Or in the middle of the present. While I might not experience all of the sequence of A-to-Z, the experience will be A-D-F-E-H-L-P-V-Y, not D-T-H-S-W-V-T-Q-N.
In
@Manbearcat's examples of play, the bolded thing is not true.
Because the character either A) had dreams or B) tasted the coffee before being asked. Remembering the experience is not the same thing as experiencing it. Or, the memory is a different experience than the event (and memory not being a perfect recording, that seems like a better description).
(Leaving aside the fact my character probably wouldn't have an answer to the first question because I the player almost never remember my dreams.)
In BitD, the character
engaged in the planning before
operationalising the planning. The fiction does not involve any sort of time travel.
But just like Manbearcat's examples, the time sequence at the table does not correspond to the time sequence in the fiction.
If my character is asked to tell another character what s/he dreamt, then I (the player at the table) have to make something up about what my character dreamt. In other words, first I experience an event that happens in the (fictional) morning -
Character X asks my PC "what did you dream about?" - and then I experience an event that happened earlier (my PC's dreams - it doesn't matter to the point if we assume that at this point I'm actually experiencing my PC's sleeping thoughts or if I'm experiencing my PC's recollection of those upon waking, because both those things happened, in the fiction, before X asked my PC the question).
If my character is asked by character X
did you try my coffee? then whatever I answer, I (the player) am experiencing the episode of being asked the question
before I have any experience of how the morning's coffee-drinking or coffee-declining unfolded, although
in the fiction the sequence of events was of course the other way around.
The flashback mechanic is no different in the way it affects the relationship in-fiction time sequences to at-the-table time sequences except that instead of a leisurely question about coffee or dreams which is mere colour, it's more like - as a fight breaks out in a D&D game - one character asks my character
Did you cast Stoneskin on all of us this morning? The affect on the time sequence is no different; it's just that the stakes of one rather than another answer are a bit higher.