Hussar said:I think a better term than "Thespian Acting" which I've never seen before, would be "Amateur Thespianism" I don't think anyone would have a huge problem with Patrick Stewart sitting down at their table and playing. That would be Thespian acting. However, amateur thespians, at their worst, try to turn the entire game into melodrama. Every moment must be played out in full, excrutiating detail. Note, it doesn't have to be this way, but, "Amateur Thespianism" IMO, as a perjorative, means exactly this.
Nice 3e is for munchkins dig.
The funny thing is, back in the day when I played 1e and Basic/Expert D&D, there was no "immersion". Our characters were Bob the Fighter and Bob's Brother the Fighter. They happily mass murdered their way through dungeon after dungeon, without a single thought to the setting or anything else. Down time was entirely glossed over, the only NPC's we talked to were the ones who were giving us our next marching orders to the next dungeon and the "campaign setting" was pretty much just a cloth backdrop with a couple of paper decorations.
Not that everyone played that way mind you. Of course not. Some played like Valiant, and that's fine. But, to say that 1e was all about deep immersion is ludicrous. The idea of "deep immersion" didn't come out until years later. The game was a short step away from a wargame in the early days. You took your playing piece and killed stuff until you died or retired. And then you took another playing piece out of the box and did it again.
Trying to set up this dichotomy that "1e players were all about role playing and later editions about roll playing" is a bloody stale old joke.
Hey, I never said AD&D was about deep imersion. I only said that players at some level immerse into the game when they control one character (they are forced to identify with it). I actually play exactly the way you play most of the time. Thats all thats required for immersion though, the key is your 1 PC (or perhaps a few) rather then the entire army. Also, at some point your DM is going to make someone talk to you, and you'll need to talk back (either by saying, "my guy says this" or saying it).
