An Example (from Fates Worse Than Death):
GM- As you head up the stairs the building becomes colder. By the fifth floor you can see your breath. You are now at the sixth floor landing. Make an awareness roll.
Tim (playing Hard O'Connel)- Lessee... 12.
Sally (playing Len Jiminez)- 23.
GM- Sally, your player hears something coming from above you. It's very faint.
Sally (playing Len Jiminez)- What is it?
GM- You can't tell from here. It is constant, not a single voice. Maybe music, maybe machinery.
Sally (playing Len Jiminez)- I'm going to whisper to Hard 'I hear some noises up there.'
Tim (playing Hard O'Connel)- I'll nod in acknowledgement.

Long Answer: Role Playing Games are one of the world's least respected art forms.

If you wanted to write a romance novel, you could take a class on how to do it, or you could buy a book on how to do it. If you wrote one that was good, you could be fairly certain that some multimillion dollar publishing company will buy it from you, give it to a professional editor to weed out major mistakes, then give it to a professional typesetter, then print it in the tens of thousands and distribute it to the world.

For role playing there are none of these support systems. Each publishing company has it's game system and product lines, and if you don't want to write for them you have to start your own company.

What RPG creators do with such limited resources is simply incredible.

In order to create a good game, a game designer has to accomplish all of these things:

• Create a game world. This game world must create, in the reader and in gameplay, whatever atmosphere the game designer is going for, be it urban drama and horror, fantastic adventures, surreal silliness, etc.
• Write a game book that must explain this world clearly and simply enough that someone who doesn't know anything about it can sit down, read a book, and learn about an entire world well enough to simulate that entire world as Game Master.
• Create a system of rules that simulate everything players would want to do in this universe, and that are easy to learn and understand, and that support the chosen atmosphere for the game world. (Note: This requires at least a moderate knowledge of statistics, a field that many find very challenging.)
• The game world must have some inherent drama or conflict that will allow Game Masters to easily come up with trials for the player characters to face or adventures for them to have.
• The game world must have heroes (or anti-heroes) who players can both play and empathize with. The character creation rules must support the creation of these heroes.
• The game must look good, it must have good art and good layout or people simply won't buy it. The art and layout should also support the atmosphere that the game is going for. (I have seen some games with good art, but the art doesn't match the atmosphere of the game, the end result is like watching Quinton Tarantino try to act).
• You have to work in violence, or two thirds of the gaming community is going to ask for their money back. (Working in violence isn't as easy as it my seem, especially in a modern day game and if you're trying to be realistic. Let's face it, in the real world violence makes things worse in %99.99 of situations and better in %00.01. The trick is putting characters in that %00.01 zone week after week).
• People will judge your game on how it is played, even though you have virtually no control over that. The best you can do is offer helpful advice and hope that your GMs follow it. Really, a whole role playing game book is nothing but helpful advice to GMs.