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ShortQuests -- Pocket Sized Adventures! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed for 1-2 game sessions.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9870522" data-attributes="member: 42582">When I play, as opposed to GM - and these days that is primarily playing in Burning Wheel - I want to inhabit my character.One reason why I play Burning Wheel is because it makes my character so real, and the inhabitation so visceral and compelling.To me, that doesn't sound all that immersive, unless my character is also cool as a cucumber. It seems to me that only someone who was super cool would work systematically through a list of possibly effective substances like that.To elaborate further, and in response also to this post:Unless I'm playing a commando, or Bourne-esque assassin, the sort of cool-ness under the threat of death that's there in your example just above doesn't seem particularly immersive. Particularly if I flesh it out a bit more: it's obviously an example from D&D, and in D&D play the players will also not just be thinking through their list of stuff (acid, alcohol etc) but also thinking about how much damage it does, and how many hit points they have left, and hence how many tries they have to get it right before they're dead. None of that seems very immersive to me.Here's an example of Burning Wheel play, where I'm playing Aedhros, an embittered Dark Elf (of the JRRT sort, not the Gygax sort):Aedhros enters the innkeeper's room, intent on murdering him. The Steel check drive home the sense of what is happening here - me (Aedhros), black metal long-knife in hand, looking down at the inn-keeper in his bed. The failed roll, and resulting hesitation, doesn't "yank me out of my immersion". It reinforces the sense of being there, hesitating to commit such a terrible deed.It also contributes to my subsequent in-character decision-making. There are two things that Aedhros is feeling/thinking - both his own hesitation to kill, and the magical instruction not to kill. This shapes the way I (as Aedhros) respond to Alicia fainting from Tax: one of Aedhros's Beliefs is I will never admit that I am wrong, and so I (as Aedhros) don't second-guess or revisit the decision not to kill. Rather, I (as Aedhros) internalise it as part of a broader contempt and disregard for others - as if they're not even worth killing. And so just takes the money, and carry off the unconscious Alicia.I think I'm describing something different here from what [USER=205]@TwoSix[/USER] has described over the the past several pages. I'm not sure exactly how close it is to [USER=6785785]@hawkeyefan[/USER]'s account of playing Clara in The Between, but perhaps there might be some similarity? I know - because I was there - that I'm describing something that is immersive, in the sense that I am inhabiting this character and internalising (without being overwhelmed by) these feelings of desire to kill, hesitation to kill, contemptuous disregard for others, etc.</blockquote>

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