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<blockquote data-quote="uzirath" data-source="post: 7614165" data-attributes="member: 8495">I appreciate your thorough explanation. It doesn't match my own experience, but I certainly respect your preferred playstyle. The quote above had me chuckling because when I pitch RPGs to non-gamers, I explicitly tell them that there is no expectation that they read the rulebooks! (I don't imply that this is universal though... just my own table expectations.) To me, this seems to be a different issue than knowing the rules. I certainly expect players to pay attention throughout a game session, whether or not it is their turn. If not, eventually they will not be invited back. But paying attention to the martial artist doing her awesome chi moves doesn't require understanding the mechanics of the martial arts subsystem. It's enough to know that she can poke someone and cause them to pass out or that she can run up walls and across the ceiling. Even if they suddenly had to play that character for some reason, there's still no baseline requirement that they know how it all works under the hood. They know enough to say, &quot;I run up to the ceiling and start throwing my shuriken!&quot; That's where the awesome is, as far as I'm concerned.I haven't experienced quite the same degree of dead-weight before, but I suppose I would also be frustrated if someone couldn't find basic info on their character sheet after a few sessions. I have definitely disinvited players before who just didn't seem into it. I've got plenty of people eager to join the group, so I don't see why we should hold a spot for someone who isn't 100% in. I just define 100% differently; I want them 100% invested in their character and the shared fiction. If the game books make their eyes glaze over, I'm fine with that. (Some of my best players over the years have been that sort.)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="uzirath, post: 7614165, member: 8495"] I appreciate your thorough explanation. It doesn't match my own experience, but I certainly respect your preferred playstyle. The quote above had me chuckling because when I pitch RPGs to non-gamers, I explicitly tell them that there is no expectation that they read the rulebooks! (I don't imply that this is universal though... just my own table expectations.) To me, this seems to be a different issue than knowing the rules. I certainly expect players to pay attention throughout a game session, whether or not it is their turn. If not, eventually they will not be invited back. But paying attention to the martial artist doing her awesome chi moves doesn't require understanding the [I]mechanics[/I] of the martial arts subsystem. It's enough to know that she can poke someone and cause them to pass out or that she can run up walls and across the ceiling. Even if they suddenly had to play that character for some reason, there's still no baseline requirement that they know how it all works under the hood. They know enough to say, "I run up to the ceiling and start throwing my shuriken!" That's where the awesome is, as far as I'm concerned. I haven't experienced quite the same degree of dead-weight before, but I suppose I would also be frustrated if someone couldn't find basic info on their character sheet after a few sessions. I have definitely disinvited players before who just didn't seem into it. I've got plenty of people eager to join the group, so I don't see why we should hold a spot for someone who isn't 100% in. I just define 100% differently; I want them 100% invested in their character and the shared fiction. If the game books make their eyes glaze over, I'm fine with that. (Some of my best players over the years have been that sort.) [/QUOTE]

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