Video Games killed the Table top
Richard Garriott speaking about user created content for video games. His spin on it hit home with the real trouble with modern RPG (tabletop, video games, etc)...
RG: I am both an enthusiast for user-created content, and a sceptic for the contemporary moulds of user-created content. Back when I was playing Dungeons and Dragons in the early days, the game masters were very good interactive storytellers. But as Dungeons and Dragons became popular, you ran out of good storytellers and instead you ended up with a bunch of people who debated numbers and advantages and statistics in a way that was no longer role-playing in my mind, it had now become a numbers game. And the same thing will happen with user-generated content. There are very few users who actually make very good content. And a lot of games that have had very open-ended user content I think have become giant fields of boring junk.
Preach on brotha RG!
RG: I am both an enthusiast for user-created content, and a sceptic for the contemporary moulds of user-created content. Back when I was playing Dungeons and Dragons in the early days, the game masters were very good interactive storytellers. But as Dungeons and Dragons became popular, you ran out of good storytellers and instead you ended up with a bunch of people who debated numbers and advantages and statistics in a way that was no longer role-playing in my mind, it had now become a numbers game. And the same thing will happen with user-generated content. There are very few users who actually make very good content. And a lot of games that have had very open-ended user content I think have become giant fields of boring junk.
Preach on brotha RG!