Moments of emotion

[LostSoul]

I'm not sure anyone had "immursion" in mind.

Yeah, yeah, fixed it.

 

[RangerWickett]

Sorry I haven't been as free to reply this thread as I had hoped -- been busy with setting up the new GameStore.

I want to my games to create stories. I don't want to go into a game with a specific story that must occur, but I would like it if, when the session or campaign is over, I can look back and see an interesting story, without too many side tracks.

Having talked to Fusangite at GenCon and having heard his lovely tale about chastising players who were playing Mongols for not appropriately murdering and pillaging, I can see that he's more interested in exploring a world than I am. I'm interested in the stories that can be created in these new worlds. Which is why I'm interested in ways to set up games so that good storytelling is a natural result.

I roleplay mostly in the first person, but that's not important. You don't have to be in first person to have a reaction to a story. Saving Private Ryan made me cry in the theater, but it wasn't because I was experiencing being there. It was because there was a compelling story, with powerful emotion affecting characters I was interested in.

Wish I could type more, but man I'm sleepy. I just was hoping folks would stop the whole arguing over whether it's their preference to get too close to characters, and instead talk about how to encourage good stories in a game. I was a Creative Writing major, so I feel I know what makes for good stories when I'm telling them by myself, but what can I do to help the players create a good story while still being fun?

 

[Teflon Billy]

Yeah, I'm with you. Just a little too to LARP for my taste. I just want to go, have fun, kill a few things, roll some dice, laugh a bit (or a lot), and go home.

Look us up if you are ever in Vancouver

 

[fusangite]

I want to my games to create stories. I don't want to go into a game with a specific story that must occur, but I would like it if, when the session or campaign is over, I can look back and see an interesting story, without too many side tracks.

I think you speak for everyone on this thread when you say this, regardless of whether they are for or against emotional engagement, for first or third person play, or for or against deep immersion.

Having talked to Fusangite at GenCon and having heard his lovely tale about chastising players who were playing Mongols for not appropriately murdering and pillaging, I can see that he's more interested in exploring a world than I am. I'm interested in the stories that can be created in these new worlds. Which is why I'm interested in ways to set up games so that good storytelling is a natural result.

I don't really see my GM reminding me of my character's cultural context undermining any other values or objectives with respect to immersion, storytelling or emotional engagement. "What would your parents say?" is, I think, a reasonable thing for any GM to ask his players if they appear to breaking with their culture's values without appearing to take that break seriously. It's not as though he told us we had to slaughter the adult males in the town, he just reminded us that choosing not to do so constituted a break with our culture.

I roleplay mostly in the first person, but that's not important. You don't have to be in first person to have a reaction to a story.

That's true but it does not follow that the two things are unrelated. When bad things happen to fictional or remote characters, there are two types of (highly related) emotional engagement one can have with that: (a) pity (b) compassion/sympathy (both words meaning, etymologically, suffering with); RPGs add a third possible position for the highly immersive first-person players: (c) suffering as. I think what is going on, however, in this thread is that we are not debating so much which of these three ways people respond to PC or NPC suffering; what the thread has devolved into is a debate over whether suffering is something we want to explore through out play.

When I GM or play, my narratives contain suffering insofar as people die, get injured, get sick, lose relatives, etc. but the suffering associated with this is glossed-over; the event still stands because it is necessary to the story but the suffering is left unexplored. If a character loses an arm, the emotional engagement I'm looking for is not, "Poor him, he lost an arm. That's going to deeply affect him." The emotional engagement I'm looking for is, "Whoa! His arm!? Man, that's gotta hurt. Damned red knight, wait 'til I get my hands on him!" Same event. Same story. Totally different levels of emotional engagement, one sympathetic, the other distanced.

 

[Kanegrundar]

Fusangite, said all that I was trying to convey, but just wasn't getting across very well.

 

[genshou]

Fusangite, said all that I was trying to convey, but just wasn't getting across very well.

Interestingly enough, same here. Perhaps we agree in more ways than we thought at first.

I am sorry if I was misleading. I don't like games that deal with deep "immursion". I like games that are more in the middle, with a little more focus on the mechanics than the role-playing. But a game that's entirely without any sort of connection to the character (including pity/symathy as fusangite explained)? I don't see the point of it.