Thanks for the article. I knew he was a gamer but didn't realize he actually gamed them. I am just imaging a group with a Kruppe and the type of player who could pull it off and actually talk like the entire time - and the other players actually having to put up with it. I do agree with it quite a lot. Like it or not, much like the 80's it is a part of our lives and histroy and simply cannot be ignored or forgotten because after all, Moving Pictures came out in the 80's so it wasn't all bad. He seems to pull gaming-as-writing off much better than Feist does as the latter's books get awfully repetitive (but that is for a different post).
Our group has often talked of Malazan as gaming setting and how RM could do that. Pretty straight forward really - warrens as list groups for example but there is much debate if some of the warrens would actually count as channeling. However overall the sheer variety of magic would be quite daunting - from the various races that keep popping up, the difference between Di'ivers and Soultaken, what ascending is, what happened to Stormy & Gessler(only read up to Dust of Dreams), Sinn, the Deck what it means to be represented there, etc would never really make it as an rpg - simply too much. The game would pale in comparison and as such woud likely be disappointing.
