Zombie Story gets student thrown in jail

[Tewligan]

Sounds like they ARE overeacting to this. However, just to play devil's advocate, I'm going to point out that Kentucky has had maybe more than their fair share of shootings and hostage takings in their schools. I guess they're getting sensitive about potential threats.

-Tewligan
Former Kentuckian

 

[Terath Ninir]

See? Told you!

~eagerly awaits the appearance of the little lock symbol~

 

[Khur]

There have been moments throughout history where a work of fiction has incited riots and caused governments to collapse. So while this story might not be dangerous, it's not unheard of in the larger sense.

Name three such moments. I haven't heard of one, besides War of the Worlds (which was broadcast, and so is in a whole other category), so three would increase my knowldege considerably.

EDIT: Oh, and War of the Worlds neither caused riots nor governments to collapse, so I guess I don't really know of any such moments.

 

[Torm]

Heck, I wrote a story in high school that featured my government teacher as an evil cult leader. It was for an assignment too! I'm glad that wasn't in this age of paranoia sans anything resembling wisdom.

One of the funnier things that happened in one of our games was in a very strange campaign(?) of Vampire: The Masquerade that was set in the town we live in. One of the guys playing got so bored with the stupid fashion-focused way the GM was running things (this was our first AND last VTM campaign ) that he decided his vampire character would go to the local comic shop and browse comics. Of course, it was night, and the GM decided the store had just closed. So the player decided to knock on the door to get the attention of the guy who ran the store, see if maybe he would let him in. The comic guy just shook his head. So the player went across the street and tried to call. No answer. So he ripped the phone handle out of the phone, walked across, tapped on the window, and yelled, "answer your PHONE!" At this point, the shopkeeper went for the phone to call the cops, so the player broke in and killed him and took a bunch of comics.

Pretty funny, but I always felt kinda odd whenever I saw the shopkeeper after that, since we all knew him from the store, and I wasn't sure whether he would be amused or very alarmed if we told him about it. And goodness knows what police would have made of it.

 

[Darrin Drader]

Name three such moments. I haven't heard of one, besides War of the Worlds (which was broadcast, and so is in a whole other category), so three would increase my knowldege considerably.

I can point out one. Actually it was a movie, not a book, but anyway. Right about the same time The Day After hit American airwaves, a similar movie showed in the Soviet Union. It depicted the afteraffects of a nuclear war that included radioactive fallout and a horrendous nuclear winter. This changed public sentiment about nukes, which contributed to the arms control talks with Reagan back in the mid-80's.

 

[Pielorinho]

One of the funnier things that happened in one of our games was in a very strange campaign(?) of Vampire: The Masquerade that was set in the town we live in.

Heh--we had something similar to this in a Tripartite game in which we played ourselves (tripartite since two of us were vampires, one was a werewolf, and two were mages). At some point we had to travel cross-country, but we seriously lacked financial resources.

And then I remembered my fantastically wealthy slum-lord uncle, whom the family never talks to any more.

In-game, we drove down to see him, and used our various mind-manipulating talents on him to cheat him out of $50,000.

It was just another moment in the downward spiral of our in-game selves' morality . Not as bad as the first time we committed homicide, but still.

Daniel

 

[reveal]

Name three such moments. I haven't heard of one, besides War of the Worlds (which was broadcast, and so is in a whole other category), so three would increase my knowldege considerably.

Salman Rushdie - Satanic Verses
Incites riots in Iran and Ayatollah Khomeini puts a bounty on Rushdie's head which is still active.

Harriet Beecher Stowe - Uncle Tom's Cabin
This book so polarized America that Abraham Lincoln, upon meeting Ms. Stowe in 1862, the second year of the Civil War, exclaimed "So this is the little lady who made this big war?"

Boris Pasternak - Dr Zhivago
The book could not be published in the USSR and Pasternak was forced by the government to decline the Nobel Prize. This book was used by the US to demonstrate the "evils" of the USSR and further propogate its stance during the Cold War.

Maybe I was a little exubarent in saying that fictional stories have overthrown governments, but the power of pen is great and many works of fiction have helped to change things. It's not always something to which you can say "it's just a story."

 

[Torm]

It was just another moment in the downward spiral of our in-game selves' morality . Not as bad as the first time we committed homicide, but still.

This was another reason that V:TM wasn't working for us - I'm Torm the True, and I'm not sure I could play a BAD guy even if I wanted to. My vampire was in life a wealthy, already eccentric muti-millionaire who was brought over for the resources he could bring to Clan Ventrue. Just before his sire was destroyed (by werewolves, I believe) and thus unable to explain anything to my character or tell other members of the Clan that he was successful. So, suddenly possessed of incredible powers and an inability to go outside during the day, my guy, of course, sets about becoming ... dum dum dum ... Batman!

The other vampires were, needless to say, not amused.

 

[Pielorinho]

I, not being a vampire, am.

Daniel

 

[Torm]

Maybe I was a little exubarent in saying that fictional stories have overthrown governments, but the power of pen is great and many works of fiction have helped to change things.

No, I'd say you were still right - Its just that the most effective fictions (inferiority of other races/religions/etc, manifest or divine destinies, stuff like that) that caused riots or overthrew gov'ts are the ones that were sold as truth, rather than as novels or movies.