Usually, it's a combination of player investment, PC-(N)PC interaction, and PC-Setting interaction.

• If the player doesn't care about the character, no one else will either. Interaction suffers, because who wants to talk with a cardboard cutout?


• If the PCs and NPCs don't interact, it defeats the purpose of roleplaying at all. We all might as well play a boardgame where the tokens don't bother pretending to be characters.


• If the setting feels too cartoony and/or fake, the players take their cue from the setting and the PCs tend to be the same. Suspension of disbelief is not supported, and the players don't invest.

It's a bootstrapping process, which can sometimes take minutes, and sometimes many sessions. When all three aspects are clicking, it feels almost instantaneous. When one or two are off, it drags, and may fail. When all three are not there, it ain't gonna happen.

In my dual 1670s/modern Blood Games II campaign, within five minutes after opening the first session, the PCs were arguing in character in the office of Lt. Governor Henry Morgan over the dead body of a woman found in the streets of Port Royal Jamaica. The players had invested already in their PCs in chargen, the setting had verisimilitude, and they were immediately interacting, investing each other in believability. It was an astonishingly successful campaign as a result.

-clash

Quote from: David R;327076You limit choices, you decrease substantiality.

Yeah... that too.
My Deus Ex guy had a fair number of choices he could make... paths to take... ways to get things done. I'm sure that helped to make him feel more 'real'.

Still... my characters in WoW have even more freedom to choose but somehow don't end up feeling very... characterful... not substantial.
Maybe that's because none of the available choices match my character concept... like J Arcane was mentioning.

So it's not just how many choices... but having choices that allow you to follow that's character's story... rather than having various other stories thrust upon him.

It's one reason why playing a Space Marine in Dark Heresy(or any other hard core military character/game) doesn't sound appealing to me... he doesn't get a lot of choices about what he's gonna do and the ones he gets are limited to who he's gonna shoot....how many times... and what he's gonna shoot them with.
Even with that he's pretty much interchangeable with any other Space Marine.

Quote from: Jason Morningstar;327072Does that make sense?

You Forge guys aren't really familiar with the term "metagaming", are you?

Quote from: David R;327076You limit choices, you decrease substantiality. (Of course this reply has no nuance)

Cheeky mister jeff, very cheeky. I have no problem with this discussion moving that way....

Edit: Jason, I'll get back to you.

Regards,
David R

Not really trying to be cheeky, it just helps me to define what something is by also taking into account what that something is not.

Quote from: J Arcane;327094You Forge guys aren't really familiar with the term "metagaming", are you?

They are. But when they use the term "immersion", you never know what they mean, exactly.

The answers offered by Simlasa and flyingmice (Clash) resonate with me.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;327118They are. But when they use the term "immersion", you never know what they mean, exactly.

The answers offered by Simlasa and flyingmice (Clash) resonate with me.

I have noticed that too... Many of the Forge guys have very different concepts of immersion than I do. Not all of them, though generally the more hard core Forge they are, the less synoptic their immersion is with mine.

-clash

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;327118They are. But when they use the term "immersion", you never know what they mean, exactly.

The answers offered by Simlasa and flyingmice (Clash) resonate with me.

It just seems like when I read his responses, the only thing that jumps out at me is an impulse to scream "METAGAMING!"  Any of the groups I've run with would've thrown a fit about some of the shit he's talked about here.  "Your guy" is sacrosanct, after all.

Playing the character a LOT does seem to hit everyone.

Is there a "playing HARD" that matters to you?  Like, game activity that can give a character substance in the space of a half an hour of stunning play, I mean - and if so, what is it?

Jason, is that what you're pointing at?  Or are you, in fact, pointing off the map?

(So everyone knows:  If you want to answer for Jason or to pick a fight, that's fine by me.  I might join the fight.  But I won't take your answers as speaking for him.)

Immersion is sort of a tar baby.  I'm happy not to talk about it, if we can't, you know, talk about it.  

I suspect that our play isn't all that different, when you get right down to it.

Quote from: Jason Morningstar;327129Immersion is sort of a tar baby.  I'm happy not to talk about it, if we can't, you know, talk about it.  

I suspect that our play isn't all that different, when you get right down to it.

From your own descriptions, I doubt that highly.

I think it's probably very valuable to you to present it as such though.

Quote from: Jason Morningstar;327129Immersion is sort of a tar baby.  I'm happy not to talk about it, if we can't, you know, talk about it.  

I suspect that our play isn't all that different, when you get right down to it.

Immersion is really difficult to describe properly, like most purely subjective things. I really have no idea if we are talking about the same thing at all. Luckily, Levi - along with a few others - can sometimes interpret if you can pin him down long enough...

-clash

I don't think immersion has to be a "tar baby".  I think a lot of folks (not all) find that metagame stuff breaks immersion.  They find immersion very important.  The forgie type games tend to be very metagamey, which means they won't be enjoyed by this first set of people.  Stir in some advocacy and sit back and watch the shitstorm.

It doesn't surprise me the storygames crowd tends to steer away from talking about immersion.

I like a lot of the tightly focused design ideas to come from storygames land.  I think system matters.  I wish more people tried to apply these ideas in service of "get yer damn metagame crap off my character" players like me.

Hey Levi, I appreciate you distinguishing me from my many friends and associates.  Blanket assumptions about "the Forge guys" are always inaccurate.

(more later, gotta go)

Quote from: J Arcane;327131From your own descriptions, I doubt that highly.

I think it's probably very valuable to you to present it as such though.

Valuable in what way?

Quote from: Jason Morningstar;327138Valuable in what way?

Sure makes it easier to round up fresh meat, doesn't it?