Elder-Basilisk
First Post
Henry said:The difference is that Golf is never mentioned in a murder story. OJ played Golf, but it wasn't mentioned at the time of the Nicole Brown / Ron Goldman slayings. (OJ's name alone was enough to popularize the story.) Mostly, it's a tagline to hang the story on, nothing more. It brings a sensational quality to the story, which is what most large journalistic establishments do to sell it.
I don't know. There are more differences. Golf is not a game about killing one's ex-wife. D&D generally is about killing ones' enemies. Furthermore, OJ Simpson didn't murder his ex-wife with golf clubs either. I suspect that, if there were an avid golf player who meticulously painted his enemies' faces on golf balls and then killed someone by tasering him and then lining up his head with a nine iron, yelling "Fore!" and swinging to cave in that enemy's skull, it probably would make the news as the golf-club killings or some such moniker.
The difference is that, in many of the cases where D&D or other entertainment is connected with crimes, there is really an apparent similarity between the game and the individual's life and crime. In this case, the guy plays a fantasy game (which may or may not be D&D), paints his fingernails black and lights up candles all over the place. To put it bluntly, that's personal behavior that emulates the bahavior of at least a recognizable subset of game characters (though that subset is perhaps more prevalent in Vampire than D&D). He then spends a few weeks making a sword (or a pair of them as the story indicates he may have done), and apparently challenges the guy who was bullying him to a duel then cuts his head off. Again, that's him emulating in real life, behavior that would be very recognizable in-game. Thus it's not surprising that people who have a little knowledge of the game and a little knowledge of his behavior see at least a prima facia connection. I do too. At the very least, it appears connected enough to justify its inclusion in the news story.
Most of us here want to believe that role-playing games are SAFE and HARMLESS--even BENEFICIAL to and for all people at all times, no matter what the game. I'm not that sanguine. I expect that there are some games that are probably harmful in general, and some people would be better off not playing any such games. That doesn't make a good press release and, the way modern media functions, any D&D Defense League could never afford to be that honest if there were such a group, but I think it's the truth.