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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mallus" data-source="post: 5398310" data-attributes="member: 3887">Matt, there's a lot of good stuff in this post, but... (hey it wouldn't be the Internet if we all agreed...). Not me and my group. Some of the best characters I had the pleasure of running for were in 3e and 4e campaigns. In fact, our 3e game got turned into a semi-popular Story Hour (Burne link in my .sig) here, and I can't think of a better testimony to role-playing quality than "a bunch of strangers wanted to read stories about our characters for over a year".This seems likely, yes...... but this doesn't follow. First off, why would simpler PC mechanics necessarily result in a greater interest in the setting? Don't players become interested in a game world because it's interesting? For my money, there's no "magic bullet" for securing and increasing player engagement. You have to present them with an interesting world which changes as they move through it (usually burning everything in their wake... damn PC's). As for goals and personality... my practical experiences are players who like to give their PC's goals, motivations, and all the rest of the trappings of rich characterization will do so, regardless of the complexity of the rules, and those that aren't interested in that sort of thing from the play experience won't. End of story (or should I say 'End of line' in honor the Tron sequel??).Player interest in the external setting is a product of play itself. Player interest in the internal aspects of their characters; motivation, personality, etc. rests entirely on the player being interested in them. The relative complexity of the character mechanics has little to do with either of these things (at least w/r/t D&D). This, of course, is simply excellent advice.</blockquote>

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