Is Immersion Important to You as a Player?

[MGibster]

So what's the difference between engagerment and immersion? As an HR professional (I can hear your boos, and it hurts my feelings), I tend to define player engagement in a similar manner as I would to employee engagement.

Engagement: The degree to which a player invests their efforts towards creating a positive gaming experience.

Immersion: I'm going to stick with @Reynard's definition: "inhabiting your character inhabiting the world."

The two are different. I've had plenty of games where I was highly engaged, but I think my immersion levels are general low. (But like I said, I've got to think about it because I do consider what my character would do within the context of the setting, the situation, and their personality.)

 

[Manbearcat]

So what's the difference between engagerment and immersion? As an HR professional (I can hear your boos, and it hurts my feelings), I tend to define player engagement in a similar manner as I would to employee engagement.

Engagement: The degree to which a player invests their efforts towards creating a positive gaming experience.

Immersion: I'm going to stick with @Reynard's definition: "inhabiting your character inhabiting the world."

The two are different. I've had plenty of games where I was highly engaged, but I think my immersion levels are general low. (But like I said, I've got to think about it because I do consider what my character would do within the context of the setting, the situation, and their personality.)

Gotta be honest, I don't love this.

I don't love the idea that TTRPG immersion gets cordoned off to this hyper-specific niche that seems (at least on the surface) to have a problem with the multivariate cognitive states we occupy in real life (and that can be either experienced/accessed simultaneously or pivoting from one to another). Sometimes we aren't present in the moment with our minds preoccupied elsewhere or on ephemera. Maybe we're accessing a caricature of ourselves in order to placate or resolve a social environment (a caricature that may be more or less authentic). We're sometimes hyper-present in the moment. Sometimes we're sick or withdrawn or incapacitated and incapable of even accessing our normal behavioral profile. Sometimes we're just doing rote activity and we're barely there at all. Sometimes we're subdued or afflicted by something (distraction or harm or a single, powerful influence like fear or anxiety) so our normal repository of emotions is inaccessible. Sometimes we're trapped in a powerful state brought on by an endocrine response and we're "barely there" (the memory of the event being foggy or askew).

I'm 100 % confident that I'm capable of immersing as a GM...even though the meta of play is front-and-center and palpable in my creative and cognitive process at every moment (a process that looks like your engagement above). Stuff sneaks up on me as I'm creating. Maybe I find the content I'm producing in-situ maps metaphorically to personal, real life architecture and it I can't help but be taken in by the unfolding of it. Or maybe a character or situation I'm creating/running reminds me of story or mythology that I have found very provocative (and very accessible mentally and emotionally).

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This post isn't saying this, but I just wanted to add a point that connects with the above. I'm certain that the idea that "mechanics-and/or-meta-unhindered gaming is the definition or height of immersion" is not correct. That might be an autobiographical statement that some folks will make, but that is where it ends (even if a large swath of folks bear out the same personal testimony).

 

[schneeland]

This post isn't saying this, but I just wanted to add a point that connects with the above. I'm certain that the idea that "mechanics-and/or-meta-unhindered gaming is the definition or height of immersion" is not correct. That might be an autobiographical statement that some folks will make, but that is where it ends (even if a large swath of folks bear out the same personal testimony).

I would argue that definitions are not correct, but rather precise (or not) and useful (or not). There is indeed a point to be made that the experiences typically subsumed under the word "immersion" are actually a flow state experience and that this flow state can also be reached in other ways and for some people achieving this flow state is also unhindered by meta-level mechanics/discussions or complex rules.
I would argue that keeping "immersion" defined as initially described by @Reynard is still useful since it is a very common understanding of the word and describes a specific experience. People just need to be aware that similar experiences can be reached in different ways.

 

[Hussar]

I would buy the idea of engagement as being the number one priority as a DM and a player. If you're disengaged from the game, then nothing really matters does it? You're not participating in a game which highly values participation. I've certainly been disengaged during play. And, when I've been in a group where I find myself disengaged more than I'm engaged, I've had to walk away from the group.

Immersion? Nah. Don't care. You can certainly play your character 100% like a pawn if you like and keep things purely mechanical and be very engaged in the game. Immersion, I find, is generally one of those things that gets brought up to badwrongfun other people's ideas. "Oh, that hurts my immersion if you do that" which is a position which is completely impossible to argue against while at the same time completely impossible to compromise with.

I mean, heck, right now, I've got a DM who insists on narrating every attack. Drives me straight up the wall since it slows things down SOOOO much. I really, REALLY don't care that my character, on his fifteenth attack of the night, swings overhand or backhand. Just get on with it.

So, no, count me very much out of the immersion camp. I just don't care that much.

 

[MGibster]

I don't love the idea that TTRPG immersion gets cordoned off to this hyper-specific niche that seems (at least on the surface) to have a problem with the multivariate cognitive states we occupy in real life (and that can be either experienced/accessed simultaneously or pivoting from one to another).

Oh, man. I went to graduate school and my eyes glazed over at multivariate. This is like a discussion about game theory, and I always have a hard time following those. I should have majoried in philosophy or something. I didn't think I was placing it in a hyper-specific niche. But if we're going to discuss something, we at least need to have a working definition that we can more or less agree on. Otherwise the conversation is just a bunch of us spinning our wheels in place trying to figure out what it all means.

 

[MGibster]

I would buy the idea of engagement as being the number one priority as a DM and a player. If you're disengaged from the game, then nothing really matters does it? You're not participating in a game which highly values participation. I've certainly been disengaged during play. And, when I've been in a group where I find myself disengaged more than I'm engaged, I've had to walk away from the group.

I would would have to concur with my colleage, Dr. Hussar. An RPG is a game, and the most important part of the game is having fun. If you're engaged, it usually means you're enjoying yourself, and like I said earlier, I can be engaged in all sorts of games without being immersed. I don't think I'm ever deeply immersed in a game of D&D but I can have a good time with it.

I mean, heck, right now, I've got a DM who insists on narrating every attack. Drives me straight up the wall since it slows things down SOOOO much. I really, REALLY don't care that my character, on his fifteenth attack of the night, swings overhand or backhand. Just get on with it.

I tried that, then figured out I should only narrate attacks when something interesting happens.

 

[Manbearcat]

I would argue that definitions are not correct, but rather precise (or not) and useful (or not). There is indeed a point to be made that the experiences typically subsumed under the word "immersion" are actually a flow state experience and that this flow state can also be reached in other ways and for some people achieving this flow state is also unhindered by meta-level mechanics/discussions or complex rules.
I would argue that keeping "immersion" defined as initially described by @Reynard is still useful since it is a very common understanding of the word and describes a specific experience. People just need to be aware that similar experiences can be reached in different ways.

Definitely agree with your first paragraph. Wholly.

The problem is I think it is clearly not precise because it fails to capture the nuance of your first paragraph and therefore excludes the testimony I've provided above. Therefore, its neither precise nor very useful to me!

I would find a more expansive, less niche definition would be better. Something like:

"A particular heightened cognitive state marked by some combination of engagement, habitation, and captivation."

That doesn't procedurally restrict how one gets there and it suitably expands the multifaceted experience of the thing.

@MGibster , we cross-posted. What do you think about the above (I went with multifaceted for you!)?

 

[niklinna]

I mean, heck, right now, I've got a DM who insists on narrating every attack. Drives me straight up the wall since it slows things down SOOOO much. I really, REALLY don't care that my character, on his fifteenth attack of the night, swings overhand or backhand. Just get on with it.

I find it really annoying it when immersion interferes with my immersion.

 

[Reynard]

I would find a more expansive, less niche definition would be better. Something like:

"A particular heightened cognitive state marked by some combination of engagement, habitation, and captivation."

It is possible to have a definition so broad as to be useless, and I think you've managed it.

 

[Manbearcat]

It is possible to have a definition so broad as to be useless, and I think you've managed it.

100 % agree that its possible.

Just not here. I’ve managed useful and precise without being a particular brand of restrictive (imo one that yields both lack of precision in one direction and over-broadness in another).

I know you don’t mean it to be because you’ve been good on this subject recently, but in my experience that lead post defintion is useful only as an ideological purity test (kindred with anti-metagaming and “mechanics need to get out of the way of my roleplaying”…both of which I find very anti-immersion!).