Roleplaying Games Are Improv Games

[kenada]

I would say that its a similiar function, but it goes deeper than that given it interacts with more aspects of the game. Generally speaking, it'd probably be wise to not try to understand it by way of another game.

Even a “kind of but not really” is helpful.

What I've found is that my game isn't likely to track with what any other game does unless you really zoom in and isolate things. To make an analogy, knowing about tacos isn't going to teach you much about chicken pot pie, even if a lot of the same ingredients are involved. And like food, you do miss some insights if you're not able to get a taste of it firsthand.

On the other hand, if I said gringas are like big tacos, that should make sense. Same if I’ve had pork pot pie, and you described a chicken pot pie as similar but with chicken instead.

Pretty much. How I put it is something I'd say is a more specifically defined explanation (if over-verbose as is my unedited style) for what that means, given how often people find the idea of immersion vague and ill defined, but also relates it in a way that speaks to what most people are looking for in terms of a "story", whether thats something emotionally resonant and deep or just a solid, fun adventure game where you can do practically any wack crazy things you can think of, or anything inbetween.

This seems like a reference to other games that actually works (more or less). It’s not exact, but it helps map from your experience to something I better understand.

I do agree that the idea of immersion is vague (or, rather, imprecise) due to the different ways people define and police it. “Deep immersion” probably fares better due to being already specific, but I’ve seen disagreements about it (such as the extent to which mechanics are intrusive).