08/13/21: Immersion vs mechanics
I’ve been struggling with Blood of Meridian lately, I may have mentioned.
When I set out to work on it, my goal was to create a game that let me play something like Amber Diceless Roleplaying without making the players read a series of books from the 70s. In some ways I’ve succeeded: the structure of questions for each of the playbooks definitely produces the web of character relationships that I want from the style of “Elders Game” that I’m aiming for.
The part I continue to struggle with is the mechanics. While I am always ready to admit that the ADRPG rules are flawed, they have worked well enough as a framework in the past (and helped to create decades of enjoyable play) that it feels like my boons and moves system is a step away from what works toward something that interrupts a player’s embodiment (or immersion) in their character. And I feel like immersion is something that I would like the players to have if they want it.
As an aside, a lot of modern game design folks that I pay attention to seem to think that the idea of Immersion is nonsense or irrelevant, or unmeasurable therefore irrelevant. But I’ve seen it in my players and I’ve felt it, deeply, myself when I really get into playing a character (or GM character, mostly, in my case). It’s weird to me that they haven’t seen it. Are they doing something significantly different with their roleplaying?
There are also plenty of stories of bad GMs that revolve around ADRPG because “there are no dice to protect the players.” Which is nonsense, because a bad GM can always find ways to use the authority and power given to them by the group to do shitty things. Dice don’t change that. But it does lead to concerns about GM Fiat: letting the GM just decide the outcome of actions and the consequences. And that is always a matter of trust.
Anyway, while I’m thinking through these things, I’ve taken a side track into designing something a little shorter and simpler this week. It’s not quite where I want it yet, so I’ll save it for next time.