Sean Patrick Fannon and I go back a few years. We were both working for a company about to get things off the ground just before the proverbial rug (nay, the very earth itself) was pulled out from beneath the two of us and countless others. Needless to say, neither of us (nor countless others) would still be creating tabletop role-playing games if we didn’t genuinely believe in the hobby itself.
Well, while we both have been world building and rule mongering, Sean also found the time to voice a few truths about what it will take to get people back into face-to-face, Knights of the Dinner Table, “let the dice fall where they may” role-playing games. Forget plugging in, clearing memory cards, memorizing ridiculously long combo patterns to maximize points or damage, or any of the other limitations video game designers must impose upon their creations because of the “if they didn’t think of it, you can’t do it” limitation inherit to all computer software.
The article is on Sean’s Blog (or whatever he’s calling it now)… check it out. Will it save the industry and put a gold set of polyhedral dice in every dice bag? Maybe not, but it’s still good stuff.