For those of you, like me, who got introduced to role playing games by playing Dungeons & Dragons, you may be interested in a very long interview of Gary Gygax, who created D&D, at RPGnet. Here's an excerpt: No, the pencil-and-paper or tabletop RPG game will never be replaced by electronic forms of play. Granted, the relative proportion of those so playing will grow smaller. That's because I believe that the internet will be like the television of RPG activity, and most people will play there. In all, I see the computer as building the audience for RPGs, and the internet and CRPGs will not cause those able to play in a face-to-face group to drop such in favor of an electronic version. Heck, even on STAR TREK where holodecks are available, there was some military miniatures play, right? You can read the entire interview at this link. (I linked you to the third page of the interview because for some reason they put links back to the previous pages, but not the other way around).