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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fusangite" data-source="post: 2445535" data-attributes="member: 7240">Shameless Cross-PostOkay then, here's a cross-post of what I said there:I'm not a story-focused player. But I'm not immersive either. I guess in the Edwards terminology, which I don't actually see as that helpful, I'm still a simulationist but I have a different idea of the knowability of my character and the world.I can't get immersed in my character because I don't really know enough about him. There are things about his culture and events that have happened in his life that are written-up by me or the GM and there are events that have happened to him during the time we've played but it's a pretty small fraction of the whole character. Then there are the rules, things like knowledge skills, that allow me to approximate knowledge my characters has but I don't. Ultimately, though, my character is someone I get to know over the course of a campaign; much of my play isn't so much immersing myself in the character as it is about discovering who my character is. (Just as my play generally is more about discovering the nature of the world rather than imposing on it my own idea of what it is or should be.)The characters I play are alien people from different cultures that I use my playing time to learn about. When I have to make a decision on my character's behalf, I make the best guess I can using his understanding of history and culture (background), personal experience (the previous play) and physics (the rules) as to what this fellow would do in this situation. That decision then becomes part of my information about the character and helps me to deduce more about what kind of guy he is the next time he has to make a decision.I think the idea of immersion is premised on a level of knowability that, in my particular style of gaming, our characters don't really possess.I've seen immersion be used to good effect in games, though. For some people, "getting into character" can give them access to the thoughts, feelings and values of their character on an emotional and intuitive level. For me, that is not a very effective way of knowing usually; my ways of knowing are more abstract and less experiential; but for some it is, and I encourage those individuals to play that way. That's not to say I'm not good at "acting" my character; but I'm not "feeling" my character when I do so.I don't see my style as "distancing" me from my character. My character and I start out far apart; I'm a human whereas he's an abstract construct centred on some numbers; I'm real and he's not; I'm from a modern society and he is not, etc. I think every playing style is essentially trying to solve the problem: "How do I bridge the gap between my character and myself?" For some, immersion works; for others, different tactics must be used.</blockquote>

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