thread: 2005-04-25 : Technical Agenda
On 2005-05-02, Charles wrote:
Vincent,
I'm not sure I agree that immersion is associated with meaning, but that is actually a CA question. What I'm wondering about is the TA of immersion. Universalis is often noted as being a game that strongly tends to not support immersion, I've read MLLW described as non-immersionist (although that kind of surprised me), DitV gameplay descriptions definitely sound like it supports immersion, my groups free-form style is definitely immersion supportive (I think it is more so when we play individual characters for more scenes in sequence, rather than rapidly jumping characters).
What is it in the mechanics of these games that supports or opposes immersion? Surely Universalis can tell kick-ass, meaning-rich stories, but it does so in a way that opposes immersion. Free-form play can easily support "And then I go to the kitchens and get a sandwich, and while I'm there I chat with the cute dishwasher, 'Hey, how you doing', 'Oh, I'm doing fine, the cook is totally on my back about some dishes I broke this morning,' 'Oh, hey, sorry to here that. Maybe I could fix them for you?' 'Oh, I couldn't ask you to work magic for something so trivial,' 'No, really its not a problem,' 'You're so kind,' and then I go off to my tower to read some more of the books of Lem" which no one would mistake for a great story (and while it could conceivably tie into a theme, I see no reason to assume that it did), but could easily be incredibly immersive for the player. Whether the dishwasher decides the mage is nice enough and caring enough to be worth the risk of sleeping with may or may not have thematic interest (and therefore be of interest to the players), but it probably has a lot of personal interest for both the dishwasher and the mage (and is therefore of interest to the characters, and to the players for the length of time they are playing them).
The major things that I see that support immersion are focus on individual characters (not too much world responsability to throw the player out of character) and open ended scene control (which might be what pushes MLLW towards on-immersive), which allows the player to follow the character in whatever direction the character goes.
I suspect the first thing is a major reason for the popularity of GMs (which allows all the players except the GM easier access to immersion).
I suspect that DitV's "Say yes or roll the dice" rule also greatly helps with immersion, since having a character decide to do something interesting and something interesting happens, means that the investment in immersion gets a very reliable pay-off.
For me, frequently resorting to mechanics can also be an immersion killer, but many people don't seem to feel this effect. It is also possible that deep familiarity with the mechanics may lessen the effect, and it is also possible that mechanics whose feel for the player is parallel to the feel for the character may lessen this effect.
I guess this could better be expressed as a set of categories or an axis, but I don't think it is there yet.
