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Is Immersion Important to You as a Player?
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<blockquote data-quote="Pedantic" data-source="post: 8811369" data-attributes="member: 6690965"><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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. </p><p></p><p>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? </p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Pedantic, post: 8811369, member: 6690965"] 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. 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. [/QUOTE]
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