Quote Originally Posted by Steve Blair View Post
Quite so, especially the table top RPG comment. I tend to prefer the idea of free play, moderated techniques...with the additional variation that actions by the players can modify their environment (within limits). That's why I always preferred the MUD/MUSH or tabletop setting to a WoW-type setting. Tabletop is of course the easiest to modify on the go, while a MUD can shift quickly due to its text-based nature. But once the engine becomes the end and not the means (which is sort of how I see things like WoW), you lose that flexibility.
I'm also a big fan of human-moderated RPG approaches to training, whether pencil-and-paper or computer-facilitated. However, the challenge from a training perspective is developing a skilled cadre of moderators, and then getting them to where the folks who need training are. You can't cut corners on this, or the process might be worse than useless--as anyone who has ever played D&D with a lame DM can attest.

By contrast, a software package offers the attraction of something that can be implemented in many places at the same time, therefore providing standardized training in volume. The problem is what you then lose in the process (the flexibility and inventiveness of a human moderator, and the danger of building unseen assumptions into the software that players can't challenge, and may even not be aware of.)