Overview: Player Immersion, Motivation, and Relationship to Character
Unit 6 Overview
In Unit 6, we will explore theories of immersion, motivation, and player relationship to character from the role-playing game discourse. Role-playing, like many other forms of embodied play, can be considered an altered state of consciousness. While it shares commonalities with other modalities such as acting, improv, etc., the role-playing game activity is unique as a phenomenological state due to the many activities, thought processes, and emotions players juggle during play.
Thus, although much can be learned about these states by studying adjacent states of consciousness, reading theory in the role-playing game discourse can provide exceptional insight into the complexities of the play experience, as well as how various game activities can differ in terms of what types of attention they require. i.e. immersion. From this perspective, players can also learn to articulate and express their creative agendas, meaning the types of role-playing activities they most prefer. These creative agendas are indicative of motivation, i.e. what motivates players to seek out certain types of activities or groups.
Although these concepts have overlap, please note that while immersion is a neutral state, describing “what happens” when a player is engaged in an attentive state on a facet of the game, motivation is a play preference, i.e. a facet of the game that players find particularly engaging.
Finally, analyzing these states give us insight into the relationship between players and their characters — not only the relative similarities and differences between self-concept and character-concept, but also degree of perceived closeness or distance to the character to one’s daily self during play.
While this Unit focuses mostly on the theoretical side of play experience, consider the ramifications these concepts have on design and implementation. Also, reflect upon your own experiences of play and facilitation with regard to these theories. How would you self-define if using this terminology to describe your engagement?
In this Unit, we will cover:
- Immersion
- Motivation
- Relationship to Character
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Note: Some of the materials below may not be available outside of this course. We are providing them as part of your education within this course. Do not distribute PDFs.
Required materials:
- Bowman, Sarah Lynne. 2018. “Immersion and Shared Imagination in Role-Playing Games.” In Role-Playing Game Studies: Transmedia Foundations, edited by José P. Zagal and Sebastian Deterding, 379-394. New York: Routledge.