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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mythusmage" data-source="post: 2448329" data-attributes="member: 571">Sweeny Todd,What thunder? Sparking conversations are my goal in life, even at a remove.As to immersion et al.:You get right down to it, a better term is acting. When you role play you are acting. And theories of acting are many and varied. How do you become the character? To what degree do you become the character? Do you stay in character even 'off stage', or only when 'on stage'.In my short time in the theater I learned how to take on the role. To, in a sense, become the character I was playing. It pretty much involved coming up with a vision of what the character was like based on his lines in the script. After each performance I went through a period of decompression in which I returned to myself. It helps if you are comfortable with yourself and with your companions. A formal setting such as a stage or sound lot where role assumption is accepted helps a lot there.I have the feeling a number of people who dislike acting do so because they don't feel comfortable doing it. To them it means a loss of self control, and loss of the self. Which it doesn't. You remain you even when engaged in an emotionally intense scene. When you get right down to it, no matter what role you're playing you're playing yourself with a few changes. As you see yourself as that sort of person in that sort of situation. How would you act if you were a lady shaman negotiating with an annoyed dragon? What would you do were you a paladin hired to babysit colicky baby kobolds?In theater there are two factors encouraging acting. The acting tradition itself, and the present of a director who encourages acting from his cast. In RPGs what could take their place?The GM could. By first providing a safe environment where the players can relax. The players themselves can help their by getting to know and become comfortable with their fellow players. Second, the GM would help encourage acting by his presentation of his setting. Doing this by placing his actors, his players, in a fully realized setting. A setting with much more than villains, monsters, and faceless drones. A well realized setting presents the adventuring group with dramatic possibilities (read, 'adventures) that arise organically instead of being scripted. That is, dramatic events would be natural instead of imposed."Sir, I be freeholder Mark. Be I free to trouble you some? Thank you, sir. I be a freeholder on Lord Baric's fief and he be busy with the grape harvest right now. I be busy now with an ankheg on my land. Since you be closer to he, and possessed of free time, I come to petition you and your companions to come and deal away with pestiferous beast. What trinkets he hold be yours by battle right, and I can pay, though it be but a pittance. And I be able to give you a good word with Lord Baric be he looking for such as you. What be you saying?"I think you get the drift.</blockquote>

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