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Message: <blockquote data-quote="woodelf" data-source="post: 2677723" data-attributes="member: 10201">Two elements i've quoted. First, it's an extraneous resource if you don't have player-GM arguments to prevent.Second, as for it being distracting. Let me try an analogy. I find LARPs to be harder to get into character than RPGs, because of the presence of the player as the character. That is, it is easier for me to picture Michael (a big, bearded guy) as a female pixie-fairy when i'm not in any way trying to conflate the player and the character. So, in an RPG, i can immerse myself, because we're not trying to represent any part of the imaginary world with physical elements, so there's nothing to contradict the imaginings. In an RPG, i have to imagine a female pixie-fairy is hovering in front of me.  In a LARP, i have to not only imagine a female pixie-fairy is hovering in front of me, i also have to imagine that Michael isn't standing in front of me--or, worse from my perspective, that Michael with glittery fairy wings and a tutu isn't standing in front of me. The contrast between the real and the imagined makes it harder to immerse in the imagined, for me. It's not that i can't do it, just that i have to exert more effort to do so.While i don't have that particular problem with a battlemat or miniatures, i can certainly believe that some might, and the moreso the more the battlemat or miniatures clash with the imagined world (starting with being 2-D and probably poorly drawn [since most GMs probably aren't also masters of perspective plan drawing], and probably having miniatures that only mostly match your character image). I think i see it in some of my players, frex: a couple have a tendency to latch on to elements on the battlemat, even when i've explicitly said that they are symbolic rather than representative. I think it's that the physical objects are more concrete, so they reflexively fall into incorporating the physical elements into the imagined world (things like assuming that one goblin is bigger and tougher than the others, when i run out of goblins and use an orc miniature). For this group, i've found the best solution is to use rough sketches--clearly not "maps" but more like "diagrams"--and use dice or pennies rather than miniatures. These elements are so clearly symbols, divorced from the imaginary world they're representing, that they don't interfere with "conflicting images"--no RPer is gonna assume that the orcs are short, flat, and coppery, or that they all look like Abe. (Or, at least, i've never run into it.)Does my analogy and hypothesis make it any easier to comprehend how a battlemat might serve as a distraction for some?And, as for brain function to support the hypothesis: it could be a bit like the bright green tshirt that says "red" in big letters on the front. Perfectly literate, intelligent people, if asked 5min after the tshirt has left the room might tell you that it said "green" on it. When your brain has conflicting signals, it sometimes resolves them in interesting ways. Assuming that having the verbal description and a visual representation conflict couldn't possibly lead to the brain adopting erroneous elements of the visual representation is silly. And if that's true for some people, then all but the very best miniatures set-ups are gonna interfere with imagining for those people. No matter how smart or imaginative they are.</blockquote>

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