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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dannyalcatraz" data-source="post: 3563318" data-attributes="member: 19675">I'd tell them that it was a form of interactive storytelling and invite them to play a game.I'd try for a simplified game- a one shot- with a definite start and endgoal.  I'd either provide them with pre-gens or walk them through the cha-gen process.I'm a single, black male and a 30 year veteran RPG & Wargamer, who has played on both sides of the screen- player and Game master.  I'd point out that the gaming community is an all-ages group that, on average, have a higher level of education than the national average.  My personal gaming groups (as an adult) have included multiple computer programmers, a bouncer/entrepeneur, philosophers, a mathematician or two, journalists, and doctors of various kinds (PHDs, MDs, PsiDs).  I'm an Entertainment Attorney with an MBA on top (underpinned by degrees in Economics and Philosophy).  The gamers at my FLGS include college-level English and Math teachers, and a Dallas Cowboy from their 90's era superbowl team (with the ring to prove it).I don't play as much as I like, but I play enough to be happy.Negatives: It is a time consuming hobby, and generally requires a lot of focus to get the most of it.  It is cooperative, so scheduling can be difficult.Positives: It encourages reading and mathematical self-improvement, and if done right, can be as immersive an experience as a good novel or movie.While I'm not Stormborn, I am a practicing Roman Catholic with a very religious family: both of my parents are practicing Roman Catholics, my fraternal Grandfather spent some time as a seminarian, my Grandfather on the other side was a Pentacostal whose mother was a Pentacostal Minister.  I myself am the first black graduate of a particular Catholic private high-school in the D/FW area...where I founded a gaming club.I've been called a Satanist by my Mom, my Godmother, and even my HS Art teacher after he was "born again" (because D&D + Heavy Metal = Satanist).Personally, I think its a combination of a few things that combined uniquely in the USA.  We have a fairly religious society (even though most are not practicing)- and a lot of it is on the conservative/activist side; there were a few highly publicized trials here in which defendents or their accusers tried to blame the game/hobby for their actions...all, of course, before similar attempts were made with TV and Video games, but after similar accusations changed the landscape of the world of Comic Books.While I don't advertise my involvement in the hobby (especially around the Church or members of the Clergy), I don't hide it either.Like I said, though, condemnation of the hobby isn't universal among the religious.  When I founded my HS RPG club, it met on school grounds in a classroom.  It died, not of persecution, but of lack of interest after I (and others) graduated.  There simply weren't enough players at the school to keep the club viable.I don't know everyone's religious orientation, but in my current gaming circle, I know besides me, we have atheists, agnostics, lapsed Episcopalians, practicing Evangelicals, and Wiccans.BTW- anti-RPG sentiments are not unique to Christians.  Because it is a form of interactive fiction, it plays fast and loose with all kinds of real world things, including religions.  Sometimes, that informal scholarship can lead to offensive uses of religious terminology- I've known Wiccans to complain about the use of the term "Warlock" in D&D, for instance.</blockquote>

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