What is Player Engagement? or 'Guys, There's a Panther in the Kitchen!"

One of my favorite moments in years of running games came in the form of a momentary slip in reality.  At the climax of a game session, in the aftermath of a truly dramatic scene, I entered portraying a panther.  I walked into the kitchen area slowly, remembering my acting exercises about embodying animals (thank you, abortive production of Animal Farm the Musical in college) as one of the players came in.  She looked at me quizzically, and I indicated "a panther has slowly entered the building."  She called out to the other players, "Guys, there's a panther in the kitchen!"  And they came to see.  And there was a surprising air of disappointment in the moment.  I heard later from my friend Jeffry that at the time, he had been so engaged in the moment that he had expected there to be a real panther, and that seeing it was just me, there was a moment of let down, and then a moment of amusement at the fact that he had expected an actual panther.  I viewed that as a success, a moment of engagement so deep that a player got caught up it it.

But what is engagement?  What does it mean in a game for a player to be engaged?  And are there truly different types of player to engage with? And what are some methods for engagement?  Let's pick one of these to start, and let's start with the hardest one.  What is engagement?

In my experience, engagement ties into what performance studies scholars call a flow state.  The basic idea is that when performing an activity, one can reach a state in the performance of an activity to the point where it is engaged with automatically.  Essentially, you stop thinking about doing something and simply do it.  Reaching a flow state can be linked to things like the phrase "time flies when you're having fun."  Engagement is essentially reaching a state of flow within the game space, losing the distance between self and character, between action and game.  To give a pair of contrasting examples, a character experiences a moment of loss.  A player who is not in a flow state (aka disengaged) would think about the situation, think about how the character would react, think about how to manifest that, and then take character actions to represent that.  A player who is in a flow state (aka engaged), would react directly to the situation as the character.

So, essentially, engagement is about getting into the headspace of game.  In a game that is running smoothly, the players are moving between thought and action without having to think about it too much.  As a note, the idea of a flow state is often used in athletics, with better athletes able to enter a flow state where action comes without need for thought.  I think that divide exists in the world of LARP as well, with better play coming from greater engagement.

Engagement for Players
As a player, it is generally desireable to reach a state of deeper engagement with the game. When engaged, game becomes more immanent, more direct, more emotionally investing.  Here are a few tips for how to get better engaged as a player in game.
1. Find something to do physically.  Many modern acting techniques use physical action as a way of breaking down the overthinking process of acting.  Because as humans we can't fully multitask, if we're thinking about some physical action our character is doing, we aren't thinking about words or emotional reactions.
2. Take some time to get into the headspace of the character before entering game space.  I've had a lot of success with music as a way of getting into a character's headspace, but taking a moment to pull yourself out of your everyday mode and into your character's headspace can work wonders.
3. Take time between game to do character work.  Think about how your character approaches problems in life and how they would approach them in game.  Spend some time monologuing in character, having pretend conversations can help when you have actual conversations.
4. Give careful consideration beforehand to your characters goals and the stakes of their involvement in action.  Knowing what counts as winning and losing to them within their framework can make engaging in problem solving or strategic action much more fluid and easy.
5. Costume.  How many times am I going to tell you to costume?  As many as it takes.  Wearing what your character is wearing helps other players not have to think about what your character is doing.
Overall, engagement strategies should be about finding your way into the characters ways of doing things.

Engagement for Storytellers
So, how does one actually encourage engagement?  Well, engagement happens on the player level.  While there are things a Storyteller can do to facilitate that, an important thing to remember when thinking about engagement is that it can't happen without the complicity of players involved.  That said, there are some things that can help set the stage for player engagement.

1. Pre-Gaming. Engagement in game starts before the game itself begins.  While it is important to have the important action on stage, there is a place for action that happens before game.  This is especially true of action whose main purpose is to set a character in motion.  Sometimes, leading into game it's good to establish some contact to set context to help a character enter game in narrative motion.  Characters in motion are more likely to be engaged.

2. Opening Rituals.  Some games start gradually and in fits and starts.  Game begins and some people are in character, some people are out of character.  I don't like doing that.  I feel that really hurts engagement.  In my games, I like to start with some sort of opening moment, whether it's showing opening credits, setting the stage of events, playing some music and doing a short character exercise or something similar.  This puts a border between real world and game world and helps people begin the process of engagement.  After that, I like to have people enter the space in character, symbolicly arriving to the event.  Overall, a hard open like that primes the game for engagement.

3. Setting the Space.  It's easier to pretend you're on a ship in the middle of the ocean if you are standing on a stage set from a pirate movie rather than in a hotel conference room.  I don't think anyone will argue that.  But we don't always have that luxury.  However, by setting up the space of a game, even with minor things like defining what section is what part of the fictional space.  Make sure that people aren't standing in the game space but not in the game space, having to ignore those who aren't actually in the game makes things harder.  For an ongoing game, getting a space that can be used as is can go a long way to helping things.

4. Walking the Space.  This is the skill that is one of the most important for running a game, being able to walk around the space and get a sense of moments of disengagement.  Realizing who is sitting in the corner bored and checking their phone.  Noting who is having an out of character conversation out on the patio.  And then figuring out ways to potentially put those characters back into motion.  Finding ways to nudge the game to keep things going is a subtle art, but phone calls with information, the arrival of relevant NPCs, or just the 'you notice this thing' gambit all work to help draw someone back into the action in some way.

5. Story Pacing.  Keep your game world in motion.  One thing that can slow down a game is if the players do not have a sense that things are moving forward.  If the world around them seems content to not change until they get around to changing it, then complacency can set in.  Additionally, on a session by session basis, space out the action of a session so that not everything is happening at once.  Let events play out so that there is always at least one thing going on rather than ten at once.

6. How to End a Session.  The energy of a game will wind down.  It may be that game starts at 7 and ends at 10:45, but if it's 10:15 and everything seems do be drawing to a close, then call game wrap.  On the other hand, if it's 10:45 and everything is still at its height, wait 10-15 and wrap at 11.  Either way, never let the energy of a game completely wind down by the end of a session.  Leave them wanting more.

Is There a Triad?
One theory of engagement postulates that there are Actors, Immersives and Gamers and that you engage with them differently.  I don't quite agree with this.  I think that it is better to think of Acting, Immersing and Gaming as methods of engagement.  Acting is engaging with the game as a performance, Immersing is engaging with the game as an experience, Gaming is engaging with the game as a set of challenges.  Now, it is true that certain players take to certain experiences more easily.  But I feel it is limiting as a player to only attempt to engage on the game at one level.  At its best, these methods of engagement can feed into each other, as one immerses one's self in a character's perspective to approach an in-game challenge, one creates an engaging scene.  To that end, I don't necessarily plan for different styles of people, but try to make sure there are multiple levels of engagement available at each event in order to facilitate multi-level engagement.

Overall, engagement is a tricky thing.  Players ultimately choose whether to engage themselves in game, Storytellers can only make it easier for them to do so.  But by recognizing methods of engagement and providing easy avenues for involvement in the action of the story, it is possible to set up a game that is more engaging.  A game that allows multi-level engagement is the holy grail of gaming, only not.  Because it's totally achievable.

Five Sense Storytelling in LARP

One of the reasons that I love gaming, especially LARPing, is that at its best, it is a form of Storytelling that is deeply immersive.  In the climactic moments of games, I can be totally overwhelmed by the rational and emotional reality of the scene in a way that is greater than in books, or television, or movies, or any other form of story.  And as a Storyteller, one of my goals is to help players achieve that immersion, to experience the story more deeply.

One of the methods that I've come to use over the years(in fits and starts) is what I call Five Sense Storytelling, trying to find ways of using sensation to deepen immersion.  Different circumstances call for different methodes, but each of the senses can be engaged for game.  More importantly, I have found that the more senses are engaged in a given game setting, the deeper the overall immersion.  Here are some of the ways that I've found useful for deepening immersion.

Sight
Sight is probably the most important of the senses to engage and the one that is also the hardest to fully engage.  It is inevitable that in game situations there will be some difference between what you see and what is represented in game.  However, there are a few things that can be done to help narrow the gap between reality and experience.
Lighting-Lighting is one of the most underutilized methods of space transformation.  While a lot can be achieved by choosing the time of day(horror is harder on summer weekend afternoons), there is a lot that can be done with lighting tools like colored light bulbs and simple lighting equipment(I use Hampsters).  Just changing the way a room is lit will change people's experience of that room.  Done correctly, it can take a boring conference room and transform it to a creepy conference room.
Decoration-That's where decorating comes in.  Props and added decorations can help make that conference room into a truly different space.  Things that interrupt the way people interact with space or that change the sight lines of a room are especially good in this regard.
Costuming-This is one of the most important things.  Require some degree of costuming.  DO NOT ALLOW NAMETAG COSTUMES.  If someone wants to play a high powered business deer, then either require that they wear a suit and antlers, or talk to them about playing a high powered business deer who wears jeans and a t shirt and a human mask.  As a player, make character choices based on what you can costume, if you only have red tunics, don't make your house colors blue.

Touch
Touch is one of the more complicated senses to engage in LARP, but also one of the easiest.  For instance, Costuming and Decoration often invoke tactile responses, either through the feel of the material or the weight of the costume.  Beyond the side effects however, Touch can be very important.
Props- The most important way to engage touch is through the use of reasonably convincing props.  The weight of a briefcase with ten thousand dollars in it(lighter than you think) or a million dollars in it(only barely possible).  The feel of a sword at your belt.  The visceral creepiness of a human heart sticky with blood(or honey). Props can really invoke reactions based on touching them.

Hearing
Despite being relatively easy to use in game, Hearing is more rarely invoked.  However, Hearing can be very helpful for filling in gaps, adding to the general background of a gamespace by creating a pervasive soundscape.  Music can also be used as a pre-game exercise, a way of setting a scene, and music is not the only way of using Hearing.
Music In Game-One difficulty in running games set before 1877 is that there is no ability to have sourced music unless you pretend to have hired musicians.  However, you don't need a source for music in game to have music in game.  Ambient music can help set the scene as a musical score does in a film or television series.  Having special music for climactic moments can make those moments even more climactic.
Music Pre Game- I am also a big fan of music being used out of game as well.  I make soundtracks for characters, soundtracks for games, soundtracks for factions, I make soundtracks for thematic elements.  These can be very useful for getting into the headspace of game, establishing the mood of a game in your mind before doing game planning or other game work.
Sound Effects- And don't forget sound effects.  It's one thing to tell characters that a terrible rain storm is happening outside.  It's another to have the sound of rain pervading the entire space.  If you're running a game on a starship, have the sound of a warp core idling.  Soundscapes can make environments more immersive.

Taste
This is not the first, nor will it be the last time that I advocate having food at game.  Not only does food help ease people in to social interaction, but different foods can help set the mood in interesting ways.  Tea and cakes set an easy genteel atmosphere, while meat cooked over a fire well befits a postapocalyptic showdown.  This is also where I recommend wine at game.  Make sure that your players don't over indulge and that the presence of drink does not lead to recklessness(man, I sound like a temperance crusader), but having some wine can make players feel more refined and if there is a Trader Joe's near you, a case of two buck chuck is only 36 dollars.

Smell
Finally, the least utilized sense in terms of game creation, smell.  I mean, if you've been to the fourth day of a four day gaming convention, you may have experienced the use of smell in game, but I'm talking about positive usage.  The repeated use of small amounts of burned herbs or incense or of a specific perfume or odor spray can invoke sense memory, helping people return to the headspace of a game.  Alternatively, using a specific scent as a specific character can help you enter the headspace of that character.

Regardless of how you choose to do it.  Engaging the senses in game can go a long way towards immersion.  And immersion is the fast track to engagement.