Immersion

[Lux]

How important is immersion for you?

What breaks it and what helps it?
Do you have any tricks that restores it, if it breaks?
Are you mindful of others' immersion?

[Shad]

It is

Phone, crashes, (Stupid) deaths and people who only care for their plans and views break it. But the most immersion-breaking thing are mobs of people awaiting while DM prepare big event some hours after midnight, and most of these excited and in same time, tired people ignore most of others but a few, and themselves (whoever read this - its not about you. That kind of people would not bother).

I make more tea and try to relax, go afk in game and wonder how it could be if it was real, or in pnp. So to say RP a bit in my own head, than go and grind to make up for lost time lol.

Playing together is about give-and-take. I try to not come around other people if I'm in no mood of giving.

[Flasmix]

How important is immersion for you?

Not very. True immersion is impossible as there are issues which will not allow it. PvP consent, the multiple raisings, rarely seeing permanent changes to the server make it near impossible to RP mortality.

What breaks it and what helps it?

Break - Rarely any Permadeath, "Not much is known about your characters history..." (I'd prefer just a blank description opposed to the generic nwn2 one), Power builds vs RP builds, Grinding (No seriously, How many times can someone go "Vanquish the evil Gnolls/Goblins/Ogres/Hill Giants/Nagas"? The things must breed faster than rabbits.)
Helps - Campfire RP, interactions with other characters

Do you have any tricks that restores it, if it breaks?

I pretty much just Campfire RP on all of my characters and I avoid DM events like the plague, doubly so for the half the server large battle events and I ignore bad RPers.

Are you mindful of others' immersion?

Yes, I don't try and deter others from grinding or going to events. I don't tell them my true reason why I won't take part, I just decline. On Myhun I might say 'Oh I'm too old' or something.

[RagingPeace]

When people go OOC to discuss things that can be dealt with IC just fine.

[Rhifox]

How important is immersion for you?

Very. I find enjoyment in RP only when I'm immersed in it.

What breaks it and what helps it?

Breaks: Out of character talking in local chat where not essential. Mass exp grinding/loot farming. "Random" deaths + resurrections. Mass complicated DM events where huge numbers and time spent waiting on setup/combat cause it to feel like a slide show of tiny snippets of RP that is more interesting in its post-event writeup than during the event itself. Most combat-heavy events/interactions in general (as gameplay mechanics are often very unimmersive). Minmaxed builds done purely for power and without concern for the character concept being played (non-priestly clerics, bards who don't perform, pale masters without their undead qualities, blood mages who don't RP their blood magic, etc). Events where the player characters win, even when they do everything wrong. Events where people buff each other every time a skill check is called for, in order to make sure every roll is won (DM asks a character to roll. Queue said character, or another character next to them, casting GHeroism immediately). Out of character drama most of all.

Helps: Method acting, I often get up and act out bits of my RP RL and let myself channel the emotions my character is feeling in order to get more into the RP. Upholding OOC niceties and friendships with people, in order to encourage IC conflicts to stay IC only. Groups/dungeon running/events that are purely IC motivated (where the purpose of the dungeon/event is the RP first; any exp/treasure/rewards earned is just a byproduct and not essential). One-on-one or one-on-few DM events where care and attention is put on the actions, skills, and personalities of the individual characters. In character drama (conflict is the crux of storytelling. While the occasional session of campfire/couch RP is nice it is ultimately forgettable).

Do you have any tricks that restores it, if it breaks?

Only in trying to encourage people to focus on the RP, and to uphold IC-OOC separation. If that doesn't work then my typical response is to just break off from the RP, as I can no longer enjoy it when the immersion breaks.

Are you mindful of others' immersion?

Yes, in the sense that I will typically encourage people I am RPing with to do as their character would and to not worry about any OOC considerations (IE, don't worry about upsetting me RL with your character's actions, don't worry about OOC consent, etc). After any IC conflict I will typically send an OOC tell thanking the person for the RP and letting them know there are no hard feelings OOC, to try and insure that everyone's RP is kept 'in the moment' and IC only.

[Hawke]

Waiting 10 minutes for someone to respond to a statement. Then the response, and waiting another 10 minutes..

[Maecius]

Immersion takes second-place to narrative construction, for me, personally. I'd rather try to build a meaningful story with and for my character than try to "live their life," as it were.

They obviously go hand-in-hand in a lot of ways; but narrative construction requires a lot more OOC communication and coordination, both with friend and foe, than immersion-chasing (which really should have near-to-zero OOC back-and-forth).

That being said, immersion is important to a lot of roleplayers, and to the server experience we try to give those players. If people can think of simple things to improve the immersive qualities of the persistent world, without negatively impacting the play experience of other players (e.g., by forcing everyone to have to regularly, mechanically, eat and drink to survive), we're always happy to hear them out.

A lot of the things that are uncommon elsewhere, but integral to BGTSCC, like player placeables and the ability to rename and re-description items, were born of immersion-focused player requests.

[Lux]

What breaks it and what helps it?

Campfire RP breaks it, every single time, twelve times out of ten.

Logging off helps though.

Thanks for asking.

[V'rass]

Immersion is nice but its not really important to me personally. I have fun regardless if people are staying IC or going OOC. I try not to go OOC when around others except for the occasional joke or when the information i want to convey can only be given OOC however.

[ZabelSword]

The edge of my screen.

This is a glitchy game played on a PC, one has to recognize the inherent faults of that.

What I would like to see are some of the basic necessities someone would need to survive. I know we do not, and will not, require anyone to eat and drink to stay alive but it would be nice to see food in game when we decide we want to RP our humanity.

*edit*

I know it is easily RP'd to eat and drink, but it would be nice to see what different foods are offered in different cities at an inn, tavern or street vendor. Lots of fish at coastal communities, beef or cheese at inland communities, elk and wild game in remote communities, etc.

[Velaris]

Well, you can buy some fruits and veggies and such from Beregost, but they're more trail foods than something like a leg of roast mutton...mmm....

[Maecius]

I believe the biggest fault to immersion at the present time is IC to OOC feelings and people not taking things that would be normally be hated or shunned upon by their character into prospective.

If you a human and your sitting next to an orc you don't know at the campfire and having polite conversation . . . That's pushing it.

If your a druid of silvanus and your fighting alongside a cleric of Talos your pushing it.

If your a paladin and your walking around and doing business daily with characters of soubar or even characters of WELL KNOWN evil gods like bane and Auril even Murkul. . . Yeah. . . Your pushing it.

I see this all the time. People who aren't rping correctly towards what should be an inherent enemy or even with an inherent ally and treating them like an enemy because you want to fight alongside a friend you know OOC or your simply trying to "Flow with the Crowd."

Not calling anyone out on this but what i'm trying say is your Deities, Dogma's and culture should all play a part in your characters life and should inherently be followed up in your decisions unless some special circumstance.

When I.. use to play as a player.. I was usually deeply immersed.. Unless grinding.. But I rarely ever ran circles grinding.. And I pretend that each cave is a different cave somewhere in the same general area.. So.. I have cleared out many orc caves in sharpteeth in my lifetime. When RPing though, I am nearly glassy-eyed as my imagination completely takes over and I hardly see what it on the screen..

What breaks immersion for me, is when I feel the need to get too focused on lore.. Of what a "proper elf", "proper halfling", or "proper dwarf" might say instead of just having fun and being creative. Also.. Spelling breaks immersion.. When I have to alt tab to google search a word I am trying to spell or google search a word's meaning.. As I am not a native english speaker.. Google and spell check has been quite helpful over the years though.

What helps for me is.. Don't play an elf.. Too much is expected from you it seems.. Elven lore is very rich and I have been called out on so many mistakes when RPing elves that I nearly get an anxiety attack when I play an elf and am trying to RP with other elves..

Not saying I am one of those elves like.. "High five cousin! Yo, what's up?! I was gonna go down to Xvarts and kill some of those lil runts with my orc buddy here, care to tag along?.. No? All right your loss. See ya around!" But.. Still I get extremely nervous over the slightest misstep when trying to sound and act exactly as an "elf should".

To further explain.. I don't mind being a lore hound.. that is most of what I do as a DM and I quite enjoy it.. I just don't like feeling the need to do it mid RP.. Like my character should know things about Evermeet, Elven Court, and all of the Seldarine.. I can hardly spell english words.. I really have difficulty remembering the spelling of Seldarine names Much less recognizing them all instantly and remembering their role in elven society.

[Maecius]

When I get tells asking/hinting for ERP. When I get tells about my RL sex and preference. Other weird OOC expectations. Blatant rule breaking IG. Meh.

I should also add the OOC undercurrent of hate some people harbor.

When I get tells asking/hinting for ERP. When I get tells about my RL sex and preference. Other weird OOC expectations.

Sorry, I did not know it was so disruptive.

It truly doesn't bother me that much but it makes me wonder if I might as well be playing on an adult server sometimes.

[Maecius]

I believe the biggest fault to immersion at the present time is IC to OOC feelings and people not taking things that would be normally be hated or shunned upon by their character into prospective.

That's one way to look at it. I think many players choosing to play "shunned" characters do so because they expect to get attention from doing it (some even venturing into mary sue to pursue this goal). Depends on the player how outrageous they want to go, while everyone else around is just tired of reacting. It's one of the major faults of evil as well. Evil love to do stuff and expect people to care, that is to react to what they are doing, but they and others rarely like reacting. Everyone want to do, not react. Reacting is boring. Reacting is looking towards others, talking about others and ever so slightly take a supporting role in the story instead of being all about me, me, me that so many characters are all about.

How important is immersion for you?

What breaks it and what helps it?
Do you have any tricks that restores it, if it breaks?
Are you mindful of others' immersion?

Immersion isn't that important to me. Like Maecius, I'm more into the story. I think that forgotten realms has a fundemental flaw when it comes to immersion, and the environment specifically. It's so geared towards dungeon crawling and adventuring, that is has forgotten to create a plausible world in which it is happening. It's very poor at creating the environment (but fantastic with demonic and devil lore). For example, when I look at the world I wonder why have this treasure just been lying in that cave for all those years? Why haven't one of the thousands of adventurers already been there? What is so special about the adventurers that finally find it? In a section of the world like the sword coast, where lawful good reigns supreme, why are the adventurers adventuring in the first place? There is hardly any danger around, and if there were (as it shouldn't be given their numbers and the lay of the land) the thousands of adventurers should have squashed it generations ago.

It's what the world is designed to do, to ignore general realism, which is why it so often sets up an isolated place like an abandoned ruin for the actual adventures. It's also why the adventurers are always the center of attention, just casually meeting with kings, queens and lords with full weaponry in sight, and why a single adventurer can slay thousands of monsters far bigger than him or herself. There is no place they can't get to, no person they can't meet. With this in mind, I find its nearly impossible to find a role to be immersed in because no roles fit neatly into society as it is at best background noise. Roles imply a place in society, but adventurers are outside of it and pampered by everyone else. They're the de facto kings, queens and lords of the realms.

Far better to focus on being part of a good story, imo

[Maecius]

How important is immersion for you?

Very important. For me to get into the mindset of my toon, think like they would and then act like they would is very important. To be plausible, within the world. What I do IC, I mean IC. I separate OOC and IC as much as I can. I do not care who plays the toon, what their goals are etc., I care about how my toon would react, what would they do.

I have OOC friends who are IC friends too, and people my toons hate IC, but I like OOC.

General rule: All I do IC, is IC, if you play with me, keep that in mind before assuming anything. Immersion is very important for me to have fun. Otherwise, it will very rarely happen.

What breaks it and what helps it?

Helps: Other plausible toons, random events, realistic (logical in the world) feelings, happenings etc.

Breaks: Too much OOC, metagaming, people thinking that with 5 points of lore they know what the wiki does (when a dwarf you know does not have 30+ points in lore:history, and new around tells you about the forgotten secrets of the Crown wars…), lore breaking things, grinding, mechanic based nonsense, hiding behind rules, unique things without a plausible explanation or just too much of them.

Do you have any tricks that restores it, if it breaks?

Log off for some time, that is the thing which works. I have tendencies for short private rants, that usually makes me feel a bit better, if I encounter something which made things not fun for me.


Are you mindful of others' immersion?

Sure, I try not to break the suspension of disbelief, know what my toon may or may not know, act like they should. That should not break anyone’s immersion