Do Mechanics Actually Matter for a Role-Playing Game?

[kyoryu]

Yes. In bad games, resolving one round of combat takes an hour. In good games, a whole fight takes a couple minutes, and most of that time is spent describing the cool **** that's happening instead of adding up thirty four separate modifiers. And this is entirely up to the mechanics.

While I personally agree with you, I think it's also important to remember that different people view fun in different ways. For some people, that level of detail and adding up 34 different modifiers is the fun, and likely a game that you or I enjoy would feel dull and flat to them.

In either case, though, mechanics matter. You just need a game that supports your idea of fun, whatever that might be.