# Getting Real: Three Aspects of Immersion



## jonesy (Sep 29, 2013)

Vacationing during winter deep in the countryside we lost all electricity from the farmhouse we were staying at. Outside it was almost solid darkness. We dug out the candles and gathered in the kitchen to play some Kult. The game got really intense in the flickering light. The house was very old and the rising winds outside made the wood ceiling creak. There was a steel wheel outside for drying clothes and it was spinning slowly and making a low howl. It was too cold and windy for anyone to bother going out there to affix it. It became a very spooky game ina spooky night. In the middle of an encounter in the game there was suddenly a large hooded man in the window, wet hair tangled to his face. He started banging on the window like a maniac and scared us half to death. It was the neighbour. He'd come over to tell us that the electricity was out in the whole town and to see if we were okay, but halfway to us he'd fallen into a snow bank. That was one of the most memorable times we had playing a game. The atmoshpere outside the game really added to the mood.


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## Mishihari Lord (Oct 3, 2013)

That's a very interesting article.  Here's a link to an as-far-as-I-can-tell-legal spot to read the actual paper without paying $37:  LINKY!  Immersion is a big deal for me when I game, and this is one of my favorite topics.  My ideal rule set would be one where I don't know the rules at all - I just choose actions based on the game fiction and let the DM adjudicate according to the rules.

I realized from this article that my dislike of hit-points mechanics probably stems from their being a "meta" resource (the only thing they represent well is ablative plot-armor) interfering with the "consistency" point above.  Unfortunately I've yet to find an alternate mechanic that's easy enough to use from a gameplay point of view and that also represents something in the game-fiction well.


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