Is Immersion Important to You as a Player?

[Lanefan]

Definitely I agree this can be a problem with turn-based combat resolution, and that's an area I'm used to compromise. Immersion generally suffers in combat scenarios, but that's often a trade-off for ease of resolution and sufficiently interesting gameplay abstraction. Like all aspects of game design, immersion is in tension with other design goals and you'll have to make trade-offs at some point.

Outside of turn-based resolution though, this has more impact on things like skill rules, particularly things like stealth rules, where you must specify the circumstances that call for checks ahead of time. For an easy example, consider a check to open a locked door. I need to know as a player what the costs of trying that action are (time, potential lost resources), what the potential failure points are (how many checks could be called for, what are the potential results of a failed check) and what my general chances of success are, so that I can make the best decision about trying the action. A game with an unbounded fail-forward system (or a system with particularly bad "success at cost" outcomes) will fail to be immersive, because the potential downsides of a failed check may make my decision making as a player not align with my character's putative lockpicking ability.

Ah. That opens another can o' worms which I might as well spill out on the table:

Does true immersion require the players to, as far as possible, forget or ignore the fact that they are playing a game? I posit the answer is yes, that immersion means you're thinking like the character. So, instead of making the decision based on gameplay concerns you'd ideally make it fully in-character (and ideally the GM has given you enough in-setting information to do so, this runs both ways!).

Also, no meta-narrative resource management. A 1/encounter ability must be tied to a resource intrinsic to the character that refreshed on say a 5 minute time scale, not to an "opportunity" that they see arise in the opposition, because the decision to use the ability must be something both the character and I as the player can choose to do.

Yep, when applied to anything the character can normally physically do e.g. a signature combat move. When it comes to magic, I can see some limits e.g you can only cast so many spells in a day or this item only works x-times in y-amount of time, easily explainable in-fiction as the magic needs time to reload.

This is fair, but I tend to think of character motivation as defining the victory condition of the game you're playing at any point. My motivation and decision making as a player is then based on trying to optimally achieve that objective. Personal survival is generally a reliable character goal, but if it isn't anymore, I can still as a player try to make good decisions to achieve whatever goal has superseded it if the character's motivations change.

Again, that seems to look at it very much from a meta-side "playing the game" standpoint.

This feels like a situation you'd have to accept some abstraction, not at the level of mechanical resolution, but at the level of character motivation. You're adding another goal to the character's motivations that mostly goes unstated "remain part of this group" and you might be prioritizing it over other motivations that might otherwise make more "sense" for the character. It's back to the abstraction necessary to play a game at all, the compromise here being that you agree to play as part of a troupe, even if that might not otherwise align with your motivations.

I don't add such goals unless they make sense for the character. If I want full immersion then at-table abstractions have to almost - or even entirely - become irrelevant.

System abstraction e.g. to make combat work are in my view a different beast than at-table abstractions such as keeping the party together: one is necessary, the other is not.

Absolutely, but I'd push that challenge in this sense is a necessary outcome of the scenario, not the system itself, if immersion is to be maintained. This goes back to what I was saying about discrete timeframes earlier. If an action I can declare as a player has an impact on the narrative outside of the direct result (say, a mechanic that allows me to succeed by creating a future complication token that the GM can invoke to add another threat later) I cannot immersively take that action, because my calculus as a player cannot align with the character's decision making.

The answer, then, is to simply stop thinking like a player. Take whatever action the character would take in the moment and let the downstream consequences - if any - sort themselves out later. In fairness, I'd put this particular example down as a system flaw; in that ideally you-as-player shouldn't know how the GM-side mechanics work in cases like this and thus be free to make whatever in-character decisions you like without regard to those meta-concerns.

 

[Pedantic]

Ah. That opens another can o' worms which I might as well spill out on the table:

Does true immersion require the players to, as far as possible, forget or ignore the fact that they are playing a game? I posit the answer is yes, that immersion means you're thinking like the character. So, instead of making the decision based on gameplay concerns you'd ideally make it fully in-character (and ideally the GM has given you enough in-setting information to do so, this runs both ways!).

No, immersion exists when players are not faced with conflict between playing a game and making decisions in character. A system that is designed to maximize immersion prevents conflicts along these lines from coming up. What you're suggesting above is basically just illusionism on the player side, instead of the GM. Pretending not to know the rules (or perhaps actually not knowing them if you're a very specific kind of player) doesn't remove them from the gameplay loop, it just creates cognitive dissonance you have to cope with as a player to stay engaged.

I view failures of immersion as primarily design problems, not play problems. "Immersion" as I'm using the term, is a description of the state where there is no (or more realistically given the necessity of abstraction, as little as possible) tension between playing the game and making in-character decisions.

The answer, then, is to simply stop thinking like a player. Take whatever action the character would take in the moment and let the downstream consequences - if any - sort themselves out later. In fairness, I'd put this particular example down as a system flaw; in that ideally you-as-player shouldn't know how the GM-side mechanics work in cases like this and thus be free to make whatever in-character decisions you like without regard to those meta-concerns.

Proposing a meta-solution, "stop thinking like a player" is a patch to a design failure, not a solution to the problem. The full-illusionist solution you're proposing here is pretty repugnant though. In no other context would I agree to play a game I don't know the rules to; why would that be any different because that game has characters and a narrative?

The design of the system led to forced non-immersive decision, and the solution is not to use those mechanics if immersion is a goal. Generally my goal as a player, and my goal as a character, will be to optimally and efficiently overcome whatever challenges sit between us and our goal at any point. Systems like this either attempt to prevent any decision from actually being efficient or optimal with a goal of presenting a particular kind of narrative (or just a generally "interesting" narrative) or change the gameplay incentives so that player and character motivations diverge.

I suppose I'm not stating a second preference here that is relevant: I don't like games that don't give players agency. I'm not interested in games that don't present opportunities to make effective/optimal decisions outside of a TTRPG context (e.g. I wouldn't play a board game that used slots as a resolution mechanic) and adding the variable goals/narrative elements of a TTRPG doesn't change that preference.

 

[pemerton]

I do not for a nanosecond doubt that people have that experience and/or reaction. In particular you. I hope I didn't convey doubt about that. I might not prefer it for myself but that means exactly and only that.

No doubt was conveyed! I just thought I'd share an experience in response to your post.

I agree with you that "intensity" is a good way to describe it. It's why upthread I contrasted "light" (as in, light-hearted or non-intense) RPG experiences - I gave Against the Giants as an example, but there are heaps and heaps of others that could be given - with more "serious" or intense experiences. For the latter my preferred system these days is Burning Wheel, but I could imagine using a mechanically lighter system like Cortex+ Heroic (if it was approached a certain way, probably with the dice at the lower end numerically) or lighter still like Cthulhu Dark or even Wuthering Heights, if the zaniness of that last-most was kept under control.

 

[pemerton]

I think for me it is a lot less about the internal emotional world of the character and more about this sense of being there.

This seems another example of the world/character contrast that I and a few other posters have pointed to. I think it's an important contrast, because the techniques for one are quite different from those for the other.

 

[Lanefan]

No, immersion exists when players are not faced with conflict between playing a game and making decisions in character.

That conflict doesn't exist if you ignore the fact that you're playing a game.

A system that is designed to maximize immersion prevents conflicts along these lines from coming up. What you're suggesting above is basically just illusionism on the player side, instead of the GM. Pretending not to know the rules (or perhaps actually not knowing them if you're a very specific kind of player) doesn't remove them from the gameplay loop, it just creates cognitive dissonance you have to cope with as a player to stay engaged.

My experience differs, in that not knowing the rules/mechanics frees me up to just have my character (try to) do what it would do; and the GM can sort out the mechanical implications.

I view failures of immersion as primarily design problems, not play problems. "Immersion" as I'm using the term, is a description of the state where there is no (or more realistically given the necessity of abstraction, as little as possible) tension between playing the game and making in-character decisions.

We see it differently, then; as I see "immersion" as - at its peak - describing the state where I forget I'm a player at a table and am thinking only as the character in the setting.

Proposing a meta-solution, "stop thinking like a player" is a patch to a design failure, not a solution to the problem. The full-illusionist solution you're proposing here is pretty repugnant though. In no other context would I agree to play a game I don't know the rules to; why would that be any different because that game has characters and a narrative?

It would be different because at the root of it you don't need to know the rules in order to role-play. That's what the GM is for. With the exception of character generation mechanics - which IMO should be kept as simple as possible - all you really need to know is that you become your character and think as it would. That's it.

Sure, most systems want you to learn combat mechanics and so forth; but IMO that's only because we can't act out the combats around the table - we don't have our characters' abilities and federal law might have something to say about all the killing we'd be doing.

The design of the system led to forced non-immersive decision, and the solution is not to use those mechanics if immersion is a goal. Generally my goal as a player, and my goal as a character, will be to optimally and efficiently overcome whatever challenges sit between us and our goal at any point.

My goal as a character might well be that. My goal as a player, however, is irrelevant.

Systems like this either attempt to prevent any decision from actually being efficient or optimal with a goal of presenting a particular kind of narrative (or just a generally "interesting" narrative) or change the gameplay incentives so that player and character motivations diverge.

I suppose I'm not stating a second preference here that is relevant: I don't like games that don't give players agency. I'm not interested in games that don't present opportunities to make effective/optimal decisions outside of a TTRPG context (e.g. I wouldn't play a board game that used slots as a resolution mechanic) and adding the variable goals/narrative elements of a TTRPG doesn't change that preference.

Not sure I get what you're saying here. Are you referring to narrative agency (e.g. where you-as-player have some say in setting design or elements), or mechanical agency (i.e. you always know the odds), or agency to freely have your character act as it would within the defined setting.

For me, only the latter of these matters; but it's absolutely essential. If my character doesn't know the odds - which would be most of the time! - then neither should I as player. I just have to muddle through, knowing only what my character knows and maybe doing the wrong thing sometimes. (an old-school example of what I don't like: 1e D&D's thieving-skill percentages should never have been player-side info) And IMO setting design is the purview of the GM.

 

[grankless]

We see it differently, then; as I see "immersion" as - at its peak - describing the state where I forget I'm a player at a table and am thinking only as the character in the setting.

It's actually extremely easy to make in-character decisions and also not offload the responsibility of knowing how the game works to the GM. You don't have to pretend that you're not playing a game. Ignoring rules feels like it would just make that harder to do things in character.

 

[Fenris-77]

I think that definitions of immersion that require one to forget they are playing a game are problematic. I've heard lots of descriptions of immersion that don't quite meet that enormously rigorous criteria, but I don't think that should exclude those experiences form consideration. I've experienced what I would call immersive moments that didn't escape the gravity of knowing that I was playing a game. Granted both the above are completely anecdotal, but I think it's important to the question at hand.

 

[Pedantic]

That conflict doesn't exist if you ignore the fact that you're playing a game.

I'm defining immersion as a state where no tension exists between me as a player playing a game, and the character I'm portraying making decisions. Willfully ignoring that tension doesn't solve for its existence to begin with.

We see it differently, then; as I see "immersion" as - at its peak - describing the state where I forget I'm a player at a table and am thinking only as the character in the setting.

I would actually agree with this as the goal, but we're disagreeing, I think, about how this can be achieved. You're proposing this can be achieved through either force of will to overcome cognitive dissonance, or through ignorance, and I'm suggesting that any mechanic that breaks this state is a design failure from the outset.

Not sure I get what you're saying here. Are you referring to narrative agency (e.g. where you-as-player have some say in setting design or elements), or mechanical agency (i.e. you always know the odds), or agency to freely have your character act as it would within the defined setting.

I'm talking about something between the latter two examples you give here? Agency in the sense that a player gets to make decisions, and that those decisions matter. The easiest example of a game with agency I can think of is Tic-Tac-Toe. You decide where to place your mark, and it is significant to the outcome of the game where you decide to do so (though, one level up from there, the strategy of the game is trivial, so I would describe it as a bad game). A game with no agency is something Snakes and Ladders, where you don't make decisions, and the outcome is determined entirely by factors outside of your control, or something like the lottery, where you can make decisions (pick a specific sequence of numbers), but those decisions have no impact on the outcome.

The most extreme version of the example game you're describing is the third case where players do not have agency, where players make decisions without any information, so those decisions don't matter, because the game would be as well played by a random number generator as the player.

That's a caricature of the position, because you'd likely expect some information even in your scenario (i.e. perhaps a thief has a better chance to pick locks than a fighter, even if the odds are entirely concealed). More likely, you're describing a scenario closer to Tic-Tac-Toe, where the optimal choices are trivial, or a game that alternates between states of agency and no agency from decision to decision.

For me, only the latter of these matters; but it's absolutely essential. If my character doesn't know the odds - which would be most of the time! - then neither should I as player. I just have to muddle through, knowing only what my character knows and maybe doing the wrong thing sometimes. (an old-school example of what I don't like: 1e D&D's thieving-skill percentages should never have been player-side info) And IMO setting design is the purview of the GM.

I would find such a game uninteresting, but not for reasons of immersion. If I don't have any agency as a player to make good decisions (or the agency I do have can only be used to solve trivial optimization problems) then I necessarily won't be at odds with the character I'm playing at any point. Such a design would arguably be very high immersion, but very low on other design goals I'd choose to prioritize.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think that definitions of immersion that require one to forget they are playing a game are problematic. I've heard lots of descriptions of immersion that don't quite meet that enormously rigorous criteria, but I don't think that should exclude those experiences form consideration. I've experienced what I would call immersive moments that didn't escape the gravity of knowing that I was playing a game. Granted both the above are completely anecdotal, but I think it's important to the question at hand.

It also ignores the fact you can get so familiar with a game system (and this is even true of highly detailed game systems--it applies to me to both older versions of RuneQuest and to the Hero System) where the vast majority of time mechanics-handling is done by parts of your brain that require virtually no conscious engagement. Now, if you're super-focused on immersive play you may be unlikely to play such a game long enough to get there, but its still a situation that can occur.

 

[Fenris-77]

It also ignores the fact you can get so familiar with a game system (and this is even true of highly detailed game systems--it applies to me to both older versions of RuneQuest and to the Hero System) where the vast majority of time mechanics-handling is done by parts of your brain that require virtually no conscious engagement. Now, if you're super-focused on immersive play you may be unlikely to play such a game long enough to get there, but its still a situation that can occur.

That's a great point, and I completely agree. System mastery does indeed, IMO, make immersion easier.