Has anyone ever tried to 'save' you from D&D?

[Dexterward]

Well, Yes and No

I answered no to the poll because I need a category that says "yes, all of the above".

I got into D&D in 1979. A friend of mine was a councilor at the local Boy Scout camp and he was introduced to the game by a fellow councilor. The next evening around a camp fire he told me about this great game where you could be a medieval type character killing dragons, orcs, and other beasties. Needless to say, I was completely enthralled by his D&D exploits. At the end of the week when I came home from summer camp, I went out and bought the game at a local hobby store.

I read the books from front to back several times over, and decided that I would rather play this neat game then be a DM. So, I convinced my mom to run a game for me and my two younger brothers. The session went well, but my brothers never really took to the game. This was my first mistake. While my mother is a very open minded person, she could not understand why I wanted to spend so much time playing this funny little game. When my father figured out what the game was about he decided that the best way to stop me from playing was to make fun of me in front of my friends and family. He continues to do so to this day, but usually the subject doesn't come up.

My second "conversion" took place in high school. I was never the most popular person in school, and when the local jocks caught me reading the monster manual, the real fun began. They would constantly make fun of me and my hobby, to the point of trying to steel my books and destroy them. When the news story broke about a college student getting trapped in sewer tunnels matters became worse.

The third time was in catechism class at the local Saint Pauls UCC. By this point everyone in my high school knew about my hobby. And to make matters worse, the jocks that loved to torment me at school were in my church. The pastor, deacons, and other church leaders tried to get me to see the "light". "D&D is bad, due to Satan's influence". Of course, 60 Minutes just happened to run a piece about a troubled teen that played D&D who committing suicide at the same time.

I never onced stopped playing D&D, but I must admint that all the years of torment and grief I suffered has tainted me. To this day, I don't talk about D&D in public. I feel very uneasy when someone brings up a D&D topic and I am not with people I know that play the game. At game conventions, my FLGS, and D&D related web sites like ENWorld I can talk about D&D with out that feeling of angst. I know its not rational, but that dosen't stop the uneasy feeling I get.

Dexterward

 

[Drifter Bob]

Persecution of D&D

My experiences were probably different from most. My mom was foreign, very liberal, well educated, and non religious. She actually had a vague understanding what D&D was and, as another poster mentioned, due to where I grew up and the schools I was attending, was glad I was into such a relatively intellectual pursuit.
That all changed when the 60 minutes hit piece came out. It was a revelation to me because I knew D&D, for all it's faults, was a long way from being "evil". But Gary Gygax came across like a crooked TV evangelist or corrupt defense contractor or something. It was fascinating to see how they could really set someone up, and how someone who was just wierd or confused could be made to come across evil. They implied all kind of negative associations with D&D, nothing specific, but a vague threat of satan worship, drug use, and suicide. My liberal educated mother suddenly became negative toward D&D.

Ironically, all my firends who weren't into D&D actually WERE into drug use and all sorts of crime. As I moved from the sort of geek world (I was a regular in the computer room in 9th grade, back in the early 80's when it was still wierd even for geeks) into the punk rock scene, I had another friend, a hard core punk, whose parents thought D&D was going to ruin his life. They felt D&D was holding him back from good grades, keeping him in some retrogressive childhood state. To be sure, D&D was an escapist outlet, but all this guys other friends were into stealing cars, dealing drugs on a serious level, etc. and etc.

I had two other friends, who were black, who played with us, and used to play their own spin off game with their own totally made up rules all the time. I gave them some dice and they used to make up these games, pure role playing, really imaginative stuff. Perfectly harmless IMHO. Funny thing was, the teachers always thought they were 'throwing dice', i.e. gambling, and they kept getting busted, in serious trouble. The heavy irony of that was, the teachers who were busting them every time they saw them with dice, but leaving white kids alone, were themselves for the most part black teachers and staff. That was, for me, an insight into the actual meaning of institutional racism. I even tried to talk to the principle about it once and he thought I was totally full of it.

In general, in my school which was kind of like Rock and Roll high school, a very, very wild place back in the 80's, and D&D was a very positive thing which was looked down on. It actually led to an interest in literature and history, and was an alternative to a lot of criminal activities... D&D led to an interest in intellectual matters among a lot of kids I knew who were basically becoming just thug like. The irony was that the whole school administration was against it.

It was definately an insight into how distorted society can be toward something perfectly innocuous. I also put a lot of the blame on TSR, they acted so suspicious, it was like they didn't believe in their own product. I think that was where a lot of the stagnation in D&D set in which we see so much of now.

DB

 

[Chunklets]

My Dad tried to "save" me from D&D in Jr. High, since he blamed it (quite possibly correctly) for some low grades. However, I managed to get the grades up and continue gaming, so that was all good.

However, in High School a friend of mine committed suicide, and our minister wondered out loud whether it might have had something to do with D&D (it didn't). This was right at the height of Pat Pulling's crusade to get rid of D&D, and I think he'd heard only one side of the argument (he's not in any way a close-minded fundamentalist type of minister). Anyway, I explained about the game, and about my friend, and he accepted my explanations. I don't know if this counts as an attempted 'salvation from D&D' or not, but there it is.

 

[dogma94_02]

Bible Camp

Until about the age of 15 I attended a Cavalry Baptist Church, and had a number of good friends whose families strongly practiced some aspect of Christianity at their homes.

When I was 13 or 14, I attended a Bible Camp (at least thats what I think it was, specific name escapes me). I let it be known to one of the councillers that I played D&D, not thinking much of it since while many of my other christian friends didnt play, they didnt mind that I played. That night at the mass sermon they had every night, the guy speaking starts talking about all the evils in the modern world, giving examples of Boyz II Men, and then he says "we even have a person here who plays Dungeons and Dragons". Boyz II Men, big evil, mkay (they made some poor girl cry her eyes out cuz she owned a boyz II men cassette). Anyways, I was impressionable at that age (who isnt), and so they finally did corner me and got me to see the "light".

For a few days at least. When I got back home, I was all gung-ho to quit the hobby, but my dad, being all-wise, let me brew for a few days. And wouldnt you know it, I went right back to playing D&D after a few days. Glad I didnt burn the books like the camp counciller had suggested!

That was the worst experience I had with someone trying to save me from D&D, I had others, but none like that. I am kinda glad it happened though, it was a real "eye-opener" for lack of a better explanation.

 

[maddman75]

I checked yes to the "Religious and Moral Threat" option, but seeing as i lived in Canada's bible belt, and took the game up specifically because I saw a news item about it being a game for "Heavy Metal Kids who worship Satan, use drugs and committ suicide" (which sounded fantastic to 12-year old me) I can't really be surprised.

LOL - I'm glad I'm not the only one that got into it for that reason!

But no, no one's ever tried to get me to give up gaming because they are worried for my soul. And that's really unfortunate. I wish they would. You don't get that kind of free entertainment every day. Hell, I'd enjoy that more than running into a "creationist scientist"

One of my favorite stories was a buddy of mine. This was before the days of downloading a PDF off the company's web site, and you needed to get character sheets printed up. So he went to the local print shop to have this done.

The clerk was wearing a ripped up punk rock shirt, spiked up hair, tattoos up and down his arms, and had piercings in his ears, nose, lip, and eyebrows. He took one look at the character sheet and said in a concerned voice "Hey, you know this stuff is Satanic, right?"

 

[SmokeDoctorlove]

Yes, in the early 80's (damn I feel old) a friend of mine not only had his mother stop him from playing, but burnt all his stuff.
Here comes the punch line......

She claimed the minis "screamed when they hit the fire"

When I was in Jobcorp they wouldn't let us play because a kid hung himself in an attic and it was blamed (of course) on D&D. I organized a protest, and we were up and running in about 4 months. Not that we didn't play even when it wasn't allowed.

Oh hell there are so many more... manybe another time though, got a bar to go to.

 

[undeaddan]

Then, he met Jesus in a Waffle House at 3 AM.

This is just taking me to a whole near-blasphemous place where three waffles and a double order of hashbrowns (Scattered, covered, peppered and diced) feed fifty persons on their way to GenCon with enough left over to fill a dozen backpacks.

I'm at a loss as to which way to vote. The only experience I had even remotely like this was when I was working at Burger King between my sophmore and junior year at college.

Two of the managers were real zealots. I would read White-Wolf Storyteller stuff during my breaks and they would always make comments about how it was the work of the devil. They also talked about how Duk, the other manager (who was Vietnamese) wasn't saved and how many temples to Satan were scattered throughout southeast asia. They also believed that the end times were upon us and that we had less than 10 years left before the Rapture. This was 1994 BTW. It turned out they were both saving their money from managing the Burger King for some land up in Alaska where they were going to weather the coming of the Antichrist. They had a bunch of weird ideas about barcodes and the prime minister of Israel. But hey, they didn't fire me, so all in all, not a bad experience.

No intervention or anything, so I guess I'll vote no. I'm kinda jealous of the interventions. Maybe I can get my pastor to stage one with members of the parish so I don't feel quite so left out.

 

[SmokeDoctorlove]

Who was quite likely a suffering paranoid schizophrenic. who truly believed he was.

I'm not a doctor, but I have studied schizophrenia. Many people who suffer from it never realize they have a problem and never seek help.

So you're saying I'm not Elvis?

 

[BOZ]

The clerk was wearing a ripped up punk rock shirt, spiked up hair, tattoos up and down his arms, and had piercings in his ears, nose, lip, and eyebrows. He took one look at the character sheet and said in a concerned voice "Hey, you know this stuff is Satanic, right?"

heh heh

 

[Zappo]

When I started playing (early 90s) noone around me even knew that people somewhere thought that D&D was evil. It's something I only discovered on the web, years later. Anyway, when I bought the game and looked very excited about it, my parents played a half dozen games with me and my friends, decided that it was a wonderful pasttime, and approved implicitly. I reckon the world would be better if people actually tried things out.