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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zander" data-source="post: 47264" data-attributes="member: 1364">Re: WowI have read it cover-to-cover, albeit several years ago. It's the true story of Dallas Egbert, a bright but messed up kid who went missing while at university. His parents hired a private detective called William Dear to find him. Dear is the author of the book.Dallas Egbert was gay, but not old enough to have s-x - even though he did anyway. He was also a drug addict. He sometimes played a kind of LARP in the steam tunnels under his college's campus and he also played D&D. He went to RPG conventions, but didn't seem to play much D&D at university.Egbert had serious psychological problems stemming from his troubled relationship with his parents. Eventually, he decided to end it all by committing suicide. He climbed into the steam tunnels and took an overdose... but it didn't kill him. Half unconscious, he managed to crawl to a gay friend's house. He stayed for a while and convalesced. His friend knew Egbert was underage and moved him to the house of another gay friend. It was about this time that Dear enters the picture.  He guessed that Egbert was being hidden by the gay community who were terrified of being found with someone who was underage. To divert attention away from the gay community and make them more forthcoming with information, Dear fabricated a story that Egbert had gone missing in the steam tunnels while playing D&D. The story spread from the local to the national media who were fascinated with this strange and dangerous new game (as it seemed to them at the time).  The ploy worked for Dear (and for TSR, but that's a different story) who obtained information from the gay community that Egbert had been moved out of state. Dear found Egbert and reunited him with his parents.Tragically, the relationship between Egbert and his parents didn't improve. Some time later, he put a gun to his head and took his own life. It should be stressed that Dear was not anti-D&D. He never intended to drag D&D through the mud, just to create a temporary smoke-screen. According to his account, he even tried D&D, and while he didn't become a gamer, he didn't really dislike it either. Dear is sometimes vilified by gamers for damaging D&D's reputation, but it wasn't done out of malice. He just wanted to save Dallas Egbert. ZanderUK National Co-ordinator of CAR-PGa (Committee for the Advancement of Role-Playing Games)</blockquote>

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