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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8202067" data-attributes="member: 42582">For a very large number of people who use computers - I would posit well over 95%, maybe over 99% - what they want a computer to do is a function of what they are told a computer can do.In a workplace of around 100 people in my building I believe I am one of the few who can build a simple database in Access, and am perhaps the only one who can use a bit of VBA to improve the function of my database (maybe there's a guy in Student Services who can also do this, though I'm not sure). Mostly I used to do this to manage Rolemaster character sheets; I've also done it to manage marking in units with large enrolments.But beyond a vague sense of computers are good at handling large amounts of data I rely on friends who are better at computing than I am, and websites with tips (or back in the old days on the built-in help files) to work out how to do the things I would like to do. If I don't find a way to do it then I just don't do it. The barriers - institutional, economic, time - to exploring further options are far too great for me to seriously consider trying to break through them. For those of my colleagues who've never even opened Access, or who don't understand that and why I use Thunderbird rather than the web interface as my Google Mail client, the idea that they have well-formed wants about what they might do with a computer gets even less purchase.To some extent I think the same thing is probably true for many RPGers.</blockquote>

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