Immersion breaking things, and how to handle them

[KittenLicks]

So the game has some things that basically have to be hand-waved away while playing. I thought it'd be nice if we had a thread where we can talk about those, and about how we deal with them, as players.

OOC: People can't play arma 24/7 and have to log off sometimes.
IC: Every clan has their own code for this, and most people understand "I'm going to rest" for indies. Likewise, the third time Grebber Amos says he's visiting his parents and logs off, people tend to get the hint.

OOC: People can't be Wayed while offline.
IC: I've unfortunately never found a good IC reason for this. As far as I know, people say "Oh they've been busy doing <one of the above>" and nobody ever asks "But then why couldn't I just Way you?". I guess barrier, maybe?
 
OOC: Bodies decay pretty darn rapidly and disappear with no trace.
IC: In the city, I like to think that some grizzled soldier lugged poor Amos off to the pile. Outside of the city, scavengers?

OOC: You cannot learn certain skills ever, and some skills require other skills to be learned first.
IC: As painful as it is, I think it's probably the least immersion breaking to just sit through the lesson on <skill you don't have> and roleplay doing badly. Likewise, it's probably best to just treat skills you -will- get as the above until you get them. Unless someone has some reasonable IC way to say "hey i'll learn hat making after i make a few more socks".

OOC: Crimcode is wonky, at best, and gets a bit silly IC.
IC: The best I've seen is "those half-giants sure are silly" and "those soldiers must have been smoking too much war spice" for outside of Allanak.

Anyone have any other ways they explain away situations that make little IC sense?

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

OOC: You cannot learn certain skills ever, and some skills require other skills to be learned first.
IC: As painful as it is, I think it's probably the least immersion breaking to just sit through the lesson on <skill you don't have> and roleplay doing badly. Likewise, it's probably best to just treat skills you -will- get as the above until you get them. Unless someone has some reasonable IC way to say "hey i'll learn hat making after i make a few more socks".

If I don't have the skill and won't have it ever, I usually say, "I just don't have the natural talent to do shit like that."
If I don't have the skill, but will eventually, I usually say, "I'll probably be able to figure that out eventually. It seems complicated."

I almost never directly acknowledge skill trees unless it makes sense. For instance, if I can't repair armor until I can make armor well, I might say, "Well, repairing armor is harder than figuring out how to make my own. Everybody has their own style of making it, so when I learn enough ways of making a breastplate, I'll be better at repairing other people's work."

[Lizzie]

Someone of a different element and I were discussing our elemental magicks studies. They told me flat out that I would "get x spell after I get good at y spell."

That brought me to a philosophical question, and it really bugged me at the time, because I was coming into this as a total noob to this element, both as a character AND a player.

This person who had nothing to do with my guild/subguild just GAVE me the answer about my guild's tree branching process. To me, that would be providing an OOC answer to an IC situation. I was looking forward to the discovery. ICly, my response was "how do you know that my character will learn that?"

In fact, unless they learned from their temple that everyone in THEIR element would ALL learn the same things, in the same way, that character would not, and should not, have been able to answer that question even about their own element let alone mine.

Knowing that "your general crafter character will some day learn how to build wardrobes" should not be a thing. How does your character know what your character will some day learn how to do? Can he tell the future? Do his fingers magically contain the "recipe and talent for building wardrobes" in the DNA structure of the cells, and he merely need to unlock the magick to reach discovery?

WHY do our characters know that if we practice with axes long enough, we'll suddenly one day realize we know how to use a polearm? Why do our characters know these skill trees?

I have this question with all my characters. It's a task I give myself: try and figure out why my character knows what she should be practicing, in order to progress to the skills she wants to learn. Usually I add in a mystery VNPC who taught her once when she was a kid, to know what to expect.

But with skill trees I'm unfamiliar with, I have no such option. So I have to roleplay the ignorance. And when someone of a completely DIFFERENT skill tree tells my character how mine works, that throws a wrench into the roleplay machinery. How does a warrior/thug know what a whiran/jeweler will ultimately learn?

In real life, when I'm doing embroidery, I know that I can learn new stitches. But I also know that being really good at embroidery stitches on pillowcases is not going to make me some day become a master at creating silk clothing. In Armageddon, that is possible. It's all "clothworking" afterall. How does my character know that doing well with one thing, will naturally progress into learning something that isn't even in the same category?

Usually I just ignore the question and don't think about it at all. UNTIL someone else brings it into the roleplay. Then, it bugs me.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Yeah, that makes sense most of the time, but it also makes sense from time to time to understand that you have the potential to understand something one day. I think acknowledging skill trees varies from case to case. I veer towards not acknowledging them, but if someone creates a good explanation IC for understanding it, I don't hold it against them.

[Lizzie]

Yeah, that makes sense most of the time, but it also makes sense from time to time to understand that you have the potential to understand something one day. I think acknowledging skill trees varies from case to case. I veer towards not acknowledging them, but if someone creates a good explanation IC for understanding it, I don't hold it against them.

It could easily make sense if the person has a greater understanding of the arcane, to explain to someone with a -different and more limited- understanding of the arcane, that "the power jodra will help you learn all things involving the different grasses. All elementalists know this; water elementalists know because grasses need moisture. All lightning elementalists know, because grasses all possess some amount of energy. All nilazis know because all grasses eventually die." I can grok that totally. I can accept that even before I ask the question, as a player.

But when I ask ICly something I (the player) aren't grokking yet because MY ignorance is too big to "get it" yet - I basically expect that their player - the one who is giving me the answer, can explain it similarly.  If (as it's happened in the past) they give me a blank stare, or even worse (which has happened twice) uses the OOC command to direct me to syntax or even offer to send me the "list"... that's when I realize that there are some people who don't even think about the roleplay or philosophy of roleplaying discovery. They use the "lists" or the "map" and don't even TRY to come up with an explanation as to how their character knows things. For veterans, dealing with other veterans, this is probably not a big deal.

But with veterans helping new players - or new players getting this info from OOC sources (such as "lists") it can ruin discovery. Because those new players will now just assume that it's okay to roleplay to OTHER new players this - setting a precedence that no one has to roleplay this stuff, and if you do roleplay this stuff, it'll be treated as just acceptable to give ooc answers.

It degrades the roleplay, and sets the bar lower and lower until we really are just a bunch of cheat sheets with a good emote system.

I'm not saying we shouldn't use these things, or create them for ourselves. I'm saying that IF we use them - we should remember to respect that part of the fun for many players is discovery and having your *character* hand out the answers should come with the assumption that the *player* has considered how that character got the information, ICly.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I'm with that.

[Riev]

It degrades the roleplay, and sets the bar lower and lower until we really are just a bunch of cheat sheets with a good emote system.

Please call me back when this comes into play.

By all reports, one of the most immersion-breaking things is when people don't even attempt to shroud code-talk in roleplay. Instead of Lizzie's comment about "All water elementalists know about the grass-word" it ends up just being "its fine, focus on grass and conjuring and you can conjure up some grass!" (capitalization is correct)

One of the most jarring things to me was someone saying, in character, "Just backstab, then disengage when it lands, so you can backstab again."

At LEAST make it feel in-world. Put in the effort. If the person is new to the game, take them aside and explain in OOC what you're talking about, if you ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO. I remember the days where you couldn't even shroud code-talk with IC references. Now, there are multiple exclaimation marks, over-capitalization, and some PCs who refuse to capitalize anything (mobile users?)

[valeria]

For me, overuse of the OOC command is more immersion-breaking than anything that has been mentioned yet. I mostly deal with it by trying to ignore it, but I think my blood pressure spikes every time someone explains a mistake or typo with the OOC command.

I've had to play from my phone a few times, and I've grown to have a lot more sympathy for people whose caps and punctuation disappear.

[sleepyhead]

With the Way issue, I like to pretend the Way is unreliable in spurts. There are times it works with a certain person, and then other times it doesn't for an extended period of time. It usually doesn't just switch on and off rapidly, but when you can't reach someone, that doesn't necessarily mean something's wrong.

[Veselka]

Punctuation.

Please, just type a period at the end of your sentences.

You know who you are.

I understand though that visually impaired folks have difficulty putting periods at the end of sentences. So I give people the benefit of the doubt. But it breaks my immersion more than anything, followed by excessive joking via OOCs.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I wish the code was smart enough to auto-capitalize the first letter in a say or tell. I can't think instances where this would be bad. Auto-periods at the end of a communication would be nice too.

[John]

I wish the code was smart enough to auto-capitalize the first letter in a say or tell. I can't think instances where this would be bad. Auto-periods at the end of a communication would be nice too.

I'm glad it doesn't do those. WHen I have a say that goes on for too many lines (and I have failed to cut it down myself which happens less rarely) being able to add in "...blah blah blah" for the rest is really helpful.

OOC: People can't be Wayed while offline.
IC: I've unfortunately never found a good IC reason for this. As far as I know, people say "Oh they've been busy doing <one of the above>" and nobody ever asks "But then why couldn't I just Way you?".

I find it a lot less immersion breaking to say "someone's otherwise occupied" then assume people have barrier running for no reason.
 

OOC: Bodies decay pretty darn rapidly and disappear with no trace.
IC: In the city, I like to think that some grizzled soldier lugged poor Amos off to the pile. Outside of the city, scavengers?

Nope. I think the bodies disappear because more bodies have been heaped on top of them so they're buried under even more bodies.

OOC: You cannot learn certain skills ever, and some skills require other skills to be learned first.
IC: As painful as it is, I think it's probably the least immersion breaking to just sit through the lesson on <skill you don't have> and roleplay doing badly. Likewise, it's probably best to just treat skills you -will- get as the above until you get them. Unless someone has some reasonable IC way to say "hey i'll learn hat making after i make a few more socks".

For skills you'll never get: "I just don't have any natural aptitude towards that". For skills you haven't branched "please tell me more. I'm sure I'll get the hang of it sooner or later."

OOC: Crimcode is wonky, at best, and gets a bit silly IC.
IC: The best I've seen is "those half-giants sure are silly" and "those soldiers must have been smoking too much war spice" for outside of Allanak.

Allanaki soldiers have a very strong "Anyone who doesn't immediately fall onto the ground and surrender can get a skull caved in for their trouble" attitude. Or if they attack someone they REALLY shouldn't have "I misunderstood the situation. Get over it." The Allanaki militia are essentially a law unto themselves and are answerable only to a templar. PC soldiers get chewed out by PC templars (or at least did back in the day). NPC soldiers get chewed out by NPC templars.

Your modern day American concept of fairness does not apply in zalanthas (or other parts of the real world).

[John]

It degrades the roleplay, and sets the bar lower and lower until we really are just a bunch of cheat sheets with a good emote system.

Please call me back when this comes into play.

By all reports, one of the most immersion-breaking things is when people don't even attempt to shroud code-talk in roleplay. Instead of Lizzie's comment about "All water elementalists know about the grass-word" it ends up just being "its fine, focus on grass and conjuring and you can conjure up some grass!" (capitalization is correct)

One of the most jarring things to me was someone saying, in character, "Just backstab, then disengage when it lands, so you can backstab again."

At LEAST make it feel in-world. Put in the effort. If the person is new to the game, take them aside and explain in OOC what you're talking about, if you ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO. I remember the days where you couldn't even shroud code-talk with IC references. Now, there are multiple exclaimation marks, over-capitalization, and some PCs who refuse to capitalize anything (mobile users?)

You have certainly earned your cranky old man credentials with this post, if nothing else.

[KittenLicks]

OOC: People can't be Wayed while offline.
IC: I've unfortunately never found a good IC reason for this. As far as I know, people say "Oh they've been busy doing <one of the above>" and nobody ever asks "But then why couldn't I just Way you?".

I find it a lot less immersion breaking to say "someone's otherwise occupied" then assume people have barrier running for no reason.

That's fair! The barrier excuse isn't great, and I don't use it, personally. It'd be great if there was an excuse that made perfect sense, but we use what we have.

OOC: Bodies decay pretty darn rapidly and disappear with no trace.
IC: In the city, I like to think that some grizzled soldier lugged poor Amos off to the pile. Outside of the city, scavengers?

Nope. I think the bodies disappear because more bodies have been heaped on top of them so they're buried under even more bodies.

Oh, absolutely. I was referring to bodies left lying on roads and such, though. I should have been more clear.

OOC: Crimcode is wonky, at best, and gets a bit silly IC.
IC: The best I've seen is "those half-giants sure are silly" and "those soldiers must have been smoking too much war spice" for outside of Allanak.

Allanaki soldiers have a very strong "Anyone who doesn't immediately fall onto the ground and surrender can get a skull caved in for their trouble" attitude. Or if they attack someone they REALLY shouldn't have "I misunderstood the situation. Get over it." The Allanaki militia are essentially a law unto themselves and are answerable only to a templar. PC soldiers get chewed out by PC templars (or at least did back in the day). NPC soldiers get chewed out by NPC templars.

Your modern day American concept of fairness does not apply in zalanthas (or other parts of the real world).

Sure! ^^ I was mostly referring to how soldiers seem to run in to murder rats if someone attacks one, or how hitting someone with your fists in a bar is fine, but hitting someone with your fists using kill is death, even though ICly they're the same. Or any of the other weird quirks of the crimcode, I'm sure you've come across at least a few of them in your time.

[Lizzie]

OOC: People can't be Wayed while offline.
IC: I've unfortunately never found a good IC reason for this. As far as I know, people say "Oh they've been busy doing <one of the above>" and nobody ever asks "But then why couldn't I just Way you?".

I find it a lot less immersion breaking to say "someone's otherwise occupied" then assume people have barrier running for no reason.

That's fair! The barrier excuse isn't great, and I don't use it, personally. It'd be great if there was an excuse that made perfect sense, but we use what we have.

OOC: Bodies decay pretty darn rapidly and disappear with no trace.
IC: In the city, I like to think that some grizzled soldier lugged poor Amos off to the pile. Outside of the city, scavengers?

Nope. I think the bodies disappear because more bodies have been heaped on top of them so they're buried under even more bodies.

Oh, absolutely. I was referring to bodies left lying on roads and such, though. I should have been more clear.

OOC: Crimcode is wonky, at best, and gets a bit silly IC.
IC: The best I've seen is "those half-giants sure are silly" and "those soldiers must have been smoking too much war spice" for outside of Allanak.

Allanaki soldiers have a very strong "Anyone who doesn't immediately fall onto the ground and surrender can get a skull caved in for their trouble" attitude. Or if they attack someone they REALLY shouldn't have "I misunderstood the situation. Get over it." The Allanaki militia are essentially a law unto themselves and are answerable only to a templar. PC soldiers get chewed out by PC templars (or at least did back in the day). NPC soldiers get chewed out by NPC templars.

Your modern day American concept of fairness does not apply in zalanthas (or other parts of the real world).

Sure! ^^ I was mostly referring to how soldiers seem to run in to murder rats if someone attacks one, or how hitting someone with your fists in a bar is fine, but hitting someone with your fists using kill is death, even though ICly they're the same. Or any of the other weird quirks of the crimcode, I'm sure you've come across at least a few of them in your time.

Eh - brawling in bars is not really the same, not even ICly. Brawling is just a bar brawl. People aren't trying to kill each other. They're trying to give each other a black eye, at worst, a bunch of bruises at best. Posturing, showing off their testosterone (females have it too don't forget). In unarmed combat, you're actually trying to kill someone with your fists, or render them physically incapacitated/unconscious. That's generally how I perceive it, and that would explain -why- the soldiers don't come when you use "hit." But if you're hitting someone and then decide the bitch gotta die, you type "kill" and they'll know you're serious, and the soldiers will then come running.

[ShaLeah]

My list is smallish.

1st thing that messes with my immersion is world inappropriate behavior. Think nobles meddling into commoner quibbles, humans getting upset at other humans for being racists, commoners disregarding social structures, interspecies fucking knowingly, non-gicks befriending gicks . That kind of thing. Note, exceptions that make sense don't bother me. I just wanna know WHY the fuck your normal human commoner got a thing for breeds. Document that shit in your background. Think about these things BEFORE you create a character, how will they feel about everything!

2nd thing that fucks with my immersions is staff intervention into player plots. The animation of clan leaders to put the kibosh on an on going plot is the worst. Players going to staff is like toddlers going to mom and dad to whine "She's touching me!". Grates my last nerve.

The only thing that REAAAAAAAALLY fucks with my immersion is:

For me, overuse needless use of the OOC command is more immersion-breaking than anything that has been mentioned yet.

Outside of clan indoctrination, staff retcon and consent everything can be handled IC.  Everything. I don't need to know you have to  drive home/feed your baby/clean up after your cat/get dinner out of the oven/open the door for the pizza guy. We have a gone command that does not require any explanation at all. gone brb/afk. That is all. I will pause the scene to wait. It's no bother.
I'm guilty of rolling with the sea of ooc lulz that sometimes happen following something hilarious. I  after, trust dat.

[Lizzie]

My list is smallish.

Outside of clan indoctrination, staff retcon and consent everything can be handled IC.  Everything. I don't need to know you have to  drive home/feed your baby/clean up after your cat/get dinner out of the oven/open the door for the pizza guy. We have a gone command that does not require any explanation at all. gone brb/afk. That is all. I will pause the scene to wait. It's no bother.
I'm guilty of rolling with the sea of ooc lulz that sometimes happen following something hilarious. I  after, trust dat.

And syntax. People need to stop being afraid to use ooc to explain command syntax to people. There are different types of watersellers, and they all have their own syntax. If I've never been to THAT waterseller, I would be looking for the bucket to lower til Tek flies into the Gaj for an ale, and I'll never get water from THAT waterseller. "help waterseller" won't help. List won't help, buy won't help. It isn't intuitive. It takes someone who already knows how to do it, to explain the actual coded command to me, before I'll figure it out. I'd rather you just tell me with ooc than go through a whole 10-minute IC roleplaying spiel about how this waterseller is persnickety about how she prefers people to bring her their empty containers. Just give me the damned syntax.

[ShaLeah]

My list is smallish.

Outside of clan indoctrination, staff retcon and consent everything can be handled IC.  Everything. I don't need to know you have to  drive home/feed your baby/clean up after your cat/get dinner out of the oven/open the door for the pizza guy. We have a gone command that does not require any explanation at all. gone brb/afk. That is all. I will pause the scene to wait. It's no bother.
I'm guilty of rolling with the sea of ooc lulz that sometimes happen following something hilarious. I  after, trust dat.

And syntax. People need to stop being afraid to use ooc to explain command syntax to people. There are different types of watersellers, and they all have their own syntax. If I've never been to THAT waterseller, I would be looking for the bucket to lower til Tek flies into the Gaj for an ale, and I'll never get water from THAT waterseller. "help waterseller" won't help. List won't help, buy won't help. It isn't intuitive. It takes someone who already knows how to do it, to explain the actual coded command to me, before I'll figure it out. I'd rather you just tell me with ooc than go through a whole 10-minute IC roleplaying spiel about how this waterseller is persnickety about how she prefers people to bring her their empty containers. Just give me the damned syntax.

It's personal preference.  I don't agree. With the bonafide helpers, the help channel on Discord and the WISH command there is no reason to break character to ask for syntax.    I'm not gonna crucify anyone who helps.

[Jihelu]

I can speak from experience in saying I rarely get help VIA wish all when asking about commands.

Sometimes helpers aren't on.

Discord is a good one though, but might be slow.

Might as well use OOC to ask the person IN THE ROOM WITH ME who knows HOW TO DO IT.

[Lizzie]

I can speak from experience in saying I rarely get help VIA wish all when asking about commands.

Sometimes helpers aren't on.

Discord is a good one though, but might be slow.

Might as well use OOC to ask the person IN THE ROOM WITH ME who knows HOW TO DO IT.

In addition, NEW players might need to be actually asked to use these other channels of communication, because they don't know about them. How do they learn? Someone tells them OOC. That's how I learned about the wish command. I didn't come from a diku environment and didn't know it even existed. In order to look for something in a help file you have to know it exists.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Eh, ya'll being old-age cranky now! 

Excessive OOC bothers me. A random OOC here or there about "making dinner, back in 20" doesn't even begin to bother me. If you tell me the ingredients, yeah, then you've gone too fare.

[Delirium]

Excessive OOC bothers me. A random OOC here or there about "making dinner, back in 20" doesn't even begin to bother me. If you tell me the ingredients, yeah, then you've gone too fare.

I see what you did there...

I think we can all agree that limiting OOC conversation is ideal, and to try and respect immersion whenever possible.

[Bushranger]

My list is smallish.

2nd thing that fucks with my immersions is staff intervention into player plots. The animation of clan leaders to put the kibosh on an on going plot is the worst. Players going to staff is like toddlers going to mom and dad to whine "She's touching me!". Grates my last nerve.

I can't speak for all instances of this over the years but when I've seen this it's not been staff coming in and saying "NO MORE PLOT!" when the clan leaders are animated to tell their employees they do not like the directions they've been going in but some players have taken it as such. I like it when staff animate the world and the clans be it as encouragement, simple acknowledgement or judgement.

I've always seen it more that the clan leaders are are expressing that the plot is not something they are interested in or want their clan to be involved with so if you wish to pursue the plot be a bit more sneaky about it and don't let it blow back on the clan. I think you can almost always keep pursuing the plot when clan leaders tell you to shut it down.

[ShaLeah]

I can speak from experience in saying I rarely get help VIA wish all when asking about commands.

Sometimes helpers aren't on.

Discord is a good one though, but might be slow.

Might as well use OOC to ask the person IN THE ROOM WITH ME who knows HOW TO DO IT.

In addition, NEW players might need to be actually asked to use these other channels of communication, because they don't know about them. How do they learn? Someone tells them OOC. That's how I learned about the wish command. I didn't come from a diku environment and didn't know it even existed. In order to look for something in a help file you have to know it exists.

I guess we're not gonna agree then! I got a band of bandits I can PM, DM call or text and have any answer within seconds.

My list is smallish.

2nd thing that fucks with my immersions is staff intervention into player plots. The animation of clan leaders to put the kibosh on an on going plot is the worst. Players going to staff is like toddlers going to mom and dad to whine "She's touching me!". Grates my last nerve.

I can't speak for all instances of this over the years but when I've seen this it's not been staff coming in and saying "NO MORE PLOT!" when the clan leaders are animated to tell their employees they do not like the directions they've been going in but some players have taken it as such. I like it when staff animate the world and the clans be it as encouragement, simple acknowledgement or judgement.

I've always seen it more that the clan leaders are are expressing that the plot is not something they are interested in or want their clan to be involved with so if you wish to pursue the plot be a bit more sneaky about it and don't let it blow back on the clan. I think you can almost always keep pursuing the plot when clan leaders tell you to shut it down.

I am not talking about any staff animation, that's different. I like that. I don't even care if I'm getting yelled at. Hell, I even want there to be staff SOLELY to animate and make the world come alive. There is never enough of that for me.

I won't get into specifics because it's useless to do so but when what bothers me happens it always messes with my immersion and forces me to change what my character would have done. A lot of the time it also feels like 'what sense does THAT make?' and reeks of favoritism. I might feel different if I was on the other side of it. No. I wouldn't. I'm such a theme-adherent Nazi. It really might just be that I need to be more cutthroat and not give a fuck if the family gets pissed and do it anyway but I am really really against taking a sponsored role and then doing whatever the fuck you want with whomever you want without keeping family first. My characters also develop through time and actual experience so jumping from one hop-scotch to the other can be hard for me. Shit HAS to make IC sense for me to roll with it or I'll just gloss over it and pretend it didn't happen.

I thought of another immersion breaker:

The use of real life pop music on Zalanthas. Like current shit, everyone knows it shit. Not even Zalanthafied.

[Cind]

I've only come across a real-life song once in Zalanthas at least eight years ago and it didn't really mess with my immersion. It was the one that goes 'Three shakes in the wind' and the guy was drunk and we were all having fun in the Kadian bar in Tuluk with bynners, because drinking is always more fun with bynners. Maybe it seemed like the time, and its my only example. If someone started singing that in the middle of a scene where a templar was breathing fire on a crowd of protestors then yes, I'd probably have a problem with it.

I try not to use ooc if I can help it, but sometimes I feel like the command is needed. I have also had to explain waterseller syntax to people before, twice or three times, and one time I was actually leading someone around the city to places like stairs on their first log-in and telling them things about the city/world that every commoner ought to know, like racism and stuff. Not as ooc for most of that conversation, but it was kind of obvious from the way I worded it that it might as well be ooc if a few words were changed. But I think I hooked them, because I saw them get employed with some House later.