I finally got "RPG Maker Lite" working for my solo projects! Does not have the functionality of the full version, but it is free! Currently working on a game based off of my "Interdimensional Ghost Story" in it.
http://c-hillman.deviantart.com/art/Interdimensional-Ghost-Story-332729455?q=gallery%3AC-Hillman%2F25205628&qo=2

The plan is to do a "chain-game" where several people get together and 1 starts it, it gets passed around the team and each person builds off of the others work to make a whole game, rather than planning stuff out ahead of time.

How user-friendly are these game makers thingamatons? Can anyone make a game with them?

Their moto is "Simple enough for a child: Powerful enough for a developer"

The RPG Maker's are very user friendly. Though the advanced scripting aspect of the newer ones requires some programming knowledge to make use of, but it is not required for the more basic stuff.

There are several versions, XP, VX, and VX Ace.

VX Ace also has a "lite" version which only has limited functionality, but is free. All (non-Lite) versions have a 30 day free trial though, and the trial gives you temporary access to ALL functionality until it expires.

Full version prices range from $29.99 USD to $69.99 USD.

http://www.RPGMakerweb.com
The site has forums with community-made resources and tutorials as well. NOT ALL resources are free though, that is up to the person who made them.

There is also one called "IGMaker" which is far LESS user friendly but allows many game types such as action games like "Legend of Zelda".

I played around with VX a few years ago. With no experience I was able to slap together a game in an afternoon or two. (It was not a good game, but it worked and had all the basic elements - a town, a worldmap, a couple of dungeons and some boss fights.)

I would say that it's very user-friendly if you're just looking to play around with it and are content to work with the default tilesets, game engine, etc. If you want to make a more sophisticated game that does things differently from their default settings, then you're going to have to learn a bit of programming, though what I saw of that didn't look too intimidating.