The Three "I"s And What I Want In A Player
For the Better Player Blogwagon.
I think Immersion, Investment, and Initiative are overly valued in our hobby. Let's define those real quick.
Immersion is playing by candle light, background music, and specific rooms designed to look like taverns. It's the environment around the table. I've played in some custom gaming rooms, I've played in crowded game stores, I've played in public libraries, and I've played online. The quality of the environment has no bearing on my enjoyment of the game, as far as I can tell.
Investment is paying attention between turns, remembering details from previous sessions, and knowing their mechanics and which dice to roll. I see far, far too many GMs tie themselves in knots about "How can I get my players to pay attention between turns". Round recaps are completely valid if the player is decisive once you give them. If a player has a good grasp of their character, I don't care if they always need to ask me which die to roll.
Initiative is when a player decides to go in a different direction than you planned, or create a quest of their own, or negotiate with your bad guys who you expected them to fight. So many GMs and players idolize this concept, and I acknowledge it's awesome and uniquely TTRPG, but it's also a form of chasing the dragon. The more you want it and structure your games for it, the less and less it happens.
If you want your players to have all three "I"s from the jump, they combine into high expectations that cannot be reached. If you lower your expectations, meet your players where they are at, you might discover them accidentally, and that's awesome.
Now that I've butchered some sacred cows, here's what I actually consider good player behavior.
Changing their character as the adventure goes on. One of my favorite RPG performances ever was a friend of mine who played an ent in a monster campaign where they were dealing with the first humans and he went completely mad as humans carved up the forest. He started as the rational, patient face of the group and rapidly veered off that baseline once the story started rolling.
Suggesting stuff for me to use later in the campaign. Specifically, doing this out of character, with full transparency that they want me to add this element. In that monster campaign, we fought a kaiju-sized anteater and a hippo because players wanted to fight them since they were playing an ant warrior and a crocodile, respectively.
Adjusting the intensity of roleplaying to the situation. I've had players in combat one shots who really obviously wanted to do roleplaying scenes, and they didn't have a good time because that timeframe and structure just didn't allow for it. Similarly, players who only want combat are similarly locking themselves out of a beautiful experience.
Making decisions and sticking to them. As I said in the Investment section, I don't care if you need a recap when it gets to your turn as long as you can make an educated decision once I give you one.