A letter posted on RPGPundit’s site.
I feel that some of the enjoyment of DnD really is lost in, especially, the World of Darkness. My initial reaction to
it was just as I saw you post a while back- hey cool! I get to be an undead creature of the night and suck the blood from hot chicks! – and yes, I’ve had great fun doing just that… Werewolf is an adolescant boys dream come true, and Mage… well… Mage is like a weird cross between my favorite sci-fi movies and horror movies, if done properly.
Interesting, and the comments thread is worth following. I basically 100% disagree with the gist of RPGPundit here; he seems to splice the RPG hobby into “the Swine” and people like him, calling for a return to the somewhat more old-school roots of the hobby. I got no stock in that kind of vision. And yet, this comment seems familiar to me:
You judge RPG Products by their reading value. this is the single most harmful thing to do in the hobby. Good reads don´t make a good game. Period. [...] If you relish nice backgrounds, offer the PLAYERS something. [..,] if you want to write a novel, do so. Don´t publish adventure modules or gaming backgrounds. Please.
Basically a (harshly worded) phrasing of the idea that actual play matters, rather than just the collecting of games.