D&D article
- Thread starter djwaters1
- Start date
Ranes
Adventurer
Just thought I'd post an addendum, as I haven't seen the information elsewhere. The feature generated over 600 email responses, according to Darren, which is a very respectable dollop of feedback for such an article. The overwhelming majority of these responses were positive.
I thought the piece was great, too. I appreciated its historical accuracy, especially as...
Anecdote Warning!
As I recently confessed in another thread, I was once an editor of White Dwarf. The year was 1987 and I hadn't even adjusted the editor's chair when I found myself suddenly fielding calls from journalists. The reason was that a man called Michael Ryan had gone on a murderous rampage in the quiet English town of Hungerford. I do not recall the exact death toll but this deeply disturbed man had shot and killed a number of people before taking his own life.
Soon after, a Sunday newspaper had run a story asserting that Ryan had been told to 'kill his fellow terrans' in a roleplaying game advertised in White Dwarf.
GW cooperated fully with Thames Valley Police's subsequent enquiries. What had happened was this: A small games company in Liverpool had been taking expensive, full-page colour advertisements in WD for its PBM game. When the company didn't pay for some of the ads, the rest of the bookings were suspended. Short of cash and, at it turned out, morality, one of the company's directors had the notion that some publicity would be in order. I'm hazy on all the details but the upshot was that a Sunday newspaper journalist ended up writing that Ryan had been a player of this game and that he had received these grisly turn orders, the implication being that he then acted on them in real life.
Thames Valley Police soon satisfied themselves that, not only had Ryan never played this game, there was no evidence to suggest that he had ever even heard of roleplaying games. Nevertheless, getting a retraction from a newspaper makes getting blood out of a stone look like child's play. Unsurprisingly therefore, none was forthcoming.
A few months later, a TV programme called "Network 7" asked if they could come and film the studio and talk about our games. They were duly invited. They filmed an interview with GW's PR man, who explained the story behind the newspaper article when asked. However, when the programme was broadcast, that part of the interview was not used. In fact, over the the top of its piece, the programme ran a ticker tape caption that somehow managed to repeat the initial allegation, albeit re-cast just enough to avoid libel action. It still gave a very bad impression. Ironically, that programme's producer was one Jane Hewland, whose Hewland International company went on a few years later to make the ludicrously popular Gamesmaster tv show.
It was good of Darren to acknowledge that D&D and similar games have had their share of appalling publicity and that it was all unfounded.
I haven't read such a positive piece of mainstream journalism about D&D, since the phenomenon first caught the attention of the press in the late seventies. Excellent.
And congratulations to the EN Worlders who gave Darren such sterling quotations.
I thought the piece was great, too. I appreciated its historical accuracy, especially as...
Anecdote Warning!
As I recently confessed in another thread, I was once an editor of White Dwarf. The year was 1987 and I hadn't even adjusted the editor's chair when I found myself suddenly fielding calls from journalists. The reason was that a man called Michael Ryan had gone on a murderous rampage in the quiet English town of Hungerford. I do not recall the exact death toll but this deeply disturbed man had shot and killed a number of people before taking his own life.
Soon after, a Sunday newspaper had run a story asserting that Ryan had been told to 'kill his fellow terrans' in a roleplaying game advertised in White Dwarf.
GW cooperated fully with Thames Valley Police's subsequent enquiries. What had happened was this: A small games company in Liverpool had been taking expensive, full-page colour advertisements in WD for its PBM game. When the company didn't pay for some of the ads, the rest of the bookings were suspended. Short of cash and, at it turned out, morality, one of the company's directors had the notion that some publicity would be in order. I'm hazy on all the details but the upshot was that a Sunday newspaper journalist ended up writing that Ryan had been a player of this game and that he had received these grisly turn orders, the implication being that he then acted on them in real life.
Thames Valley Police soon satisfied themselves that, not only had Ryan never played this game, there was no evidence to suggest that he had ever even heard of roleplaying games. Nevertheless, getting a retraction from a newspaper makes getting blood out of a stone look like child's play. Unsurprisingly therefore, none was forthcoming.
A few months later, a TV programme called "Network 7" asked if they could come and film the studio and talk about our games. They were duly invited. They filmed an interview with GW's PR man, who explained the story behind the newspaper article when asked. However, when the programme was broadcast, that part of the interview was not used. In fact, over the the top of its piece, the programme ran a ticker tape caption that somehow managed to repeat the initial allegation, albeit re-cast just enough to avoid libel action. It still gave a very bad impression. Ironically, that programme's producer was one Jane Hewland, whose Hewland International company went on a few years later to make the ludicrously popular Gamesmaster tv show.
It was good of Darren to acknowledge that D&D and similar games have had their share of appalling publicity and that it was all unfounded.
I haven't read such a positive piece of mainstream journalism about D&D, since the phenomenon first caught the attention of the press in the late seventies. Excellent.
And congratulations to the EN Worlders who gave Darren such sterling quotations.
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