That's what I hear in my head when I read your posts. What makes you think you're so much cooler as a video gamer? Sorry to be the one to have to tell you this, but the rest of society considers you just as big of a "nerd" as those that play D+D.



Here's another lame one for you, since you like them so much: One who lives in glass house should not throw stones.

All that crap you just spouted off is all nonsense. Sure you can do nothing but study your entire life and really, that doesn't get you any further than you would be if you had taken some time off to do something fun for a while. Okay, there's that .00001% of the population where that doesn't hold true, but are you going to gamble that you're in that small percentage or would you rather have some fun in your life?



You're right that the game won't be able to interpret rules and the player will have to know some basic information, but for a video game version it's no more than you'd have to learn for any other RPG games such as Diablo or Final Fantasy. This is the reason why no video game version of D+D will EVER be as good as the real deal.



In real D+D, even the DM doesn't have to memorize anything more than a few basic rules and even that's only expected in order to keep the game moving. Most of the stuff in the books people don't bother to memorize because it's not worth it. You end up having to look things up anyway, such as spell effects (damage as it relates to caster level, area of effect, duration, etc.) because often they're too complicated to include all the details on your character sheet. Really, when it comes time to actually play the game, the toughest part of the job for the DM is simply keeping track of player stats, status effects, where everyone is at and what they are doing. You don't really spend much time at all considering impact of rules. So, even as DM, you're not really expected to memorize that much stuff. Especially in the newer rules sets which have vastly simplified the game now that they're using the d20 system. Almost everything is based off rolling d20's and higher numbers pretty much always better. The only real exceptions to that are hit points and damage rolls that don't really work well using a d20. When there's doubt and you don't know how to handle something, chances are it's going to be "roll a d20" and then the DM makes a judgement call as to whether or not it succeeds. The rule books have a lot of examples to illustrate how to handle such things, but ultimately, it's easier for the DM to use those examples as examples and not a hard set of rules. When you translate all this into a video game, most of that kind of stuff becomes transparent to the player. The computer is doing all that stuff for you behind the scenes. You want to pick a lock? Go ahead and try. The game will let you know if you succeed or not. There's nothing really to memorize there except for which characters in your party are best at picking locks and if you have the tools to do so.



Back to the jobs, thing... You're wrong. Most people tend to pick up D+D sometime between middle school and college. (read: BEFORE getting into their careers.) I started in 6th grade and played until a couple of years after getting out of college with my Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Milwaukee School of Engineering (http://www.msoe.edu/pr/news/article.php?id+491). After college, I took a job as a test engineer at Harley-Davidson Motor Co. and you can't get in there by being a moron. If you need more examples, stop by your local library and see if they have a book called "30 Years of Adventure." It's a book that they put out to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the game and includes a large number of celebrities that tell about their experiences with D+D both before and during their careers. Vin Diesel is one example. He even wrote the foreword of the book I mentioned. He's even got a tattoo of his favorite D+D character. I haven't played in a couple of years, though, because my gamer buddies are getting too spread out to make it easy to get together.



You're still missing the point... What makes you, as a video gamer of any genre (even retardedly simple-to-learn games like Metal Slug), less of a NERD or GEEK than someone that plays D+D? I'm sorry to be the one to inform you, but you're just as much of a NERD. Haha! You're a NERD too, b