Preserving Immersion in D&D: The DM's School of Illusion

D&D immersion is a shared hallucination, willingly entered into

Dungeons & Dragons and psychedelic drugs have more in common than we expect at first glance. When we sit down and begin a game of Dungeons & Dragons, everyone at the table agrees to turn entirely delusional for a few hours. In D&D jargon we call the result of this delusion “immersion.” Immersion is a loosely defined term that can mean many different things. But the essence of immersion in the fiction of our game lies in accepting the shared illusion of D&D.

Like with psychedelic experiences, the resulting behavior might seem totally incomprehensible to any sane outside observer: “What do you mean, you’re fighting a dragon? Are you OK?” When we play D&D, everyone involved agrees to suspend disbelief in a significant way for the duration of the game. “But if it’s all make-belief, can’t you just say and do whatever you want?” There are the written rules of the system of Fifth Edition D&D to limit possible character actions. But there is more holding the shared hallucination of our game aloft.

The world between our minds

Players and DMs accept that there is a fictional world that they play in and expect that this world exists outside of all of our heads. If we thought of our game world as individual imaginations, we could, in fact, do whatever we wanted. Like in a dream, we could change plot, logic, and content regardless of continuity and consequences. But we believe the fiction of our shared illusion to exist beyond our own imagination. The fiction of our roleplaying game exists somewhere in the elusive space between our minds. In a good game of D&D, immersion means that we actually believe that the characters’ actions have consequences, that NPCs respond to these actions, and that the fantastical locations are living and breathing environments for adventure.

Most of the time, the illusory nature of the game will be more overt and present for us as the DM. We often take a less personal perspective on the fiction, and recognize the many constructs of our imagination that create the game world. What are some of the levels of illusion that are part of the DM’s spellbook of shared hallucination?

The DM’s school of illusion – A path to D&D immersion

Prepared or improvised?

No preparation survives contact with the players. In any given session, we will reach the point where we need to improvise. Players are great at coming up with solutions that would never have occurred to us. The worst we can do in this instance is to force players to follow along the plot we prepared for. Instead, faith in our improvisational skills, combined with a little DM illusion magic can make it seem like we are prepared for anything.

Looking through our notes, as if the content the players are asking for is in there, can help maintain the illusion that we, the DM, are not making it all up as we go along. The characters want to talk to the nameless NPC we mentioned as part of a background setting? Yes, yes, of course he has a name, and we have it written down somewhere here… Just let me look through my notes… Ah, yes here it is! All we have done, was to look for our list of random names, pick one, and improvise everything else about the NPC. But the simple fact of looking through our notes, upholds the illusion of an intact world in our shared hallucination.

Let the players’ speculation become reality

We can use improvisation to let the speculative ideas of players become reality. Doing this can raise some eyebrows when players wonder whether they guessed right, or we made their guess reality. “This door is probably trapped, let me check it.” We had no idea the door was trapped, but now that one of the players has brought it up… Actually, yes. The door is trapped! The character fails their investigation check and poison arrows shoot at them as they step through the door. “I knew it…” Letting the players’ hunches become reality in the game, makes them feel like they understand the world, and that it conforms to their intuitions about the fiction.

This is another DM’s illusion spell. The players might not have been “correct” in their speculation, initially. But we can make their speculation correct by adapting the world to the players’ intuitions. It will make the world feel responsive, and understandable to the players.

Fudging dice when we made a mistake

When we’re rolling dice behind a DM screen, the randomness can become another illusory spell of ours. One that we shouldn’t use too often, but one that can help us get out of situations that are turning into disaster because of a mistake we, the DM, made. Sometimes, we totally underestimated a monster’s power when we look at their stat block. In play, we might realize that the players are going to die for no fault of their own, simply because we threw them into an unerringly deadly situation. In this case, it is alright to fudge a die roll or two to give the characters a chance to escape, circumvent, or defeat the impossible situation.

Again, we should be careful not to make it a habit to fudge dice rolls. But sometimes, it can help maintain the shared hallucination. Nothing breaks immersion like a character getting one-shot and the player feeling like there was nothing they could have done to save them. Especially in these situations, when a TPK is immanent clearly due to a DM’s mistake, we can use this sleight of hand to keep the game running.

Never reveal your tricks!

The first rule for any aspiring illusionist (a surprisingly apt job descriptions for any DM) is to never share the secret of a trick. In any good magic show, the audience knows that they are being tricked. They might beg the “magician” to reveal their tricks. Here is the secret: they don’t actually want to know. As soon as we realize the trick, the sense of magic evaporates. We can adopt this magician’s code of honor when we’re running our game.

Following this code means that we almost never tell players whether something was prepared or improvised in order to preserve immersion for our D&D game. We shouldn’t tell them that we just picked up a player suggestion and made it become reality in our game world. Did we have to fudge some dice to prevent a TPK that came about because of our own oversight? Don’t tell the players. If we do, the whole house of cards that is our game comes crashing down. Immersion vanishes like air from a punctured balloon. Play the confidence game. Never reveal your tricks!

Maintaining immersion in D&D with the DM’s school of illusion

Playing Dungeons & Dragons is a psychedelic experience. When we play, we willingly enter a shared hallucination. In D&D jargon we call this delusional behavior “immersion.” We can think of our role as dungeon masters as illusionists. We can use magic tricks like never showing whether something was prepared or improvised. Player speculations at the table might become spell components for our illusions when we make them become reality in our game world. Even the most blatant of DM illusions – fudging dice – can be a vital to maintaining the shared hallucination. This is especially true if we accidentally threw players into a deadly situation. Whatever the tricks in our DM magician’s arsenal – like any great magician, we should never reveal our tricks. Stick with the illusion, play the confidence game, and keep hallucinating together with your players.