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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 9513108" data-attributes="member: 6696971">[USER=6785785]@hawkeyefan[/USER] already addressed this a bit, but I’m going to throw some thoughts at this from my perspective as someone that has nearly exclusively GM’d in my gaming lifetime.Generally, the disparity of what builds out immersion priorities for various people has always informed my opinion that this stuff is very novel to the user, very autobiographical. So while individual testimonials are interesting, they’re not remotely decisive or helpful at the population level (so population level discussions around immersion feels useless).Take my case which doesn’t seem to apply to most of you guys when it comes to immersion priorities:* I value immediacy in cognitive loop and emotional provocation more than anything. Back-and-forth around info-vetting (accumulated knowledge/experience, relationships, memories, intuition, etc) or a focus on content that isn’t conflict-charged and/or that doesn’t provoke “pulls me right out” of being present, piqued, cognitively and emotionally involved. It leaves me feeling alienated from the intensity of what is happening and how I should viscerally orient to it.* I’m a lifelong martial artist, athlete, wilderness trekker, and climber of five years now. My formal study and work life is in the physical sciences. Because of this background, the folks I play with are often working from an information deficit on these things compared to me. As such, the last thing I want to do when either framing scenes/foregrounding consequences or performing the cognitive loop of a person involved in these sort of conflicts is to engage or be engaged at a technical level that (a) doesn’t comport with the realities of what these things entail. Further, (b) the shared language/interface/medium used to exchange information, parse decisions, and resolve actions has to be handled with care.If (a) or (b) is wonky, that is a big “immersion hit” for myself and almost surely those I’m running games for/playing with. So if I’m a player, I don’t want a GM trying to frame these types of situations beyond their means (especially telling me “what is realistic” when they have little idea) and as a GM, I don’t want to frame decision-points in ways that are inaccessible to players.* Finally, often in the traditional TTRPG space there is a “the province of my character’s emotional space is mine and mine alone. System/action resolution should never dictate if I’m frightened, smitten, flustered, or carried away on the wings of amygdala hijack.” I find this position just about the most unimmersive thing I could imagine in practice. While resolving a fight/flight/smitten or otherwise overwhelmed by stimulation via system procedure/resolution certainly isn’t the same thing as “The Real McCoy,” it does enough work to emulate the lack of control. Meanwhile, having full autonomy over such things is basically a kill-shot for immersion to me.[HR][/HR]Hopefully, this does a little work in conveying the vastness of the divide between Trad-space priorities and myself (and those like me) around immersion/simulation of cognitive immediacy, relationships, emotions, memories, accumulated knowledge, intuition, physical disciplines I’m disproportionately acquainted with, and nervous system hijack.</blockquote>

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