Immersion is a hot topic in board game design right now. Games that are immersive are seen as the ultimate way to provide the player an 'experience.' The trick is that games with strategy, or even copious rules, have a difficult time becoming more immersive.
I've been thinking about immersion a lot from the perspective of theatre. In theatre, immersion is desirable because it creates strong emotions in the audience, allowing theatre-goers to be 'swept away' by the story. However, not every epoch of theatre prioritized immersion.
Bertolt Brecht (1891-1956) was a famous playwright who promoted a type of performance style known as Epic Theatre. For modern audiences, "epic" theatre would feel anything but. Brecht promoted making the technical elements of a production visible, rather than hidden. He wanted actors to regard their characters as if in the third person, creating a philosophical space between actor and character. He thought unity was redundant. His style, now referred to as Brechtian, was crafted to create what he referred to as 'alienation' in the audience. By not connecting emotionally to a familiar subject, the audience would be freed to think critically about the subject. Contemplation, not emotion, was the desired outcome.
In today's productions, Brecht's ideas are usually sampled rather than followed prescriptively. Hamilton's minimalist staging and simplified base costumes are Brechtian, the musical itself is not. Emotional experiences dominate theatre from the highly immersive to the bare bones productions. Even more than movies, theatre is about emotion. On this front Brecht seems to have lost. However, if we extrapolate his ideas beyond theatre, we may find new uses for them.
Tabletop role playing games are having a moment. Immersive storytelling is widely seen as a hallmark of an excellent campaign. If you watch any online TTRPGs, pay attention to the immersive scenes. What you won't see is much in the way of dice or rules or stats. Essentially, the game part is on hold while the players act out a dramatic improv scene. (I am not criticizing; it's my favorite part of DnD.) The take away is that rules break immersion. The bad news is that there are more rules per minute played in board games than in TTRPGs.
Another break in immersion in (most) board games is that they are too short on narrative for the players to connect emotionally to the characters in the same way an audience member connects to a character in a movie. For one thing, the 'actors' in the board game have no script, no director, no rehearsal process.
There are a host of other ways board games break immersion by their very nature (top down, third person, lack of sound track). There are a few ways to cope with these inconvenient facts. One is to add an app to your game with a sound track and extensive, dynamic narration. Another is to quit games and make escape rooms or theatre. The rest of us can turn to Brecht. Experiences do not have to be immersive to be an experience. Immersion excites us because we feel a small amount of risk in being pulled into a world other than the one we spend most of our time in. But immersion also excites us because of the number of senses (real or imaginary) that we have to engage. We can engage our players in ways that excite them while not designing 'immersive' games.
One thing to keep in mind is that critical thinking is in opposition to emotion. The more thinky a game, the less immersive it is likely to be. Detective games skirt this issue by making the players take on the personas of people who think critically for a living, but that trick is limited in its scope. A game does not have to be all one or the other, but an individual element is unlikely to be both. Decisions players have control over will usually engage critical thinking more, and random events will engage emotion more. That is, unless the decisions are not gameplay related, such as which color token to use. Additionally, theme integration helps increase the emotional content of strategic elements.
Most 'immersive' games end up being a balance of immersion and critical thinking. Just like how Brecht is selectively used in theatrical productions, games must be selective in the immersion content. Each element provides a part of the overall experience. Designers must decide what sort of experience it will provide.
For this post, I referenced History of Theatre by Brockett and Hildy, available here.
I've been thinking about immersion a lot from the perspective of theatre. In theatre, immersion is desirable because it creates strong emotions in the audience, allowing theatre-goers to be 'swept away' by the story. However, not every epoch of theatre prioritized immersion.
Bertolt Brecht (1891-1956) was a famous playwright who promoted a type of performance style known as Epic Theatre. For modern audiences, "epic" theatre would feel anything but. Brecht promoted making the technical elements of a production visible, rather than hidden. He wanted actors to regard their characters as if in the third person, creating a philosophical space between actor and character. He thought unity was redundant. His style, now referred to as Brechtian, was crafted to create what he referred to as 'alienation' in the audience. By not connecting emotionally to a familiar subject, the audience would be freed to think critically about the subject. Contemplation, not emotion, was the desired outcome.
In today's productions, Brecht's ideas are usually sampled rather than followed prescriptively. Hamilton's minimalist staging and simplified base costumes are Brechtian, the musical itself is not. Emotional experiences dominate theatre from the highly immersive to the bare bones productions. Even more than movies, theatre is about emotion. On this front Brecht seems to have lost. However, if we extrapolate his ideas beyond theatre, we may find new uses for them.
Tabletop role playing games are having a moment. Immersive storytelling is widely seen as a hallmark of an excellent campaign. If you watch any online TTRPGs, pay attention to the immersive scenes. What you won't see is much in the way of dice or rules or stats. Essentially, the game part is on hold while the players act out a dramatic improv scene. (I am not criticizing; it's my favorite part of DnD.) The take away is that rules break immersion. The bad news is that there are more rules per minute played in board games than in TTRPGs.
Another break in immersion in (most) board games is that they are too short on narrative for the players to connect emotionally to the characters in the same way an audience member connects to a character in a movie. For one thing, the 'actors' in the board game have no script, no director, no rehearsal process.
There are a host of other ways board games break immersion by their very nature (top down, third person, lack of sound track). There are a few ways to cope with these inconvenient facts. One is to add an app to your game with a sound track and extensive, dynamic narration. Another is to quit games and make escape rooms or theatre. The rest of us can turn to Brecht. Experiences do not have to be immersive to be an experience. Immersion excites us because we feel a small amount of risk in being pulled into a world other than the one we spend most of our time in. But immersion also excites us because of the number of senses (real or imaginary) that we have to engage. We can engage our players in ways that excite them while not designing 'immersive' games.
One thing to keep in mind is that critical thinking is in opposition to emotion. The more thinky a game, the less immersive it is likely to be. Detective games skirt this issue by making the players take on the personas of people who think critically for a living, but that trick is limited in its scope. A game does not have to be all one or the other, but an individual element is unlikely to be both. Decisions players have control over will usually engage critical thinking more, and random events will engage emotion more. That is, unless the decisions are not gameplay related, such as which color token to use. Additionally, theme integration helps increase the emotional content of strategic elements.
Most 'immersive' games end up being a balance of immersion and critical thinking. Just like how Brecht is selectively used in theatrical productions, games must be selective in the immersion content. Each element provides a part of the overall experience. Designers must decide what sort of experience it will provide.
For this post, I referenced History of Theatre by Brockett and Hildy, available here.
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