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<blockquote data-quote="Professor Phobos" data-source="post: 2441773" data-attributes="member: 18883">Why don't people engage in immersion? I think that's a bad term, by the way; I certainly don't &quot;immerse&quot; myself in-character and I do view characters as tools. But I view them as tools not merely to achieve the acquisition of items and XP, but to achieve dramatic or story ends as well. I know many excellent roleplayers who do not &quot;immerse&quot;, and in my experience it is a dead end; characters should be in service of the greater good (creating a fun game), rather than an end in themselves. Immersion is a distraction; getting &quot;in character&quot; requires a player to take on the same basic assumptions for gameplay as the character, which leads to such negative ends as a player being reluctant to allow said character to die. A good death scene is something that can improve a game as a whole; it is rarely good for the dying character. Ultimately, I think being immersed prevents the necessary perspective for a player to really screw with his character. No character wants an &quot;interesting life&quot; (as in the Chinese curse), after all. (You could count that as a reason I don't do immersion, if you want. Summary: &quot;Because there are more effective methods to encourage good roleplaying.&quot;)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Professor Phobos, post: 2441773, member: 18883"] Why don't people engage in immersion? I think that's a bad term, by the way; I certainly don't "immerse" myself in-character and I do view characters as tools. But I view them as tools not merely to achieve the acquisition of items and XP, but to achieve dramatic or story ends as well. I know many excellent roleplayers who do not "immerse", and in my experience it is a dead end; characters should be in service of the greater good (creating a fun game), rather than an end in themselves. Immersion is a distraction; getting "in character" requires a player to take on the same basic assumptions for gameplay as the character, which leads to such negative ends as a player being reluctant to allow said character to die. A good death scene is something that can improve a game as a whole; it is rarely good for the dying character. Ultimately, I think being immersed prevents the necessary perspective for a player to really screw with his character. No character wants an "interesting life" (as in the Chinese curse), after all. (You could count that as a reason I don't do immersion, if you want. Summary: "Because there are more effective methods to encourage good roleplaying.") [/QUOTE]

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