D&D Still Satanic? "So my mom threw away all my D&D books..."
- Thread starter Katana_Geldar
- Start date
Since RPGs didn't exist when I was under my parents roof I never had to deal with the situation. I had to deal with my mom going wacky when she found my really bad fanfic Trek stories I had written when I was about 13. Yes I admit I put myself in the story.
She was convinced that I didn't know reality from fiction and thought Trek was real. So I had to see this clueless shrink and I finally got to stop going when I agreed to let her burn all my writing and the few Trek books and all my Robert Heinlein novels.
When I started meeting other Trek and SF fans at cons I found out that a lot of them wrote fanfic. I still write some to this day though I have out grown the need to put myself in the story.
I think she would have had the same reaction if I had been playing DnD.
To be blunt my mom is crazy she was emotional and physically abusive to us kids especially me. I was a very withdrawn and moody child because of it and she looked for other factors then the real ones to blame.
My son started playing TNMT as a kid and then went to Tunnels and Trolls. I had issues with his teachers over it who thought the games were dangerous because they blurred the line between reality and make believe. I had an open mind when I talked to them read the literature they presented and then calmly presented why I thought they were wrong in my son's case.
In the end it became a non issue.
I don't like to judge parents if I don't have all the facts. I will say this if a parent really believes that playing DnD is a danger to their child's immortal soul then you can't really blame them for saying no you can't play this game. To them no matter how unreasonable we may feel about it it is the same as letting their child play in traffic. As a parent you have a duty to protect your child from dangers. That is what they are doing.
She was convinced that I didn't know reality from fiction and thought Trek was real. So I had to see this clueless shrink and I finally got to stop going when I agreed to let her burn all my writing and the few Trek books and all my Robert Heinlein novels.
When I started meeting other Trek and SF fans at cons I found out that a lot of them wrote fanfic. I still write some to this day though I have out grown the need to put myself in the story.
I think she would have had the same reaction if I had been playing DnD.
To be blunt my mom is crazy she was emotional and physically abusive to us kids especially me. I was a very withdrawn and moody child because of it and she looked for other factors then the real ones to blame.
My son started playing TNMT as a kid and then went to Tunnels and Trolls. I had issues with his teachers over it who thought the games were dangerous because they blurred the line between reality and make believe. I had an open mind when I talked to them read the literature they presented and then calmly presented why I thought they were wrong in my son's case.
In the end it became a non issue.
I don't like to judge parents if I don't have all the facts. I will say this if a parent really believes that playing DnD is a danger to their child's immortal soul then you can't really blame them for saying no you can't play this game. To them no matter how unreasonable we may feel about it it is the same as letting their child play in traffic. As a parent you have a duty to protect your child from dangers. That is what they are doing.
pawsplay
Hero
I am so, so sorry. I can only imagine what that must have been like.
I won't lie and say it was not horrible. I did try and kill myself when I was 15. Luckily my parents divorced when I was 16 and I lived with my dad who never understood my love of SF or being a member of the SCA but was always there for me.
My last birthday gift from him before he passed away in 2004 was a bunch of Trek shows on DVD.
And that year he got my son a gift certificate from the local game store so he could buy gaming books.
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All this kid can do at this point is try and talk to the mother and see where they go from there. If she still says no then it has to be accepted. Any kind of rebellion or lawyering will only fan the flames and make matters worse.
Never ever give a child advice to disobey their parents unless it is a very good reason and RPG's are not one of them. It's a shame that the mother acted this way but that's how life works. Life isn't fair at all, life is like an RPG, you have some sway over how it turns out but everyday is just a roll of the dice.
D&D has been a scapegoat for many years now because it's an easy target. Sure there have been instances where people believed in it and there are also instances where a person knew they could use role playing to get them out of trouble.
Never ever give a child advice to disobey their parents unless it is a very good reason and RPG's are not one of them. It's a shame that the mother acted this way but that's how life works. Life isn't fair at all, life is like an RPG, you have some sway over how it turns out but everyday is just a roll of the dice.
D&D has been a scapegoat for many years now because it's an easy target. Sure there have been instances where people believed in it and there are also instances where a person knew they could use role playing to get them out of trouble.
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I've been in e-mail contact with you already concerning ENWorld's rules. One of those rules is that, if you take issue with any of the moderation, then you discuss it with the moderator privately, not in the thread. - Rel
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Saeviomagy
Adventurer
The simple fact of the matter is that there are some people in the world on whom rational argument is lost. Unfortunately these same people will tend to glom onto the first argument that is presented with passion and, as a defense mechanism, avoid listening to any other argument lest their opinion be swayed back again. Unfortunately as a rational person your only real course of action with people like this is to avoid them as much as possible.
If one of these people happens to be your parent then things can become difficult. The best thing you can do is recognise the behaviour and make sure that you do not exhibit it yourself.
If one of these people happens to be your parent then things can become difficult. The best thing you can do is recognise the behaviour and make sure that you do not exhibit it yourself.
The intellectual elitists do the exact same thing. They just have a lot more words to do it with.
The truth of the matter is when somebody makes up their mind it's completely impossible to change it, and it doesn't matter if it's a scientist, or politician, or a theist, they all behave the exact same way and will dismiss anything that doesn't fit their worldview.
Such as the intellectual elitists and their refusal to believe in the supernatural. They wouldn't believe it if it bit them on the ass. They say they would change their minds if they were presented with evidence, but they dismiss all evidence as a hoax because some things were a hoax.
It's no different than a theist dismissing evolution in the same way ebcause they just don't want to believe.
And this is not a false equivocation. A tennis shoe with a shoe lace and a tennis shoe with Velcro are still tennis shoes, regardless of the difference in the details. And regardless of what they say.
Actually, there is a difference, in terms of logic. Appeals to the the supernatural are generally "non-falsifiable".
I don't care anything about logic. Logic only turns people into arrogant pricks who think they're better than anybody else and treat anybody they want like crap because they think they're better than anybody else.
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