Immersion, Communication, and Perception
Some discussions going on about Immersion these days. See previous entry for links.

I'd just like to raise one point which I think people need to be careful about. "Immersion" is often connected in theory and practice with lack of "out of character" communication. Both here and in Mo's LJ there's been some discussion about the need to maintain interpersonal communication channels to ensure game focus. (I agree.)

What needs to be differentiated are at least three practices, all of which might be called "immersionist":

1) Discouraging or refusing to engage in out of character communication at all times, including between sessions.

2) Similar to (1), but being receptive to out of character communication between game sessions.

3) Thinking and responding to the game "in character" during a game session, but being receptive to out of character communication at any time.

This last is basically saying, "I know my character so well that in any situation, the way I have my character act is the only way that s/he can act, as far as I'm concerned. But if necessary I can also explain what my character's thinking, at least as well as I could explain my own thoughts. And I can also talk about what I'm thinking, and what I want out of the game, as distinct from what my character wants."

Now that I think about it, we can add three similar distinctions having to do with perception:

A) Preferring to perceive the game experience at all times through the eyes of the character. (Thus, you never want to hear about, or even suspect, that the GM is manipulating things behind the curtain, and you don't want to have to deal with "metagame" concerns such as party unity or telling a good story.)

B) Accepting metagame awareness of the game, when not actually playing the game. (You know the GM is presenting a scenario that was written up last night. You're willing to position your character before play in such a way as to achieve certain metagame goals.)

C) Accepting metagame awareness of the game during the game. (As a player, you accept that the GM is fudging dice to keep you alive, but you can separate that from the character's awareness. Yet you can still "slip into" the character's mindset and "know" what s/he's thinking and what s/he'll do in a given circumstance.)

I think it's possible to be "immersionist" to different degrees at the communication level vs. perception level, by the way. For example, unless I explicitly agree otherwise, I'm not very keen on Illusionism and in-game Dramatism, but I wouldn't object to explaining my character during a game. So my lower Immersion tolerance might be categorized as 3B.

Note that "absolutely no Immersionism" wouldn't be 3C. As long as you have the baseline level of "being able to see things entirely from your character's P.O.V., so that your decisions are exactly what you 'know' your character would decide", you're immersing. Maybe this baseline characteristic is what should be dubbed "channeling".