Blatantly ripping off a thread in another forum, the question is: in your experience, which RPG provided for you the most intense immersive experience?

RPGpundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;385605Blatantly ripping off a thread in another forum, the question is: in your experience, which RPG provided for you the most intense immersive experience?

Depends on how one defines immersive.

Just about every rpg game I've played over the years, felt more like being on a movie set or a "potemkin village", than anything I would consider "immersive".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potemkin_village

Harnmaster. Mostly because of the descriptive nature of the combat system.

Players seems to take "You just took a serious injury to your left thigh due to a spear stab. You are now -15% to hit) more seriously than you take 15 point of damages. Not all do but it happened enough in the harnmaster games I ran that there is something there.

Primetime Adventures. I almost cried.

Fate 3.0 and aspects. An SotC game run by an awesome GM to be exact.

I've never played in another game that was so immersive.

If we're talking "immersion" in the sense you get from role assumption, then probably WoD, though it was during a set of games with very few dice rolls.

For me it has more to do with how good the GM is than a system.  If the GM is responsive, descriptive, and can really set the scene and help get the player's heads into the game, then the rest is gravy.

Otherwise, as long as the mechanics are relatively intuitive and support the type of game I'm playing, then it works.  Novelty or wonky mechanics sometimes take away from the scene-setting if they're too intrusive, other times they can help bring out a certain "aesthetic" for whatever genre we're playing.

Hearts & Souls, or my new game High Valor (for my groups at least.)

Putting the mechanical widgets as out of view as possible and into the character's choices helps.

I tend to like simple mechanics--so that eases some of the issues, but making it about characters approaches rather than metagame player ones his rather challenging task. In High Valor you can mechanically "lend" dice to another character, you do this of course by giving them a pep talk, saying a prayer for them, or similar actions. You can do the same thing for yourself but it works very slightly differently taking one die from one of your appropriate pools--Faith for a prayer, and moving it to Valor for battle.

"I will not fall this day, glory shall be mine, no foul sorcery will impair my will! (Move Valor die to Will to resist magic.)


Character actions parlay into player mechanics, without the two being separate.

What do you define as "immersive", here?

Going by a definition here: "providing information or stimulation for a number of senses, not only sight and sound". So I understand the term as feeling your surrounding as if you were your character, and your character is you. That's immersion to me.

By this account, the most immersive RPGs to me were AD&D, Call of Cthulhu and Vampire the Masquerade.

In the sense of being so immersed in what I was doing that I glanced at the clock and suddenly it was six hours later than the last time, the most immersive game I've played is Hong Kong Action Theater!. There are a number of games I'd prefer to compliment. Plenty of games I like better. But that game has yielded that experience most often and most reliably, so I don't think it's a fluke. I could say lots of things about group readiness and gm skill and all that jazz--how any game can be immersive, but that might be a little disingenuous.

I think HKAT! does several things to make itself immersive. It starts with an instantly recognizable mode of play--not genre. Like pulp, Hong Kong movies cover many genres. But Hong Kong action movies, regardless of genre, have certain tropes that gamers enjoy emulating. It's more about how you're playing than what you're playing. The gm and the players both have a lot to do in game--not bookkeeping, but several aspects of play should be active in one's brain simultaneously to get the most out of the game. There are a number of different ways for players to collaborate and opportunities to contribute to the scenario. The game is designed to move briskly from one thing to do to another, without being too dependent on gm style to maintain a brisk pace (although a crappy gm could always wreck the pacing). Finally, scenarios are designed to be somewhat self-contained to a session, with rewards for playing being frequent and more complex than simply leveling up. I think all those general aspects of play contribute to what I think is immersive.

Other aspects of play, such as the multilayered play aspect wherein you are an actor playing the character you are in the scenario--can nudge players out of a different kind of immersion. As the gm, I'm more likely to be immersed in the game, whereas some players like to be immersed in their characters, and even if the game is boring, if they were able to imaginatively live this other life, they are satisfied with the game. I've never really experienced that kind of immersion, but I know it's important to some folks.

I don't find games themselves to be immersive. I find game experiences to be immersive, depending on how they're run and played, the mood of the room, and the subject matter. The mechanics of the game itself have rarely made a difference in that regard.

I've played crunchy D&D games that were incredibly involving on a roleplaying level, and "storytelling" games that were about as immersive as a half-empty can of Fanta.

Quote from: Insufficient Metal;385696I don't find games themselves to be immersive. I find game experiences to be immersive, depending on how they're run and played, the mood of the room, and the subject matter. The mechanics of the game itself have rarely made a difference in that regard.

I find the system does have an influence on immersion but as you say there more to it then the game system. My observation is that it mainly has to do with how well the system fits the genre you are running.

Harnmaster works well for gritty medieval settings. But it would be hard to get in immersed in a AD&D style dungeon crawl using Paranoia to make an extreme example.

In short everything matter for immersion. But the question the OP asked is about which game system are more immersion not whether game system has no effect on immersion.

Quote from: estar;385698In short everything matter for immersion. But the question the OP asked is about which game system are more immersion not whether game system has no effect on immersion.

Believe it or not, I did think about that before replying. In thinking back to the various games I've played, I've never once thought "this would be totally immersive if it weren't for the fact we're using System X."

But, if I had to pick one particular system I think is particularly prone to immersing the player, I'd have to say Call of Cthulhu BRP. It's very good at getting out of the way and not over-mechanizing the game.

The most consistently immersive games I've played in were with a GURPs group... but that had way more to do with the people than the system.

We had a scene in Earthdawn a few weeks back that literally put goosebumps on my arms... again, all the GM's doing.

TRAVELLER - both as player and GM.

One time had a very immersive moment as a player in a D&D game - but not the work of the DM, I just had a really good imagination for 10 minutes or so. (4/e still sucks)


- Ed C.

Quote from: Insufficient Metal;385696I don't find games themselves to be immersive. I find game experiences to be immersive, depending on how they're run and played, the mood of the room, and the subject matter. The mechanics of the game itself have rarely made a difference in that regard.

I've played crunchy D&D games that were incredibly involving on a roleplaying level, and "storytelling" games that were about as immersive as a half-empty can of Fanta.

Quote from: estar;385698I find the system does have an influence on immersion but as you say there more to it then the game system. My observation is that it mainly has to do with how well the system fits the genre you are running.

Harnmaster works well for gritty medieval settings. But it would be hard to get in immersed in a AD&D style dungeon crawl using Paranoia to make an extreme example.

In short everything matter for immersion. But the question the OP asked is about which game system are more immersion not whether game system has no effect on immersion.

I do agree with both posts. Everything does matter to immersion, and though you can experience immersive game play with any game, there are some games that will help the immersion in some way or another (AD&D, CoC and VtM do it for me in very different ways. AD&D does it through abstraction, CoC does it through thematic elements, and VtM does it conceptually, kinda - I find the implied setting of each game has a lot to do with it, actually).

It's also possible for a game system to be an obstacle to immersion, to me.