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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Thomas Shey" data-source="post: 8321920" data-attributes="member: 7026617">Yeah.  I suspect the usage developed in different places, and here we are.I tend to see it more as "immersion as becoming" as compared to "immersion as being".  Immersion-as-becoming, as people note when this comes up, is what people do in other fiction; they associate with the character and their emotions and interests, but they don't, per se, have problems with various metagame things that move those interests along; they just don't make decisions as to what they want as a player (or at least try not to).  As a nod to old usage in RGFA for the other version, I sometimes think of it as "Deep Actor".  Among other things, they aren't as likely to get fixated on setting or rules issues that seem odd, because taking setting conceits as a given when you immerse in fiction is just a thing.Immersion-as-being is a little different.  This is where a player tries to see things entirely as the character would, only making decisions that the character would make, and as much as possible becoming a transparent medium for the character and a passenger on them at the same time.  Its a more brittle version than the above, as it makes it hard to engage with some kinds of mechanics (though exactly which ones vary from person to person).  As Campbell says above, metacurrency has to have some sort of in-world rationale (like TORG Possibilities) for the player to be comfortable with it, and setting or rules elements that don't bare too much examination can be jarring.  Back in the day, RGFA called this "Deep-IC" in its early evolution.It seems to me that both of these care about both internal and external character situations; its just that one handles the character externally (though very intimately) and the other internally.  As I imply, I think they're analogous to Actor and IC stance, just more strongly committed to not letting other factors in (which, to make it clear, is not an unmixed virtue; both versions can come across as selfish when it comes to how their characters' actions are impacting other players, not because they want to be, but because how they engage with the game doesn't leave much room for that.  Its why the better ones try really hard to make sure when doing initial character design and integrating the character in with the rest of the players that they pay attention to how that character is liable to play out in the context of the group and campaign to minimize this.  Its also why combing this with Develop In Play can be particularly fraught).</blockquote>

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