Is the AD&D 1E Revival here to stay?

[Ourph]

That's a pretty fuzzy difference, when you think about it. Immersion in a series of situations will by simple extension result in immersion in the world, while immersion in the world will de facto lead to immersion in a series of situations that you are expected to react to.

I think the main difference here is that many people in our current gaming culture,when they say "immersion", think of it more as immersion in a character rather than immersion in a situation or milieu. I agree with the notion that the original D&D use of "immersion" generally tended to refer to a viewpoint centered within the setting rather than a viewpoint centered within a particular character's personality. I don't necessarily think that the newest version of D&D uses that word in a significantly different way, but it seems indisputable that a large part of the current D&D player culture attaches a much different meaning to the word than was originally intended.

 

[Lanefan]

I think the main difference here is that many people in our current gaming culture,when they say "immersion", think of it more as immersion in a character rather than immersion in a situation or milieu.

I maintain they are much the same thing. The character is in the situation; to become immersed in one you kinda have to become immersed in the other.

Not a big deal, though...any immersion is better than a detached metagame style of play.

Lanefan

 

[tx7321]

I think the kind of immersion that one experiances playing AD&D 1E will largely depend on the personality and imagination of the player (despite its creators intentions).

That said, I think Storm Raven is correct. Check out pg. 104 "Negotiation" "Most DMs love communication and neg. for this allows them to assume an active role in actual play. Your ref. will assume the persona proper to the creature your party is dealing with be it shy or hostile .... "

I think its logical to assume that if your DM will assume the "persona" then you, the player, are supposed to as well. I know when I first played the game, not really knowing any of the rules (thats the DMs job) all I was left with was immersion. Not only seeing and smelling and touching the world in which I explored, but talking, hiding, running...all the things one does in real life, and in a very fluid way. The DM might be sitting back applying the rules and rolling to see what happens, keeping track of "moves" and such, but lets face it...the first time you played this game you were "there". At least I was (and the biggest loss to D&D was going to the D20 system where players feel like stacked sandwiches and know the rules backward and forward). The fact that your PC was usually some average Joe (no bull strength and tumble and what have you) made it that much easier to relate to that character rather then just watch it (this is similar to reading "The Hobbit" and LOTR) as a kid its easy to relate to the halflings, there small and weak like you. But the elves, Gandalf, even Strider...forget it.

Now there is a difference between watching your character and being your character. I think someone like Foster didn't see from the eyes of his character, but rather watched it and made it act like a puppet. I on the other hand am the kind of player who "is" that character, seeing out of its eyes. That doesn't mean I behave at the table like some out of work thespian actor, far from it. I only talk in character when the DM forces me to (usually responding to an NPC). Otherwise I say "my guy does this or my guy does that", and I never communicate with fellow gamers at the table "in character" its still "I'll trade you this +1 ring for your +2 shield" not "Horthak, what sayith we make a bargain...bla bla". I find this kind of "acting out" works well online however..but at the gaming table...its just creepy :\ .

 

[Ourph]

I maintain they are much the same thing. The character is in the situation; to become immersed in one you kinda have to become immersed in the other.

Not a big deal, though...any immersion is better than a detached metagame style of play.

Lanefan

There is certainly a difference between imagining yourself (the player) immersed in a certain situation and imagining Cyril the Red who enjoys singing merry elven songs with his guildmates back in Waterdeep and has an allergy to shrieker spores in that situation. My experience with D&D circa. 1978-1983 was that, for the most part, a character was a vehicle for transferring the character's own personality into the game world with certain abilities attached, whereas it is expected in many portions of the current culture that a character will have a unique and fully developed personality of their own and that the player will set aside his own personality and "immerse" in the character's personality during play. I would say that those two concepts of immersion are considerably different.

 

[tx7321]

O: "whereas a character today is expected to have a unique and fully developed personality of their own and that the player will set aside his own personality and "immerse" in the character's personality during play. I would say that those two concepts of immersion are considerably different."

I think the term imersion was highjacked by the thespian actor crowd myself. Its original meaning was as you said, " imagining yourself (the player) immersed in a certain situation". The only thing you added to YOU was your class (I heal, I fight etc.). And you got to act out being the good guy or bad guy, it was cowboys and indians back then. Back story was something that didn't really creep in until 2E (infact back story and changing your personality was discouraged by the 1E DMs I sat for, who wanted you to develop your character as you played).

 

[Psion]

There is certainly a difference between imagining yourself (the player) immersed in a certain situation and imagining Cyril the Red who enjoys singing merry elven songs with his guildmates back in Waterdeep and has an allergy to shrieker spores in that situation.

While this may or may not be true, I tend to think that fourth wall breaking aspects of a game disrupt either.

 

[T. Foster]

Now there is a difference between watching your character and being your character. I think someone like Foster didn't see from the eyes of his character, but rather watched it and made it act like a puppet. I on the other hand am the kind of player who "is" that character, seeing out of its eyes. That doesn't mean I behave at the table like some out of work thespian actor, far from it. I only talk in character when the DM forces me to (usually responding to an NPC). Otherwise I say "my guy does this or my guy does that", and I never communicate with fellow gamers at the table "in character" its still "I'll trade you this +1 ring for your +2 shield" not "Horthak, what sayith we make a bargain...bla bla".

You've actually got my "position" backwards there. I'm in the same boat as you wrt "immersion" as a player. Ideally, as a player, I want to feel like I am in this situation, facing these challenges, not that I'm watching or directing someone else doing it (that's the GM's role). That, to me, is perhaps the most interesting aspect of rpg play as a player, and why I've lately come to prefer the player role to the GM role -- testing and learning about yourself, seeing how you would react in various situations.

I think it's unfortunate that this aspect has been co-opted and overshadowed by "actors" for whom the goal seems to be nearly the opposite -- to see how fully they can take on a separate, fictional persona -- to think and react to situations not as themselves but as someone else whom they've created. Not to learn about yourself, but to lose, or submerge, yourself. That holds much less interest or appeal to me, and to the extent I've spoken out against "immersion" in the past, that's what I've been speaking out against, not what you describe.

 

[tx7321]

Aha! Good to know. Somehow I always missed that.

 

[RFisher]

Oh, and as Phil. pointed out above, an MU can use a sword, he just gets a minus to hit.

My AD&D group always played it that way, but it's been pointed out to be that strictly by-the-book, an MU cannot use a sword at all.

I think the main reason is that saying "you can't" begs the reply "why not", and when the answer is, in many cases "just because" people find that unsatisfying. And in many cases in 1e and 2e the answer is little more than "just because", especially, for example, in cases in which NPCs may be members of certain classes, but PCs cannot.

There is a perception that "you can't" is more arbitrary than "you can" when there is little else justifying either choice.

It's more accurate to say that the question (no matter how much those of us who learned the game only from the books might think it's an obvious question) wasn't anticipated. The book didn't say, "just because"; it just didn't say anything. I think that to Gygax & co. these restrictions were so natural they never really thought they needed any further explaination.

Everytime over the years I've seen Gygax asked about such things--unless he's in a particularly crotchety mood--he gives an answer other than "just because".

It's not uncommon for wargames--the tradition AD&D was evolving from--to give you restrictions without explaination. They tend to assume that you either can figure out the reason or won't really care.

 

[Faraer]

I'd put the mindset difference in terms of using the rules to play in a particular idea of sword-and-sorcery fantasy fiction, rather than to simulate a realistic secondary world. It doesn't break the fourth wall any more than non-realistic (including almost all pre-20th-century) theatre does. I think a great deal is lost by reducing fantastic fiction to realist fiction that just happens to be set in created worlds.

Elven clerics aren't PCs in the original AD&D because it takes many decades to become one and they're valuable elders, not young adventuring types. Also, part of the game's humanocentrism is that demihuman religion is kept mysterious.