Ginger Stampley from the 20′ by 20′ Room blog points to a thread on Gaming Theory Blogs That You Should Bookmark. Skipping two links down from that, I found a somewhat diffuse but interesting post which tries to describe some of the problems of gaming. It starts with a strong bit about why “most game sessions suck”, wanders off into some d20 rant, and comes back into talking about RPGs not teaching the skills you need to roleplay. Or something. This is of a vibe with other discussions about RPGs I’ve seen lately, rallying around Ryan Dancey’s bon mot that RPGs are “20 minutes of fun packed into 4 hours”.
If theory sounds confusing, Here’s a fine explanation from GameSpy called Dungeons & Dragons Made Simple, via Uncle Bear. In reaction to the book D&D for dummies, this is D&D for morons.