> But for many many other styles of games, the point is that you are using your imagination and flexibility to react to the story that no computer could do. Or alternatively there are many games that are more of a collaborative storytelling - improv game that may occasionally use dice. There is a very large spectrum of games.

Absolutely. The joy (occasionally frustration for the DMs, but a good DM will keep the guard rails working and keep the partly at least faintly on track) of a good campaign, especially more than a few sessions in, is that the characters start becoming more in depth, and you get the dynamics out of that you'd never see in a computer game. My barbarian is (still) upset with our rogue about the murder of a little halfling who was genuinely helping us out, and doesn't consider whatever excuses the rogue makes to be valid.

And if you want to go completely off the rails, it's common enough to hear from the DM, "Well... OK. Roll for it." Usually nothing happens, sometimes something insane happens.

There was a conflict between characters in a previous session about where a particular soul should be crammed, which was literally resolved by what amounted to a mage war. "I do this." "No you don't." "Yes. I do." "No." With a few other people contributing various bits and pieces. "Yes, I do!" "Nope, you have to reroll that die. I use my luck altering ring." etc.

It can be far, far more than just combat rolls. I agree, if what you want out of D&D is pure combat, then a computer does it well, but... it still doesn't match the joy of doing it with other people. Having your piddling little gnome sorcerer who's a level or two behind make the final hit, with a 2hp roll. Again. And again. After everyone else has been dumping 20, 30hp attacks into this set of enemies. You can get the combat mechanics with a video game, but that has nothing on a group, around a table, with a couple beers, just having a ball.

I've played D&D-type games with various levels of technology over the past few decades (ranging from heavily computer aided, with program based leveling and such, maps via projector, etc, down to pure paper, rulebook, and whiteboard-on-the table with rulers for movement). I honestly enjoy the lower tech ones more. The best blend I think I've played, which was largely due to the DM being excellent, was paper-based for the players ("You're responsible for leveling, here are the rules for it. You miss something, well, too bad. We'll see if we can work it in later."), with a TV set in a gaming table for maps. A bit of Gimp layer magic, and we had an absolutely amazing "fog of war" layer, where the DM could remove the black layer as we went around corners and such on the pre-made maps. It added some of the benefits of technology, while still keeping us bound to paper, pencils, and dice.

On the other hand, we currently have an excellent DM who, as near as I can tell, loves being a DM substantially for the excuses to build bridges, towns, cities, and all sorts of other stuff in practical craftwork - think 2-3' square landscapes and such that something will play out on. We get brickwork carved into styrofoam, painted, detailed, etc. It's amazing, and it's physical in a way no computer game is.

But I'm also a person who has spent his whole life in tech, and more and more hates what it's become. So there's that.