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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WizarDru" data-source="post: 456363" data-attributes="member: 151">Actually, if history has shown us anything, it's that societies generally start as more restrictive and gradually migrate towards more lenient as time passes.  This often can lead to a massive backlash, effectively resetting the clock, but it usually doesn't go back as far...two steps backward, one forward, as it were.  There are exceptions, of course, but as a general rule, this holds.  Others have already pointed out that the US has it pretty good concerning the public's general attitude towards RPGs, and they didn't mention the occasional harrasment in some other countries that have been reported here, such as France and Germany.  So enough about that.As for the 1980s, I don't think you lived through the same decade that I did, apparently.  You don't remember the book burnings, the album and comic book labelings, game and comic shop store owner arrests (often vindicated...after their businesses were bankrupted), claims of RPGs being associated with cults and a host of other events that I seem to recall.  Those people you so blithely call 'sheep' haven't changed much in the last two decades.  Many are concerned at a game who's primary means of success is found through the violent defeat (usually killing) of other beings.  Some people find that patently offensive, and aren't much concerned with a game's quality or relative merits, and frankly always will.  The difference is that in 1980, we get 'Mazes and Monsters', a film that portrays role-players are social misfits and schizophrenics, while in 2000, we get 'Dungeons and Dragons', a film that portrays role-players as enjoying really bad movies.  Luckily LOTR came along when it did.Those people who find D&D offensive will continue to do so.  The trick is that most of the fence-sitters, who read the news blurbs about D&D, no longer regard the game as a danger to their children.  This is helped by the fact that most of the 'old guard' of D&D now have kids of their own.  D&D has, for all itents and purposes, gone mainstream.  In the world of 'Postal', 'Grand Theft Auto' and 'BMX XXX', D&D just isn't in the running for being shocking, any longer.</blockquote>

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