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As Ardoughter mentioned upthread, if you question this gentleman's judgment about the subject of D&D, you should see what he says about Catholics. :eek:

Just pointing out that Mr. Chick has other conspiracy theories besides just about D&D. So it's not like he's picking only on gamers.

Too bad Traveller escaped his notice, though. Half the comic could have been set in outer space.
 

Another gamer and partaker of the "death cookie" here.

Yeah, Jack Chick is a kook, but while he says insulting things, distorts and fabricates history, and weaves massive conspiracy theories, he isn't much different than many other media personalities who many gamers find perfectly decent, or even laudable.

Sometimes, I find interesting parallels to how my faith is portrayed and how my gaming is portrayed in the world of popular culture. I'm not a big fan of Tom Hanks for example, as he has now starred in two movies that have demonized something I take a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction in.

However, I think that Jack Chick is an annoyance kept alive more by the desire to feel persecuted rather than any particular influence. Sure, he is a problem if someone tries to show it to their kids as part of the way to dissuade them from playing RPG's, but to put it bluntly there would probably be problems between that parent and child anyway over the issue of D&D.

On the surface, D&D does glamourize the occult and the forces of darkness. It certainly glamourizes violence and crime. Sure, the point of D&D is generally to defeat demonic evil and to fight for justice, but you certainly wouldn't get that from looking at the covers of the monster manuals and guidebooks that D&D has produced over the years. For someone coming from a place where the devil is a very real threat, and that the cosmic struggle of prayer vs. evil matters, it is very hard culture shock. Imagine for example what your reaction if you didn't know anything about Christianity, and you walked into a house with a Crucifix on the wall. I imagine your reaction would be something like this (this comic strip is about aliens who crash land in the middle ages and take refuge in a monastery).

get_medieval:

Now if I was to invite someone from my church prayer and study group over for supper, and they saw a gargantuan mini of Orcus on my shelf, they would probably have the same reaction as those aliens. I consider them all to be intellectual and reasonable people, so I imagine that it could be explained, but it would certainly be awkward and likely to leave a lingering distrust.

So there is going to be inevitable culture clash, and it isn't necessarily because people are stupid, or hateful, or intolerant, or whatever. The best thing for you to do as a gamer is to be patient with those who don't understand, refute those who lie, and ignore the ones who are crazy. That's going to be the case with other cultural aspects of your life as well.
 

Into the Woods

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