Group player ownership of all PC's

[Valamir]

I'm not sure I can answer this.  Its such a purely theoretical "what if" exercise, that I don't know if I can relate it to real play.  I've never attempted anything like setting a "degree" of immersion intentionally as part of a social contract.

Can you give me an idea of what you as a player would think or do in a game if I were to say "today we'll play 50% immersed instead of 70%"?

I'm thinking that might not be a real possible thing to actually test.

I'm inclined, however, to point out that such behavior is still a violation of the social contract.  Your example could just as easily have been "no monty python jokes", or "turn off the cell phones".

[Callan S.]

I didn't really want to use exact percentages. No one agree's to a particular named percentage in regards to how deep they go and how long they stay there. I used exact numbers so I didn't have to keep using fuzzy 'they like more/less etc etc'. The idea is that some people are comfortable with X amount of immersion and have fun with that. With their fellows they probably muddle around until the find where eveyone is and they stick around that area of immersion. Even people who have never RP'd before have some comfortable level of immersion, even if its zero (pawn stance, I guess).

Basically I was wondering if deeper immersion than agreed to, is the problem. It doesn't have to be 100%, just significantly more than the others.

Immerse, come up for air, look around, make a concious effort to adjust your character's priorities based on meta game issues for the group, go back under and immerse again. Immerse all you want. Not selfish.

Basically I'm suggesting someone who isn't 100% deep immersion, but isn't 'coming up for air' as much as everyone else, significantly less so. Is that a related to or the same selfishness?

I can't find it, but I could have sworn you said something about if everyone at the table is 100% deep immersion because they agreed to, that's fine, but generally most aren't 100% (if you didn't, I withdraw this fully). That's the same sort of thing, some people are at a higher immersion than agreed to, do you think?

[Valamir]

Ralph wrote:
Immerse, come up for air, look around, make a concious effort to adjust your character's priorities based on meta game issues for the group, go back under and immerse again. Immerse all you want. Not selfish.  


Basically I'm suggesting someone who isn't 100% deep immersion, but isn't 'coming up for air' as much as everyone else, significantly less so. Is that a related to or the same selfishness?

hmmm, well you'd have to be able to identify an "ideal" mix of immersive vs. non immersive techniques, understandably not to exact %ages, but at least measureable enough in some fashion that the group can communicate its desire.  I don't think there is such a thing as an ideal mix of techniques even among a group because there are too many variables.  There are Immersive techniques and non Immersive Techniques, and there are myriad different ways (ephemera if you will) that the two can be wedded together in actual play.  

Alot will depend on the nature of the game itself and also what part of the action the players are in at any given time.  One could easily postulate a cycle of using a higher grade of "immersive" techniques during certain parts of the story, maintaining just enough congnitive awareness of the metagame to judge when its time to "up periscope" (likely to drive towards and through a particularly dramatic opportunity) and engage in more non immersive techniques.

Also these techniques and ephemera are not without the requirement of a certain degree of skill.  Someone with a vast skill at employing Immersive techniques is likely to be able to merge them much more seemlessly with non immersive techniques such that from the perspective of an outside observor it becomes difficult to tell where one begins and one ends.  The mistake here would be for the player who is doing so successfully to then delude themselves, or the other players into thinking their accomplishments were achieved with 100% immersion and no metagame consideration at all.

Someone with less skill at merging the two techniques, or for whom there is less aesthetic value in merging them seemlessly, might have more obvious breaks and more readily identifyable "surfacing" and "submerging".  I myself fall into less aesthetic value category for my own roleplaying.  I pop between speaking and gesturing and deciding based on in character motivations and general game OOC commentary with a good degree of frequency and typically some form of signalling when switching between the two.

So you're left with a situation where the ratio of Immersive to non Immersive techniques could fluctuate legitimately within a game (and also between games where different ratios are more or less appropriate); and your also left with the probablility that different players will be employing different ratios on different cycles from each other.

So again, I don't think this is a phenomenon that can really be identified or commented on beyond the general idea that an knowing and intentional breach of social contract is always problematic.  I don't think there is any inherent ratio that one can point at objectively and say "good" or "bad" as long as that ratio is arrived at with due consideration for the nature of the story being told, the game being played, and the players at the table, and is not the result of the obsessive drive towards 100:0 of a Deep Immersionist.

[Callan S.]

So you're left with a situation where the ratio of Immersive to non Immersive techniques could fluctuate legitimately within a game (and also between games where different ratios are more or less appropriate); and your also left with the probablility that different players will be employing different ratios on different cycles from each other.

Fair enough, it fluctuates a lot and any big breach is a social contract issue, rather than a deep immersionist dogma issue. Thanks! :)

Now, can I drift a bit and ask how this deep immersionist push manifests to your mind. For example, I'm pretty sure I've encountered the idea somewhat in my group and in reading RPG.net posts. But although the idea is there and people would tut tut each other for not being in character 'enough' and the holy grail was some sort of deep immersion, serious questing for that grail never really happened. Certainly some 'I'm better because I immersed deeper' happened here and there and sometimes someones adamant push to be immersed got in the way of the group as a whole. But I wouldn't say they managed full immersion, they just did more and it caused problems (you might see the origin of my previous questions, now).

So how do you see it occuring? For I'm sure the idea of deep immersion got into our group and others I've read about, that's why the idea of deep immersion being selfish surprised me and I started this post. But I've never really encountered a deep immersionist nut, as far as I can tell. More just peer pressure to 'do it better'. But the idea of deep immersion being the roxxors, yes, I'd have to say I've been exposed to that.

[Valamir]

Now, can I drift a bit and ask how this deep immersionist push manifests to your mind. For example, I'm pretty sure I've encountered the idea somewhat in my group and in reading RPG.net posts. But although the idea is there and people would tut tut each other for not being in character 'enough' and the holy grail was some sort of deep immersion, serious questing for that grail never really happened.
...
So how do you see it occuring?

Well, like anything, there are different degrees and approaches to presentation.  Some take a very formal approach and lay it all out manifesto style.  When these are couched in terms of "the way I play", as opposed to "here's how good play looks" I find such things much more reasonable.

You can find elements of the presentation in most all of the old Role Play vs. Roll Play discussions.  Those discussions are typically jumbled and disorganized but you can see the core assumptions on the "Role Play" side being to hold up immersion as the ideal and being unwilling to budge an inch that maybe some elements on the "other side" are valid.  Instead ever and anything that even remotely smacks of belonging to the "other side" will promptly draw sniffs of disapproval "well, that may be the way you play, but around here we're into role play not roll play"


But probably the worst impact of it all with the most damaging side effects are the subtle assumptions that just creep into gaming and become habit.  Assumptions about what gaming is and isn't supposed to look like.

Some examples:

The number of people who right off describe Universalis as not being a roleplaying game.  No personally, I couldn't care less what label gets used; but clearly there are some pretty deeply ingrained assumptions about roleplaying requiring character immersion behind those comments.  

Take any number of GMs who purely out of habit will engage in note passing or sending players out of the room.  Underlying this habit is the entrenched belief that OOC knowledge either a) will be misused (the anti "roll player" position, or b) will disrupt immersion (the pro "role player" position).  How many of them stop to think about whether all of those gyrations are really necessary and what the real impact on play would be if OOC knowledge was just freely shared.  Very few I suspect, most just take for granted that its a "bad thing"

Take the folks who will show up on the Forge and immediately stake a claim about what their group likes, which often includes sharp criticism of director stance and the implication that director stance would ruin their game.  Where does such knee jerk sentiment come from if not from years of ingrained habit...of trickle down indoctination.

I'm sure you can think of others, but to me the worst fall out from the Deep Immersionist credo is are not the self proclaimed proponents of the idea...they can easily be avoided.  Its the entire generation of gamers who've had a HUGE wealth of enjoyable play shut off from them by these ingrained assumptions.  Games they won't try, styles they won't try, techniques they won't try...or in many cases can't even imagine...that have been denied to them because their head has been filled with Deep Immersionist nonsense.

We see the casualties of that indoctrination wash up on shore here at the Forge all the time, folks who came here knowing full well what roleplaying is and how its done who were then hit square between the eyes with ideas they either never imagined or had summarily dismissed because it violated the immersionist credo.


That's how I see it manifesting.  A million different subtle invasive ways replicated almost automatically across the hobby...built into game texts, built into game mechanics, built into book and articles giving GMs advice on running and prepping for play...repeated ad infinitum and all based on fundamentally flawed assumptions about Deep Immersion.  Even players who don't play to the extreme of Deep Immersionist play in practice are carriers of the Deep Immersionist ideal...and its all done with the primarily purpose of training other gamers to not play in a way that might disrupt the Deep Immersionists immersionary experience.  

Its not a question of teaching you how to play so you'll enjoy your play more.  Its a matter of teaching you how to play so they'll enjoy your play more.  Or at least so your play won't disrupt their enjoyment of their play.  The proof of this motive can be seen should you choose to play in a different manner.  The result will be you being labeled a "bad roleplayer" with all the stigma that that entails.

[Callan S.]

Thanks! :) But do they achieve 100% deep immersion much at all, or is it more a matter of their trying to apply some of the required techniques of deep immersion (note passing, sending people out of the room) but not all the techniques, yet enough to be incoherant with other styles of play? What's your opinion? And thanks for the answers so far. :)

[Valamir]

Thanks! :) But do they achieve 100% deep immersion much at all, or is it more a matter of their trying to apply some of the required techniques of deep immersion (note passing, sending people out of the room) but not all the techniques, yet enough to be incoherant with other styles of play? What's your opinion? And thanks for the answers so far. :)

I'm not sure I understand the question.

Do deep immersionists actually ever achieve 100% immersion?

Can't answer that for certain.  I've never witnessed it myself, and given the reluctance of immersionists to even acknowledge meta game influences, I'm not sure the self analysis of a practitioner would be reliable in this regard.

I suspect that 100% Immersion is not actually achievable (without some actual psychological diagnosis accompanying it).  But can't say for sure.


So what %age is "deep" and what %age is just "regular"?

I don't think there is a boundary line measureable by quantity.  Its a matter of intent.

For instance:

Take player A.  Player A enjoys immersion immensely, but is also appreciative of the advantages of bringing meta influences into the game and is skilled at employing various meta techniques in conjuction with his immersion and has been doing so all session.

Now put player A in a spot in the game where he's decided to spend some time delving into immersion and achieves...say a 95% immersed state (whatever that means).


Then take player B.  Player B hates metagame and claims to never use it.  He strongly desires (or thinks he does) to purge all metagame from play and sharply criticises any use of it.  He wants to be as immersed as he can get.

Now put player B in a spot in the game.  Player B seeks maximum immersion but for whatever reason (because he unwittingly uses a lot more meta thinking than he likes to think he does) he only achieves a maximum immersed state of 80%.


To me, player A is engaging in the game in an effective and non damaging manner.  He chose that moment as a moment to "submerge" as fully as possible, and even if he (or others) later decide that was a bad time to do it, he did it out of honest play and not some irrational hatred for metagame.  Player A is not engaging in deep immersion, he's just enjoying an immersed moment in a game which employs a wide range of techniques.

Player B, however, may never have gotten as immersed as A, but his attitude is what marks him as being a "deep immersionist"


Is that sort of what you were asking?

[contracycle]

I don't think that distinction flies.  I do think that people immerse to differeing degress - certainly I am aware of having experienced differing degrees in different instances.

But this is incidental to my acknowledgement of metagme, which I think is a perpendicular concern.  If the social contract legitises 'squirreling'*, then we have the initial problem of insuficient engagement with other players audience modes.  If it does not, and some form of portrayal is mandated, I think the problem goes away.

* squirreling was IIRC a Dilbert term referring to an employee who pursues a strategy of whitholding vital information from others in order to make themselves indispendible.

[Callan S.]

Thanks Ralph, that is pretty much what I was asking about. It seems like a zealotism for deep immersion.