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to add to a dice roll or reverse the outcome. While leaving the outcome completely to chance does add suspense, the ability to be more involved in the outcome of the story can also cause greater immersion in the storyworld. In other words, a decrease in temporal immersion may actually lead to an increase in either spatial or emotional immersion. There may be less chance and suspense, but the increased control will allow players to feel more a part of the story setting and their characters’ lives. In fact, some TRPGs have done away with dice rolls altogether in favor of more player-determined actions.

In addition, before the dice are even rolled, the player may need to convince the DM that an action should be attempted. For example, in a later Sorpraedor adventure, a gnome decided that she would add to her ability to kill the enemy by lighting her socks on fire and attaching them to her arrow to create a flaming arrow. Before making her dice roll to see if her arrow did damage, the player needed to convince the DM to allow her character to attempt the action. These situations then exist both in the storyworld and in the game world. Players are temporally immersed in the game actions, such as rolling the dice, that have an either/or consequence, but also in the story actions; and it is impossible to completely separate the two.

Emotional immersion may very well be the most intense type of immersion in the TRPG. As one of my survey participants noted, “I enjoy role-playing a character. Yeah, we’ll do some dice stuff to help resolve conflict, but that’s just there to make sure everyone is treated fairly. The point is the character and the story, not the dice.” Ryan (2003) defines emotional immersion as a “response to character” (p. 121). This type of immersion is, perhaps, the one that has led to the societal fears about the power of TRPGs that began in 1979 after a Michigan State student who enjoyed D&D committed suicide. The public voiced fear that players could become so engrossed in their alter egos that they would have trouble reemerging. Aarseth (1997) states that this sort of role merging can take place in any game that involves an avatar, and that players, in general, see avatars as extensions of themselves (p. 113). However, Fine (1983) explains that there is a difference between “role embracement” and “role merger” (p. 207). Whether or not a player creates an avatar that resembles him or herself, the constant movement in and out of character prevents a complete role merger.

New players may be more likely than experienced players to see avatars as extensions of themselves, according to Nephew (2006). She explains that a great deal of insider knowledge comes into play when developing a character. Therefore, a less experienced player may have to rely more on their external experience for character creation, resulting in a character that more nearly mimics the self (Nephew, 2006, p. 123). A character that is closely related to the self may indeed increase emotional immersion. However, a new player overwhelmed by the rules of creating characters may also go the other direction and allow someone else, usually the DM, to create a character for them. In addition, games that are pre-made modules may come with pre-generated characters. This was the case when I participated in NC State Game Day and Worldwide Dungeons and Dragons Game Day. Both of these gaming experiences involved pre-generated characters and modules, and the emotional immersion in these games was far less than in an ongoing campaign where players create and continually improve their characters. In fact, during these sessions, I noticed that the DM and other players did not try particularly hard to memorize the names of the characters, but would instead refer to them by their class or race. Rather than asking “What does Whisper do?,” the DM might look at me and ask, “What does the sorceress do?” However, in an ongoing campaign not only was individual investment in the character more clear, the group also knew each other by character name and was emotionally