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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8249211" data-attributes="member: 42582">I haven't read the rest of the thread, but wanted to thank you for the link to Crimes Against Mimesis. It was a terrific essay, and although its about computer games it brings out so much that's useful for thinking about RPGing!How many &quot;immersion&quot;-oriented D&amp;D and similar games nevertheless involve the PCs collecting treasure in roughly-recognisable forms (potions and wands but not buttons or hair braids) from the rooms or bodies of defeated enemies? I'm fairly confident the answer is quite a few. But this is clearly a case of character-as-cipher rather than character-as-fictional-protagonist. Even the whole notion of the &quot;adventure&quot; very often reflects the same thing.This is why I like to distinguish &quot;immersion&quot; from &quot;inhabitation&quot; of the character, where that gameplay aspect of the character really gets left behind.For a blog dealing with a different aspect of RPGing, but actually grappling with some of the same character as game piece vs character as protagonist issues, you might be interested in this (which is linked to in the &quot;Six Cultures of RPGing&quot; blog that is mentioned in some other recent threads): <a href="https://www.arkenstonepublishing.net/isabout/2021/02/18/the-sacrament-of-death/" target="_blank">The Sacrament of Death – Correspondence is about Diligence</a></blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8249211, member: 42582"] I haven't read the rest of the thread, but wanted to thank you for the link to Crimes Against Mimesis. It was a terrific essay, and although its about computer games it brings out so much that's useful for thinking about RPGing! How many "immersion"-oriented D&D and similar games nevertheless involve the PCs collecting treasure in roughly-recognisable forms (potions and wands but not buttons or hair braids) from the rooms or bodies of defeated enemies? I'm fairly confident the answer is [I]quite a few[/I]. But this is clearly a case of character-as-cipher rather than character-as-fictional-protagonist. Even the whole notion of the "adventure" very often reflects the same thing. This is why I like to distinguish "immersion" from "inhabitation" of the character, where that gameplay aspect of the character really gets left behind. For a blog dealing with a different aspect of RPGing, but actually grappling with some of the same [I]character as game piece [/I]vs [I]character as protagonist [/I]issues, you might be interested in this (which is linked to in the "Six Cultures of RPGing" blog that is mentioned in some other recent threads): [URL="https://www.arkenstonepublishing.net/isabout/2021/02/18/the-sacrament-of-death/"]The Sacrament of Death – Correspondence is about Diligence[/URL] [/QUOTE]

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