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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 8819624" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Great post!I think what we're (you and I and perhaps [USER=85555]@Bedrockgames[/USER] ) getting at is what I was outlining earlier in the thread; immersion isn't (and cannot be really) one thing with hard-coded parameters.So another way to engage with what I wrote and what you replied to is this:To some folks, "less is more" or "addition by subtraction, while to others "more is more" and "subtraction is just plain subtraction."I'll give a few personal examples here:* If you increase the parameters of a social system or you increase the parameters of my mental processing (particularly certain parameters), I will tend toward becoming distracted such that the experiencing of the social system or performing the mental processing (and all that comes downstream of activating my central nervous system) will be diminished in multiple ways.  My "presence" will be diminished.  My perception and understanding will be diminished.  My appreciation will be diminished.  My performance will be diminished.Once I have some very particular, focused parameters, everything else becomes "noise."  I'm rather confident that my threshold for this is considerably less than your own.* Are you familiar with the opening scene of Super Eight and "the elevator scene" in Ghostbusters?  These scenes are both incredibly short.  15-30 seconds.  We are working from a huge information deficit in totality but an information-rich environment experientially due to how incredibly well-constructed these two short scenes are.  It isn't just what is said and put before us...it is what is left unsaid...that invites us (demands us) to viscerally put the pieces together about the nature of what is before us (setting, situation, characters).Simply put, by my reckoning of it, the more you add to those scenes ("tell rather than show"), the less impactful they become and the level of storycraft decreases (with the arrow pointing toward inelegant, clumsy ham-fistedness).  Despite the unbelievably abbreviated nature of those scenes, "they are perfect" in terms of both information-richness, and intensity of connection.[HR][/HR]I feel similarly about Cormac McCarthy's works.  Minimalism (reduction of information in specific areas), when executed deftly, is always vastly preferable to me when I'm running a game, reading a novel, watching a move, physically grappling, climbing a wall, exercising/playing sport, or engaged in a social environment.I'm assuming you might feel differently about any of the bullet points above, about Cormac McCarthy's works or about some or all of the endeavors I've listed directly above?(Interestingly, I appreciate complex, layered musical pieces just as much as I do more simplified arrangements.  And when it comes to proofs/refutations, I obviously prefer abundance over scarcity!)EDIT - [USER=42582]@pemerton[/USER] answered your questions about DitV.  Like the scenes in Super 8 and Ghostbusters above, DitV intentionally eschews focus on various things (any ephemera or color that isn't absolutely necessary to engage with the premise of the present situation) in order to demand that exact type (inherent to those two movie scenes depicted above) of focus by the participants on resolving the internal dynamics of character and situation.</blockquote>

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