Dragon Magazine goes political

This is all I have to say on the subject:



Dragon needs to get up off their asses and stop whining about this. They're not loosing a massive audience here.

**Deleted political comments**


I do think though that the article was stupid. WOTC and DnD in general do not need to associate with prisoner rights topics. We as a society of gamers already have enough trouble not getting branded something negative.

I would also like to say that I get Dragon Magazine and it is one of the most expensive magazines out there. So from that point of view this item in my magazine pisses me off as it is a complete waste of time space and material. Dragon needs to keep this crap out of the magazine and focus on the game. I plan on writing Dragon on this fact as well. I think we all should in fact, we need to for lack of a better term "slap them down" the first time they heavily wander off topic so it doesnt become common place.

SemperJase said:

Unfortunately, their points were not on the mark. Prisoners do not have an inalienable right to play D&D.

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Randolpho said:

This is all I have to say on the subject:

Dragon needs to get up off their asses and stop whining about this. They're not loosing a massive audience here.

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That's the point. From a business perspective it makes basically no difference. The editorial (which I have yet to read) is about the rights of prisoners, not about selling magazines.

--Seule

The issue here, I think, that should concern us most is this:

Someone, somewhere, feels that RPG materials are dangerous enough to the prison to ban them. Clearly, these are people who don't understand what RPG's are about. If this goes unchallenged, watch for them to be banned from schools and libraries next.

"They came for the Jews, but I did not speak up because I was not a Jew. They came for the homosexuals but I did not speak up because I was not a homosexual. They came for the Catholics but I did not speak up because I was not a Catholic. When they came for me there was noone to speak up for me because there was noone else left."

Just because your Dragon magazine isn't being taken away doesn't mean that this issue isn't important to you and doesn't have relevance to you.

Remember, Dragon is basically only read by gamers, and D&D gamers at that. . This editorial is unlikely to gain natioanl exposure and make gaming suddenly associated with prisoners.

Personally, I applaud the editor of Dragon for putting principle above PR.

Wait a second. Wait just a gosh-darned second.

So if I go to prison, I can still order D&D material?!? (Ok, maybe not Dragon mag, but no big whoop).

* I don't have to pay my bills;

* I don't have to work;

* I'm around a bunch of guys that will be my friends for a long time;

* I can play 3E all the time!!

Jail is a gamers paradise, my friends!

If you though it was a pain when the new WotC supplement didn't arrive at your local gaming store on time, take into consideration the black market of prison.

How many cartons of Marlboros does it cost to get the Masters of the Wild? Do you have to (literally) be someone's (expletive deleted) to get that Flametongue Longsword +2? I can only imagine the consequences of incurring "DM wrath" in the joint.

I'm sure it make saving throws alot more interesting.

DM: You need to make a save vs. death....DC 30
Player: Alright...err, rolled a "1"
DM: I guess someone's gettin' shanked in the showers this evening.

Yikes!

Lizard said:

And, of course, "prisoner" doesn't just mean "Mad Bob the Psycho Axe Murderer". It includes people who smoked a joint or two, or engaged in prostitution, or who weren't sufficiently servile to a cop in a bad mood.

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I hate to let things like this go by without asking a question or two, namely, do you know anybody who is in jail because they met a cop in a bad mood?

I know people who have been in jail for theft, drugs, and failure to pay child support and thus realize not all prisoners are multiple murderers but I can not think of anyone I have ever heard about who went to prison because the cop's toast was burnt - we do have a court system you understand that tries to ensure a person has committed a crime before punishing them.

Although I have not read the article, it seems that prisoners rights have nothing to do with it. If a prison otherwise allows a wide field of reading materials, then it is RPGs that are getting slandered. Nobody is saying that a prison that allows no magazines needs to allow Dragon, but that if a prison already allows similar content, then to deny a publisher of a specific genre is unfair. It would be like allowing horror novels, but disallowing sci-fi novels. The argument has nothing to do with whether prisoners themselves deserve sci-fi novels.

I think the potential market in prison would be enormous. Do you have any idea how many people are in prison? In the country that idealizes freedom, I find it amazing that we will incarcerate people at the drop of a hat. What is the prison system for? Other posters mentioned punishment, but they don't seem to do that. Some would say rehabilitation, but not a lot of that seems to be going on, either. The idea confuses me.

For those who encourage prisoners to be treated as sub-human, remember that they are just like you and me. They believe in the same values (although they do not always uphold those values). They want the same things in life. In many cases, they haven't done anything worse than many of us have, just got caught. Although I will never do it again, I once drove home from the bar after having a couple drinks. I wasn't what I would consider "drunk", just like an awful lot of people who go to bars and drive home. If a cop had pulled me over on that particular night, then it would be me aching to get Dragon delivered in prison.

Why do bars even have parking lots?

One last thought on the subject. McNuggets!

Wicht said:

I hate to let things like this go by without asking a question or two, namely, do you know anybody who is in jail because they met a cop in a bad mood?

I know people who have been in jail for theft, drugs, and failure to pay child support and thus realize not all prisoners are multiple murderers but I can not think of anyone I have ever heard about who went to prison because the cop's toast was burnt - we do have a court system you understand that tries to ensure a person has committed a crime before punishing them.

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I'm not sure where it came from or how authentic it was, but I saw a video clip of a guy daring his buddy to go up to a cop and flip him off. Well, he went straight up to the officer, shot him the double bird, and in response the officer smacked the **** out of him with his night stick.

It was both funny and disturbing.