Immersive Story Essay

[RDU Neil]

Russell wrote:

Finally, the gem came into our reach. Brother L grabbed it before the others had time to react. The GM said, ``Normally, using the power of the gem causes you to go insane, but since Borther L's motives are so pure, he gets an exception...'' He found it hard tobelieve me when I said, ``Actually, I'm using the gem to kill the rest of the party". I had to point to where it said ``paranoid'' not ``pacifist'' on my character sheet several times before he got it. In this case, I eventually portrayed his true nature, but that wasn't necessary for me to experience being a twisted monk for months.

contracycle was nicer about this than I was.  Point being, I'd never game with you again if you pulled this in any game I was in.  All you did was create an argument over what "paranoid" means... and expect others to agree with your own internal, uncommunicated assumptions.  Such a scene would have completely ruined the game for me, and if I was GM I'd have booted you from the group so fast you wouldn't know what hit you.  This is exactly the kind of solipsistic, selfish, onansim that some claim passes for role playing that I was initially appalled to think that Nar play intended.  I now realize that Nar play is completely against this in most cases, and it is a form of Sim play.  

I do thank you for posting this, because it is a perfect example for me to use with my group to explain what would be the worst kind of dysfunctional CA incompatibility possible.  

This thread has been very enlightening on that point.  I don't want to try to say that such play is wrong... but it is important to understand that I do feel that way to the core of my being, and this thread has given me the words to articulate that.  I may never convince someone otherwise, but it enables me to part ways with a player and understand why.

[John Kim]

Point being, I'd never game with you again if you pulled this in any game I was in.  All you did was create an argument over what "paranoid" means... and expect others to agree with your own internal, uncommunicated assumptions.  Such a scene would have completely ruined the game for me, and if I was GM I'd have booted you from the group so fast you wouldn't know what hit you.  This is exactly the kind of solipsistic, selfish, onansim that some claim passes for role playing that I was initially appalled to think that Nar play intended.  I now realize that Nar play is completely against this in most cases, and it is a form of Sim play.  

Wow, that seems like a pretty violent reaction.  I'm curious about how you imagine this panning out.  i.e. You would presumably have been fine with Russell when you thought his character was a pacifist.  But at the point when you found out that his character had been faking it all along, then you would have booted him from the game?  Would he be allowed to stay in the game, say, if he ret-conned his character to really be a pacifist as he appeared?  Would it have made a difference if you were a player and the GM had known about the secret?  

By comparison, one of the players in my Vinland campaign (Jim) often cites the revealing of a PC secret as the high point in the campaign for him.  Thorfinn was a young man who grew up in exile because his parents had been outlawed.  After the death of his parents and sister, he returned and sought revenge.  Through the first 13 sessions of the campaign, this was what everyone thought.  Then it was suddenly revealed that the person they called Thorfinn was actually his sister Thorgerd.  After her brother died, she decided to disguise herself as him in order to personally take her revenge.  Jim didn't clue into this at all until the point when Thorfinn was revealed.  So suddenly his interpretations of the last few months of play were revised in meaning.  

So you see this play as "selfish" because it's not the kind of play you like.  i.e. You would hate to be surprised in this way, and to re-interpret events.  But for players who like it, this sort of internal character development is feeding the game with added depth that goes beyond what is obvious on the surface.

[RDU Neil]

John Kim wrote:

Would it have made a difference if you were a player and the GM had known about the secret?

To a great deal, probably yes... but only if the GM and player could point back to subtle hints and clues dropped over time that add up to this being a believable turn of events, and not just a player trying to "screw with the story."

As another player, I am the audience of that player's story and the story created by the group (for an imagined external audience) and just as if I was a reader reading a novel, and a character who had acted one way for 300 pages, suddenly acted completely against type and the author just said, "He was really like that all along, but just hid it from everyone," I would throw the book across the room.  The events of a game, to be astory need to be not only possible, but plausible and make sense from a readers/audience POV.  I may never know the deep seated child hood trauma that drove a character to take a certain action, but I should be witness to the struggle he goes through in choosing that path over another.  The addressing of premise needs to be somewhat public to be real and effective.

In Russel's case, because no one else was privy to his little internal scheming, it was, essentially meaningless.  Why should we care or go to any lengths to support such play?  As a player, why should I support Russel, who's true enjoyment of the game is kept hidden and unshared.  Right or wrong, the fact that Russel seemed to enjoy it more BECAUSE it was hidden and only for him says that, as a person, I would not care to know or play with him.   I could be wrong, but such play shows a studied isolation of thought and feeling and a general disrespect for others... a lack of social responsibility to others.

Again, just my feelings on the subject... but yes, very strong feelings.

Jim didn't clue into this at all until the point when Thorfinn was revealed. So suddenly his interpretations of the last few months of play were revised in meaning.

This seems to imply that Jim's play at least involved him hinting at and building a possible dramatic tension that was released upon the revelation.  This, to me, is fine, because all along the player is taking into account how the character's actions affect other characters and the game as a whole.  If the other players didn't pick up on the hints, or didn't make too much of them, then the revelation is informative and dramatic.  If all of it was hidden internally, and then revealed... as another player I have no idea if it was intended all along, or last night, Jim just decided, "Hey Thorfinn isn't really Thorfinn, it's his sister in disguise!  Yeah... that'll surprise 'em!"   This latter form of play is something I would definitely discourage, based on my own preferences.

That internal kind of play only teaches me, as another player, to not trust you, to always second guess every action, and never really reach out and connect emotionally, because I have no idea who or what you really are.  It teaches me not to care, and if I don't care, why would I game with you?

[clehrich]

It's interesting; there's some sort of fine distinction going on here, because I find myself fully agreeing with both of you and I'm not quite sure how that's possible on this issue.

On John's side, I certainly do see the Character Secret Gets Revealed thing as good fun, and as he says, something people remember later.  It certainly helps, as Neil says, to drop hints all along the way, but I think that depending on the nature of the secret this doesn't have to be the whole issue; besides, the guy with the gem here is going to tell us that he's dropped hints all along the way and we just didn't pick them up.

On Neil's side, this is something I have seen done time and again by certain kinds of players, and in fact certain kinds of GM's, and I find it absolutely infuriating.  Suddenly, out of nowhere, this hand grenade is thrown in the middle of a perfectly pleasant game, with an implicit or explicit, "Ha ha, think quick, gotcha, nya nya I win" kind of mentality.  I hate this.

I guess the first question is whether the hints, and the surprise itself (or rather the issue to which it relates) is in fact anything that the other players have indicated interest in.

For example, Dave is secretly a demon wearing a flayed human skin, and he's been dropping hints about this for some time now.  Thing is, the other players quite clearly dodge any sort of plot threads that have to do wtih demons, possession, or any of that.  Let's assume that Dave is collaborating on the GM about this, so the GM has been tossing similar thematic material for a while, but the other players doggedly avoid it.  

Conclusion: they don't give a damn about demon-possession stories.
Result: when Dave rips his face off and says, 'Ha ha, gotcha" the other players will be pissed.

In the same example, if the other players constantly seek out weird occult information to track down "real demons" or whatever, and are convinced there's some sort of demon-spy conspiracy, and so on and so forth, then when Dave rips his face off it may work rather better.  On the other hand, the best-case scenario would be for the gang to be sitting around discussing it, and somebody starts to figure it all out, and you get this moment when everyone suddenly realizes, "Uh oh, um, Dave?" --- who promptly rips his face off and attacks, for fun and laughs all around.

I don't know; it's a fine line.  John is right that the character secrets and issues, well told in a good context, can be some of the best moments in a whole campaign.  But Neil is right that exactly the same material, set up wrong or for the wrong audience, go beyond sucking and into the actual fury zone.

A last example: I know someone who ran a game in which his wife's character was precisely the demon with the false face.  They cooked this up before the campaign started, and the whole thing was a long, elaborate setup.  They dropped hints and so forth, all the way.  And looking back on it, my friend still laughs merrily when he tells the story of how totally surprised they were, and how [note this one clearly] damn stupid they all were when the hints were so clear....

Not surprisingly, the other players don't look back on this session or in fact this campaign terribly positively.  They basically wanted to tell one kind of story, and the "big surprise" was that actually their attempts to do so were just self-delusion.  Isn't that dandy?  Ugh.

Just some ramblings, but frankly I don't think you guys are all that far in disagreement here, it's just that you're thinking of REALLY different examples.

[Russell Impagliazzo]

There have been some strong reactions to my Brother L. anecdote.  I over-simplified
several aspects so I may have been misleading.  

First, we were using Hero system, where the character's psychological quirks are spelled out fairly precisely.  At the start of the game, I had given my character sheet to the GM, and run through my character's paranoia and secretiveness with him.  It was just that after several months of play, he had totally forgotten.  I wasn't keeping anything purposefully secret from the GM.  

I wasn't even (as a player) planning to keep anything secret from the other players.  It just seemed that someone very secretive would keep some secrets until he trusted the other PCs.  As it developed, the more he learned about the other PCs, the less he trusted them.    I did perform some subtly non-pacifist actions, but that just resulted in discussions of whether I (as a player) should be reprimanded for breaking my character's supposed ``code vs. killing''.  But since we were always fighting supernatural evil, I was repeatedly absolved.  One of the other characters was a telepath, and I expected to be exposed at any minute, but it never happened.

The conversation I had with the GM was a private conversation since I was the only person who had contact with the gem.  He had already told me that someone using the gem with impure intent would become a mind-controlled slave of the gem.  I was informing him that my character's intentions should probably be considered  bad, rather than pure as he thought.  The result would NOT have been my character killing the rest of the stunned group, but my character, the weakest in combat, being an easily defeated pawn of the gem.  The other players would probably think Brother L. was a good person controlled by an evil force, and never learned otherwise, so I wouldn't even have been able to say, ``Fooled you all!'' As it was, the game ended for other reasons before we played this out.

The main point is that I was not hiding information from the other players to give my character an unfair advantage, or to twist the story to make my character the anti-hero.
If I had had any ``in-character'' ways to divulge my character's nature, I would have taken them.  But ``portraying'' my character by giving the other players insight wasn't
my goal, simulating my character was.  As I wrote before, I do worry more about
portraying now than I did at the time.

[John Kim]

It's interesting; there's some sort of fine distinction going on here, because I find myself fully agreeing with both of you and I'm not quite sure how that's possible on this issue.
...
Just some ramblings, but frankly I don't think you guys are all that far in disagreement here, it's just that you're thinking of REALLY different examples.

Well, I think we both agree that there are examples of surprises that are pleasant in a campaign, and surprises that are annoying.  The seeming split is over methodology -- i.e. what processes of play will produce pleasant surprises instead of annoying surprises (bearing in mind that people may differ on which is which).  Your example of an unpleasant surprise (the skin-wearing demon) is actually that it is of deliberate planting and hinting, as opposed to being the result of play where the player doesn't consciously externalize inner character (which was the case that Neil was complaining about).  

My example of Thorfinn was mostly an immersive one.  Just to make this clear:  Laura was the one who was playing Thorgerd (aka Thorfinn), while Jim was playing another PC, Skallagrim.  There were various challenges to Thorfinn passing a man: such as talking with her grandmother about finding a wife, opting out of swimming contests, and so forth.  But the player Laura tried her best to keep Thorgerd's identity concealed.  And indeed, Jim (who wasn't informed OOC of this) had no idea about it until she was publically revealed when she was almost drowned and revived.  After that, suddenly the whole issue of Thorfinn's being matched up with one of Vigfus the Proud's grand-daughters (for example) suddenly took on new meaning.  

The big question is whether internal attention to personal character story makes for bad surprises.  I think one of the issues is the implied suggestion that secrets make the character less interesting on the surface.  i.e. If you pay attention to internal detail, that makes your character passive and uninteresting to other players.  Personally, I find that quite the opposite is true.  A character with a lot of unrevealed issues can be extremely interesting in play.  They might be hard to understand, but they aren't passively sitting by themselves.  The hard-to-understand depth makes them more interesting in my mind, not less.

[matthijs]

One of the problems of immersionism that's been pointed out here is that an immersionist player isn't always interesting to play with, to put it bluntly. A player who feels his character's emotions strongly and has a vivid internal experience of events, but does nothing to portray this to the other players, might be immersing strongly, but contributing nothing to the group. And he might even be portraying his character very accurately - if that character is a strong, silent type, or an introvert, or paranoid, etc.

I'm in two minds about this. On the one hand, players have a right to do whatever they enjoy, if it doesn't bother the others. On the other hand, if you don't interact and portray, you might as well go read a book or something. Perhaps a passive immersionist player should be encouraged to find some other (perhaps non-game) way to contribute to the group, since he/she is essentially leeching off others' efforts?

Note, also, that immersionism doesn't mean players who don't interact. If you immerse yourself into a violent, high-spirited, extremely talkative, or empathic character, that would definitely result in a high level of interaction.

Another problem that's been discussed is that of player secrets. This is not a necessary part of immersionism. It's quite possible, and often more enjoyable, to divulge secrets OOC, but keep them IC. Thorgerds struggles to keep her identity a secret could have been a good show for the whole party if the players were let in on the secret, but the characters weren't. My point is that immersionism shouldn't be criticized for this kind of secrecy.

[contracycle]

I did perform some subtly non-pacifist actions, but that just resulted in discussions of whether I (as a player) should be reprimanded for breaking my character's supposed ``code vs. killing''.  But since we were always fighting supernatural evil, I was repeatedly absolved.  One of the other characters was a telepath, and I expected to be exposed at any minute, but it never happened.

So, you knew that not only the other players, but the GM, had a false impression of your game stats, and you allowed that false impression to stand.  In my book that would be cheating; possibly gamesmanship if I was feeling charitable.

John Kim wrote:

They might be hard to understand, but they aren't passively sitting by themselves. The hard-to-understand depth makes them more interesting in my mind, not less.

To whom?  Surely, only to people who are familiar with their story?  Otherwise, the are more or less a blank slate and thus totally uninteresting.  

i.e. If you pay attention to internal detail, that makes your character passive and uninteresting to other players.

Not if you PORTRAY that internal detail to which you are paying so much attention.  Paying attention to internal story does not inherently imply keeping it to yourself.  But if you don't portray it, it didn't happen as far as I am am concerned.

[RDU Neil]

contracycle wrote:

Not if you PORTRAY that internal detail to which you are paying so much attention. Paying attention to internal story does not inherently imply keeping it to yourself. But if you don't portray it, it didn't happen as far as I am am concerned.

Exactly.  

And to further the point, the portrayal does not have to be done in an overt, bad American movie kind of way, where the flow and pace screech to a halt so that the character can pour out his backstory to an audience that needs things spoon fed to them.  I'm not suggesting that at all.

Example:  A recent French movie, "The Nest" in it's English translation.  A balls to the wall action film that takes a classic "conversion of forces creates mayhem" plot, and treats it in a very dramatic way.  This is done by creating a series of fully fleshed out characters trapped and fending off a horde of implacable foes... but not once does the pacing stop for exposition... they work in all the relevant information and character through actions.  The best example is the female lead, and the character of the night watchman/ex-fireman.  Neither ever spills their guts or over emotes, and in fact, one of them is as taciturn as they come... but their ACTIONS speak for them.

At one point, before you know anything about the night watchman (even that that is his job) you see him leaving his apartment.  The apartment is clearly in disarray, and his body language, a brief moment where he lifts up a fallen picture of a young girl, his slow detached movements, and then a definite look back inside the door as he is about to leave, it shows the emptiness of what he is leaving behind, and he just shrugs and goes out.  Later, at work, his coworker and he are watching a parade of soldiers, police and firemen going on in Paris.  The co-worker asks, "Why did you quit being a fireman to work here?" after the watchman gives a littel salute to the firemen.  The watchman doesn't even answer the guy, but clearly it is an important piece of his past.

Basically, this is all you find out about the guy in the whole movie, except for his actions later which help save the last few survivors.  Clearly the internal life of this character is extensive and dramatic, and we never learn the details... but notice that I said "clearly."  This character is still portrayed to the audience.  He is still strongly a part of the over all story and gives the audience something to work with.

Portrayal can be this subtle... often is best this way... but a player playing such a character can't just sit quietly because "that's what the character would do."   Instead, they need to describe things like distracted looks, a twitch, the state of the person's affects/equipment/home... whatever.  The point is to give something to the group.  This does require extensive verbal skills, probably better skills than those of the more extroverted, spill it all out, type.  It requires a sublime sense of description and dramatic timing.

My main concern is that this internal immersion (as opposed to immersion in an externalized character) very often is an excuse for the player to just sit there, and give nothing.  Extremely passive play is, in my mind, not play at all.

[Daredevil]

Apologies for coming into this thread at such a late time, but I find I have too little time these days to keep up to pace with all the Forge's discussions. Very interesting discussion going on in this thread!

Roleplaying is a social activity, but as always, every player coming to the table is an individual. So clearly, there is both internal movement and external movement around the table, whatever happens. Emphasis can be placed on either in varying degrees, but in all cases it will be there on both dimensions.

I believe the crossing of these boundaries -- this external/internal divide -- to being crucial to role-playing. External actions declaring internal states. Internal states adapting to external circumstances. Indeed, the shady middleground is where it's at, at least for me. Here can be found the true feeling of the story being engaging and the shared world real, independent of all other technical concerns. There is potency within the internal realm as immersion and in the shared external realm as strong narrative. The GM can be seen as a facilitator for this: the person who takes the player's hand (and with license) takes you to that Otherworld (see El Dorado). Once back outside of it, it may be difficult to say if the feelings were your's or your characters. Therein lies the magic.

Also, I think the term audience to be somewhat misleading. Certainly there is an audience to your actions while at the table, as there are other human beings present, but the implication here seems to be that the audience is analogous to a theater/movie audience. Roleplaying is its own medium and while it can benefit from learning and importing from other medias, we should be careful of not importing artificial structural limitations that simply are not relevant (unless, in the special case of, we seek to emulate another medium as an objective in our game). You are the actor and the audience, multiplied by the number of players. A rather unique situation.

The question then being: should we as role-players enjoy watching others in the act of roleplaying or should we perhaps gain our enjoyment strictly through our own immersion into our characters? Again, either can be true (and in my preferred gaming style, both ought to be). In the case that neither is, I don't think there is much point in playing.

- Joachim Buchert -

[Storn]

I think the term audience to be somewhat misleading.

Agreed.

I, when I roleplay, am not an audience... not even to the GM.  I'm an audience with a proactive/reactive ability, looking for cues from the other "audiences with proactive/reactive abilities".  In other words, a Player.  

I look to the other Players and GM to give me something to work with.  So teh combined story goes somewhere "neat"... however you want to define "neat" is another issue.  Now a Player/PC can do nothing during a situation and take a passive role, becoming a proxy audience.  Certain scenes, especially by the GM, can be performed out in front of the PC/Player.  And that happens naturally and in character.  Nothing wrong with that.  But since we Players have the ability to jump in anytime shortly thereafter, we still ain't audience.

There is no audience, unless two things are happening.  Someone is watching the game, but is not playing.  Sure, then there is an audience.  OR if the evening's episode is written up, like in the Actual Play section, and those who read it serve as an audience.

[John Kim]

OK, there seems to be a fundamental impasse here.  Neil and contracycle both claim that character immersion is inherently passive.  i.e. That somehow mysteriously if I am acting as my character that always means that I am doing absolutely nothing and nothing is visible to the other players.  

I think the exact opposite -- and I clearly say so in my essay.  Character is action, and thus passivity is bad for immersion and immersive story.  Now, if you were to rail against active and emotional play which is mysterious to you, I could accept that as valid.  But if you continue to claim that I am advocating passivity, then I don't think conversation can continue.  

Moreover, the essay does not identify immersive story as simply acting as the character (i.e. a common definition of "character immersion").  It advocates drama where the player consistently identifies with their own PC as the protagonist.  This inherently means that each player experiences a related-but-different story.  

---------

I can try to guess at what's causing the disconnect here, but these are only guesses.  One is a limited view of acting -- perhaps influenced by stage acting (?).  In this, if I want my character to express something, I have to first think of what to express, and then as a separate step come up with an externalization of how to express that.  The thinking-as-character itself isn't visible.  

However, particularly in a close environment (like film close-ups or being across the table from an RPG player), the latter isn't necessarily true.  Natural emotional states are visible through facial expression and gesture.  This is the basis of Stanislavsky's method.  Moreover, it is even more true in an RPG where a character's actions can be freely determined on the basis of character thought.  

Another possibility is that passivity perhaps can result from failure to engage players who would prefer immersive play.  This suggests that the character is not supported as a protagonist -- other PCs do not act in supporting roles, the GM does not help, and perhaps the player isn't able (for whatever reason) to pro-actively pursue his character's goals.  Neil discusses the case of a passive PC:

Portrayal can be this subtle... often is best this way... but a player playing such a character can't just sit quietly because "that's what the character would do."   Instead, they need to describe things like distracted looks, a twitch, the state of the person's affects/equipment/home... whatever.  The point is to give something to the group.  This does require extensive verbal skills, probably better skills than those of the more extroverted, spill it all out, type.  It requires a sublime sense of description and dramatic timing.  

Regardless of how well it is done, I can't imagine being interested by a player narrating poetically about how her character is giving distracted looks and twitches.  I might be if the player physically acted it out, but in general I would say that the character should not just be sitting there.  The character should be involved and interacting, pursuing his story.

[contracycle]

OK, there seems to be a fundamental impasse here.  Neil and contracycle both claim that character immersion is inherently passive.  i.e. That somehow mysteriously if I am acting as my character that always means that I am doing absolutely nothing and nothing is visible to the other players.  

No you are over-extending my argument; I say there is NOTHING inherent that prevents an immersed player from expressing their character at the table at al.  But as I read your argument, it is that attention to portrayal is unnecessary; IU am disagreeing and saying such actual portrayal is both feasible and obligatory.

I think the exact opposite -- and I clearly say so in my essay.  Character is action, and thus passivity is bad for immersion and immersive story.  Now, if you were to rail against active and emotional play which is mysterious to you, I could accept that as valid.  But if you continue to claim that I am advocating passivity, then I don't think conversation can continue.  

Now you are conflating character passivity with player passivity.  If the character is moving and walking and talking, then the player is necessarily portraying that character, commmunicating its actions to the group or audience.  I have no problem with that; I DO have a problem with a player who communicates nothing to this audience and then expects us to acknowledge some mental or emotional state on the part of the character, which is more or less how you seem to be arguing this immersiove story should play out.

I can try to guess at what's causing the disconnect here, but these are only guesses.  One is a limited view of acting -- perhaps influenced by stage acting (?).  In this, if I want my character to express something, I have to first think of what to express, and then as a separate step come up with an externalization of how to express that.  The thinking-as-character itself isn't visible.  

Yes roughly speakin, I think EXACTLY the same rules that govern stage acting apply here.  I mean, have you ever noticed that group conversations shot for film are frequently 3-sided boxes or arcs of characters talking to one another diagonally so that all their faces are visible to an observer in the 4th wall.  We know that people don't really talk to each other like that, but we acknowledge the needs of the medium.

However, particularly in a close environment (like film close-ups or being across the table from an RPG player), the latter isn't necessarily true.  Natural emotional states are visible through facial expression and gesture.  This is the basis of Stanislavsky's method.  Moreover, it is even more true in an RPG where a character's actions can be freely determined on the basis of character thought.  

No I completely disagree - in the first instance because this is not  directed like a film.  I would suggest that a closer analogy here would be that the director does not know that character is in emotional turmoil and hence no close-up is shot.  My only argument is that if a a character is experiencing such turmoil, they should execute a portrayal action that is equivalent to the close-up shot - becuase in RPG there is no director with access to a script.  

Regardless of how well it is done, I can't imagine being interested by a player narrating poetically about how her character is giving distracted looks and twitches.  I might be if the player physically acted it out, but in general I would say that the character should not just be sitting there.  The character should be involved and interacting, pursuing his story.

Well I find that surprising.  In your game, given the situation and all the delicacy involved, would it be implausible to have a player say "my character squirms with embarrasment", and/or to adopt some posture and body language that conveys this to the other players?  I find this a completely normal and unremarkable technique, and I have indeed seen it done well, and done it myself.  I can't really understand how it is that this is different to "pursuing their story", and furthermore, if self-reflection implies disengagement from story, then how is any form of internal story possible?

[John Kim]

I think the exact opposite -- and I clearly say so in my essay.  Character is action, and thus passivity is bad for immersion and immersive story.  Now, if you were to rail against active and emotional play which is mysterious to you, I could accept that as valid.  But if you continue to claim that I am advocating passivity, then I don't think conversation can continue.  

Now you are conflating character passivity with player passivity.  If the character is moving and walking and talking, then the player is necessarily portraying that character, commmunicating its actions to the group or audience.  I have no problem with that; I DO have a problem with a player who communicates nothing to this audience and then expects us to acknowledge some mental or emotional state on the part of the character, which is more or less how you seem to be arguing this immersive story should play out.  

OK, I think we're still clashing on terms here.  

First of all, remember that in my essay, I use "performative story" as a model which is contrasted with the "immersive story" model.  Here it seems you are using  "performance" as a word to broadly cover any sort of interaction -- i.e. you say that talking in-character is necessarily performance.  By this definition, if a player is not performing, then he is in a totally passive non-interacting state.  For example, above you again assert that immersive story implies that "nothing" of a PC is visible to the other players or GM.  While that may be a valid use of the word, that's obviously not what I mean when I compare the two models.  

So let me try this again.  

1) By definition, "immersive story" as a model implies that each player emotionally identifies with her own PC as protagonist, more-or-less continuously during play.  This does not mean catatonically wrapped up in own thoughts, or exclusively "thinking as character" to the point of forgetting that you're a player, or anything else.  It just means that the emotional power is carried through the PC -- just as the audience of a classical drama identifies with the protagonist.  

2) This inherently means that to a given player, the other PCs are not protagonists but rather supporting characters.  They still play vital roles in the drama, as supporting characters naturally do.  

Now, as far as the model is concerned, it is an open question what the player's state of mind should be other than the basic emotional identification.  A player may consciously consider the best actions to support other PCs stories.  On the other hand, even actions which were not consciously picked to be "supporting actor performance" can be seen by the other players and become part of their stories.  Different approaches may work for different people, and I don't have a firm terminology.  

The problem with separating these is that I think the internal states aren't exclusive.  For example, consideration of a character's thoughts and feelings is not exclusive of or opposed to interesting interaction with other players.  An action which my PC takes will simultaneously be a part of her story which I identify with -- but also will be a

Regardless of how well it is done, I can't imagine being interested by a player narrating poetically about how her character is giving distracted looks and twitches.  I might be if the player physically acted it out, but in general I would say that the character should not just be sitting there.  The character should be involved and interacting, pursuing his story.  

Well I find that surprising.  In your game, given the situation and all the delicacy involved, would it be implausible to have a player say "my character squirms with embarrasment", and/or to adopt some posture and body language that conveys this to the other players?  I find this a completely normal and unremarkable technique, and I have indeed seen it done well, and done it myself.  I can't really understand how it is that this is different to "pursuing their story", and furthermore, if self-reflection implies disengagement from story, then how is any form of internal story possible?

Note that I did say that I might be interested by the player physically acting it out through expression.  (Note that is also compatible with method acting, as opposed to conscious choice of a particular posture).  So I think you're reading in some sort of broader principle than I said.  A character passive sitting is part of the story, but it isn't the sort of thing which lends itself to verbal narration, and is very rarely the focus.  

Moreover, your last point simply makes no sense to me.  All story is internal story.  Within the terminology of the essay, "story" is the mental construct of fictional events.  This is as opposed to the "discourse" which is the physical patterns of ink on the page.  The mental construct can and will include details which are imagined, but that are not part of a strict literal interpretation of the text.

[Revontuli]

Hiya! I've tried to refrain from commenting on Mr. Tuovinen's views on my game Myrskyn aika, but here's a clear error I noticed. (I don't read the Forge regularly, so you'll have to forgive me for opening up a discussion that ended in April.)

There's no serious immersionist games around afaIk but for Myrskyn Aika from Mike Pohjola. The tragedy is that it supports immersionism best when giving the standard "GM is always right" advice and worst in actual mechanics (pure setting/character sim).

The mechanics of Myrskyn aika are pretty far from pure setting/character simulation. Whether they're succesful or not is another matter entirely, but their main goal is very much to enhance immersion.

In my design philosophy I strived for what I call emotional realism. That's when your feelings are more relevant than the world around you, the opposite of the positivistic-mechanistic simulationism we usually get in RPGs. Rules-wise this means that the more motivated the character is to achieve something, the more likely she is to succeed. Likewise, battles don't necessarily end in death but more likely in escape, exhaustion or surrender.

I won't go into details unless asked, but I feel this is much closer to immersion-friendly rules than anything I've seen anywhere else. The problem was that I wasn't aware of any other specifically immersionist roleplaying games out there to pave the way.

Of course you get even stronger immersionism (and stronger internalized drama, presumably) by larping it, which is a good reason for many immersionists being larpers.

I don't know what makes you say this. Both tabletop and larp have things that help immersion, and things that hinder it. It's not difficult in either style (if you want to consider them separate styles, as I think you do).


Mike