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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Imaculata" data-source="post: 6814932" data-attributes="member: 6801286">Lately I've been the default DM, so currently to me it's all about the immersion of my players. Its a responsibility to me; something I want to trigger, not force. I'd probably seek immersion as a player as well, but currently I'm totally in the mind set of a DM.When I think of immersion, I don't demand that my players are great actors, or that they are in-character 100%. What I mean with immersion, is that I'm able to make them laugh, be afraid, be sad, or filled with joy and jubilation. I want my campaign to provoke those feelings when it is called for. When their characters experience those things, I want the players to feel those same emotions. It doesn't matter to me that they constantly make OC jokes throughout the evening. Just as long as I'm able to engage them on an emotional level at the important moments of the story.One session ago my players came face to face with the big bad of my campaign. A cosmic horror in the vein of Cthulhu.. a creature they could not possibly fight directly, or have any hope of defeating. I wanted them to feel that fear and despair. It had to be one of those holy sh*t moments, and it had to be a cliffhanger for that evening. That is what I think of, when I talk about immersion. I wanted my players to go home feeling totally blown away, with that feeling of "Wow!" and "What the hell are we going to do?!". I wanted them to be thinking about the story for the entire week, until the next session. So how do you do that?To me, it's all about details. It's not about boring information overload, but you want to describe what they see, what they hear, and what they feel. And that last point is not as simple as simply telling them what to feel. You want to describe what their characters go through emotionally, so they as players feel it too. You don't just tell them their character is terrified, but you give a description to them that is so vivid, that there isn't a shadow of a doubt that this is the most terrifying thing their characters have ever seen. And that was what I wanted to get across. Immersion does not mean describing every flower and every tree leaf. Its about drawing them into the story, and engaging them emotionally. If I'm unable to do that, then I fear that the campaign would just be a flat dungeon grind with a story tacked on top.</blockquote>

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