Deep Immersion

[TonyLB]

In the Group Ownership of Players thread, Valamir expressed his frustration with misinterpretation of his argument, and recommended that the discussion had exceeded the bounds of the original thread, and should be re-cast.

Play in character can reveal ALOT about your character. It can reveal alot about your character's desires and personality. It can reveal all manner of important information and can be well appreciated for the skill with which its accomplished.

But it cannot accomplish everything.

I wonder if, however, the people who are satisfied with this style of play are satisfied because it does accomplish everything they want for their Creative Agenda.  It sounds like a strictly in-character style of play without resort to metagame would be ideal for many types of Simulationist play.

Do you feel that Deep Immersion (as you call it) is inherently inadequate to any agenda?  Or is it merely incoherent with respect to some agendas?

[Valamir]

I believe that Deep Immersion is inadequate to any CA.  There has never been any story ever told that told effectively without some consideration by the teller as to its impact on the audience.  The author doesn't write the actions of a character based solely on just what that character knows or would do.  Nor does the playwrite, the screenplay writer, or the patriarch telling old family yarns around the table.

The essential part of any good story is effective editing.  Knowing what not to relate is as important to the final effect as what is related.  There is a level of concious and intentional editing that goes on by every story teller.  This skill is particularly important to oral story telling where the speaker doesn't have the luxury of rewrites.  He must gauge his audience, ascertain their level of interest, and then selectively edit his story for best effect.  It is this skill that seperates good storytellers from poor ones as much as any other talent.

In roleplaying this is also important.  What to reveal about your character, and when, is an important choice that must be made by the player on behalf of the character.  It cannot be made solely from behind the eyes of the character, because the character himself is not concerned with such things.  The player, however, must be.  And the only way to accomplish this is by being willing to step out from behind the eyes of the character to ascertain what needs to be done, with the same purposeful intent as an author or playwrite, although not necessarily using the same techniques.

The crafting of a good story requires alot more than simply judging what a single character "would or wouldn't do" based completely and only on what that character "does or doesn't know".  It is therefor completely impossible (except for the allowance of the million monkeys banging on a million typewriters) for a good story to be created by remaining 100% immersed at all times.  A good story requires time to be spent unimmersed.



So what does it take to use the immersive technique effectively and avoid the pitfalls of Deep Immersion?  It takes a willingness to drive with one eye on road and the other in the rear view mirror, so to speak.  To be cognizant of the timing and pacing and flow of the game.  When one chooses to reveal an aspect about ones character, to do so at the appropriate time and in the appropriate manner (and many other similiar concerns).

All of these choices are inherently metagame, even though immersionist practitioners will generally go to great lengths to deny meta game and swear up and down that it should be purged.  Yet everytime a player chooses to drop a hint about his character's deep inner nature, that choice...to do it, how to do it, and when to do it is clearly firmly in the realm of metagame.


From there it is simply a question of degree; of overcoming years of habit that have ingrained completely arbitrary and meaningly division about metagame.  To force open the eyes of those who swear they hate metagame and demonstrate that they are, in fact, using meta game everytime they play and thus their protestations against it are mere unnecessary hypocrisy.



Which leads to the next question, if people are routinely using metagame in play are their people who really play Deep Immersion without it?  Yes, they do.  Some do it intentionally.  Some do it inadvertantly, and some do it naively.  

The inadvertant ones do it because they've been taught that's the way they're "supposed to play".  Mike earlier took umbrage at my use of the word "virulent" but I find it eminently appropriate.  Anyone who's had to endure criticisms about "not playing right" and been subjected to the many techniques designed to cut off in the bud any notion of play outside the boundaries of ones character knows exactly what I'm talking about.  There are few other styles of play as outright aggressive at indoctrinating players into their style as that of Deep Immersionists.  Heck, we don't have to look any further than a number of recent threads here on the Forge for proof as to the successfulness and widespreadness of this indoctrination.  Threads where new participants encountering notions of Author and Director Stance for the first time express utter astonishment that people actually play that way and it doesn't end in the complete and utter disastor they've been trained to think it would.

There are those who enjoy the sensation of playing in character at all times, but who dislike the uninspiring end result of non-story that it produces.  They continue to play this way, however, because they believe for some reason that when it does manage to produce story that that story is somehow more pure and thus more awe inspiring than if the story had been actively sought out.  Again I point to recent threads where individuals have suggested that they'd viewed the actively seeking out of story as "cheating".  I call this sort of play "naive" because it is naive to think that this story is in any way more "pure" or "better".  Even history itself is not produced solely by "staying in character" because in all occassions the actual results of real history are edited down.  It is the editing down of the tedious bits that makes stories of war seem exciting.  And of course all such telling of history is told with the proper spin of the "victors".  So even history is not actually the result of in character cause and effect, but rather in character cause and effect combined with the attentions of an author with a purpose.  To think that great stories can be told without addressing them from the perspective of an author with a purpose is, to me, extraordinarly naive.  These players are those that Ron refers to as Ouja Board players.  They've recognized the need for a concious effort to create story, but they're so thoroughly indoctrinated that they aren't yet willing to do it overtly.  And so they try to bring subtle indectable metagame guidance to their roleplaying.  It is my firm position that the vast majority of examples that one might produce about "Deeply Immersionist games that successfully produced story" were the result of these ouja board players being willing to leave Deep Immersion long enough to accomplish it.

And finally there are those who truly enjoy just the being in character aspects of play.  Whether this is out of a sense of escapism or some transcendent state of conciousness I'll leave to them to describe.  Their primary concern is to enjoy the experience of becoming someone else.  This is a perfectly understandable joy.  I experience it myself.  I think all roleplayers who don't spend the preponderance of their time in pawn stance do (although I think their is a huge number of active gamers who principly play in pawn stance).  There is nothing wrong AT ALL with taking enjoyment from drifting into a close relationship with ones alter ego.
 
Where it crosses the line and becomes selfish, however, is when those players are unwilling to do anything else BUT enjoy this relationship, and who are unwilling to sacrifice even a little bit of their enjoyment for other purposes.  These players don't care about the story, the other players, or anything else, but their own ability to immerse without interuption.  That to me is the veritable definition of selfish behavior.


Now it has been pointed out "what if everyone at the table is enjoying it and doesn't mind that other people are unwilling to make that sacrifice"  

Well, as I've said repeatedly, that is the only time when such play is functional.  But consider.  If this were commonly the case among such groups, (having everyone at the table enjoy this sort of play), why do deep immersionists fight so hard to encourage it?

Why is it so prevailing in texts, why do practitioners go to such great lengths to force every new member of their group to play in this manner?  Quite simple.  Because they expect the other players at the table to not take any action during play that will impugn their own enjoyment of their immersive behavior.  They aren't concerned with whether those players are enjoying themselves or not.  They are only concerned with ensuring those other players aren't disrupting their own enjoyment.  THAT is selfish behavior with a capital "S".


And contrary to suggestions that have been made that "people don't really play like that"...phooey.  I find that next to pure unadulterated pawn stance gamism, it is the most common behavior in roleplaying.  It is in my mind one of the key reasons why gaming is still a fringe hobby; because 1) the indoctrination process results in alot of unsatisfied new participants who leave rather than abide by it, 2) and alot of "inadvertant" types who leave as soon as they find some other outlet for adult socialization that doesn't require having to put up with the nonsense, and 3) alot of "naive" types who finally get disillusioned with banging ineffectively on the typewriter and seek other outlets (like writing) for their creativity.



So yes.  I stand firm behind my assessment of Immersion as a wonderful technique when used in moderation and Deep Immersion as a selfish technique whose perpetuation has done horrendous damage to this hobby both internally and with our ability to grow.  And I find the arguements above to be entirely independent of CA.

[TonyLB]

Really?  Because I can't understand how your arguments even apply once you've stepped out of a Narrative creative agenda.

All your arguments seem to emerge from a desire to tell a good story.  I totally see why that would be important in a Narrativist game, but I don't understand why you think it applies to Gamist and Simulationist play.  

Let's posit a group of players, all in Deep Immersion play, with a conscious, shared Simulationist agenda.  What they enjoy, what they want, is to experience a common world of imagination through the vehicle of the game.

Suppose they don't tell any story that makes the least little lick of sense or reveals anything about the human condition.  But at the end of the session they've all felt, thought and practically tasted what it is like to be their characters and to live in the game setting.

If that's what they wanted, why should it matter that the story wasn't any good?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Tony,

Remember that "story" may be created through any Creative Agenda. It is not the exclusive province of Narrativism.

Best,
Ron

[neelk]

Hi Ralph,

Thanks for the cogent summary of your position. I've wanted to get in on this argument for some time, but haven't been able to find a good entry point until now. I think you are attaching too much significance to the importance of the characters' actions on the overall fun of the game. In my experience, games can often survive and even prosper despite spectacularly-bad stories because of the strength of the identification between the players and their characters. What this identification-effect gives you, as a designer, is an awful lot of leeway in game designs. You can do things that are a mixture of fun and tedium, and use the character-identification effect as a way of ameliorating the tedium.

For example, I ran a game called Aquinan angels, in which the point was to get into a mental state that approximated St. Aquinas's theories on angelic and demonic nature. He thought that angels were given, at the moment of their creation, a complete vision of the future of the universe and that they chose to fall or stay faithful to God in that instant. Afterwards, free will is meaningless to an angel or demon, because it already knows everything that will happen and has made its choice -- there's simply not any new information that can cause it to change its mind. So, I ran the game in two sessions. In the first session, we players worked out the PCs, the NPCs, and everything that would happen in the second session. In the second session, we played it out, using the assumption that all of the PCs knew everything we had decided upon in the first session. As I understand you, there wasn't anything to do in the second session except for character identification play -- ie, immersion.

I'm not 100% sure whether you would call this deep immersion or not. I think it qualifies, because no one had any obligation to do any non-character stuff during play. We all talked about what happened and how we responded emotionally afterwards, but not at all during the actual play. This leads to my second criticism: at the game table, during play, is not the only time in which the players are active, and it's easy and productive to re-arrange the duties of the game to move the necessary meta stuff into or out of the play session. An informal rule like "worlbuilding and scenario design on the email mailing list, the actual action in play, and analysis and commentary during the post-game dinner" can work well.

========================
This is unrelated to the main subject of the discussion, hence the separate section:

Well, as I've said repeatedly, that is the only time when such play is functional. But consider. If this were commonly the case among such groups, (having everyone at the table enjoy this sort of play), why do deep immersionists fight so hard to encourage it?

I think that the use of rhetorical devices like this one is weakenening the force of your argument. First, it's an imputation of bad faith. Second, since it works perfectly well with a search-and-replace for any mode of play that anyone advocates, you create the impression that you don't have any genuinely convincing arguments at hand. I think a lot of the pushback you are facing is because of your choice of words rather than the content of your argument.

[TonyLB]

Ron:  I've used the word "Story" in a very fuzzy way.  I apologize.

Is there a more precise Forge-definition of it that I could use?  This would probably both help smooth communication and help me know what I'm talking about.  Or is it an undefined term, best avoided in favor of better understood words?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Tony,

No apologies necessary. My point is that Ralph is talking about "story stuff," yes, but that doesn't limit his points to Narrativist play. I think his points apply to any sort of role-playing in which "story-stuff" is a big deal.

As for what that is, check out the section about Sir Gerrik and what's-her-name in the Narrativism essay. That section tries to illustrate that "story" is internally defined, in terms of the fictional content, not at all by whatever procedures or desires were employed in producing it.

Best,
Ron

[TonyLB]

Ah... I think I see (after a closer, or rather N+1-th reading of the relevant essay).  All of the creative agendas are telling stories.  I mis-stated myself when I claimed that Ralphs concern was Narrativist simply because he was interested in telling stories.

However, at the same time, Ralph seems to be arguing that a story cannot arise from the exploration of the common dream without a conscious effort to create story (presumably above and beyond the effort of exploration).

Which almost begs the question of what he thinks about stories that are driven by commonly accepted genre tropes that are built into the motivations of the characters.  So, the question having been begged...

Hey, Ralph, if a player creates a character with the intent of having their motives align with genre tropes, but then (after character creation) plays exclusively through those motives... are they Deep Immersionist by your definition?

[greyorm]

I agree with Ralph's position strongly. I think the main point of focus in his statements should be "metagame" rather than "story" (which appears to be mucking up the works with multiple meanings and confounding with Narrativism).

What is being said is that "Deep Immersion" ie: "being the character" is simply not as possible as its advocates would like to proclaim, nor that metagame is the enemy to be avoided at all costs (or that it even CAN be avoided, for that matter).

The simple truth is that at any given moment, whether you realize it or not, part of your brain is working away on the fact that this is a game and you are playing a character with a group of friends or acquaintances, who are also not who they are pretending to be. There's no possible way around this, because the fact is you aren't your character, you know you're playing a game, and those concerns will express themselves in your judgement patterns in play. Hence, while you may be "playing your character" you can not "be your character" in any real sense.

Because of these mental processes going on in the background, and their effects upon your judgements, ultimately, you may decide something is "in character" but that's the point: no one ever thinks in real life, "Is that in character for me?" or even processes that sort of statement or idea subconsciously, because we aren't characters to ourselves, we're "us" and we just behave as "me."

If we do something we don't think fits with our percieved personality or previous decisions, we'll say to ourselves, "That was stupid of me" rather than "Gee, that was out of character for this persona." Nor will thoughts of a GM and the other participants judging the "goof" in our theatrical aerobics accompany such a self-judgement.

Despite comparisons that can be made which I will admit to, the most important difference is deeper than even the level of self-judgement: identity. We do not seperate the "I" of ourselves from ourselves when we do the above, whereas with a character we seperate the fictional self from the real self portraying that self, and our behavior in play reflects on us as a person rather than the character as a person ("Boy, Bradd goofed up playing Thorvald tonight" vs. "Boy, Thorvald goofed up playing himself tonight"). That is, simply, no one thinks they are portraying themselves in real life.

To return to the subject of games, oftentimes tracing the thought-path you took to get to your decision during a game, no matter how immersed you are, will reveal all sorts of "metagame" thoughts -- "Would I say this? Should I reveal this now? I'll just let Bob say his stuff first." etc. for reasons other than "It's what my character would do." And note, I'm using "I" because that's exactly how we think as gamers -- "Should I, the player of this character, reveal this part of my character now?"

So, when the Deep Immersionist says, "You have to be your character and metagame is a filthy abomination**" they're deluding themselves: metagame decisions happen regardless of your desires to "be the character." The simple fact that you as a player know it's a game "taints" the "pure" experience proselytized by the Deep Immersion argument.

** BTW, that is a directly quoted adjective from an advocate of Deep Immersionism who resides on a different game design list; not every DI believer is so cognizant of their preference or attempts, most are just well-trained by tradition.

In fact, for most gamers, Immersion isn't really about "being the character" but trying to ignore the metagame in one's character decisions -- which equates to "being the character" functionally, through discarding all irrelevant non-character knowledge, data, and reactions. It is possible to play Deep Immersionist Pawn stance (the question being "What would this character do?"), which is functionally (and perceptually) no different from Deep Immersionist Actor stance (the question being "How can I behave most like this character?").

Now, Ralph is not saying that gamers shouldn't or can't play their character, only that pursuit of the "pure form" thereof is a wumpus hunt, that gamers need to realize that the fact it is a game is inescapable, and embrace that fact, rather than reject it or try to find ways around it in an attempt to please the wumpus.

And if you say, "Yeah but...[excuse]" you're fooling yourself, because nobody can do it. Nobody. Not even million-dollar actors who stay "in character" for shoots. Even they are influenced by the fact that they know 1) this is a persona, 2) this is a movie. To cross the line is to blur the distinction between reality and fantasy.

Hence, there is one way around this problem of the metagame: you can brainwash yourself so thoroughly that you actually believe you are the character -- really, truly are the character, truly and deeply immerse into the character and actually think as them (not just "like" them) -- but note that's called "mental illness" and I doubt anyone is so committed to gaming that they would put themselves in the psych ward just to achieve this.

However, I note that in many cases of Deep Immersionist texts and arguments, this unintentionally ends up being the only possible 100% successful method of avoiding any hint of the "blasphemy" of metagame, because the wumpus cannot be fully satisfied or caught any other way.

Unless you really are your character (and thus insane), metagame thinking cannot be avoided, only minimalized, and you can always be accused of it, whether you are or not. The only rational response to this is to accept that the wumpus hunt cannot be concluded successfully, the wumpus cannot be caught, because it doesn't exist, and deal with the problem as it stands: Since metagame cannot be avoided, it has to be worked with.

Its proponents might not put it that way, might even ignore the fact that this is the logical conclusion of the only real solution to their arguments, but that's where it ends up.

The Deep Immersionist argument (or I should say "tradition") ignores the fact that there's a cliff to the east -- that you can't just "go east" without going off the deep end. The mature view is to accept that there's a cliff (it's a game, and you can't escape that fact), and work with it, rather than ignore it and pretend it isn't there, even though everyone knows it is and no one (even hard core DI believers) will jump. The point is that they still push for moving east, try to continue east, despite the damn cliff.

Imagine:
"To get there you need to keep going east."
"But there's a cliff to the east."
"Just keep going east."
"Do I climb down the cliff?"
"Just keep going east!"
"What about the cliff?"
"GO EAST!"
"Cliff?"
"Lalalalala...I don't hear you! Just go east!"

Now, don't get hung up on imagery: the "cliff" is a fact (that this is a game), beyond which one would have to be insane to go, "beyond the cliff" is "being the character" without external reference to the reality of the situation (that it is a game or movie).

Obviously, no one ever walks over the cliff, no one is deluded enough, even advocates of Deep Immersion recognize it is there, though they refuse to verbalize it, and thus they still push everyone to the cliff with their arguments and proclaim they have to keep going even though there's nowhere to go. They're trying to ignore the cliff rather than work with the fact that a cliff exists.

For example, no one answers a call from their wife during a game with "I don't know who you are! How did you get this number?" Especially if it's to say that their child is in the hospital. No, they cruise, right then -- outside reality intrudes.

Same situation if a person is playing a heartless character who comes across a situation familiar to and disturbing to the player. The player's own mental state and reactions will influence the portrayal of the character -- in fact, there are many places that people will not go with characters, even in service to Deep Immersion, because those places are too real to the player.

All this speaks to Neel's Aquinian Angels game: Metagame did influence play! The fact that it was all set-up beforehand definitely influenced the portrayal of characters in the game. I'd put money on players going through a thought process during play that boiled down would be expressed as, "Knowing what I know about the construction of this game, its goals and limits, what should I have my character do NOW?"

Metagame inescapably influences your decisions.
The choice now is how to make that work for you as a group, given your goals of play, and to stop treating "ignoring the metagame" as a quest to be embraced or even attempted, because of its foolhardy nature.

Now, it also seems to me a lot of the Finnish and Nordic LARPing manifestos are centered around the Deep Immersion idea.

In fact, I put forth that they aren't talking about RPing at all, but their drive is towards change to a pretty standard, traditional (improv) theater method and goals (Dogma '99 comes to mind immediately as the poster child for this "so, shouldn't we just join a theater group instead?" or "let's do theater, but not call it theater!" direction). Though, in all honesty, it isn't theater. It isn't even remotely as mature a form of expression as theater. It's reinventing theater all over from the ground up, ignoring audience and theme in pursuit of "experience" and "escape...but with rules."

And what it usually boils down to, why I call it immature in development, is that not only is it delusional as to the nature of the activity, but it's another wumpus hunt. "Just be your character and don't worry about anyone else" is like telling a pre-amputee not to think about the pain of the removal, that the pain doesn't exist, or can be ignored away. Bull-honkey, it's going to hurt. The pain will exist. It's how you deal with that pain that's going to matter -- and "ignoring it" isn't going to be an option because that won't make the pain go away or help you really deal with it.

"This is going to hurt. Have a shot of this. Clench your teeth on this. Think about something else to distract yourself. That will help blunt the pain," is actually useful advice, and realistic.

So, as I said above, metagame -- and especially even social/life concerns of the actual player -- intrudes inescapably. Embrace it, use it, refine it to produce better player and enhance Immersion with new techniques that take it into account, rather than simply trying to "ignore" it as tradition would have, and proclaims is not only possible, but the goal.

[TonyLB]

So let me check that I understand.  You (Grey) feel that what Ralph is saying is that Deep Immersion itself is impossible, but that the belief in it is pernicious.  Yes?

[greyorm]

That's a good summation of my overall position, yes.

[Halzebier]

What is being said is that "Deep Immersion" ie: "being the character" is simply not as possible as its advocates would like to proclaim, nor that metagame is the enemy to be avoided at all costs (or that it even CAN be avoided, for that matter).

[...]

Now, Ralph is not saying that gamers shouldn't or can't play their character, only that pursuit of the "pure form" thereof is a wumpus hunt, that gamers need to realize that the fact it is a game is inescapable, and embrace that fact, rather than reject it or try to find ways around it in an attempt to please the wumpus.

The key is, perhaps, the process of hunting the wumpus (i.e. reducing metagame *as far as possible* and ever pushing onwards), not actually bringing it down (i.e., purging all metagame from the game).

I agree that some people out there may think they can actually bring it down. This would indeed be a delusion and possibly damaging to the game (insofar as it is an unrealistic goal).

Would you call someone who knows the goal cannot be attained, but still tries to be a good wumpus hunter a deep immersionist?

(Or would that be an immersionist who pursues an ineffective course of action and has closed his mind to other techniques?)

Regards,

Hal

[greyorm]

Here's the problem:
Metagame is unavoidable.
The best wumpus hunters try to do it anyways.

That's like spending your life trying to learn how to fly like Superman when you know it's impossible. No matter how many times you jump off your roof, you aren't going to miss the ground...but you do it anyways. What's the point?

A realistic goal that can actually be attained should be the focus of the texts, not an unrealistic goal that cannot be attained. DI texts state something to the effect of the greatness of seperation of character and game, and the greater the seperation, the better. At no point is it ever said that it's "OK" to have metagame influences, as the text treats them as the enemy to be avoided.

They can't be avoided, and when they're run into, they cause problems for the players attempting to avoid them. Complex rules are thereafter writ for avoiding the unavoidable (either merely delaying the inevitable, or tangling up normal game processes so much that it becomes even more central to the players worrying about avoiding it), rather than rules that take into account running into them.

Current texts read more like the following:
"Here's how to avoid the enemy."
"What happens when we encounter them?"
"Here's more rules to help you avoid them."
"Yes, but what happens when..."

If the goal is unattainable, why is it the goal? Shouldn't the goal be a more realistic one, rather than a fanciful (and impossible) ideal? Wouldn't it be more productive to have a realistic goal that really can be attained and really can be supported by rules and behaviors?

[TonyLB]

I don't know that "fanciful" and "impossible ideal" are quite the terms I'd bring to the table.  I get more mental mileage out of the distinction between bounded and unbounded goals.  

A bounded goal is something that you are meant to reach.  You intend to derive satisfaction from the end product of having reached it.  If you don't reach it then your efforts were wasted.

An unbounded goal is something that you don't really care whether you reach.  You intend to derive satisfaction from the process of striving toward it.  If you reach it then you can either find another activity or find another, more distant, goal to continue the satisfying process.

I think it is natural that if one pursues an unbounded goal believing that it is bounded, one is likely to be dissatisfied.  Nobody seems inclined to argue that point :-)

Grey, are you confused about why people would consciously pursue an unbounded goal?  Or are you referring to something else?

[clehrich]

There's kind of a lot of different points flying around here, and it seems to me that some of them are being taken rather too far.  In particular, I'm rather surprised about this argument that unattainable ideals are worthless, which put that way seems like a cynic's approach -- something I do not associate with Rev. Daegmorgan.  I also think the connection being drawn to what theater is or is not is extremely dubious: one only has to read people like Grotowski and Artaud to see that unattainable ideals and radical separations among entities and whatnot are or can be very much part of theater.  So what's at stake here?

1. Absolute immersion is impossible
Yes, this seems to me accurate.  Barring some sort of trance-state, something I have never seen proposed on any side of this debate, pure immersion is quite impossible.  And certainly if you really wanted to achieve it, you would have to discard physical barriers such as dice, tables, pencils, rulebooks, and whatnot.  If theater folks have learned one thing about "immersion", it's that it is not a simply mental thing, but one dependent upon both physical and mental cues (at the least).

2. Metagame is unavoidable
This seems a necessary corollary.  That doesn't necessarily mean we have to celebrate it, however.

3. Why bother trying to achieve absolute immersion without metagame?
This does not follow at all.  Just because one cannot achieve the goal does not make it an unworthy ideal.  It's like being in favor of world peace, and actually putting money and time on the line for it.  Sure, you know there will never be world peace, but does that mean what you're doing is worthless or silly?  This is an exaggerated argument.  

4. Immersion is not necessarily a value
This is the value of argument #3, recast.  If absolute immersion without metagame is practically impossible, that does not make it worthless as a goal.  On the other hand it does not ipso facto make it a worthy goal: unlike world peace, which I think few people are deeply against, this immersionist ideal is not an ideal for everyone, and nothing in its formulation entails that it must be so.  To paraphrase Oscar Wilde (I forget where), "The fact that a man dies for a cause does not make it worth dying for."

5. Immersionists fight hard for their ideal
Here Neel and Ralph are at cross-purposes, and I think they're both right.  On the one hand, as Neel points out, there is no reason they should not fight for it.  To suggest that they do so because they never achieve their bounded goals (limited immersion) is to impute bad faith, which doesn't seem called-for here.  But on the other hand, Ralph has a point: if immersion were as "normal" or "natural" or "usual" as immersionists like to claim, and if indeed it were as achievable as they often claim, there would be no need to advocate for it so strenuously.  There must be some threat, some inability, some lack that they struggle against here.  That may not be within their own play -- they may feel they have achieved total immersion and indeed usually do -- but there must be some sense in which they are defending "real gaming" from a perceived threat of anti-immersion or whatever.  Why?  Ralph I think reads this right: because immersion isn't particularly common, either as a method or an ideal, so by fighting for it as "normal" and deriding all else as "abomination" (to quote a previous poster) they claim that actually it is common and that others are simply bad gamers not to notice this.

So I don't see us all particularly at cross-purposes.  What remains, to my mind, is a pitch for immersion as a legitimate unbounded goal, as well as some discussion of its implicit bounded goals.