Forget Immersion: Sympathy vs Empathy

[Jack Spencer Jr]

I was going to put this in the Deep Immesion thread, but I decided it branches off enough to be it's own thread.

Personally, I think immersion and the way we and other typically discuss it is just so much oat bran. Or, at least, I have a slightly different perspective and terminology on the matter and will share it now.

My source is Story by Robert McKee again. This book is about storytelling in general and scriptwriting in particular. He makes a distinction between sympathy and empathy that the audience has for a character.

Sypathetic, he writes, means likable. He list names of big movie stars whom millions of people find likable enough to command salaries in the millions of dollars. We like the. We want them as friends, or lovers, or family members. In fact, I would say that with sympathy, we already feel as if they are.

Empathetic means the audience recognizes a deeper shared humanity. THe audience thinks: "This guy is like me and so, I hope he gets what he wants because if I were him, and I can easily see myself in a similar situation, I would want to get what I want."

That's all well and good for film, but what of RPGs?

The audience to character relationship is a little different since each player, typically, has their own character that they are expected to empathizes with. Not that they cannot empathize with other player's characters or NPCs, but this character they must have a strong bond with.

I put forth that many sympathise with their own characters, but do not empathise with them. The sympathy comes from simply being that characters player. as in "I rolled him up. I decided he should be a mage and not an elf. He's my character."

This bond isn't strong enough to support much more than Pawn stance, I would think. But if that's the point of the game, then fine.

When people talk about immersion, I think they're refering to empathizing with their character, to recognize a like humanity (even in non-human characters) and this creates a strong bond between the player and character because the player has a vested interest in what happens to this character.

Obviously, empathy has little or nothing to do with metagame or other mechanical considerations whatsoever. Whether you roll 2d6 or 10d10 and look up the results on a chart is neither here nor there when it comes to empathy. If the player does not empathize with the character, then a "lite" system, like say, Vampire is not going to help. On the other hand, if the player does empathise with their character, a complex system likeRolemaster, Powers and Perils, or even F.A.T.A.L. is not going to effect that much, or even at all.

Immersion, seems to me, to be attempting as much to treat the character in the first person, to remove as much system-based distraction to achieve empathy. While working with the character from the first person is a technique that is in the RPG toolbox, those who stress it as a technique that will create empathy are mistaken. While it may create empathy, it does not any more than any other technique since one can achieve empathy in a game like Universalis where it isn't only "your" character. The distractions from immersion don't effect empathy at all, really. The human brain can do more than one thing at a time.

I dabble in fiction writing. I once wrote a story where I achieve a rather strong bond of empathy with the main character. I had posted about it here, if you care to dig, it doesn't matter though*. My phrasing was I was totally inside the head of this character. But, I was still the author of a story and I was doing some mighty mean things to her as such. I was both the player and GM, as it were, performing two jobs at the same time. People can do that. That's sort of what it means to write fiction, actually.

Now, how this applies completly to RPGs I am not certain. I suspect multiple ways. Empathy is a story concern, and story is across all of the GNS agendas. Whether or not is is necessary to a particular game will probably vary. How to get players to empathise with their characters will also vary.But what it does do is create a strong bond between character and player and interest in the player to see what happens to the character.


*Actually, if you find that post you'll see a self-professed Simulationist change to Narrativism just like that. The story itself, BTW, is crap. Ask James West. He read it. But in the heat of composition, it seemed a lot better. But that's another topic entirely.

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi Jack,

I don't buy it.  (Or I don't understand it yet.)

From your analogy from films and audiences, it's clear people can empathise with character wihtout benig immersed in a character.  So, right off the bat.. No.  There's no direct corrolation between empathy and immersion.

In the context of role playing games there's no need to think that one can't be empathetic to a character even if you're speaking of them in third person.

Immersion is a technqiue -- how information is revealed about a character to others, and how tightly a player wants to stick to a singular POV when "experiencing" the POV.

Empathy is fine and helpful in immerision and in third person description.  But immerision in no way "helps" empathy.  Otherwise, authors couldn't write about characters they're empahtisizing with, audiences couldn't empahtise with characters they're watching at the movies.

Christopher

[Jack Spencer Jr]

From your analogy from films and audiences, it's clear people can empathise with character wihtout benig immersed in a character.  So, right off the bat.. No.  There's no direct corrolation between empathy and immersion.

I think there is. When I find myself empathising with a character, whether on screen, in a novel or at the RPG table, I react to the "Like me" I talk about above and I start to experience what goes on as if I was this character. I don't think my experience are unique or rare, although many do not reflect on it.

I think that empathy is emotional immersion, if it may be called such. Mostly what has been talked about with immersion are the POV technique you had mentioned, which does have a place on the palate, but empathy is an emoptional immersion into the character.

So I guess you are right, the techincal immersin of POV, mechanics, information, etc. has little to do with the emotional immersion of empathy and thinking that doing the first will automatically give you the second is incorrect.

[Ian Charvill]

Empathy and sympathy are an interesting case because their meanings are in the process of a polar shift.  Historically, the meanings is closer to the following (from the wonderfully named Garbl's Editorial Style Manual)

empathy, sympathy Sometimes confused. Use empathy to describe personal understanding of another person's feelings, problem or situation. Use sympathy to describe support and compassion for another person's feelings, problem or situation.

The modern turnaround meaning drawn from - the irony - Medworld Medical Transcription's list of common English errors:

If you think you feel just like another person, you are feeling empathy. If you just feel sorry for another person, you're feeling sympathy.

Because, like, a Sympathetic Pregnancy is just when you feel sorry for a pregnant person.

And remember, sympathetic magic is magic effected by feeling pity.  

Those two phrases, those two sympathies, are like archaeological relics of language use.

The current confusion over their meanings can be well illustrated here (compare and contrast):

Empathy is entering into another's feelings. Sympathy is having a feeling together with someone.

Sympathy is when you feel bad for someone else. Empathy is when you feel bad with someone else.

Notice how Sympathy from the first quote is given exact the same meaning - the exact same - as Empathy in the second quote.  They are both having a feeling with someone else.

And both definitions are from the same web page from a section entitled: "What is the difference between sympathy and empathy?"

My perspective on the matter is that these are words in flux and if you use them a part of your audience is going to think you mean the opposite of what you do.  Traditionally, immersion would require both sympathy (feeling with the imaginary character) and would probably produce empathy (understanding of the imaginary character's feelings).

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Point taken, Ian. However, the meaning of words are always in flux. Even words that seem fairly stable. They're sort of like domant volcanoes. Stabile for hundreds of years and then ...BOOM!

but the shifting of the tectonic plate of language aren't really relevant for this discussion. I have noted the definition of these word above and this is what I shall continue to use. I don't see how it is any more or less problematic than the terms in GNS. But the important issue is the phenomenom being discuss, not the terminology choice. I'm not worry about my audience thinking I mean the opposite because I have no audince. None that fails to read the first post where the meaning I am using are clairified, at any rate.

[Jason Lee]

From your analogy from films and audiences, it's clear people can empathize with character without being immersed in a character.  So, right off the bat.. No.  There's no direct correlation between empathy and immersion.

In the context of role playing games there's no need to think that one can't be empathetic to a character even if you're speaking of them in third person.

Immersion is a technique -- how information is revealed about a character to others, and how tightly a player wants to stick to a singular POV when "experiencing" the POV.

Empathy is fine and helpful in immersion and in third person description.  But immersion in no way "helps" empathy.  Otherwise, authors couldn't write about characters they're empathizing with, audiences couldn't empathize with characters they're watching at the movies.

I've seen a couple definitions of Immersion in use on The Forge.

1.  The sensation of being another person or being in another place.  This often includes a requirement of Actor stance and removal of metagame concerns.

2.  Identifying with the character.  Having a personal emotional response to the situation of the character.  Empathizing as Jack has defined it.  This  can be done in any stance, except Pawn I would imagine, and metagame influence is also valid.

There may be more definitions I've left out.

It depends which definition of Immersion you are talking about.  I think this has already been covered by Jack here:

So I guess you are right, the technical immersion of POV, mechanics, information, etc. has little to do with the emotional immersion of empathy and thinking that doing the first will automatically give you the second is incorrect.

I just wanted to clarify.

Sypathetic, he writes, means likable. He list names of big movie stars whom millions of people find likable enough to command salaries in the millions of dollars. We like the. We want them as friends, or lovers, or family members. In fact, I would say that with sympathy, we already feel as if they are.

Empathetic means the audience recognizes a deeper shared humanity. THe audience thinks: "This guy is like me and so, I hope he gets what he wants because if I were him, and I can easily see myself in a similar situation, I would want to get what I want."

I only have a couple nits to pick, in what I think is pretty solid theory.

I think there is a certain amount of Sympathy that is always involved.  I think you find escapism there, characters that reflect things a player admires, and some plain old fantasy (interpret fantasy how you like).  I think Sympathy and Empathy turn into a big fuzzy ball with the issue of wanting to be the character.  Movies are full of pretty people because that's what people want to be around, but I think it's also because that's what people want to be.  I'm not sure where I'm going with this, it's an unfinished thought.

I think the definition of Empathy might be worded a little narrow.  "I can understand how this person feels, and if I was coming from where he was, and put in his shoes, I would feel the same." would be more agreeable phrasing to me.  Anyway, I'm not sure if you meant it quite as narrow as it sounded.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Hi, Jason.

I would imagine that there is some sympathy involved with empathy. I'm not sure how important that is outside of a mistake often made in film that sympathy = empathy, when it isn't. We may like the character on the screen, we may not, but if your recognize something of ourselves in the character, we're likely to be hooked.  But, Hollywood continues to mistake sympathy for empathy so we get pretty, pretty people playing flat, flat characters who don't engage us as they should. I think it might be like a ven diagram where empathy is inside a sympathy box, but I don't think it's that structured. It's possible to empathize with characters we don't like and/or think are unsavory. McKee notes that the audience empathized with the villian of Blade Runner instead of the protagonist, which is why that film is a cult classic instead of a block buster. Most of the world empathized with Hannibal Lector. There was something about the doctor that made millions overlook his cannibalism and insanity.

McKee had basically boiled down his definition of empathy to "like me" with the quotes indicating the audience thinking this about the character. The getting what they want bit comes from the chapter dealing mostly with empathizing with the protagonist, which the audience *must do* or the film will flounder (see the comment on Blade Runner above) .

There's a whole bunch of stuff involved with this, which I don't think is relavent to the conversation here. But focusing on the protagonist may be why my definition above sounded a little narrow.

[Emily Care]

Hi Jack,

So:

sympathy=feeling about your character
empathy=feeling as your character

technical immersion=using ephemera like 1st person POV, firewalling, assuming actor stance in general.  Need not involve empathy, though it may. Generally is at the level of sympathy.

emotional immersion=empathy, includes both definitions 1 & 2 that Jason listed (sensation of being another person, identifying with that person.)

OK, but:

Immersion, seems to me, to be attempting as much to treat the character in the first person, to remove as much system-based distraction to achieve empathy. While working with the character from the first person is a technique that is in the RPG toolbox, those who stress it as a technique that will create empathy are mistaken. While it may create empathy, it does not any more than any other technique since one can achieve empathy in a game like Universalis where it isn't only "your" character. The distractions from immersion don't effect empathy at all, really. The human brain can do more than one thing at a time.

I'm assuming you mean what I"m calling "technical immersion" by Immersion in the above paragraph.  

Are you saying that it is common for people to mistake the conditions of technical immersion for deep emotional experience and engagement as a character, ie empathy? If so, I do challenge the notion that techniques employed are independent of this state.  They certainly do not guarantee it, but for many people they do stand in the way. Or rather, for some folks, what they experience as "immersion" is shaken by certain mechanical techniques.  It is most assuredly possible for the human brain to handle rolling dice and feeling deeply as someone else at the same time, but it sure isn't easy for every brain to do.

Does that fit with your thinking?

Yrs,
Emily

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi Emily,

I don't know what Jack's take is going to be, but this I buy.

And from this I see where Ralph's gone all Cotton Mather about the "selfishness" of imerssive play.  (And before any of you decide to jump all over me on which side I'm on (you don't know), hear me out.)

When first read the Immerssive thread Jack reference, I immediately thought of Expresionist Art.  (Cause I'm that kind of guy.)  The logic of abstract art is that artist is communicating his "feelings" directly to the canvass.  But he's not worried about communicating, using the cues, symbols and whatnot that have been built up over painterly centuries.

It is the painter version of the player who sits there "feeling" something, but not really concerning himself with communicating what he's feeling, what he's doing in many ways, to anyone else at the table.  The Expressionist says, "Come join me in deeling with my Expression of my feelings, but I'm not going to help you one whit as to understanding what the hell I was feeling."

Non-immersive techniques, such as author and director stance, pull the player away from Emily's important notion of emotional immersion.  Because there *is* an appeal to it for a lot of people -- and not just Ralph's selfish gamers.  Some acting techniques, some painters (as noted), some poets and so on.  And some of these people are celebrated artists.  And many of these same artists are thought of selfish by other artists and critics.

Ralph (and Ron I think, and others), probably aren't very patient with the player who wants to sit there "feeling" something.

Yes, it isn't very communactive.  Yes, in many ways, it is technically selfish.  But... Who am I to say sitting there feeling something is *wrong.*  (The word "evil" may have been invoked lately on a nearby thread -- but I hoped I only dreamed that.)

So... Immersion, specificlally Deep Immersion for the purpose of "emotional immersion" makes perfect sense to me.  There's no way to get it, really, by jumping in and out of the moment.

Actors on a stage or set, of course, have entire armies of people handing all else required to make them look great so they can essentially focus only on what's happening in the moment.  Yes, they're communicating great art -- but only a fool would think actors only do this nonsense for that.  There a great deal of goddam fun to fly in the face of reality and feel and do so many things you'd never feel and do otherwise.  The bizarre connection to that is simply a pleasure that some people are touched by, and others are not.

A group of people gather a little group, set aside some sacred space and time, and essentially do a bizarre little craetive meditation.  All right, then.

Word up,

Christopher

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Somewhat, Emily

Basically it's

Sympathy = liking the character
Empathy = the character is like me.

I'm not sure how to better express it other than what I have done already. But a joke comes to mind that illustrates:

A man and a woman are watching a boxing match when one of the fighters gets hit below the belt. The woman says "I bet that hurt." The man doubles over and actually feels the pain.

This is a crude example that probably shows the degree of difference between sympathy and empathy than give good examples of either.

You had outline "technical immersion" fairly well but I would like to stress that technical immersion need not include either empathy or sympathy. It is a collection of techniques (or ephemera if you prefer) whereas sympathy and empathy have to do with what the player feels about the character. Different arena, I think.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on the point of the human brain can do more than one thing, especially those that insist on technical immersion. Let me explain my case this way: Storytelling is an art that has been going on for thousands of years from oral storytellers, print, stage, and  film & television. In all thouse years, million, perhapse billions or even trilions of people have engaged in the story ritual and I daresay nearly all of them (if not simply all of them) have had at least one experience of empathy with a character in a story, if not several and few, if any of the stories experienced use the technical immersion ephemera. Based on this, I am going to suggest that empathy is in no way related to techinal immersion ephemera at all. Some people perfer this in play, but that's a play preference and unrelated to this topic. Some think they *need* to use such method. I would say the evidence is a little overwhelming against. If you allow the immersive experience of literature, theatre, flim, et al.

Again, I want to stress that items in technical immersion are, of course, valid for creating a particular effect should one wish to create it, but the effect will not be necessarily empathy.


Christopher,

Actually, I would say that sitting there just feeling is pretty selfish. The feeling is a tool to build subtext in the player's performance. Like that scene in Citizen Kane shortly after he meets his future second wife. She talked about her mother getting her singing lessons and then says "Well, you know how mothers are." The original script had several lines of dialog for Kane about how well he knew mothers were. Wells shortened it to a single word "yes..."and a facial expression which conveyed exactly what he was feeling to the audience. That is, I should hope no one simply sits there feeling but that the feeling is expressed in the character's behavior as directed by the player. To simply sit there feeling without showing anything is like an artist painting those expressive paintings and keeping them in his attic under a sheet and never showing them to anyone IMO.

This thread is starting to lose focus a bit. Let's recap:

[*]Sympathy = liking the character
[*]Empathy = the character is like me (I am regretting the phrase "emotional immersion" and will stop using it)
[*]Technical immersion = using ephemera like 1st person POV, firewalling, assuming actor stance in general. (I would call this just immersion, but I'm hesitant at this time)
[*]Technical immersion guarentees neither empathy nor sympathy
[/list:u]
I would say the points Christopher raised are tangically related and should probably go in its own thread in that thread is to be pursued.

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi Jack,

You wrote: "To simply sit there feeling without showing anything is like an artist painting those expressive paintings and keeping them in his attic under a sheet and never showing them to anyone IMO."

Well, no.  At least, I disagree fully.  It would be like someone not gathering with his friend's to do immersion, but doing it alone.  There is something communal going on, in the same way that Expressionistic Painting is there on the wall of  a gallery and you're on your own to look for any clues as to what it means at all.  Some folks will think Jackson's Pollacks' work is nonsense.  I can't truly say it makes sense -- but the times I've been allowed to sit in front of the actual work for, say, five to fifteen minutes, really lifted me.  In the same way, if a bunch of people immerse in characters for a while, feeding off each other in whatever weird-obscure-clue way they are, and end the sesssion glad they did it... I don't know.  Because, according to Expressionist theory, the artist isn't concerned with *me* when he's painting, just the act of "feeling" itseld.  In an RPG you'll have to do some handling of dice, making decisions, shufflingn of paper -- just like the expressionist painter handling his paint -- so there's some interaction. It's just that the "communication to others clearly" element isn't a priority.

But... I'm done on this at least.  No need for a new thread from me.

I now know clearly what's at stake for you here....  and if I'm not misreading them I agreed with them fully on my first post on this thread.  So... I'm done.

Christopher

[Jack Spencer Jr]

It would be like someone not gathering with his friend's to do immersion, but doing it alone.  There is something communal going on, in the same way that Expressionistic Painting is there on the wall of  a gallery and you're on your own to look for any clues as to what it means at all.

We seem to be talking past each other a bit there over what happens when someone "sits there feeling.". If there are any clue as per the subtext as I mention above (and probably didn't explain very well) then yes, there are clues to observe and decipher and the painting is very much on the wall. If there are no behavioral clues at all, then the painting is under a sheet.

But then, It's unlikely that anyone except for the most turtle-play-tactical person would show *nothing* so perhaps this is a straw man.

Take care, Christopher.

EDIT: OK, you added a bit while I was responding, so we are on the same page, then.

[Christopher Kubasik]

I am fucking sneaky that way.

[John Kim]

Storytelling is an art that has been going on for thousands of years from oral storytellers, print, stage, and  film & television. In all thouse years, million, perhapse billions or even trilions of people have engaged in the story ritual and I daresay nearly all of them (if not simply all of them) have had at least one experience of empathy with a character in a story, if not several and few, if any of the stories experienced use the technical immersion ephemera. Based on this, I am going to suggest that empathy is in no way related to techinal immersion ephemera at all.   Some people perfer this in play, but that's a play preference and unrelated to this topic.  

Well, I agree that they may not directly correspond, but I don't accept this argument.  Based on this logic, empathy is in no way related to any techniques involving pictures (moving or flat) -- because all those thousands of years of oral and textual storytelling did without it.  So in comics or film, all the work with images has nothing to do with empathy.  

But in practice, images can be used in ways to foster empathy.  Obviously just putting images in front of someone doesn't inherently foster empathy, but that is not to deny that images can be incredibly powerful tools in the generation of empathy.  I think that the same applies to immersion.  Technical immersion is not a technique which is available to non-interactive arts like novels and films.  I think it can be extremely powerful in the generation of empathy.  

I would say the evidence is a little overwhelming against. If you allow the immersive experience of literature, theatre, flim, et al.

Again, I want to stress that items in technical immersion are, of course, valid for creating a particular effect should one wish to create it, but the effect will not be necessarily empathy.  

Here I agree -- but I think it is a clash of terminology.  The term "immersion" is used for different phenomena.  Many people use it to mean what you originally called "emotional immersion" -- not coincidentally.  On the other hand, ephemera like talking in character do not necessarily lead to immersion.  There was good discussion in the http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=10931">Deep Immersion thread about the use of purely in-character speech in Puppetland.  This is a technical immersion technique, but in that thread we agreed it is not the same as encouraging emotional immersion.  

And yet while they are not the same, I think there definitely is a link between technical immersion and emotional immersion.  In my essay on http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/narrative/immersivestory.html">Immersive Story, I quote Lajos Egri who explains his recommended process for story creation:

The first step is to make your reader or viewer identify your character as someone he knows.  Step two -- if the author can make the audience imagine that what is happening can happen to him, the situation will be permeated with aroused emotion and the viewer will experience a sensation so great that he will feel not as a spectator but as the participant of an exciting drama before him.  

I think that step two is an uphill battle for theater and film, but a relatively easy one for role-playing.  Anyhow, I would call this "emotional immersion" which is directly related to "empathy".  And technical immersion can be a powerful tool for achieving this but certainly not the only one, and it can be used for other goals as well.

[Ian Charvill]

Deep immersion corresponds pretty strongly to method acting.  So there are some grounds to feel that if people used it effectively as a play style it would also produce an effective performance.  Now method actors are (a) a pain in the ass to direct (though that may say more about me as a director) and (b) capable of producing very affecting moments.

Now, in terms of likability people are capable for producing this through method/deep immersion techniques.  Furthermore, people who are good at it can also produce feelings of identification.  Now, this may be snobbery, but I doubt you'd see that level of talent too much at a gaming table.  Hence the role of kibbutzing in conveying character detail.   If you don't have the talent to improvise the lines while generating a performance sufficient to convey where you're at emotionally, then you're going to have to kibbutz.

It seems to me that unless you're willing to dismiss method acting you cannot dismiss immersion as a technique intended to produce either likability or indentification.

As an aside off only tactical players showing nothing - chances of someone "showing nothing" are slim to none outside of sociopathy.  The three most common bad acting faces among amateurs tend to be: over-exagerrated face, nervous face and trying-to-remember lines face.