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Message: <blockquote data-quote="darkbard" data-source="post: 8262893" data-attributes="member: 1282">Been a moment, but I have some time to set down some scattered thoughts in response. First off, I have to note that character immersion is not a high priority for me and, like [USER=7016699]@prabe[/USER], I don't think it's ever really been a part of my RPG experience. That said, immersion in story is a high priority, and I think our game propels us perpetually forward into the emerging fiction. Further, I would go so far as to say that our (seemingly everexpanding) cast of NPC characters as part of "the party" (however fraught that term seems to me) is crucial to immersion in/inhabitation of story (as we discussed in another recent thread). It's not just that I want to watch as gameplay develops out of Alastor's actions and their consequences, but I also want to observe how these affect his protege, Rose, for example, and shape the story we imagine revolving around her.For me, the play process has been much more of leading and following Alastor than being immersed in or inhabiting the character. This is probably quite noticeable as I almost always speak in third person during our sessions, only occasionally speaking directly from Alastor's perspective. (Aside: I don't think person is necessarily equivalent to where inhabitation lies, but it might as well be for me.)Immersion in story very much comes about by both (1) play principles and agenda, like (a) the GM asking questions and using the answers and (b) filling the characters' lives with adventure and (2) mechanical resolution, where the tension built before the dice determine resolution is more substantial, in my estimation, than the d20 model and its probabilistic and often binary outcomes (I know there are systems that complicate the latter, but those aren't within my personal experience). There are no dull moments in this game! And the snowballing effect of the resolution system ensures that.My wife has a useful example of how this inhabitation of story helped immerse her in Maraqli's character in the scene of the excavation site of the dragon well. When her wand surged with electrical feedback and ricocheted down the well, she felt the story required Maraqli jump down after it (using the Stormrider aspect of a custom spell Storm Aura), and thus she inhabited Maraqli's impetuosity in the moment, following the story as it demanded her action.In another vein, my wife has another useful insight into how those who advocate for "in character viewpoint" only might view our game: they might have the perception that her character, at least, is inconsistent (a charge we see plenty of posters level at Story Now gaming broadly) but that on a deeper level the process of "ask questions and build on the answers" has helped her understand Maraqli in ways she didn't earlier in play, that these seeming-inconsistencies are actually more reflective of the Whitmanesque "multitudes" of human complexity. As a specific example of this,  Maraqli from the beginning has been depicted as a bookish and insular (in terms of focusing on study and theory as opposed to the more tangible aspects of the physical and natural world) arcane scholar. But when you and she had some back-and-forth about the nature of the mad dryad's primal and elemental magic, Maraqli discovered (perhaps seeing something of herself in this feminine figure) how turning to Druidic magic can help heal the fraying fabric of the arcane Tapestry that subtends the world. Mechanically, she has taken Expanded Spellbook as an advanced move, but more importantly my wife has learned something new about Maraqli: that she too is connected to the primal powers of the earth (with, perhaps, all the tropes of Great Mother that play out in one of our underlying themes of Girl Power, aka Sisterhood of Vengeance).Returning to me, I think the priority of immersion in setting has allowed me to shape the PC of Alastor as a legitimate mentor figure to the NPC Rose. By allowing the thread of fostering Rose to become central to play, genuine immersion in a sense of powerlessness to protect her, as when we just faced the ancient blue wyrm Avorandox, rise up in play. And, though we spoke about this "in person" in the post mortem last session, this bears repeating here: If Rose's last Volley against the dragon had struck true, the beast would not have escaped us, and the characters' goals in the scene would have been successfully completed. But the fact she missed led to a much more satisfying situation, for the tension is drawn out, we must lick our wounds quickly and pursue the dragon, and the lack of resolution in the moment feels (oxymoronically) more satisfying and cinematic. Were we "immersed" only in character, I don't think this response would be possible.</blockquote>

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