Rules for Immersion

[RivetGeekWil]

Sounds like a person who never played 4E.

Some players it likely broke their immersion. Some it helped. Some didn't care one way or the other. Some players immersion is the goal, some people it's not. Kind of the point, it's dependent on the people not the game.

 

[Umbran]

It indicates that if two players approached a set of rules in identical ways, they would still not both necessarily experience "immersion" (or only one of them or maybe both of them), or derive the same quality thereof. Because the rules don't make the immersion, the players do.

I don't think I can agree with that as written, insofar as it seems equivalent to, "A person's lack of concentration while getting repeatedly hit upside the head with a wiffleball bat is their own fault."

There are many things people refer to as "immersion". Sometimes folks mean it is like being immersed in reading a book, and for a while you lose conscious awareness of the outside world, or even that you are in the process of reading at all. Sometimes folks feel it refers to dropping deeply and emotionally into character, and so on. Overall, it seems to broadly refer to a state of focus or concentration on things going on in the game, rather than the outside world. Breaking immersion is then breaking concentration.

The idea that the player is the only thing that determines if that concentration can happen would need far more support than you are giving it. If a kid sneaks the aforementioned wiffle bat into a movie theater, you don't blame the rest of the audience for not being able to focus on the movie.

Instead, I would say that no single element "brings the immersion" - there's a lot of elements that can contribute to folks being able to reach the state of focus. The player matters, sure. But the other players at the table matter. The GM matters. Other things going on in the environment matter. And the ruleset matters too. That the interplay between these elements is complex and somewhat unpredictable does not mean that we, or game designers, should just heap it all on the player and ignore how what we do (or write/design) can impact results.

 

[RivetGeekWil]

There are many things people refer to as "immersion". Sometimes folks mean it is like being immersed in reading a book, and for a while you lose conscious awareness of the outside world, or even that you are in the process of reading at all. Sometimes folks feel it refers to dropping deeply and emotionally into character, and so on. Overall, it seems to broadly refer to a state of focus or concentration on things going on in the game, rather than the outside world. Breaking immersion is then breaking concentration.

The idea that the player is the only thing that determines if that concentration can happen would need far more support than you are giving it. If a kid sneaks the aforementioned wiffle bat into a movie theater, you don't blame the rest of the audience for not being able to focus on the movie.

Instead, I would say that no single element "brings the immersion" - there's a lot of elements that can contribute to folks being able to reach the state of focus. The player matters, sure. But the other players at the table matter. The GM matters. Other things going on in the environment matter. And the ruleset matters too. That the interplay between these elements is complex and somewhat unpredictable does not mean that we, or game designers, should just heap it all on the player and ignore how what we do (or write/design) can impact results.

Sure, but likely because of trauma induced by rgfa I associate immersion with "I think I'm my character", which for many got shoehorned into their heads as the holy grail of roleplaying. The rest of what you describe is more broadly engagement, and with that I agree on all of your points. But metacurrency, for example, is often raised as "immersion-breaking" and while that may be true for some people, it certainly doesn't indicate that the presence of metacurrency is likely to remind most people that dinner is still in the oven. So when I say that I don't design for immersion, I mean that I don't design with the intent of trying to make players forget who they are and feel they are their characters. That may happen, but it's not my circus, not my monkeys. Of course creating a game that is engaging is kind of the entire point of creating a game in the first place, for whatever value of engaging it is intended to aim for (i.e., exciting, fun, interesting, tactically satisfying, whatever).

 

[GMMichael]

. . . But metacurrency, for example, is often raised as "immersion-breaking" and while that may be true for some people, it certainly doesn't indicate that the presence of metacurrency is likely to remind most people that dinner is still in the oven. . .

My version of metacurrency (hero points) attemps to strike a balance. Is it immersive that your character can use a power x number of times that adds a d6 to your d20 roll? No. But that power doesn't need to come from a chart in the book - it comes from your concept of who your character is. You invoke it when you want, when it would make your character shine (or better yet, falter), and you get more of it by playing up your character's flaws (you know, that parts you'd like to ignore). There's a lot riding on who the character is, and the player getting in touch with that. The hope is that it increases immersion in character or story.

 

[MichaelSomething]

My group hates it when I try to immerse myself into my character!

They winced when I would break out into musical numbers because I was a Bard!

They rejected me auto tuning my voice like T-Pain cause I was playing an android in Starfinder.

 

[payn]

They rejected me auto tuning my voice like T-Pain cause I was playing an android in Starfinder.

They were correct for the rejection on this front.