You guys are correct, of course. I did not mean to label "Catholics" as the perpetrators of the D&D hysteria. It was just the case in my personal experience, but I am certain there were others that were just as crazy over the whole thing. Please forgive my judgmental statement.
Speaking of often howlingly inaccurate depictions of gamers, last night I was over at a friend of mine's. He's a big fan of the old "Greatest American Hero" series and we popped in a couple of random episodes. One of the episode titles was "Wizards and Warlocks", so of course I had to check it out. Basically, the plot was a middle eastern prince is a college student; he plays the game "Wizards and Warlocks" and (of course) gets lost - there is, of course, a pat where folks wander around the steam tunnels under the campus. There's a subplot where some terrorist types from his homeland are trying to abduct him (amusingly, the "good arabs" wear white headcloths and the "bad arabs" wear black headcloths - no, really). The portrayal of the game's author (obviously an allusion to Gary) was even more stereotypical, down to coke bottle glasses and a lisp. I've seen some silly portrayals of gaming and gamers on TV, but this one is at the head of that class. If a parent who knew nothing about the hobby got their idea of gaming from a popular TV show like this, no wonder they'd want to throw out Junior's RPG books. Funny in retrospect, but bad even as a lampoon. You can tell the writers had absolutely no clue of what they were writing about. Worth watching should you have a chance as a reminder how ridiculously off public percedptions were of gaming and gamers during the early 80's. Episode cast list is here http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0592616/ on IMDB. Original air date was 1983. Aside from the equally bad "Mazes and Monsters", this is the only gaming-related TV episode I've seen from the 80's period. Given D&D's notoriety during those years, I wonder if there are any other old TV episodes floating around out there that crack on our favorite hobby? Andy
I've seen Mazes & Monsters in recent years, but I haven't see Greatest American Hero since it aired. I'll definitely have to dig that up. I think Sir Jon said he got the boxed set, which I maybe can borrow...after I finally return his Firefly.
Here are a few news clippings concerning the Eggbert incident, from 30 years ago: Cults....man....no bias in the reporting at all.
Yeah, try telling the 30 people I have locked up in my basement that it isn't a cult! :lol: :lol: :lol: Okay, seriously. I don't lock people up in my basement. Except the Succubus I married. If I let her out, the world would be doomed. :lol:
The real problem, in my opinion, isn't that there were any cults involved ever, its the problem that psychological power of suggestion given to pretty much anybody running a game in some degree. Whoever is the "keeper of the treasury" in any game everyone will gravitate to, etc. but in the case of roleplaying it can get a little bizarre. I recall right around the time of aunts, uncles, grandmas, etc. bemoaning "D&D as Satan's game" there was never anybody ever coming off the street saying they were a "Satanist" or even acting like one. But there wasa lot of vicarious living going in some campaigns which was freaky in itself and the bad thing was new players were dragging that freakishness into my table. So while I never had any "Anton LaVey" at my table, I've had quite a few "Marquis DeSades" and "Roman Polanskis" over the years that creeped me the heck out.
And the ironic thing about it all, is that there really are some pretty evil RPGs out there now like, "Kill Puppies for Satan", "Pie Shoppe" and "Kult". These are the games that D&D was accused of being back in the 80's. Now that the real deal is here, no one cares. :twisted:
The very first "church's" that did game-burnings were ittle fundamantalist types with names like (and I mean no offense to anyone) "Tabernacle of the Blood of the Lamb" "Holiness Church"; basically little one-of-a-kinds. Dear was so full of crap in that post-"rescue" interview his eyeballs should have shot from their sockets like paintballs. As told by someone who was there.
I still find that very interesting since the creator of Judges Guild, Bledsaw, was a member of the Nazarene Church which is considered a "holiness" denomination. They're very conservative both in theology and in dress. It was the more "liberal" mainline churches that seemed to have ministers that actually supported D&D though I know quite a few conservative ministers that are around today that played D&D as a kid and kept playing it "quietly behind the scenes." Some of them still play it or got back into playing it simply because it's not seen as that big of a problem to most people. (Though I still come across people that think differently.) Would also love to hear about your experiences, publically or privately, with the whole episode. I've heard from Gary and Michael Stackpole but other insights are always welcome.
I think more folks have a problem with "D&D" being too bookish these days than anything else. I have a problem getting people to look past all the mediocrity on television, movies and even way too many fantasy games including what later D&D established as standards. "Huh Gene? This is the way you sound: blah...blah...blah... Arthur Machen... blah...blah... blah... you lost me on this "love craft" thing. What is that again? Some kind of weird hippie love-in cult?"
I guess I hang out with a better class of "younger" gamers. One of the guys I hang with is in his early twenties now and has enjoyed some HP Lovecraft for years. I've also turned him onto Jack Vance and quite a few of the other early authors. Only problem with that is he has come to learn that some of my DM "tricks" in the past were things that I'd read from a variety of books. It's rough getting called out by a "kid".
Well, I guess its because I've been off the bookstore/gamestore set as they're usually plugged in to whatever is "hep" with rpgs. Its like a 1:20 ratio that I'm going to get someone who isn't going to want to play a LARPing minstrel Klingon from that bunch. I'm safer going the friends of friends route for now.
I'm just fortunate, I guess, because the gamers I hang with I met at the gamestore. I found it's a good place to find out what they're into and, even more interesting, they seem to like having an "old school" (and I don't even consider myself that old school) gamer introduce them into a lot of the old concepts. Many of these younger gamers, in my experience are happy to have some of the older players show them how to sling dice and actually do a little role playing. They also like hearing about games and systems that were before their time. I think part of this comes from tabletop gaming no longer being "mainstream" but, rather, moving back to what I call the True Geek 20 crowd. FWIW
Its the area around here, you get a lot of people who want to make a mountain out of a molehill and it just goes nowhere with hours and hours of tavern talk. I had this great milieux with a feudal layout backdrop where there was no taverns and everybody wanted to make a big deal out of it as if the ruler was doing something wrong because the populace had a ruler! It wasn't like he was Vlad the Impaler in any way at all, just some baron on a dangerous border with patrols and watchtowers. I'm not for railroading but sitting around and doing social work with farmers wasn't what I had in mind for any game. Buts thats what they did game after game and it eventually just dried up. So much for not having a tavern... After that, with a different group, I had two taverns, one too quiet and one too dangerous for talk. That didn't work out as well either because they made such a big deal out of the non-standard monsters they encountered and it was back to inciting the peasants...
Yeah, I understand. That does bite.....I've noticed some similar things happen with some other gamers around my own age in that we tend to want things "our way" but, honestly, if I'm not DM'ing I try and step back and let the other person have their way. My biggest problem with some games I've played in is the killer DM mentality. The DM doesn't feel like he/she has done their job unless at least one PC is killed or brought to the brink of death every single session. Personally, I'd just like my life to settle down enough where I could get into a steady game. Life is just too crazy and chaotic for that to happen right now so the best times I get to game are when I go to places like GaryCon or GenCon. Of course, the hardest part for me is when I get to either place I usually get caught up in good conversations or try and find time to get some interviews done.
Theres so many ways to call a bad DM a bad DM but I think killer DM is often a misnomer because half the time those types skew the reality of the game with "you forgot to breathe" type ends. Meanwhile, the party is being dominated by some yapper "DM's familiar" player and the one chance you get to put some input by noticing something the big yapper overlooked and you get your head ripped off!
My roleplaying experience is a bit different. I game with a group of friends I made when I was in the 82nd Airborne, about 20+ years ago, when I was DM for a 1st ed AD&D game. We have all stayed in contact and get together once or twice a year. I have a campaign I run when we gather called the "Evil Game". We play for about four days solid when we do play. So far we have had 13 sessions of our campaign in slow motion. I wanted to run a session at Gary-Con, but my friends deemed it to shocking for decent folk, so I decided against it. :evil:
Yes, I've sadly seen this happen way too many times. It almost seems as if the DM feels the need for a prompter. My feeling has always been, "If they miss it, then they MISS IT!" And suffer whatever consequences come from it. The big problem I've dealt with as a DM and I see other DM's find it hard to deal with is when you have 5 or 6 players and everyone is trying to do something. I've made it simple....go back to individual initiative and you tell me what you're doing on your initiative. Simple as that....but I've also run games with intrigue where I've called for a "smoke break" so various players could come up and conspire with me. Loads of fun when I've done that.... :twisted:
