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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Keldryn" data-source="post: 5398428" data-attributes="member: 11999">For my group, the complexity of the game mechanics does have an adverse effect on some of the players' interest in the setting and in developing their PCs' personalities.  Of my four regular players, two would be considered "casual" in the sense that their involvement with D&D lasts only as long as they are sitting at my dining room table every other Saturday night.  They will never own their own books, nor are they likely to even read any of the rulebooks outside of the game.  When the game mechanics become more demanding than what they can understand with a few short sentences during the game, then their focus is almost entirely on trying to make sense of how to play the game, rather than just playing it.Both of my casual players were far more engaged in the Basic game than they were in the 4e game because their characters were extremely simple (both Fighters) and they didn't feel overwhelmed.   This was despite the fact that I was running HS1 The Slaying Stone in the 4e game, and while the Nentir Vale isn't the most exciting, well-developed setting, I wasn't even using a defined setting in the Basic game.  Just a hastily-prepared dungeon crawl without any plot hooks aside from "there's treasure in here."  But the much simpler PC mechanics allowed these two players to be much more engaged in interacting with the setting, as sketchy as it was.All of the PCs in the Basic one-shot ended up having more developed personalities than did the PCs after three sessions of the 4e game.  It was particularly true for the two casual/novice players, but it was true for the other two players as well.Now, this is certainly not an absolute truth, as many 3e and 4e players are able to develop their characters' personalities during play and be very engaged in the fictional setting of the game.  Once me, my sister, and the experienced 3e player get a little more familiar with 4e, I'm sure we'll have an easier time of it.  For my wife and my sister's boyfriend, the complexity of the rules requires so much cognitive effort that they don't seem to have much left for focusing on the in-game fiction.  The inordinate focus on the game mechanics then leaves them feeling bored with the game and thus uninterested in the story elements.In 3e and 4e games that I have DMed or played in, it is very easy to get distracted by game mechanics and it does sometimes require a conscious effort to let them fade into the background.  If the DM and all of the players are very familiar with the core rules, then this becomes much less of an obstacle.  The more complex the game mechanics become, the longer this process takes, and the greater the risk of the less-invested players just getting bored and dropping out.I've played in groups where all of the players are avid D&Ders, own a Player's Handbook plus several splatbooks, and are very well-versed in the important rules of the game and the fiction of the game world.  In this sort of group, the game mechanics are frequently not an obstacle to players becoming engaged in their characters and the game setting.  Well, until the inevitable rules arguments break out.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />Not all gaming groups are going to be like that (nor should they be), and quite frankly, I feel that neither the 3rd nor 4th Edition D&D games are very approachable to non-gamers.  And by "non-gamers" I mean those people for whom gaming is not a primary hobby.  My wife and my sister's boyfriend are currently regular players in my every-other-Saturday game, but they're not (nor will they ever be) gamers in the sense that me, my sister, and the 4th player are.  The three of us all own a lot of D&D books, have played for years, have DMed campaigns, have played other RPGs, and often just read RPG books for enjoyment.  For players who just want to show up every other week, have fun for 3 or 4 hours, and then forget about the game until the next session, the Basic D&D game is probably a much better fit.  3e and 4e require a fair bit of an investment of time and effort on the part of the players to become comfortable with the core rules of the game.  And I think that most players need to that level of comfort with the game mechanics in order to let them fade into the background and focus more of their attention on the story aspects.  Until then, there is quite likely a feeling of playing two different games and the story suddenly grinds to a halt while the dice-rolling games take center stage.</blockquote>

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