Whatever happened to

[Epimethean]

Paladin, you really are close to the quick with that. Technology is a marvelous thing, and it certainly is the product of the imagination and creativity, but as a surrogate for the dynamic of real human interaction, the number of social aspects and variables possible in a face-to-face rpg, computer games come second. This is not to say that they do not have their place, and their place is massive now; but they are not an authentic replacement for the human based systems. I worry that, in time, we may forget so much of the way culture was transmitted that culture itself will become irretrievably diminished. After a fashion, the old style rpgs, such as D&D, GURPS, Space Opera, are something that cannot be "recreated" through any circuitry that is not human. As a Classicist, I appreciate the oral traditions that these games echo.