thread: 2005-06-02 : Immersion
On 2005-06-06, Vincent wrote:
"Immersion is all I want out of roleplaying" is the plaint of someone unwilling to hope for better. Someone who's chosen door 1 and therefore insists that there's no door 2.
In tabletop roleplaying, casting "immersion" against "playing by rules" or "playing with dice" is as stupid as casting "immersion" against "saying what your character does instead of really doing it." Some rules, yes, prevent immersion. Other rules support it. Support it! While, furthermore, giving you an intensity of experience that simply isn't available in freeform play.
Setting immersion aside, the advantages to playing by well-designed rules are overwhelming. Universalis is fun. We've so fetishized immersion - and here by "fetishized" I don't mean "made desirable," but "made dysfunctionally desirable" - we've so fetishized immersion that we're blind to just how much fun roleplaying can be. Our fetishization of immersion makes our roleplaying barren. We don't have to trade off one fun for another.
Door 1: You immerse. When you immerse, immersion's the only kind of fun you have. When you don't immerse, it's not fun at all.
Door 2: You immerse. When you immerse, you have immersion plus other kinds of fun. When you don't immerse, it's fun anyway.
If rules needn't by principle interfere with immersion, then door 2 is open to us. Insisting that rules must always interfere with immersion is insisting that roleplaying now is as good as it can ever be. I can't accept so bleak, so heartbreaking, a pronouncement.
