Hello, Mouse. Here's a device where you push the button and get a fix of the dope you're hooked on. Of course, every hit will put $10 on your credit card . .

I started playing D&D when it came in a white box, and the number one thing I know about role playing games is the quality of the gaming experience does not depend upon the system used. I've had good games using nothing more than Melee rules. The only thing that makes for a good game is the ability of the game master and the players to tell a good interactive story. That's why Gygax introduced the game by relating that the rules were only a guideline, and should be modified as needed to advance the game.

So it is with this "computer as storyteller" that I contend. I'm not saying it could never happen, even well. But I think it unlikely. Good storytelling demands one have imagination, judgement, aestitic sensibility, insight into the charactor of the audience, a wide-ranging foundation in literature, and (believe it or not) a morally sensitive awareness of the underlying import of the story as a whole. All of these thing play to the weakness of computer programming. As yet, I have never seen a computer game I could honestly consider a role playing game in the classic D&D sense.

I'm waiting for the advent of a computer program that assists role playing in the modes in which a computer excels. Crunch the odds, render the characters and monsters into active graphics and sound FX, keep records of character development, draw maps; all these things are great. Good DM's usually find the mechanics of running a campaign a pain the the tush, and taking care of it all will leave the DM to do what DM's do; tell the story.