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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SweeneyTodd" data-source="post: 2443078" data-attributes="member: 9391">I wanted to expand on Stance a bit more, since I think lumping it in with immersion complicates things. (I think Immersion is "internal" and Stance is "external", for instance.)Here are some possible types of stance, which I'm taking from the roleplaying supplement Sorcerer & Sword (because I've got a copy next to me at the moment). I'm not glued to these definitions, but they're a place to start.Note that these don't necessarily address third-person versus first-person phrasing. They often have a particular kind of phrasing associated with them, though.Pawn Stance: The player decides the character's actions based on the player's priorities. OOC knowlege is not kept separate from IC knowledge. Sometimes this means that a character's behavior is erratic, like a paladin slaughtering an innocent person to get the last few XP to level. On the other hand, if you're playing a character very much like yourself, this stance might be very useful and plausible.I think this is what mythusmage is referring to in the other thread as "treat the character as a game piece to be manipulated".Actor Stance: The player decides the character's actions based on the character's imagined priorities. The character's priorities and motivations include only that knowledge gained IC. Actor stance is usually associated with a high level of immersion, because like immersion, there's a strong sense of "thinking as if you are the character". I think mythusmage was referring to this as treating your character "as a role to be played".Author Stance: This starts off like Pawn Stance, in that the character's actions are based on the player's motivations. However, there is an additional step where the player "authors in" retroactive motivation for the character to act in the way they did. (So the character's doing what the player wants, but there's an effort made to keep this plausible.) OOC knowledge is used to direct IC behavior, often in a nonintrusive fashion to set up future interesting scenes and conflicts. (Example: In a horror game, I have my PC go into the basement, and come up with a reason why he would do so, because I think it'll be more interesting if he confronts the monster and has to run from it.)Professor Phobos described this stance as "acting as if you are the character's head writer, for, say, a TV show". There's also Director stance, where the player can exert control over things outside of their character, but we can leave that off to the side for now, since it's most often used by GMs. (It does come up sometimes in D&D, for instance when the player directs the behavior of their hirelings or cohorts.)So, help me out folks. Does this rough breakdown of Stances reflect behavior you've seen in games? Does the divide between Pawn and Author stance make sense? What are the good and bad points you see in the use of the various stances?</blockquote>

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