You know that meme that goes “this is what X thinks I do, what Y thinks I do, what I think I do, what I actually do”. I think this is alot like that. Whatever you think roleplaying is like before you actually do it, probably determines your approach to immersion when you get the chance to do it.

IME the default stance of new role players has been what the Forge would call Pawn Stance. That’s because its mostly CRPG players and boardgames who I’ve introduced to table top. When you’re used to manipulating meeples, or talking to that guy because he has an exclamation point above his head, you start from a pretty meta level way of approaching games.