D&D General The History of 'Immersion' in RPGs

D&D historian Jon Peterson has taken a look at the concept of 'immersion' as it related to tabletop roleplaying games, with references to the concept going back to The Wild Hunt (1977), D&D modules like In Search of the Unknown, games like Boot Hill, and Forgotten Realms creator Ed Greenwood speaking in Dragon Magazine.

Immersion and Role Playing in the 1970s

The idea that role playing involved a property called "immersion" occurred to the early adopters of the 1970s fairly early. The earliest e...

playingattheworld.blogspot.com

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's a common misapprehension. The detail and contrast in what can be imagined isn't constrained by the scale of subject. Only by the mind of the imaginer. Instead of putting effort into being a different person, effort is put into being in a different world.

The problem with that is it assumes the effort for the two is similar. That's not a premise I consider sound, especially since many gaming worlds are not that dissimilar to each other.

 

[clearstream]

The problem with that is it assumes the effort for the two is similar. That's not a premise I consider sound, especially since many gaming worlds are not that dissimilar to each other.

How well realised they are can be hugely dissimilar, even portraying exactly the same world. Say two campaigns set in the most standard world - Faerun - at two different tables that one world can feel like two places. Each group emphasising different aspects of its places, creatures, factions, and metaphysics.

EDIT Again it seems to come down to interests. I'm interested in the game world. I gather you are interested in your character. Which is narrower? On matter of scale, surely the character?! On matter however of detail, contrasts, and immersion, I think they are equal. The larger question - for me at least - is what makes their experiences, choices and outcomes dissimilar from those in our real world?

 

[Hussar]

Not at all, it remains as fresh as the myriad of situations I find to immerse myself in. Me as eldritch knight swept down a rushing underground river to escape an enraged black dragon. Me as fiend pact warlock having made one deal too many. Me as arcane trickster escaping over winter rooftops. Immersion. In the world. For me it is the most immersive to imagine that I am really there.

For you it might become tired or @Thomas Shey feel narrow. I would say that happens only if you find yourself unable to imagine otherwise. And I would not make any similar criticism: I can well appreciate how some might enjoy pretending to be a different person - immersion in being someone else rather than somewhere else.

Sorry, I wasn't clear.

Tiresome for everyone else at the table. Watching someone play the same character over and over and over is about as much fun as watching paint dry.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Sorry, I wasn't clear.

Tiresome for everyone else at the table. Watching someone play the same character over and over and over is about as much fun as watching paint dry.

So you don't like long campaigns?

 

[Hussar]

This pendulum swings both ways Hussar. Yes there are other people at the table, and what do you do if those other people don't want what you are describing and prefer to basically play themselves, or play with very thin characterization? I don't force people at my table to play a certain way. I let them play the game how they are comfortable. If that means talking in first person, fine. If it means avoiding talking in first person, fine. I am not there to enforce a playstyle or RPG philosophy. I am there to have a functioning group. And most functioning groups are made up of different kinds of players. Some immerse through heavy characterization. Some, I would say most that I've encountered, immerse primarily by seeing the world through the eyes of their character (not in the sense of adopting that character's personality traits, but simply feeling like they are there, in the shoes of the character, on the ground). Do what works for you, but I don't run games or play the way Hussar wants me to. I run and play games the way I want to, the way my players want to, and the way that works at my table.

Simple answer?

I don't play with those people because it's zero fun for me.

 

[Hussar]

So you don't like long campaigns?

That's a bit obtuse.

I'm obviously talking from campaign to campaign. Playing your character true to character and portraying that character within a given campaign is central to immersion and aids in the immersion of everyone else at the table.

Campaign length doesn't really enter into it.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

That's a bit obtuse.

Sorry. That is a fair assessment of my comment.

I'm obviously talking from campaign to campaign. Playing your character true to character and portraying that character within a given campaign is central to immersion and aids in the immersion of everyone else at the table.

Campaign length doesn't really enter into it.

I've seen players play the same personality in different characters between and within campaigns. It is... less interesting for sure. And possibly annoying, depending on the character trait(s) being portrayed.

 

[Lanefan]

So you don't like long campaigns?

Even within long campaigns players don't necessarily stick with the same character all the way through; and yes, any individual character can become boring - be it to play or to run with - long before the campaign itself does.

I often turn over my PCs within a campaign just to keep things fresh. I'll have several, and cycle them in and out depending on some combination of a) what's needed for that particular mission, b) whether the character itself has a reason to go, and-or c) which one I feel like playing at the time.

 

[Hriston]

I get what you're saying here, though my take is that the difference is small enough to not matter in that the end result - the actions the character takes and the things it says during play - will turn out very much the same via either process.

Yeah, I think that has to do with both approaches involving use of actor stance, i.e. making your character's decisions using only your character's knowledge and perceptions. The difference, for me, is in how immersive the two approaches are. If I'm at the table thinking, for example. about whether my character's decisions are too smart for his/her ability scores, that's time I'm not inhabiting my character because that's a player concern.

Contrast this with someone playing in true pawn stance, where the in-play results will likely turn out more optimal on a consistent basis due to the player looking at things from a fully gamist perspective.

I think equating stance with play priority is a little iffy, but I can see how pawn stance applies well to gamist objectives. I think there's some of that, actually, in my dislike for roleplaying to the character sheet. From where I sit, it seems a bit like treating roleplaying as a game in which the competition is about being true to an objective standard, represented by the character sheet, if that makes sense. Thus comments from some of the participants in this discussion, e.g. @Hussar, about the "judging" of participants' roleplaying being a significant component of play at their tables. That all seems like something that would work against immersion for me because it's not something my character cares about.

I rarely use reaction rolls and pretty much never use social interaction DCs (an advantage of playing in a system that eschews such things).

Further, if you write LG on your character sheet and then proceed to consistently play the character as CG I don't count that as an alignment change per se, as your in-play alignment was never LG in the first place. Unless someone casts a detection spell, I usually allow a few sessions to go by before trying to nail down a character's alignment, to give the player a chance to run the character out and sort it.

Yeah, by change a character's alignment I meant change what's on the character sheet to match the character's behavior rather than change anything about the character itself. For mechanical purposes, as DM, I go by what's on the sheet until such time that such a change is made. Although I have somewhat of a system in place to handle this, it hasn't actually ever come up in one of my games because I guess I'm not all that critical about characters behaving according to their alignment.

I very much believe they can be in conflict, and if it gets too glaring I'll ask the player to change the role-playing to better suit the stats. That said, more often IME it's the other players that squawk long before the DM does.

I wonder why you go in this direction when, in your opinion, a player's roleplaying conflicts with their ability scores, whereas when it conflicts with something else on the character sheet (the character's alignment), it's the alignment that has to budge rather than the roleplaying.

Checks incentivize using one's stats to best advantage, sure. Inspiration or similar meta-mechanics are something I won't touch with a barge pole.

Right, (and relevant to the discussion of immersion) doesn't that align with how a real person's talents and weaknesses incentivize their own behavior? As for Inspiration, I use it as DM to push players away from optimal play and towards complications that might make things interesting from a narrative perspective.

 

[Lanefan]

Yeah, I think that has to do with both approaches involving use of actor stance, i.e. making your character's decisions using only your character's knowledge and perceptions. The difference, for me, is in how immersive the two approaches are. If I'm at the table thinking, for example. about whether my character's decisions are too smart for his/her ability scores, that's time I'm not inhabiting my character because that's a player concern.

Well, I suppose if one sees inhabiting one's character as also inhabiting the ability scores (and other things e.g. skills, background, etc.) that come with it, all is good.

Yeah, by change a character's alignment I meant change what's on the character sheet to match the character's behavior rather than change anything about the character itself. For mechanical purposes, as DM, I go by what's on the sheet until such time that such a change is made.

I don't, as I've had players who would abuse the crap out of this given the chance.

Although I have somewhat of a system in place to handle this, it hasn't actually ever come up in one of my games because I guess I'm not all that critical about characters behaving according to their alignment.

I kind of have to be conscious of a character's (actual, not written) alignment as there's various spells, items, and effects in my game that detect and-or key off of it.

I wonder why you go in this direction when, in your opinion, a player's roleplaying conflicts with their ability scores, whereas when it conflicts with something else on the character sheet (the character's alignment), it's the alignment that has to budge rather than the roleplaying.

I see ability scores as locked-in features of the character, while alignment is more malleable based on what the character does.

If you roleplay your charisma-8 character as the world's greatest diplomat and somehow get the dice to consistently back you up on this, you don't get to change your charisma score to 17 and neither do I-as-DM. But if you consistently roleplay your "LG" character as an unreliable chaotic trickster (something I've seen many times in the past) then I'm going to ignore your sheet and anything triggering off alignment is going to see you as CN.

An example of my own: a PC of mine was rolled up and introduced with the idea that she'd be LE - a spy, not out to do anything nasty to the other PCs so much as just do what she had to do whatever it took (kind of like a James Bond-ish idea). Within five minutes of introducing her in play a characterization just simply took hold, the whole LE idea went flying out the window, and she became pretty much CN/CE. (a later wild magic effect of some sort forced an alignment change to CG; as neither of her classes could be G she had to change both of those too, but that's another story)

Right, (and relevant to the discussion of immersion) doesn't that align with how a real person's talents and weaknesses incentivize their own behavior?

A real person kinda has no choice but to behave according to their "stats". A strong person can (and will) do things a weak person cannot. A smart person will have on average more ideas or insights than a dumb person. Etc.