The Campaign Builder's Guild

I've always had a love for short, pithy setting write-ups that really convey the settings character, its egde, its crux. They don't always detail exactly how the kingdom is being ruled, who the prominent figures are, how magic works, etc., and there's a certain simplistic, sometimes mysterious beauty to that. It retains an atmosphere that might be tarnished by the meticulous detailing of every facet of the city fo X or the fotest of Y.

On the other hand, there's a certain unquestionable richness that comes from having a detailed, well-understood setting, one with layers of history and dripping with knowledge; when it's done right, the veritable pages of information can be really rewarding for players as they stumble upon the next unique or cool facet of the setting. Questions the players have can generally be answered on the spot, and to me, that's neat.

But, are the two mutually exclusive? I've come to think that they are, erroneously or not. I have a fairly detailed setting that's growing in complexity as I write about it, but sometimes I can't help but feel like I'm losing some mystery as I try to explain it, like a magician explaining his magic trick after he performs it. I've considered "distilling" it a bit to loosen the reigns on my mind and making it easier to digest for people that aren't me. I'm sure I'll figure out exactly what I want to do to it as time goes on.

I want to ask you guys what you preferred in setting design: detail, just giving the bits that matter, something else?

I personally am inclined to agree with the view that "short and pithy" is generally better. When you can convey the core feel of a place or thing within the setting, you've written enough, and more might just be superfluous. Part of the point of an RPG is the players and GM creating a story together, and I feel like having things too rigidly defined from the beginning can hurt that ability. Many players like being able to make their mark on a setting, so it's nice to leave room to do that. If you're using a system like FATE where players are explicitly granted a certain amount of narrative control, this becomes even more important, I think.

I think it can go both ways, but I certainly am much more likely to pay attention to a new setting if it is short and pithy.    Though I think this is also due to my attention span.  I like Setting posts with enough to get me interested and excited, but not so much as to put me off because of the wall of text. 

I think a high level of detail can be a useful thing to have around, but it's not necessarily all something that needs to be shared. 

While I've enjoyed reading plenty of short/pithy settings, for actual play I'm of the opinion that generally the more detail, the better, and I never get tired to reading about settings I like.  I think it's quite possible to move from a short, broad overview of a setting to a more detailed account of its ins and outs.

Other people, I'm sure, have a different GMing style than I do, but when I GM I like to have everything prepped.  Some of my favourite settings both on the boards (Clockwork Jungle especially comes to mind)  and off the boards (Planescape, Westeros, Bas-Lag) I like specifically because of their intensive approach to world-building.

I mean, it's great to describe a city mysteriously using a few sentences to lend it an enigmatic atmosphere, but what happens when the PCs show up?

I suppose what this amounts to, for me, is that while minimalism can give a setting a certain pleasing aesthetic aura, the iceberg method does not lend itself well to gaming utility.

EDIT: I'd also argue that at a certain point a huge amount of detail starts to "give back" in terms of atmosphere and feel.  I think the key point is when the world gets big enough that you feel you'll never read everything about it or take it all in, that it exists beyond the page.  It starts to feel like you're reading about a real place.  I love that.  Instead of hints and glimpses you get a kind of overload of information.

I want to have a short, pithy, description of my setting to hand out as a primer (and to be at the front of my "book"), while still having heavy detail. But players don't need the detail at first, and neither do DMs who are picking up a setting to play.

Quote from: SteerpikeOther people, I'm sure, have a different GMing style than I do, but when I GM I like to have everything prepped.

Can you ever really have everything prepped, or even close to that?

It seems like the one certainty about RPGing is that there is no certainty. I mean, that's part of the reason why we enjoy it, right? Everyone's creating a story together, rather it being like most fiction where there is just one author. So, I feel that to truly embrace that spirit, it's not even possible to prepare all that much.

Quote from: sparkletwistCan you ever really have everything prepped, or even close to that?

It seems like the one certainty about RPGing is that there is no certainty. I mean, that's part of the reason why we enjoy it, right? Everyone's creating a story together, rather it being like most fiction where there is just one author. So, I feel that to truly embrace that spirit, it's not even possible to prepare all that much.

Obviously, you can't prepare everything.  When I talk about preparation, I mean the setting more than the story.  When I GM, I like for my players to feel that they've stepped into another world, and so I tend to extensively prep things like cities and towns (sometimes down to street-by-street and shop-by-shop descriptions).  I like to prep lots and lots of NPCs for them to interact with, lots of events for them to witness and take part in, lots of seeds for subplots for them to run with (or not).  To me, if I left most of my worlds undefined or undetailed, I'd end up with a very sparse, unreal-seeming world, more like a movie set with cardboard cutouts with nothing behind them, or a video game with artificial boundaries as to where you can go and what you can do, or everything would seem rushed and hastily thought-up.

Of course improvisation is useful, and I tend to rely on improvisation heavily when it comes to how plots fit together, NPCs act, and stories develop.  But improvising the setting itself is harder, at least for me.  I like to have a healthy foundation of notes to lend the world verisimilitude.  Coming up with interesting locations and people on the fly can be very tough, and it's difficult to do consistently.

I'd argue that lots of detail doesn't preclude PC contributions to the story, it encourages them by giving players more to work with.  Players can still contribute to the story.  They choose what in the world to care about, who to interact with and how, how to tackle challenges.  Plots can be based on character backgrounds.  Detailed doesn't mean "rigid" or "inflexible."  And just because I prepared something ahead of time doesn't mean that it can't be changed on the fly if it makes sense in the narrative.

That makes sense. Personally, I also like the "stepped into another world" feel, so I do some of that, but I think that if I prepared things to that degree of detail, I would feel a little disappointed if the players didn't get to see or use a lot of it. Maybe this doesn't happen to you, though. I do agree it can be tough to come up with interesting stuff on the fly, so it's always good to have something. I will admit that even now sometimes I come up with places or people that I think would make fun encounters and just drop them in wherever the players go. It's a little bit railroady, but, on the other hand, it's not like it's anything noticeable, either. How do they know what's where until they go there?

I do remember, quite a few years ago, doing a rather detailed drawing and writeup of a town, and letting the players spend a whole session just wandering around in the town and having various dealings and encounters there. It was fun, but it was also a lot of work, and I think that had they not spent the whole session wandering around there, it might have felt like I did a lot of work for nothing.  Of course, this was long enough ago that I was not nearly as good of a GM back then, so I basically told them "I've prepared a detailed town, wander around in it for a while because I don't have much else."

The thing is, though, not to rain on your exhaustive preparation work-- because I think it's good and if it's something you like doing that's great-- but sometimes I wonder how much most players actually care. I mean, I know they'd notice if you just hastily threw something nonsensical together, but I also think that being a bunch of world-builders we're more attuned to this kind of thing, and a lot of other players just see the setting as a background for "stuff that goes on," which is usually having some sort of adventure, and the "stuff that goes on" is what they're really focused on. (Even I am sort of this kind of player, sometimes, especially in Pathfinder. Despite being all into the world-building and setting-making!)

Quote from: SteerpikeTo me, if I left most of my worlds undefined or undetailed, I'd end up with a very sparse, unreal-seeming world, more like a movie set with cardboard cutouts with nothing behind them, or a video game with artificial boundaries as to where you can go and what you can do, or everything would seem rushed and hastily thought-up.

I hate in video games when you randomly can't go somewhere you should by all logic be able to get to.  Especially when you're looking at a door, and you can't go through it into...whatever it is that's behind the door.  

I guess what I am trying to say is that Steerpike makes a good point about a real-seeming place.  Now, I don't think I'd ever be able to work out an entire town, but I could work out a few important ones (or ones I just EXPECT/"Plan" for them to interact with), and keep a table of random businesses for when they point and go "What's that building over there?"

I think the players caring bit is a very valid point, thought it depends greatly on the players.  But I think a skillful use of the setting can tie it into the plot in a way that makes the setting more than mere backdrop.  Take your Sixsura game, for example, where the plot was very much tied to the space station itself.  Or my first Sixguns game, where the nature of the setting (the petrified Great Old One) was central to the plot.  Sometimes the "stuff that goes on" can't be easily separated from the backdrop.

I'd definitely agree that a lot of what I write doesn't end up getting used.  I enjoy writing and designing anyway, so I don't feel like it was time totally wasted, though I definitely spend too much time on these things (my campaign notes for some games are longer than small novels...).  Often I engineer things so that players end up going through various bits of a given town, or whatnot.

Quote from: Sereaphine HarmoniumI hate in video games when you randomly can't go somewhere you should by all logic be able to get to.

Yeah, totally.  This is why for all their many flaws I adore the Elder Scrolls games so much.

One can engage with the 'teaser' write up and then put the detailed stuff elsewhere, the first issue comes when one tries to do both in the same vehicle.

But part of that is based on what the vehicle is for.  Are you making a write up to get players or to convey the feel, or are you writing to actually play the game or setting?  Because these necessitate different approaches.

I also find that like the Pike, I create partially as a creative exercise, and partially as prep.   

Vreeg's Sixth Rule of Setting/Game Design.
"That in a good Sandbox, it will create itself as it needs to be.
I have noticed, in a Sandbox, that there is a skill (and something of an art) to building a lot of information in the direction you think the players are moving towards, but still filling in histories and side-bits as well as (most importantly) enough information sketched on the outskirts of this path and nearby that the GM can logically extrapolate and the players never know when they have mved from the center of the detailed part of notes off to the more 'sketched-in' areas. This is a critical part of good GMing, and is part of the fifth Rule, about the 'illusion of preparedness'.
Especially because the good sandbox GM is very Aurelian in nature ("The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.") and between session in the same way, will adapt to the new 'direction' of the PCs and detailing more fully in that area and sketching in the sides and big-picture stuff around that new Player direction.

This deals with prepping and zen-prepping a game, to take the larger, more established setting info and work at a finer level of granularity in the direction the PCs seem to be moving, but still at multiple levels of detail.  Even with the SIG group going into the Ruins for the 5th time, I still make sure that the changes are notated and such; part of the World in Motion ideal, things have changed and continued along, the cultists and Trine Vexchian have been fighting, new turf made and lost, etc.


Also, Steerpike mentions the one-offs and shorter, games..and it must be stated that differentl types of games, in terms of longevity, need different levels of detail written.  I have Encounter charts for most of the cradle areas of Celtricia, but very localized ones for Accis...because of this.

Detail also layers on detail; the longer you do something, the more the detail increases.  But, as warned, I like writing detail. 

Quote from: sparkletwistThe thing is, though, not to rain on your exhaustive preparation work-- because I think it's good and if it's something you like doing that's great-- sometimes I wonder how much most players actually care.

Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't.  It has never mattered much to me.  Of course, you never want to beat people over the head with background - reciting the grand history of your world to the players is generally undesirable - but if I enjoy the creation of that background, it matters not at all whether the players care.  I care, and that is entirely sufficient.

Additionally, however, good setting elements inform other setting elements.  The only time I perceive part of the setting as being "wasted" is if it is adrift from the rest of the setting, something that could be excised from the setting without making any difference at all.  Sometimes I catch myself making things like this, and sometimes I end up abandoning them for this reason - the purpose of all that detail is not just to create material for players, but to construct a world that almost generates material for the players on its own because places, peoples, and cultures are connected with one another.  Think of it like a dungeon - certainly many dungeons have separate, discrete rooms, each with their own monster and treasure, a little microcosm of the adventure as a whole with no relationship with any other room of the dungeon.  If the players don't visit one of these rooms, it is indeed wasted.  However, a dungeon can also be an interconnected space, in which its monsters communicate with one another, use passages to retreat or bring up reinforcements, pull their property from one room to another to protect it from the advancing adventurers, or simply roam the halls instead of waiting for death in their 10' by 10' space.  In that kind of dungeon, even a room the PCs never visit (and don't strictly "care about") can serve a purpose.  In the same way, the actions and behaviors of NPCs in a setting may make decisions informed by history, culture, their neighbors, or other setting elements that the PCs do not know or do not care about; that internal logic can help the GM in designing a responsive and active world even if certain pieces of the background never actually "show up" in the campaign.

Quote from: LordVreegEspecially because the good sandbox GM is very Aurelian in nature ("The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.")

I see what you did there!

My players seem to think Dark Silver is far more detailed than it is, and I am loathe to disabuse them of this notion. When I say something like "Yeah the Balos are a seafaring people who come in strange ships with multiple decks of oars from their island homes in the west to sell tin" their belief makes them assume that there is an entirely formed culture and history for the Balos in my mind, while in actual fact the only details I have come up with about them not contained in that sentence are that their current royal house uses the seagull as its totem and that their culture has existed since the time of the First Empire.

Quote from: Kindling
My players seem to think Dark Silver is far more detailed than it is, and I am loathe to disabuse them of this notion. When I say something like "Yeah the Balos are a seafaring people who come in strange ships with multiple decks of oars from their island homes in the west to sell tin" their belief makes them assume that there is an entirely formed culture and history for the Balos in my mind, while in actual fact the only details I have come up with about them not contained in that sentence are that their current royal house uses the seagull as its totem and that their culture has existed since the time of the First Empire.

Vreeg's Fifth Rule of Setting Design

"The 'Illusion of Preparedness' is critical for immersion; allowing the players to see where things are improvised or changed reminds them to think outside the setting, removing them forcibly from immersion.   Whenever the players can see the hand of the GM, even when the GM needs to change things in their favor; it removes them from the immersed position.  The ability to keep the information flow even and consistent to the players, and to keep the divide between prepared information and newly created information invisible is a critical GM ability.

For a long term campaign, if the players cannot see the mind of the GM making things up or partially making stuff up, they assume it is all set in paper and 'real', for lack of a better term.  PLayers tend to believe, subconsiously, that if the GM wrote it down and prepared it, they are playing in and versus something set in stone and the GM is adjudicating, whereas if they see the GM making stuff up or they realize that is happening, they feel the GM playing against the players and the situation more.

It goes back to the thread about GM and pcs playing with or against each other...it is easier for the PCs to see the GM playing against them if the GM is adjudicating what is set in stone, versus if the PCs see the GM creating purely on the spot, they step outside their immersed Game self to watch the GM playing against them.

I'm interested in sparkletwist's opinion on Vreeg's fifth rule.  As I understand it, sparkletwist tends to favour a narrativist style of gaming where players significantly determine not only their characters' actions but details of the setting and how certain actions play out in the story - they collaborate in a very hands-on sense to the creation of the story, rather than shaping the story by telling the Gm what they want their characters to do.  Such an approach, it seems to me, is radically opposite the style Vreeg's fifth rule implies...

Quote from: SteerpikeI'm interested in sparkletwist's opinion on Vreeg's fifth rule. As I understand it, sparkletwist tends to favour a narrativist style of gaming where players significantly determine not only their characters' actions but details of the setting and how certain actions play out in the story - they collaborate in a very hands-on sense to the creation of the story, rather than shaping the story by telling the Gm what they want their characters to do.  Such an approach, it seems to me, is radically opposite the style Vreeg's fifth rule implies...

Oh, now you've gone and done it, asking me for my opinion...  :grin:

Seriously, though. When I call my style of gaming "narrativist," I usually put quotes around it because I feel the whole "Gamist/Narrativist/Simulationist" debate almost always just turns into an argument about what those words even mean and I also think they're extreme poles that (almost) nobody actually falls into just one, or even just two. I think I agree with the sense you used it in, though, and beyond that nitpick, you've pretty much summed up my feelings on the matter quite eloquently and concisely.

I often see little gaps in the setting as opportunities, not flaws. No matter how much detail there is, I think everyone here knows that there are plenty of times that the GM has to make up information on the fly, anyway. So, why should the GM be the only one ready, willing, and able to wing it? Why not let players join in the process? I feel it gives players a real sense of ownership in the game and the shared story, which I think is a very good thing, and a lot of people I've played with have enjoyed it, too.

From the perspective of immersion and "in-setting" vs. "out-of-setting" thinking, Vreeg's rule seems to be addressing a symptom, not the actual problem, assuming for a moment that a problem actually exists-- which I'm not sure it does-- but anyway, if players are paying too much attention to where in-character information comes from and how "made-up" it feels, they're already thinking about things in a non-immersed way. On the other hand, I do acknowledge that it's probably a bit idealistic to assume players can be that objective and detached.

Quote from: Steerpike
I'm interested in sparkletwist's opinion on Vreeg's fifth rule.  As I understand it, sparkletwist tends to favour a narrativist style of gaming where players significantly determine not only their characters' actions but details of the setting and how certain actions play out in the story - they collaborate in a very hands-on sense to the creation of the story, rather than shaping the story by telling the Gm what they want their characters to do.  Such an approach, it seems to me, is radically opposite the style Vreeg's fifth rule implies...

Now that's a surprise.

Sparkle and I have been over it before, and I do not think that it applies to a lot of narrativist games. Vreeg's rules are based, admittedly, on an older model where immersion, and long-term immersion, is a very high priority.

Since Narrativist-style and immersive-style are sort of at ends of a continuum,  I don't think this fifth rule really applies as much.  That's the whole idea of it, the immersive style favors the players speaking from the role of the characters in the setting, vs the narrativist favors the voice of the player speaking from their position as a collaborator of the setting.  The fifth rule has little effect in a narrativist-style game, I admit.

No GM can create ti all ahead of time.  The purpose of the Fifth rule is to understand that.  And in and immersion-style game, try to keep the players in character.  When they ask what the details of a chest are in an adventure, I may know what is in the chest and who put it there and why, and I need to extrapolate from there what the details are as to the appearance of it, to keep the players in character and not thinking it was not written down. 
In a narrative-style game, a good PC may realize an opportunity to help deatl this receptacle with some specifics, instead, helping to create the story along with the GM.

Quote from: LordVreegSince Narrativist-style and immersive-style are sort of at ends of a continuum,  I don't think this fifth rule really applies as much.  That's the whole idea of it, the immersive style favors the players speaking from the role of the characters in the setting, vs the narrativist favors the voice of the player speaking from their position as a collaborator of the setting.  The fifth rule has little effect in a narrativist-style game, I admit.

I'm not sure that's necessarily accurate. Does a game allowing for player collaboration really decrease the feeling of immersion? My thought is that a game with excellent players and an excellent GM will always be immersive, regardless of the style of that game.

TheMeanestGuest has put his finger on the question I was trying to tease out.  Dropping the narrativist/simultationist (or whatever) dichotomy and the baggage that might come with it for a moment, does allowing for heavy or hands-on player collaboration threaten player suspension of disbelief and verisimilitude?  Does a game allowing for that kind of player participation sacrifice something?

Quote from: TheMeanestGuest

Quote from: LordVreegSince Narrativist-style and immersive-style are sort of at ends of a continuum,  I don't think this fifth rule really applies as much.  That's the whole idea of it, the immersive style favors the players speaking from the role of the characters in the setting, vs the narrativist favors the voice of the player speaking from their position as a collaborator of the setting.  The fifth rule has little effect in a narrativist-style game, I admit.

I'm not sure that's necessarily accurate. Does a game allowing for player collaboration really decrease the feeling of immersion? My thought is that a game with excellent players and an excellent GM will always be immersive, regardless of the style of that game.

This came up in another thread. When we're talking about immersion here, we're usually talking about something other than engagement.

There's a specific meaning used in some places where immersion pretty much means that the things the players know should correspond to the things that the characters know, and that the decisions available to the players should correspond to the decisions available to the characters. It's about getting in the character's head, creating the illusion of a vast objective world that exists before the players show up (as I understand it, this is what Vreeg is after), or making the game more intuitive to play (the appeal the concept has for me personally), depending on who you ask.

All this is tied to a pretty specific kind of game, and collaboratively determining the setting mid-game tends to mess with that.

I think most groups probably fall somewhere in the middle. As I said on the other thread, I'm still on the other side of the "beer test" from Vreeg (no problem with a player sipping a previously unmentioned beer) because the grand illusion isn't what I'm after. I also think more collaboration tends to happen outside the session in standard tables. It's a typical method for handling things like backstory, where players get to pretty much make up NPCs and even organizations and villains and things before actual play starts.

Quote from: TheMeanestGuest

Quote from: LordVreegSince Narrativist-style and immersive-style are sort of at ends of a continuum,  I don't think this fifth rule really applies as much.  That's the whole idea of it, the immersive style favors the players speaking from the role of the characters in the setting, vs the narrativist favors the voice of the player speaking from their position as a collaborator of the setting.  The fifth rule has little effect in a narrativist-style game, I admit.

I'm not sure that's necessarily accurate. Does a game allowing for player collaboration really decrease the feeling of immersion? My thought is that a game with excellent players and an excellent GM will always be immersive, regardless of the style of that game.

Well, this is some of the meat of it.  And something can be decreased at one level (the game style and ruleset), while still being increased at another (excellence of players and GM), the two posibilites do not cancel each other out.
Immersion is not a feeling.  Immersion is a state.  And it is important to define this, since the basic for conversation and debate is some level of shared knowledge base.

Definition of IMMERSION
: the act of immersing or the state of being immersed: as a: baptism by complete submersion of the person in water b: absorbing involvement <immersion in politics> c: instruction based on extensive exposure to surroundings or conditions that are native or pertinent to the object of study; especially: foreign language instruction in which only the language being taught is used <learned French through immersion>

from this definition, we can see that the level of immersion is consistent with the depth or completenesss of the state.  IN other words, one cannot be simultaneously immersed and not immersed; the term equates to an absolute level. The part of t thing that is immersed cannot be non-immersed at the same time.

From here we have many studies at to what creates Immersion and they often define it.  And I need to stress that not all of these completely agree; and if you look hard enough in narrative based game sites, some might dispute this.  Nonetheless, in terms of videogames, in terms of psychology (where the term roleplaying and immersion in roleplay come from), and in terms of most RPGs, it is pretty much agreed (especially in the earlier, psychological usage) that the definition of Immersion is the amount a person(actor, patient, player) is speaking/seeing from the position of the role they are playing. Complete immersion is very difficult, most immersion is only partial, but we still can measure the amount of immersion as the amount the character is in the inside of the character's head looking at the setting/world, as opposed to amount the person (actor, patient, player) is looking from an outside-in position.  Especially from psychology, where the amount of immersion is considered essential to the extent of any success of a roleplay.

And that is at the crux of it, any amount of attention/presence spent on the player collaborating in the story is attention paid to the game rules (metagaming) and looking from the outside in, and is attention/presence that is Not immersed looking from the outside in.  When one plays a character, one does not know what might be behind a door, does not think about story and what they might or might not change, or about what the rules say might be there, or even what the GM might be thinking....that is all metagaming.  If one is playing a role from the immersed position, one needs to open the door or find someway within the in-setting logic (a spell, an NPC, or a decision not to open it) to figure it out.  
The amount of presence/attention spent in the immersed state within the role cannot be spent outside the immersed state, metagaming and immersion are opposites.  Any portion of a person immersed in water cannot be unimmersed at the same time.  

Or, to quote one of the best set of articles I've read (although I do argue with the author on occasion)

WHAT IS A ROLEPLAYING GAME?

All of this is important, because roleplaying games are ultimately defined by mechanics which are associated with the game world.

Let me break that down: Roleplaying games are self-evidently about playing a role. Playing a role is making choices as if you were the character. Therefore, in order for a game to be a roleplaying game (and not just a game where you happen to play a role), the mechanics of the game have to be about making and resolving choices as if you were the character. If the mechanics of the game require you to make choices which aren't associated to the choices made by the character, then the mechanics of the game aren't about roleplaying and it's not a roleplaying game
From here...
http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/17231/roleplaying-games/dissociated-mechanics-a-brief-primer

Now, this was done so you know where my head is at and the set of definitins and analysis I am coming from.  This soes not mean that anyone else is wrong in their definions or ideas or games.  But this is where I am coming from, and I hope that helped.


Some more good reading.
http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~pcairns/papers/JennettIJHCS08.pdf
http://w3.uqo.ca/cyberpsy/en/pres_en.htm
http://www.gmsmagazine.com/articles/inmersion-in-games

Quote from: beejazz

Quote from: TheMeanestGuest

Quote from: LordVreegSince Narrativist-style and immersive-style are sort of at ends of a continuum,  I don't think this fifth rule really applies as much.  That's the whole idea of it, the immersive style favors the players speaking from the role of the characters in the setting, vs the narrativist favors the voice of the player speaking from their position as a collaborator of the setting.  The fifth rule has little effect in a narrativist-style game, I admit.

I'm not sure that's necessarily accurate. Does a game allowing for player collaboration really decrease the feeling of immersion? My thought is that a game with excellent players and an excellent GM will always be immersive, regardless of the style of that game.

This came up in another thread. When we're talking about immersion here, we're usually talking about something other than engagement.

There's a specific meaning used in some places where immersion pretty much means that the things the players know should correspond to the things that the characters know, and that the decisions available to the players should correspond to the decisions available to the characters. It's about getting in the character's head, creating the illusion of a vast objective world that exists before the players show up (as I understand it, this is what Vreeg is after), or making the game more intuitive to play (the appeal the concept has for me personally), depending on who you ask.

All this is tied to a pretty specific kind of game, and collaboratively determining the setting mid-game tends to mess with that.

I think most groups probably fall somewhere in the middle. As I said on the other thread, I'm still on the other side of the "beer test" from Vreeg (no problem with a player sipping a previously unmentioned beer) because the grand illusion isn't what I'm after. I also think more collaboration tends to happen outside the session in standard tables. It's a typical method for handling things like backstory, where players get to pretty much make up NPCs and even organizations and villains and things before actual play starts.

I really need to make sure that everone knows I agree with this, and that total immersion, especially when one is not actively in the game, is impossible.  Meanest himself created a whole backstory (which I encourage heavily) and family which we placed and worked with.

But I really separate my 'game time' from my prep time with players, and while it is important, the divide is clear.  How do really play...not prep.  And I think that is a salient point, as well.  The beer test says a lot.

Vreeg, that's a pretty well-written and comprehensive definition of immersion as it applies to gaming.
I even agree with most of it. :grin:

In particular, I think you got it right, here:

Quote from: LordVreegthe amount of immersion as the amount the character is in the inside of the character's head looking at the setting/world, as opposed to amount the person (actor, patient, player) is looking from an outside-in position.

On the other hand, I don't think this necessarily follows:

Quote from: LordVreegany amount of attention/presence spent on the player collaborating in the story is attention paid to the game rules (metagaming) and looking from the outside in, and is attention/presence that is Not immersed

It definitely can work this way, but it doesn't have to, and it certainly isn't automatic. I don't think "narrative" and "immersive" gaming are quite as diametrically opposed as you seem to believe. It's quite possible to view story collaboration through the lens of a character, for example. Because of the way that vast amounts of sensory information are reduced to fairly simple narrative, and all the other abstractions that gaming introduces, I think it doesn't have to be a huge deal to mingle some actual new information in with my character's reaction to it. Essentially, declaration is wrapped up in roleplaying the discovery: you describe how your character reacts to finding something, at the same time describing the actual find. It might even prevent the player from having to ask the GM a bunch of immersion-breaking questions about the situation.

This can work internally, also. As I've mentioned before, there are many things that a character would know that the player does not. If the player needs to ask the GM for information on some of those topics, in order to be able to speak in-character and sound like someone who actually belongs there, that's a break in immersion as the GM imparts the information. It's also somewhat boring, as the player is just getting the information in order to regurgitate it back. On the other hand, if the system grants the player the leeway to simply create bits of information that are not defined bits of the setting, then the player can continue speaking in-character uninterruptedly. It's also more engaging for the player because it's giving the player a chance to creatively add details to the group's story rather than just being passive and spitting back something old.

How much leeway players have to do stuff like this is, I think, more of an issue with how the game system works and what the players and GM feel like doing than something directly and absolutely related to immersion.

Quote from: LordVreegWhen one plays a character, one does not know what might be behind a door, does not think about story and what they might or might not change, or about what the rules say might be there, or even what the GM might be thinking....that is all metagaming.

I'd add two more to this:
- One does not think about whether information is made up on the spot or part of older materials. That's why I believe your fifth rule is addressing a symptom rather than a cause-- if players are even thinking about this, they're already less immersed, even if they come to the "better" conclusion.
- One does not consider the source of information. If player A is stating a fact that only player A's character would know, it doesn't matter to player B if the fact is something the GM decreed earlier or if player A is making it up right now.

Hell day at work coming up.  The old part of my job, running the store and selling, which is where about 30% of my attention is divereted these days.  But it is a Saturday, and I guy is out and one guy is needed elswhere due a real emergency in another store..So I am alone in the busiest store in the company today.  But at least it is my store.

I appreciate this conversation and where it has gone. As is our wont, and I can blame Steerpike as well, this has grown from the OP into a different area.  

Based on my background in psychology and my experiences, I very respectfully disagree with being able to look through both sides of the microscope at the same time, or can process and create at the same time.  
Playing in an RPG is, like many things, a learned skill. Emulating the real-life equivalent of passively recieving data and acting on it is learned and becomes easier as the players learn the skill of using the GMs words and their own questions to replace their eyes, ears, and memories.   Asking questions is part of working in the enviroment.  AS you and I have both mentioned, no GM can prepare everything.  Nor, do I believe deep immersion happens for more than a few seconds at a time.  That is why the GM has 3 very distict roles, referee, creator and translator.   And in a game when the GM bought the adventure, it is just referee and translator. It is important to understand that during the game, the GM, to not appear like an opponent or anything but a neutral position, is in the 'translator' mode,  They translate the game world as seen and felt and known in memory to the players.
In my "what's behind the Door" analogy below, the player may have to ask questions to get the information they need.  Asking questions out loud, for a player, is one of the ways they feel the world around them.  These questions do not break immersion (unless someone starts cracking up, whcih has happened), it is the process all players go through constantly to 'see' the world around them and 'know' things their character would know.  Asking questions and getting feedback is the equivalent of how we really interpret the world around us; our eyes, ears, nose, memories are 'passive receptors', taking in data.  Staying in character requires information gathering to be a 'passive reception'.
Because playing the role and roleplaying requires the player to act like they do in the real worl as a person does.  I can sit here at my desk and look around the room, and look around, listen or look back into my memory or knowledge base.  I can also stand up and turn on the stereo that I see in the room.  And the equivalent if I was playing myself in a game is I would ask what I see and hear around me and what I know about a subject, or I could declare my character gets up and turns on a stereo that was described.  But in the real world, I don't get to decide  that the stereo is a 50k huge wall unit., ot that I have a background in sound-system design (which I don't).  And because there is no real-world experiential equivalent to 'shared narratve rules', I cannot envision them as roleplaying in any way.  In the former examples, we are passively receiving the data from the outside world and acting on it; not creating the data.
Jumping ahead, it is part of Vreeg's Fifth (to tie back to the OP a bit) to keep the player in character by having the data at hand or enough of it so the player never sees the GM go into creator mode during the game.  
You mention the issue that a player 'breaks the immersion' by asking the GM questions the PC would know before speaking in character.  This does not break immersion normally, it is part of the process of 'thinking out loud, or asking questions out loud'.  It allows the player to keep thinking as the character, which is the point.  I still remain convicned that any part of the player that is 'roleplaying in the setting' cannot be also 'narrating' or 'creating the setting'.  In my personal understanding and experience, limited though it may be, attention spent 'roleplaying from the inside out' is mutually exclusive to attention spent 'narrating/creating from the outside in'.  When the System allows the player to simply create bits of information, then the player must move from the inside-out viewpoint and cannot be passively recieving and acting from that.
I am not saying your points about 'engagement' or 'enjoyment' are correct or incorrect or that they nay or may not make a more or less fun game for some people.  They are just sideline and unrelated to the subject, as I see it.

Quote from: Sparkle

Quote from: VreegWhen one plays a character, one does not know what might be behind a door, does not think about story and what they might or might not change, or about what the rules say might be there, or even what the GM might be thinking....that is all metagaming.

I'd add two more to this:
- One does not think about whether information is made up on the spot or part of older materials. That's why I believe your fifth rule is addressing a symptom rather than a cause-- if players are even thinking about this, they're already less immersed, even if they come to the "better" conclusion.
- One does not consider the source of information. If player A is stating a fact that only player A's character would know, it doesn't matter to player B if the fact is something the GM decreed earlier or if player A is making it up right now.

The whole point of the 'Illusion of Preparedness' is to keep the player from even thinking if the information is prepared or not.  As soon as the player starts to think that way, the GM has failed this particular test.  So your comment about 'if the players are even thinking this way, they are already less immersed' is one I agree with...it is actually the whole point of the Fifth Rule, to keep the players from wondering.  A player should not be thinking about whether the information is prepared or created, if the GM is doing their job.  Keeping the viewpoint as much 'inside looking out' as possible.
And while you may be right about PLayer B's view, we were not talking about who came up with this data, you are conflating it with the above comversation about narrative control, i think.  

This thread has gotten a bit longwinded for me to read through the length arguments, but I want to give a thought of PC and player involvement in the setting.

I think that to a certain extent, it is possible to have a shared narrative game that does not get in the way of the kind of immersion Vreeg is talking about.  No, the PCs will not have a say in what they initially see, but they very much have a say in what they continue to see.  Any time you are playing without railroading the PCs they will be able to act freely and influence what they see and what happens.  I think this is the point and what actually makes it fun for everyone.  The GM creates the status quo, and the PCs change the status quo.  Their in-game decisions constitute their "share" of the narrative.  PCs always have a share in the narrative, even if it's just a matter of choice as to whether to go through the door on the right to the basilisk, or the door on the left, to the puzzle trap involving a pipe organ.

Quote from: Seraphine_Harmonium
This thread has gotten a bit longwinded for me to read through the length arguments, but I want to give a thought of PC and player involvement in the setting.

I think that to a certain extent, it is possible to have a shared narrative game that does not get in the way of the kind of immersion Vreeg is talking about.  No, the PCs will not have a say in what they initially see, but they very much have a say in what they continue to see.  Any time you are playing without railroading the PCs they will be able to act freely and influence what they see and what happens.  I think this is the point and what actually makes it fun for everyone.  The GM creates the status quo, and the PCs change the status quo.  Their in-game decisions constitute their "share" of the narrative.  PCs always have a share in the narrative, even if it's just a matter of choice as to whether to go through the door on the right to the basilisk, or the door on the left, to the puzzle trap involving a pipe organ.

Agreed.  This choice remains in character, but is purely that, a choice, or to leave the whole place and go elsewhere.  My Igbarians do this constantly.

Quote from: LordVreeg

Quote from: Seraphine_Harmonium
This thread has gotten a bit longwinded for me to read through the length arguments, but I want to give a thought of PC and player involvement in the setting.

I think that to a certain extent, it is possible to have a shared narrative game that does not get in the way of the kind of immersion Vreeg is talking about.  No, the PCs will not have a say in what they initially see, but they very much have a say in what they continue to see.  Any time you are playing without railroading the PCs they will be able to act freely and influence what they see and what happens.  I think this is the point and what actually makes it fun for everyone.  The GM creates the status quo, and the PCs change the status quo.  Their in-game decisions constitute their "share" of the narrative.  PCs always have a share in the narrative, even if it's just a matter of choice as to whether to go through the door on the right to the basilisk, or the door on the left, to the puzzle trap involving a pipe organ.

Agreed.  This choice remains in character, but is purely that, a choice, or to leave the whole place and go elsewhere.  My Igbarians do this constantly.

And for reasons like that I agree with Sparkle that GNS theory separates games artificially into "Types" that are by no means mutually exclusive.  It seems to me like calling a game "Narrativist" has come to imply that it somehow can't be an immersive in-character experience, or that it can't function on a set of rules, etc.  I do not think that this is true. 

Quote from: Wikipedia article on GNS TheoryNarrativism relies heavily on outlining or developing motives for the characters, putting them into situations where those motives come into mutual conflict, and making their decisions in the face of such stress the main driving force behind events.

While I know wikipedia isn't the best source, the above description does not to me sound like it should interfere with immersion in the slightest.  Nor does it seem like it should conflict with anything else.  Part of GMing is knowing your players and their characters, and if you know what their motivations are, then that's good for everyone.  It encourages putting thought into characters, and gives the GM material to work with, and when their characters' personalities and histories, and actions affect the world and events around them, then that's a really cool moment.

In a way this loops back to the original question of how much information to come up with for a setting.  The Characters are going to give you material and information to work with, and whatever other details there are in the worlds we create, there needs to be room for them to breathe and move, and they need to be able to affect and change things, at whatever scale is appropriate.

Quote from: Seraphine_Harmonium

Quote from: LordVreeg

Quote from: Seraphine_Harmonium
This thread has gotten a bit longwinded for me to read through the length arguments, but I want to give a thought of PC and player involvement in the setting.

I think that to a certain extent, it is possible to have a shared narrative game that does not get in the way of the kind of immersion Vreeg is talking about.  No, the PCs will not have a say in what they initially see, but they very much have a say in what they continue to see.  Any time you are playing without railroading the PCs they will be able to act freely and influence what they see and what happens.  I think this is the point and what actually makes it fun for everyone.  The GM creates the status quo, and the PCs change the status quo.  Their in-game decisions constitute their "share" of the narrative.  PCs always have a share in the narrative, even if it's just a matter of choice as to whether to go through the door on the right to the basilisk, or the door on the left, to the puzzle trap involving a pipe organ.

Agreed.  This choice remains in character, but is purely that, a choice, or to leave the whole place and go elsewhere.  My Igbarians do this constantly.

And for reasons like that I agree with Sparkle that GNS theory separates games artificially into "Types" that are by no means mutually exclusive.  It seems to me like calling a game "Narrativist" has come to imply that it somehow can't be an immersive in-character experience, or that it can't function on a set of rules, etc.  I do not think that this is true. 

Quote from: Wikipedia article on GNS TheoryNarrativism relies heavily on outlining or developing motives for the characters, putting them into situations where those motives come into mutual conflict, and making their decisions in the face of such stress the main driving force behind events.

While I know wikipedia isn't the best source, the above description does not to me sound like it should interfere with immersion in the slightest.  Nor does it seem like it should conflict with anything else.  Part of GMing is knowing your players and their characters, and if you know what their motivations are, then that's good for everyone.  It encourages putting thought into characters, and gives the GM material to work with, and when their characters' personalities and histories, and actions affect the world and events around them, then that's a really cool moment.

In a way this loops back to the original question of how much information to come up with for a setting.  The Characters are going to give you material and information to work with, and whatever other details there are in the worlds we create, there needs to be room for them to breathe and move, and they need to be able to affect and change things, at whatever scale is appropriate.

I get hung up on language and meaning a lot.
It comes from all the writing and reading and time spent on things like this.  The meanings matter to me, since we spend all this time writing about gaming and roleplaying and setting/game design.

I really agree with all your gaming comments. I really do. 
but as I posted in another place, about a similar conversation,
1) I do not consider meaning and definition unimportant. I find it ludicrous that people are willing to write and read reams and get all hot under the collar then turn around and say that a more shared understanding, a basic definition, is not important. There is no 'supposed threat of indie/story-games' for 95% of us. I suppose it comes from Pundit's craziness, but for my part, I feel like a chef posting on Escoiffiers's board and people are saying, "chicken and beef...both meats, so why do you have to argue that they are different...get over it and admit they are the same thing".
Words, definitions, and a shared understanding matter, except to those who are just here to troll and revel in the disharmony sowed.

Thank god this place is without the trolling.  I love the CBG, and everyone here.
So if I'm nuts and dicing the words too thin, it is merely how I see it and understand it; the precision is an afflciation at times that threatens the peace.

Quote from: LordVreegI very respectfully disagree with being able to look through both sides of the microscope at the same time, or can process and create at the same time.

At the exact same time? Probably not. Like you pointed out, immersion comes and goes. A few seconds here and there, but it's mixed in with game mechanics, looking through rulebooks, out-of-character banter, and the other things that are not "immersive" but go along with playing an RPG. It's not (or, at least, doesn't have to be) too disruptive to the game experience to mingle a bit of player narrative control in there, too. This is assuming the player immediately goes back to viewing things through the lens of a character's observations, including, of course, observing the newly created content and reacting to it in character. Of course, doing that, too, is probably a learned skill; learning how to quickly flip around the microscope, so to speak, and not let it disrupt one's thoughts and actions in character or one's overall feeling of immersion.

Quote from: LordVreegYou mention the issue that a player 'breaks the immersion' by asking the GM questions the PC would know before speaking in character.  This does not break immersion normally, it is part of the process of 'thinking out loud, or asking questions out loud'.  It allows the player to keep thinking as the character, which is the point.

I'm not sure. I feel like it might, but it might not. Ideally, perhaps it wouldn't, but there are lots of non-ideal situations: if the player has to make a knowledge skill roll to determine what the character knows, or look something up the character supposedly knows in the rule book (or wiki), or ask the GM for clarification, or resolve an inconsistent statement from before, or something along those lines, immersion breaks. Asking questions to a pedantic level of detail is also often boring.

I would also like to point out that although you may be correct and the player might be able to continue thinking as the character, it does completely disrupt the player's ability to speak as the character-- I've found, at least in my own games, that the two of them often go together and it's harder to stay in the character's mindset when asking questions out of character.

Quote from: LordVreegThe whole point of the 'Illusion of Preparedness' is to keep the player from even thinking if the information is prepared or not.  As soon as the player starts to think that way, the GM has failed this particular test.

It seemed to me the idea was to answer the question "is this material prepared ahead of time?" with the answer "yes it is." I mean, you said "if the players cannot see the mind of the GM making things up or partially making stuff up, they assume it is all set in paper and 'real', for lack of a better term." In that case, they're still asking the question, and you're giving them a "better" answer, but the question is still asked in the players' minds. I'm not sure if there's anything the GM can do, directly, to keep them from asking that question, though.

Quote from: LordVreegAnd while you may be right about PLayer B's view, we were not talking about who came up with this data, you are conflating it with the above comversation about narrative control, i think.

Actually, I was making an intentional connection to that conversation. If player B sees player A opening a box, or entering a new room, or whatever, it (ideally) makes no difference to player B's immersion whether player A or the GM decides and describes what's in the new situation. In both cases, player B is still in the position to simply observe and react to it. To use your terms, while player A is now briefly "outside looking in," player B is (and was the whole time) "inside looking out."

My 2 cents..

I love detail, but i am an Archaeologist i live for minute detail, and i know that these can quickly turn something mundane into something amazing.. though details can also become tedious just as fast. I think there is a balance in gaming of detail and simplicity that needs to be met. My problem when it comes to an altogether new world is that unless you have artists renditions of the scene you set, it can be hard to visualize.  Adding a level of familiar detail, even in a small way, can suddenly give your players something familiar to grasp on to. Gaming tries to use language to invoke images, and unless it is something they already know or can visualize, many times they will fail to see what the GM/DM wishes them to.  This is a problem i have run into a few times. One of my favorite additions to a creepy manor house is a ticking mantle clock. I detail the clock, and the constant ticking that breaks the silence. Select detail can be a fantastic narrative tool to focus your players attentions to where you want. Maybe i didn't get a chance to fully flesh out a city my players are in, i will decide to put extra detail into 2 or 3 things to make up for it, such as an interesting fruit vendor, the smells of the market.. etc..

In my opinion, different people visualizing different things is normal, and more a feature than a fault.  It happens all the time with books, even fantastically written and/or highly descriptive books.  Why would an RPG campaign be any different?