Judgment and Rudeness About D&D Alive and Well

ehenning said:

Grew up gaming with no one judging me or the games I played. Guess I was lucky.

With all the computer RPG games that are much more violent on the market, it amazes me that people still want to point to tabletop RPG and say it is bad/evil/wrong/etc.

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Well, to be fair, during a lot of the era in question, video games were too pixilated to be very graphic (if you'll pardon the pun). Although, in my mother's case, those got forbidden, too. In fairness, in fact, her "D&D is evil" phase was a lot more brief than her "Video games are evil" phase, which started earlier and lasted at least until I moved away.

Legatus_Legionis said:

Oh so true.

Just like how geeks of comics are now looked so highly upon. $$$ to the movie studios.

And the whole "can't pretend to case spells", well then that makes ever actor/actress guilty in one degree or another.

No one can play Merlin, nor do Nostrodamus? Nor the Oracles from Hamlet. Nor anything from Hogwarts (Harry Potter).

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Those would be logical arguments. My point was that logic was not a very valuable tactic to use when disagreeing with my mother, because she never much seemed to care for it.

Starfox said:

I find it amazing that role-players are considered an occult danger, when we have people running around with this kind of magical world-view. Who is the believer in magic here?

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The belief in it didn't bother her. In this scenario, the roleplayers were not considered the danger; it was the nature of the games, themselves, and the ignorance about that nature that led gamers to play them.

Diamondeye said:

I was not religious propaganda at all; it was "moral gauradian" propaganda perpetrated by one woman who was searching for something to blame her son's death on.

If you don't want people do be judgemental about D&D, don't make baseless generalizations about "religion". Amazing as it may seem to some people, a LOT of religious people enjoy RPGs. It might be a good idea not to alienate them.

I've encountered avowed atheists object to sci-fi oriented RPGs before because they discuss nuclear weapons and firearms and "induce death" somehow. It's not confined to religious people at all.

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Sorry for thread narco, but this is a great point.

One of my players and old friends is a very conservative, born-again Christian. He is also an extremely avid gamer. While I don't share his religious beliefs I've discussed them with him and have found few people who are as well read and have dedicated as much time and though into understanding and articulating the bases of their beliefs.

There is no better ambassador and no better defender of the hobby than someone who shares the fundamentals of the world view of those who ignorantly attack the hobby and who can articulate why there is no basis for those fears.

While I get a chuckle at some of the anti-religion snark that is common in the community, I think it is important to make the game welcoming to the deeply religious.

I share my game table with fundamentalist Christians and activist Atheists without issues, because, despite what our TV talk-shows and talk radio would have you believe, mature adults can hold different views and still play a game together.

gamerprinter said:

Well Mr. Gygax who designed D&D was a Jehovah's Witness, obviously he didn't think it was a problem.

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The funny thing is that Gary and the old wargaming grognards had been through that before, but it was the liberal, hippie, peaceniks giving them a hard time. Their hobby was glorifying war and all that, you know.

Between the world wars was another time when "war toys", such as tin soldiers, were looked upon with distaste.

And one constant from the time of the first civilian wargame hobby groups through today are those who look down on adults playing with toys.

There is always somebody who is going to judge your hobbies, your career choice, who you select as friends, lovers, spouses.

At some point you get old enough to not give a shilling about what they think.

"Those who mind don't matter, those who matter don't mind."