Weekly Review May 6th to May 12th

This week has seen several theory developments, both in specific aspects of RPGs and in the use of language to discuss them.

Director Immersion

John Kim lists various developments on immersion in RPGs. He goes on to discuss a relationship between stance and immersion. Specifically, he argues that as an immersing player only having authority over your character (actor stance) can break immersion more than having some authority over the things around your character (director stance), as the later can avoid as much meta-game negotiation.

Critical Language

Elliot Wilen brings up a discussion on Story Games about the use of technical language and jargon, especially pertaining RPG theory. He suggests that jargon gets can and has been used as a way to obscure problems or disagreements in theory. He also argues that any valid technical language is also available for critical use, to evaluate and analyze RPGs, not merely design them.

Authority Models

Over at Story Games, John Laviolette has worked out a list of ways in which GM-like authority is distributed among players. He includes negotiation-based and areas of authority, as well as less common variants such as those based on time or table position.