How is this game different from all other games?

I recently submitted an invitation for an RPG I want to run to a group of people. It's part of the process of game management my co-author and I are developing. In this case, the game serves as a test not of a system, but of how to start and run a role-playing game. Response has been slow, for a few reasons, and my co-... John, okay? Let's call him John. I'm writing this book with a friend named John; that's so much easier to type and less awkward to work into a sentence.

So, John and I have been engaged in an ongoing discussion about what might be going on here. The individual reasons aren't important to this post. What is important is that role-playing games aren't like many other games, and it requires things from the participants that are sometimes overlooked. As my group moves through the initiating phase of this game, some of these requirements are coming into focus, and I'll be putting them up in posts as they do.