Is Immersion Important to You as a Player?

[Pedantic]

This. I'm only immersed(and it's not illusionism no matter what @Pedantic says) when I'm inhabiting my character and acting as he would. Sometimes I forget I'm playing a game, usually it's there but in the background. What pulls me out of immersion are rules and dice. If I have to stop to roll dice or use a rule for something, I'm automatically no longer immersed in my character and back out as a player, so rules that simply match what I'm doing as my PC fail to provide immersion if I have to refer to them or roll anything.

The best immersion comes during roleplaying interactions where I'm not rolling much in the way of dice, or exploration where dice aren't used often. Combats, being very dice and rule heaving D&D make immersion impossible.

I'm using illusionism here to criticize the idea players should not know the rules of the game they are playing. It sounds like you're proposing that TTRPGs with less rules provide a greater sense of immersion, which I'm not totally sure interacts with my proposed definition.

It would all come down to how you are resolving conflicts in the shared fiction. If everyone generally agrees about character capabilities then you might never actually need to roll out a resolution mechanic other than the default "collectively decide what happens" and no one will ever encounter dissonance, which I would absolutely agree is an immersive state of affairs. I'm generally skeptical that such a state can be maintained by adults in an open-ended roleplaying situation, especially one that focuses on combat, and especially when you're in a fantasy or sci-fi or other setting that deviates significantly from normally experienced reality.

You don't need to know that success is 78% to make a good, informed decision and have agency, though. You just need to know that it's more likely than not, but with a decent chance for failure. That much should be evident to you by the situation, assuming the DM has described the environment correctly.

I think we're just quibbling over how much information about risk is necessary. I think D&D's 5% increments are about as fine-grained as I'd want software running on my brain to go, and I could probably be comfortably with a 10% standard, but I would side-eye anyone who didn't evaluate a 70% and an 80% chance of success differently. After that, we're just asking about which adjectives should indicate which DCs, and I generally think that's improved by putting them down in manuals.

 

[Lanefan]

I think we're just quibbling over how much information about risk is necessary. I think D&D's 5% increments are about as fine-grained as I'd want software running on my brain to go, and I could probably be comfortably with a 10% standard, but I would side-eye anyone who didn't evaluate a 70% and an 80% chance of success differently. After that, we're just asking about which adjectives should indicate which DCs, and I generally think that's improved by putting them down in manuals.

Player-side, 5% or 10% steps are OK as that's often about as closely as the character would be able to size up the odds in most situations.

GM-side, however, steps that big are often far too coarse-grained; I want it accurate down to the %. You might correctly think in-character that your success odds are in the 70-80% range, but there can be a big difference if the true odds (known only to the GM) are 71% as opposed to 79%.

 

[Pedantic]

Player-side, 5% or 10% steps are OK as that's often about as closely as the character would be able to size up the odds in most situations.

GM-side, however, steps that big are often far too coarse-grained; I want it accurate down to the %. You might correctly think in-character that your success odds are in the 70-80% range, but there can be a big difference if the true odds (known only to the GM) are 71% as opposed to 79%.

I'm straight up talking about the sides of dice here. The only systems that will give you that level of precise is a d100 resolution, and those have, I think, generally proven quite clunky to use.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Collaborative tends to imply not unilateral. I'm describing something that is unilateral, and hence is not collaborative.

If all the pieces are put together to make a whole, its still collaborative even if there's no direct back-and-forth.

Like in AD&D I get to decide what race my PC is (subject to ability score requirements). That's not collaborative authorship of the fiction, and I've never heard it described that way. It's just me deciding.

Different people draw lines in different spots, news at 11.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Internet discussion is often characterized by driving discussion to opposite polls, and disregarding the space between.

Which could be characterized as the place where the discussion becomes much simpler and much less productive.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'm straight up talking about the sides of dice here. The only systems that will give you that level of precise is a d100 resolution, and those have, I think, generally proven quite clunky to use.

BRP fans, among others, might have a slightly different view here.

 

[Umbran]

Which could be characterized as the place where the discussion becomes much simpler and much less productive.

Well, that depends on what you are trying to produce. Many folks, knowingly or not, are trying to "win", or prove their position is correct - that means they want to produce opportunities to "score points", and for that, a simplified argument is fine.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Well, that depends on what you are trying to produce. Many folks, knowingly or not, are trying to "win", or prove their position is correct - that means they want to produce opportunities to "score points", and for that, a simplified argument is fine.

I suppose, but that seems at best a definition that even the people who might be working on it would be unlikely to fess up to, so...

 

[Bedrockgames]

Well, that depends on what you are trying to produce. Many folks, knowingly or not, are trying to "win", or prove their position is correct - that means they want to produce opportunities to "score points", and for that, a simplified argument is fine.

Even when its a good faith effort, it can be easy to fall into very polarized positions in these discussions, because someone states A and you tend to take up position B. I find it useful to chime in once in a while, but step back and allow my thoughts and experience of play away from online discussions to shape my input into online discussions (rather than the other way around). Ultimately what matters is what works at the table and what works with the players you are gaming with.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Even when its a good faith effort, it can be easy to fall into very polarized positions in these discussions, because someone states A and you tend to take up position B. I find it useful to chime in once in a while, but step back and allow my thoughts and experience of play away from online discussions to shape my input into online discussions (rather than the other way around). Ultimately what matters is what works at the table and what works with the players you are gaming with.

The issue is its not even finding "A" an extremely unattractive position. Its the assumption that everything that isn't B, is A. Now, maybe someone sees anything that isn't B as just some variation on A, but in many cases (such as the one I was reacting to), that looks pretty ludicrous (and I suspect it often looks so even to many proponents of B.)