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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jmucchiello" data-source="post: 5168568" data-attributes="member: 813">I think I've found the difference. For me, and I'm guessing other people, participation is not a function of rolling the dice, interrupting someone else or even succeeding. Take baseball as an example, I'm guessing the reasons someone likes or dislikes baseball is a play here. If you are sitting in the stands and your favorite team is at bat, you are attending the game but you are not participating. If you are sitting on the bench, due up 5th this inning while you team is at bat you are as "active" as the guy in that stands yet you are definitely participating. A guy on the bench is watching the pitcher to learn how he pitches, he paying attention to the score and who's on base and how the fielders are positioned.The same thing happens in an RPG when it is not your turn. You can choose to goof off, go get a snack, talk to someone else at the table about your job, etc, or you can pay attention to who's turn it is, where the monsters are, what might come through the door, etc. The difference between the role-player and baseball player is the baseball player is being paid to be member of the team and you can damn well bet if his coach or manager asks him "are you paying attention to the game?" He's going to answer yes if he doesn't want to get chewed out. As a professional, it is his job to participate regardless of whether he has his glove on or a bat in hand. The role-player is not held to the same standard the pro baseball player is without a strong social dynamic. Anyone posting on this board is likely capable of paying attention without needing game mechanics to keep them "engaged". And I would guess is not passively watching, waiting for his turn. Can't you observe what is happening on other players' turns while waiting for your turn? I know I'm always listening to the damage announcements from the both the DM (to figure out how much of a threat the current foe actually is) and from my fellow players (to figure out how tough the foes are). Isn't this fun?I'm guessing it probably isn't for the casual gamer. The casual gamer is someone who doesn't live for the hobby. He doesn't read ENWorld, ever. And while he may be an excellent "team" player socially, he doesn't engage with the game when it's not his turn. This group is orthogonal to the twitch gamer of this thread but they do both benefit from rules systems that cater to twitch gaming. If there are more things to do out of turn in order to increase the twitch gamer's frequency of action, then this also helps the casual gamer stay focused on the game. As I said earlier in the thread, perhaps this observation about faster, more frequent WIN does more than just cater to the twitch gamer. In the case of "more to do during a round" it also keeps casual gamers engaged.</blockquote>

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