Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 8806841" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Gotta be honest, I don't love this.I don't love the idea that TTRPG immersion gets cordoned off to this hyper-specific niche that seems (at least on the surface) to have a problem with the multivariate cognitive states we occupy in real life (and that can be either experienced/accessed simultaneously or pivoting from one to another).  Sometimes we aren't present in the moment with our minds preoccupied elsewhere or on ephemera.  Maybe we're accessing a caricature of ourselves in order to placate or resolve a social environment (a caricature that may be more or less authentic).  We're sometimes hyper-present in the moment.  Sometimes we're sick or withdrawn or incapacitated and incapable of even accessing our normal behavioral profile.  Sometimes we're just doing rote activity and we're barely there at all.  Sometimes we're subdued or afflicted by something (distraction or harm or a single, powerful influence like fear or anxiety) so our normal repository of emotions is inaccessible.  Sometimes we're trapped in a powerful state brought on by an endocrine response and we're "barely there" (the memory of the event being foggy or askew).I'm 100 % confident that I'm capable of immersing as a GM...even though the meta of play is front-and-center and palpable in my creative and cognitive process at every moment (a process that looks like your engagement above).  Stuff sneaks up on me as I'm creating.  Maybe I find the content I'm producing in-situ maps metaphorically to personal, real life architecture and it I can't help but be taken in by the unfolding of it.  Or maybe a character or situation I'm creating/running reminds me of story or mythology that I have found very provocative (and very accessible mentally and emotionally).[HR][/HR]This post isn't saying this, but I just wanted to add a point that connects with the above.  I'm certain that the idea that "mechanics-and/or-meta-unhindered gaming is the definition or height of immersion" is not correct.  That might be an autobiographical statement that some folks will make, but that is where it ends (even if a large swath of folks bear out the same personal testimony).</blockquote>

Verification