Israeli army frowns on D&D (merged)

[VirgilCaine]

"These people have a tendency to be influenced by external factors which could cloud their judgment, a military official says. "They may be detached from reality or have a weak personality - elements which lower a person's security clearance, allowing them to serve in the army, but not in sensitive positions."

Detached from reality? They're soldiers, for god's sake. Whether from boredom or combat, sometimes it helps to be detached from reality for a few hours. And D&D is a lot healthier than going on a bender.

 

[Krieg]

BTW not to interrupt the self righteous IDF bashing (including a bit of my own) but has anyone taken the time to verify the accuracy of the article? Looking at the RPGNet thread there is at least one Israeli poster who claims it is hogwash.

 

[Faraer]

As is often the case in propaganda, the statements are relatively factual once you translate them -- replace 'reality' with 'what we want them to think', for instance. (Compare 'freedom' in US propaganda.) Though even so, D&D is a rather unreliable method of subverting official ideologies.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Holy against communists doesn´t work. Thats on the communist - capitalist axis. You need the greedy enhancement to deal extra damage to communists.

So now we have a moral axis, an ethical axis, and a "political axis" You know that they'll have to cut a lot of stuff from the next PHB in order to explain all possibilities. Nono, we don't want to got here. Once that door's open, we get all kinds of extra axes: The potato axis, for example (on how to pronounce it), the windows/linus axis for d20 modern (as well as the PC/Mac axis), the vegetarian axis......

 

[somekindofjerk]

BTW not to interrupt the self righteous IDF bashing (including a bit of my own) but has anyone taken the time to verify the accuracy of the article? Looking at the RPGNet thread there is at least one Israeli poster who claims it is hogwash.

Actually, looking at the article content as entirely ficticious, taken out of cntext, or blown out of proportion makes a lot more sense. I've seen plenty of news agencies take a story that otherwise would never be noticed, take an element that can be sensationalized and run with it, and something about this article just didn't seem to 'add up' for me.

 

[Harmon]

/wipes Coke from monitor

God, I hope he means soda?

 

[Truth Seeker]

As much as I want to wade into this discussion...I will abstain for the sake of keeping this thread sane.

The one thing not seen or even brought up, to compare notes on this subject.

Does the dislike applies to video-game players as well?

 

[Ed Cha]

Sounds like a stupid witch hunt to me. I'd imagine the Israeli army needs every man and woman they can get and stop spending time on needless purges.

By the way, I didn't know D&D was so popular in the former Soviet Union.

 

[KnowTheToe]

As others have said, please keep modern-day politics out of EN World discussions. Thanks!

For everyone who does want to discuss political aspects tangential to this issue, I'd recommend checking out threads about the same topic in Nothingland or RPG.net. (The RPG.net link will ask you to log in with an rgp.net account proving you're at least 18, BTW.)

Wow, I just read the Nothinland thread and I can once again say thankyou to ENworld for their supression of our First amendment rights. Truely, thank you. ... IMO, that thread would go a long way in convincing Isreal they are correct about Roleplayers.

I don't think this article has much merit myself.

 

[NiTessine]

A role-player I know described his experiences in the military as "one big LARP." Seems he had a lot of fun.
Of course, he's nearly invulnerable to verbal attacks, which probably helped. Others' mileage certainly varies.

Yeah, the Finnish gaming scene has a long-standing joke about military service being a really long larp with great props but a lousy plot...