I'll probably won't say anything new (similar ideas were voiced by
Mo and
Vincent Baker two decades ago), but I'm still gonna say something nonetheless. I have a thing for being showered in praise, y'know?
First, housekeeping:
- If you are under 18, first, what are you doing here? Forums are for old people who couldn't adapt to social networks. Second, close the tab. There's nothing explicit, but still.
- If the extent of your engagement with the topic is gonna be "haha segs", close the tab too. I'm not interested in proving the similarities and cross-applicability of tools between TTRPGs and ERP, I see that as pretty self-evident.
OK, there's this "common wisdom" idea, that immersion requires that everything the player does closely corresponds to whatever the character does, and the decision-making process is untarnished by all this pesky meta-gaming, director stance and whatnot. That you can't "feel like the character" if you can influence things your character can't. That even if the setting is created here on the spot, it shouldn't be acknowledged.
And... No. I'm going to disagree.
Some games are about overcoming challenges. Some games are about simulating the secondary world in an accurate manner. Some games are about creating gripping stories. And then there's a kind of games that is specifically about
immersion and nothing else. They aren't normally discussed when we talk about our imaginary elf games, but I think they should be.
I'm talking about erotic roleplaying (ERP from now on). I'm into that stuff (and this shouldn't be said, but some people are weird: no, it doesn't mean that I'm OK with unsolicited PMs). For those sitting in a tank: ERP to dressing up as a maid is what TTRPGs are to LARP. They are played in a manner pretty much indistinguishable from TTRPGs: two (or more) players are talking, describing what happens in an imaginary world.
ERP isn't concerned with accumulating wealth, conquering enemies and becoming Khan of Khans. ERP isn't concerned with character development or exploration, more than that, it's beneficial when the characters are kinda one-note, having only one or two prominent traits that are never put to test. And if you squint really,
really hard, maybe ERP is concerned with accurately simulating a world where everyone is horny all the damn time and every single interaction between two adults always leads to sex, but you'll have to squint so much the only thing you see is your eyelids.
No, ERP is about
immersion. The whole point is to feel like you are there,
immersed in a fictional situation and to truly facilitate that, ERP breaks all our common wisdom in half.
You
can and
should control things that your character has no influence over. You decide when your phone rings, or if or when passers-by notice what you're up to, or when you get an award and are invited to speak on TV, or whatever. You can and should build the setting on the fly, and exert control over the world. More than that, you can take control over the other PC and describe what they are doing and feeling, to the point of sometimes switching roles for an extended period of time, which is considered taboo in most TTRPGs circles.
None of this hinders immersion, no, more than that: it is
enhanced because it gives the players tools to make
themselves more immersed without having to pray that the other person will somehow read your mind. After all, imagination has much less, khm, "graphical fidelity" than a real world, so a situation must be greatly exaggerated to convey the same emotion: in real life, you can have a pretty damn good morning, just sipping coffee and having a smoke while observing a beautiful cherry blossom on your balcony; feeling even remotely the same thing when you are constrained to your mind-prison would require constructing
the most perfect morning ever, not just a good one.
I don't really have a definitive closing conclusion, so... Thoughts?
