"D&D - not as bad as cyber bullying...." Topic

who'd have thunk it ?

link

Do you get the feeling the author of that peice has never actually played D&D ?

Interesting article actually.
But is the American Association of Suicidology????

I can safely say that through….seven years of RPG mayhem…no-one committed suicide despite the applaing death rate of our characters.

(Although now I think about it I did know one guy who did die in a sort of Mazes & Monsters way…..really very Mazes & Monsters….but in his case it was definetly drugs, not RPGs – I think he gamed with us maybe once, possibly twice)

+1 Patrick R

Yep, Patrick for the win!

I remember the moral panic. I was just starting high school when this nonsense started and had been playing D&D for about a year.

One memorable night our group was chatting outside of the local coffee shop that hosted RPG game nights when we learned that Mount St. Helens erupted. Our magic and demonology had paid off in spades.

It used to be the American Society of Suicidology but they had to change their name when they saw the letterheads. I think if people think that Gary Gygax has more influence than whatever god they choose to follow, they should really be reconsidering their choice of religion.

Pulling described D&D as "a fantasy role-playing game which uses demonology, witchcraft, voodoo, murder, rape, blasphemy, suicide, assassination, insanity, sex perversion, homosexuality, prostitution, satanic type rituals, gambling, barbarism, cannibalism, sadism, desecration, demon summoning, necromantics, divination and other teachings".

And my parents said I was an under-achiever!

I believe James Dallas Egbert III went into the tunnels out of curiosity. He was found soon after…alive. Not long after that, he disappeared (ran away so to speak) and turned up in New Orleans. He did eventually commit suicide. It had nothing to do with the game. He was an unfortunate and troubled soul.

Never played it myself-one of my brothers did,his favorite variant,the "Oriental Adventures" supplement,and designing mazes and traps for use in the games.

Do you get the feeling the author of that peice has never actually played D&D ?

Since when has any journalist ever been dissuaded from pontificating on a subject matter they know absolutely nothing about?

"I swear, that gorvil was already dead when I looted it!"

Looking back, I'm always amazed that 'we' (being the geek/gamer community) managed to win that fight so completely.

-Will

Probably because the other side was so obviously full of nonesense that any court worth its salt could see feebleness of their argument.

Started in 1980, survived the fear-mongering, haven't committed suicide yet, after 34 years… I guess I'm just slow. ;-)

Article made me chuckle at the end, talking about hordes of geeks laying waste to the countryside, killing the innocents. Great stuff! Cheers!

'streets awash with the blood of innocents as a horde of demonically-possessed roleplayers laid waste to the country'

Dang it! I knew I'd left something off my To Do list.

One of the main reasons the "geeks" won was that banning RPG books would have meant being able to ban almost ANY book. Unlike visual media (movies or books composed mostly of images) we had not had that kind of censorship(*) since the sixties and hardly anyone wanted to go back)

(*) – High school libraries excepted.

All sound reasons, but reason rarely wins out in cases of mass (well maybe not *mass* in this case) hysteria. Look at what's happened to kid's playgrounds based on a statistically similar number of injuries….

Anyway, we won, they lost, we're all better off for it.

-Will

Hey if we won do we get to loot now?

D&D has… "demonology, witchcraft, voodoo, murder, rape, blasphemy, suicide, assassination, insanity, sex perversion, homosexuality, prostitution, satanic type rituals, gambling, barbarism, cannibalism, sadism, desecration, demon summoning, necromantics, divination"… with mustard, ketchup, and special sauce all on a toasted sesame seed bun! Mmmmm, tasty, get one today!

Actually, it sounds no different than watching anything on daily television that more people of all ages see than have ever played D&D.

@Parzival 20thmaine approves and recommends that statement which truly tickled his funny bone.

Pulling described D&D as "a fantasy role-playing game which uses demonology, witchcraft, voodoo, murder, rape, blasphemy, suicide, assassination, insanity, sex perversion, homosexuality, prostitution, satanic type rituals, gambling, barbarism, cannibalism, sadism, desecration, demon summoning, necromantics, divination and other teachings"

Actually this sounds more like that "GOOD BOOK" everyone keeps trying to ram down my throat here called the BIBLE. Give me a good D&D book over that any day. Not polluting my mind with that crap for anyone including a Jealous god of whoever.

My mom, the preacher's daughter, bought me my first set of D&D dice ~ 1981. I still have them and her tin measuring cup that I used for rolling and storing them.

I like the "good book" myself and think they can exist together.

I like the "good book" myself and think they can exist together.

Amen, Redroom. Always did in my household; still do.

There was another discussion about this, but the fact is that the anti-D&D crowd back then were just a loud minority who made a big enough fuss to attract the media, who saw a potential ratings boon in the "controversy" (not unlike the way things work today, Is it?). Frankly, had the media not shown up with the cameras, the whole moral panic would have never gotten beyond the mutterings of a handful of nutjobs.

As for Ms. Pulling, I have some sympathy for her. She was a grieving mother struggling to deal with the most horrific loss that a parent can experience— the suicide of a child. To cope, she found a culprit to blame, and a focus for her grief and pain. I feel for her in that she couldn't come to a healthy way to live through her loss, but had to inflict it upon others in her ignorance. Sadly, that's all too common a response. And sadly also is the reactionary counterattacks whereby a minority of ignorant and misguided people are assumed to be the representatives of an entire faith. That's as equally an egregious response as Ms. Pulling's.

link

I don't recall any hostility to D&D as a kid and I too went to a church school. I'm not sure what they'd have made of later darker RPGs however. I'm confident that playing D&D was positive for me as a teenager – it was social interaction of a kind that playing online simply does not give. It saved me from a very lonely adolescence. And by the 6th form a couple of girls joined the group.

Hey, this D&D game seems pretty interesting. I'm going to have to give it a try. Thanks for the recommendation, Ms. Pulling.

I hope I'm not disappointed.

Do you get the feeling the author of that peice has never actually played D&D ?

Since when has any journalist ever been dissuaded from pontificating on a subject matter they know absolutely nothing about?

He never said he did. It was an article about the over-reaction against D&D by certain parts of religion, the same idiots who whine about Harry Potter.

PMT – never failing to miss the point in the need to moan,

My favourite quote :

"Today, any veteran player from the game's early years would speak of its positive attributes. It was based almost entirely in the imagination. It was social. No screens were involved."

Yeah, screens didn't arrive until about 1980 – but they were the official screens as approved by TSR…