Raven Crowking
First Post
What are you talking about? The Rapture occurred. Everyone who was worthy was taken.
That just happened to be an empty set!
RC
D&D Still Satanic? "So my mom threw away all my D&D books..."
- Thread starter Katana_Geldar
- Start date
What are you talking about? The Rapture occurred. Everyone who was worthy was taken.
That just happened to be an empty set!
RC
nedjer
Adventurer
What are you talking about? The Rapture occurred. Everyone who was worthy was taken.
That just happened to be an empty set!
RC
There must be like some kind of dreadful clerical error. I wasn't worthy. Next time I'll have to give them the other kidney and the contents of the kid's piggy bank. So unfair
Jared Rascher
Explorer
This issue always trips about a thousand different thoughts in my head. Back in the 80s, in my Sunday school class, we went through the "D&D is Satanic" lesson plan, and when it came up, some of us brought in our game books for the teachers to look at, and I even ran a session for people in front of the class.
The teachers thought that while there might be some things in the game they weren't comfortable with, and that could be problematic for some players, the game itself was not intrinsically any more of a problem than anything else in modern pop culture. So instead of damning the whole game, we shifted to discuss what we should thing about various topics addressed by the game.
One thing, up front, that tends to bother me is that the mother in this particular instance is dismissed out of hand because of how she reacts to her son's hobby. We don't know the context of the relationship. We don't know if she's an exemplar of a mother otherwise. In fact, because we like the hobby she is intolerant of, the hobby becomes of paramount importance, and we dismiss the fact that she could possibly be concerned about her son.
It actually reminds me of the Gygax charity hubub of a few years ago. Because a charity was not sure if they should be affiliated publicly with D&D and roleplaying, I actually heard many people talking about hoping the charity went under. But they don't know about the hobby. They do have to be careful about their reputation, and is what they are doing (feeding children in poverty stricken nations) really less important than proving how awesome our hobby is? In fact, it probably would have been a great time to show how "not evil" the people in the hobby are, but, in fact, we had a ton of people talking about how intolerant those people are, in a bit of irony.
Interestingly, when I first started playing D&D, yes, there were tons of people that were taking aim on D&D for religious reasons, but I don't think the furor would have been half of what it was if it wasn't for the pop-psyche purveyors that showed up on all of the talk shows, discussing how D&D causes psychotic breaks with reality. And of course we had the wonderful Tom Hanks movie to help with that. Which had no religious element to it, either, interestingly enough.
My only point is that the anti-D&D fervor was essentially a perfect storm of the advent of cable television, and the resultant ubiquity of talk shows, pop-psyche guests that wanted to get on television, and televangelists wanting a target to rail against. Because cable television was a new novelty in a lot of the country, it appeared that "religions and psychological experts" agreed on the dangers of D&D.
This wasn't the case, but I think you have to look at it in context of what was happening, culturally, at the time.
Was it wrong and unfair? Sure it was. Were people that got the wrong impression stupid or evil? Not by a long shot. The only real evil involved had to do with those people that knew they were lying about various things just to get on television (remember the supposed TSR employee on the 700 club that talked about all of the company satanic rituals that no one could ever find a record of having worked at TSR?)
It was only about two years ago that a friend of my wife's was surprised that I played "that weird game" because she had never had her view of the game challenged since the early 80s. Thankfully, she knows me well enough to know I'm screwed up from all sorts of things that have nothing to do with playing RPGs.
I guess all I'm saying is that intolerance can be a two way street, and its probably better to engage then to marginalize.
The teachers thought that while there might be some things in the game they weren't comfortable with, and that could be problematic for some players, the game itself was not intrinsically any more of a problem than anything else in modern pop culture. So instead of damning the whole game, we shifted to discuss what we should thing about various topics addressed by the game.
One thing, up front, that tends to bother me is that the mother in this particular instance is dismissed out of hand because of how she reacts to her son's hobby. We don't know the context of the relationship. We don't know if she's an exemplar of a mother otherwise. In fact, because we like the hobby she is intolerant of, the hobby becomes of paramount importance, and we dismiss the fact that she could possibly be concerned about her son.
It actually reminds me of the Gygax charity hubub of a few years ago. Because a charity was not sure if they should be affiliated publicly with D&D and roleplaying, I actually heard many people talking about hoping the charity went under. But they don't know about the hobby. They do have to be careful about their reputation, and is what they are doing (feeding children in poverty stricken nations) really less important than proving how awesome our hobby is? In fact, it probably would have been a great time to show how "not evil" the people in the hobby are, but, in fact, we had a ton of people talking about how intolerant those people are, in a bit of irony.
Interestingly, when I first started playing D&D, yes, there were tons of people that were taking aim on D&D for religious reasons, but I don't think the furor would have been half of what it was if it wasn't for the pop-psyche purveyors that showed up on all of the talk shows, discussing how D&D causes psychotic breaks with reality. And of course we had the wonderful Tom Hanks movie to help with that. Which had no religious element to it, either, interestingly enough.
My only point is that the anti-D&D fervor was essentially a perfect storm of the advent of cable television, and the resultant ubiquity of talk shows, pop-psyche guests that wanted to get on television, and televangelists wanting a target to rail against. Because cable television was a new novelty in a lot of the country, it appeared that "religions and psychological experts" agreed on the dangers of D&D.
This wasn't the case, but I think you have to look at it in context of what was happening, culturally, at the time.
Was it wrong and unfair? Sure it was. Were people that got the wrong impression stupid or evil? Not by a long shot. The only real evil involved had to do with those people that knew they were lying about various things just to get on television (remember the supposed TSR employee on the 700 club that talked about all of the company satanic rituals that no one could ever find a record of having worked at TSR?)
It was only about two years ago that a friend of my wife's was surprised that I played "that weird game" because she had never had her view of the game challenged since the early 80s. Thankfully, she knows me well enough to know I'm screwed up from all sorts of things that have nothing to do with playing RPGs.
I guess all I'm saying is that intolerance can be a two way street, and its probably better to engage then to marginalize.
Balesir
Adventurer
In a n otherwise excellent post, KnightErrantJR made on point that I must disagree with:
To accept that the interests and life-choices of another are bad without seeking clarity about the facts or circumstances of the case is to treat the views and judgement of that person as worthless. If I were to say that Christians murder babies and worship evil without first understanding what Christians do believe and stand for it would be fundamentally wrong (and if I did first get that understanding, it would be lying!) It would be wrong because it would treat their beliefs and life-choices as subordinate to me spending a little time, effort and thought. Those who just sucked up the "D&D is Satanic" stuff were guilty of exactly this; they treated the interests and judgement of those playing D&D as less important than spending a few minutes checking out what D&D was actually about. Those that didn't care and remained agnostic on the issue were not so guilty - but those who took up a "D&D is evil" view and acted on it (spreading the "word" or verbally attacking D&D players) were (edit - actually, are).
OK, full disclosure, I probably wouldn't use the word "evil". But stupidity and laziness certainly factor in (although they are by no means scarce in the world) and I do consider what those who acted, in any way, based on the claims that were made being true without first seeking evidence acted wrongly in doing so.
To accept that the interests and life-choices of another are bad without seeking clarity about the facts or circumstances of the case is to treat the views and judgement of that person as worthless. If I were to say that Christians murder babies and worship evil without first understanding what Christians do believe and stand for it would be fundamentally wrong (and if I did first get that understanding, it would be lying!) It would be wrong because it would treat their beliefs and life-choices as subordinate to me spending a little time, effort and thought. Those who just sucked up the "D&D is Satanic" stuff were guilty of exactly this; they treated the interests and judgement of those playing D&D as less important than spending a few minutes checking out what D&D was actually about. Those that didn't care and remained agnostic on the issue were not so guilty - but those who took up a "D&D is evil" view and acted on it (spreading the "word" or verbally attacking D&D players) were (edit - actually, are).
Oh, this I agree with 100%!
Er. One major problem here - by and large, the folks who pick up the D&D is satanic" meme are given evidence by someone they trust. That evidence was generally inaccurate, or misinterpreted.
It is easy to say, "they should have looked for better evidence," but honestly, the world is such today that is it not physically possible for you to personally look up evidence for everything that may matter to you. You must, by necessity, pick some sources of information and put trust in them.
These folks put trust in the wrong places, sometimes to tragic effect. But it isn't like they are operating in a way fundamentally different than anyone else.
BabyBackRibs
Explorer
Thank god I'm an atheist
"Killing a shard of soul" would have been too vague a notion, I think, for my parents to worry about.
There were much more obvious elements of D&D to find objectionable back in the day, most chiefly:
- violence
- greed
- bigotry
... nor were those exceptions to the general run of popular culture in the 1970s-80s or today.
People of many cultures were even more concerned about movies and television and video games. Some game designers and thinkers took this regard for the influence of arcade games and their personal-computer offspring as indicative of their potential as forms of art. People worried about their effects because they experienced the same kind of power as in literature, music and visual arts.
How much a child is "steeped in" material that takes for granted value systems that parents do not wish the child to take as normative can easily be a much bigger deal to them than it is to people -- especially older people -- who are just plain accustomed to that kind of environment.
Might one not wonder why if a young vegetarian from birth wants to be immersed in visualization of slaughter and sausages as entertainment? Might one not wonder why if someone raised as a feminist wanted to spend many hours of formative years conforming to sexist stereotypes and objectification?
There may turn out to be quite thoughtful answers, and thought-provokingly more to the phenomenon -- and to the young person, too! -- than one might have suspected.
There were much more obvious elements of D&D to find objectionable back in the day, most chiefly:
- violence
- greed
- bigotry
... nor were those exceptions to the general run of popular culture in the 1970s-80s or today.
People of many cultures were even more concerned about movies and television and video games. Some game designers and thinkers took this regard for the influence of arcade games and their personal-computer offspring as indicative of their potential as forms of art. People worried about their effects because they experienced the same kind of power as in literature, music and visual arts.
How much a child is "steeped in" material that takes for granted value systems that parents do not wish the child to take as normative can easily be a much bigger deal to them than it is to people -- especially older people -- who are just plain accustomed to that kind of environment.
Might one not wonder why if a young vegetarian from birth wants to be immersed in visualization of slaughter and sausages as entertainment? Might one not wonder why if someone raised as a feminist wanted to spend many hours of formative years conforming to sexist stereotypes and objectification?
There may turn out to be quite thoughtful answers, and thought-provokingly more to the phenomenon -- and to the young person, too! -- than one might have suspected.
Now I want to play a vegetarian feminist with a sexist sausage.
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