It is a huge factor. Many gamers play video games and then think all games must be like video games.
And I say it's mostly irrelevant--and have never seen a player act like a tabletop game should work precisely like any video game. Even tabletop games
based on video games!
That's a bit odd: you have met bad DMs but never a bad player......
shrug It is my experience. Perhaps now you better understand why I am so skeptical of "DM empowerment" and claims of "absolute power" and the like. I've seen (though almost never played with) truly awful DMs. I have
never played with nor run for anyone
remotely like what you seem to think most players are.
These are people from all over the world (Australia, US, England, somewhere in South America, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Japan), from all walks of life, from hugely varying ages (early 20s to early 60s), etc., etc. Never, in all of that huge group, have I seen someone who acted like you think most players do.
Perhaps you should not be so quick to presume the worst of your players.
It's very common. It's kind of a basic human thing that "people don't care".
I find it is rather the reverse.
Especially in tabletop stuff. Most people care pretty deeply about a lot of things, and nerds in particular care a LOT about stuff.
I did not use that word either...it was my AI.....
You're....using an AI? What?
Ok, so you live in an area of all good people. Well, outside that area are lots of bad DMs and players.
You keep doing this: You are assuming that
your experience is the only correct one. Others are either
wrong, or correct but only for a tiny, invisible fraction that doesn't apply outside of their little sheltered bubble.
This is not true. YOUR experience is the weird one. That's what I've tried to tell you, repeatedly. That's what multiple others have tried to tell you, repeatedly.
Most players want to participate. Most players want to care. They need to be shown that doing so is actually worth their time.
I think your
presumption that most players don't care has created a self-fulfilling prophecy. Unless you coincidentally happen to run into people who think almost identically to you, you instantly presume the worst of them, and behave in ways to fight against or mitigate that presumed-worst behavior. But such mitigation tactics are precisely the sorts of things that tell a typical player
not to care, and thus causing players to lose interest--but that then simply fuels your perception that most people don't care.
It really, truly, genuinely
is not the case that most players truly do not care at all. Most players do care, at least a little, about many things, and often care a lot about particular things. Showing the players that their investment of time and energy will be rewarded with a fun experience is how you
earn the player actually giving that investment of time and energy.