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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5545471" data-attributes="member: 82106">EEK! A tide of gophers! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> Sounds like a good place. We had an FLGS like that in one place where I lived, which was pretty cool. Even so, store games can tend to be a bit on the casual side. That can be true anywhere where you have people rotating in some and the players aren't particularly known to each other outside the game. You tend to get more of a 'goofy game' when you have a fairly tight knit group that isn't especially into a given game. In the more open games you just tend to get little buy-in.You CAN tweak your style somewhat. Make the game a bit more episodic, maybe a connected set of fairly short adventures tied together with some mechanism. Probably the simplest ploy is to do a 'Stargate' type campaign. The PCs are all members of some group that has a patron with lots of resources. The patron sends out teams of adventurers with fairly explicit goals. The adventure lasts a session or two, maybe 3 for a big one.The most casual sort of players that just want to play, hack some things, and not really pay attention to the plot much or remember a whole lot of stuff can have a perfectly good time doing just that. Once a mission is over they can forget about it. They're hired guns, they can leave the heavy thinking to higher ups. A player that is more into the overall plot OTOH can be fed bits of information, interact with the patron a bit more, etc. They'll be more attuned to the bigger picture and the other players can leave the heavy thinking to them. If the player is more of the explorer type they can get in the loop to plan missions and whatnot. As far as people just not bothering to learn the rules... You can't make people do it. Some of the people in my regular game have been playing 3.x for years, one of them runs a long-running 3.5 game. They're fine with playing 4e and have a couple books, and even picked up a couple DDI subs for a while, but they're not THAT into the rules. They've learned the basics, mostly, and being experienced gamers don't have a lot of trouble, but they're not going to remember all the rules all of the time. Still, I make sure they're aware of what the rules implications of things are and when they ask questions that most anyone in this thread likely knows in their sleep I just answer them. It works out fine. There are possible things you can do. I've recommended one ploy a few times, though I only tried it out a little bit myself. Create an NPC (a Companion Character probably). Make it a leader, warlord seems optimum for this. I call this character "Sarge". Sarge is the gruff old warrior, past his prime but wise in the ways of battle. He doesn't DO a heck of a lot, but he can dish out a slide, a basic attack, an attack buff, and maybe a heal or two if they're really needed. Mostly what he gives is ADVICE. It often comes in the form of "No, no, you idjit rogue! You're supposed to be OVER HERE so you can flank that guy!" (slides character into flanking position). He can advise the characters on tricks they can learn (power or feat choices) "You know, I heard those dwarves over in the Gray Hills have this trick they use with a hammer..." (describes how Hammer Rhythm would be a great feat choice). Pretty soon the players will start second-guessing Sarge. Eventually you can use him as a plot hook when they don't need him anymore.</blockquote>

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