So Jason is bringin this age old debate to dndorks! Ok, bring it on Jason! ;)
I also posted this post to the forums, located here, if you want to get in on the discussion. Help me convince Jason that D&D is fun. Or smash down my ideas, either way is good.
Jason is trying to trick people into turning your back on D&D and playing "abstract" story games. Down that way madness lies!
j/k uh...kinda.
The goal of playing a roleplaying game for most people is to have fun, not to follow rules, not to make things up, not to have a truly memorable story, or anything else. Many people, particularly DMs, have different goals than the players. They want to make a memorable story, or they want to see how the rules interact to create a unique experience that they don't trust themselves to make on their own, or they want to have the rules create an interactive fantastical creative experience that they lack the imagination to create on their own without something pushing them, or any number of different reasons.
But most players in my experience play roleplaying games to have fun.
So D&D apparently does its job pretty well, which can be evidenced by the fact that many players feel satisfied with D&D or other simulationist games like it, and often don't seem as satisfied (if not outright angry) about more gamist games that cover all the basis, or more abstract games that simply avoid creating rules for simulating reality at all.
So which game accomplishes its task better? Obviously D&D (or Shadowrun, or Mutants and Masterminds, or any other game that is "traditional")...at least when you consider which accomplishes their goal for the most people most of the time.
But if the task were something else, like say telling a dramatic story good enough to be filmed and shown on tv...well D&D probably doesn't do that job so well. Sure there will be excitement, but dialogue? No, probably not on average. Nor will there likely be dramatic love triangles between the paladin, rogue elf, and tiefling...or if there are, it most likely results in the group disbanding. ;)
But who wants that for their afternoon meetup? Usually the observers, which is often the DM, but occasionally the silent player. They want to be part of a story, or want to be part of this or that, because its like being in the middle of a story, and the combat or the bargaining for more wealth, or choosing magic items and feats and performing rituals to become a different race, well all of that are just the necessary boringness to get to where that player really wants to be, which is an immersive creative story.
So if you're playing D&D, and sometimes its not so much fun because the rules say Jimmy has to die, its nice to get a developer confessing that yes, in the interests of the goal (D&D's goal being to have fun), go ahead and break the rule, do whatever you need to do to for the group to have more fun.
Because it isn't the DM's job to provide challenges for the PCs in a reasonably consistent fantasy setting, its really the DM (or GM, or whatever game referree title)'s job to make sure everyone has a good time, a fun time.
Unless the players get together and decide that it isn't enough to play with a toy, they want to do something "more", at which point, any number of other games (Jason can provide a list!) can probably satisfy those other different goals better.