h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I had some xperience of this kind of drivel when i was student. Our (fairly popular) roleplaying group came under some sustained aheavy criticism for it's activities from some of the more..extreme types on campus.

We got the college Chaplain to write a very nice letter for us, as he used to be a roleplayer himself. To be honest, my opinion was much the same as his, and mirror's Kerr's. These are just people who missed the last bus to reality.

Funnily enough, one of the reasons i don't play anything like as much as I used to is because the only group I have regular contact with only plays D20 D&D these days, and they play it in an utter moral vacuum. It bores the living t*ts off me. The most fun I ever had was playing in a White Wolf game where I took my character from being a theiving, amoral oik to being a pillar of society. Much more fun, ansd more personally rewarding.

By addicted I don't mean to imply they believe in it; but need to do it. Just like you get addicted to a cigarette every am,it is as if some players get addicted and have to play. I mean, I dance and do so regularly but if something comes up in RL that needs doing itcan be missed; some gamers cannot do this; then again, that is probably a personality disorder thing and it could be games or sports but with the games it seems more common as it is so much so an escape from the real world that some people seem to "addict to" more than others....

Right-wing fundamentalist Christian preachers are the ultimate role players, and they don't like anything that infringes on their turf. The $40 you lay out for a Player's Handbook is $40 less you can drop in their collection plates.

Actually, these guys need to invent enemies, because their primary weapon is fear... surprise and fear...fear and surprise....
Their two weapons are fear and surprise... and ruthless efficiency....
Their three weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...
and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope....

My mother got sucked into that whole devil-worship hysteria Reagan ushered in during the 80's, a period in which D&D and heavy metal music were my primary sources of entertainment. And the topic came up in conversation just yesterday. The funny thing is, during that same period, slasher flicks and Stephen King novels were her primary sources of entertainment. When I pointed out that Black Sabbath got started by some guys who looked around and the horror genre in books and movies, decided that people like to be scared, and created a musical genre to go along with it, she was forced to admit that I had a point.

Then came all the devil worship nonsense, and heavy metal music embraced that image, because it meant free publicity from the Wreligious Wrong. It helped them sell albums. The image was also terribly campy, which makes one wonder how anyone could take it at all seriously.

D&D never embraced the image, and basically chose not to engage in the dialogue with the Wreligious Wrong. However, certain impressionable youths were misled by the Wreligious Wrong into taking the allegations very seriously... wherein they then began playing old Kiss records backwards and playing D&D as a way to get in touch with the devil. It can be argued that D&D would never have been associated with such acts if the Wreligious Wrong hadn't brought it up first, in a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I've never seen the logic or attraction of RPGs (just as I've never seen the attraction of sword and sorcery *Science Fiction*). At the same time I've never seen the logic of Christianity so I suppose people who do can see a definite similarity. (I can however see the attraction of religion...) The belief systems are at least parallel even if Christianity is of course a much stronger belief.

I still say the minute we perfect time travel we should drop off an ancient Hebrew translation of the Star Wars scripts in Jerusalem about 100 BC. That would make things *really* interesting.

Yea though I fly through the trench of the death star, I shall fear no tower.

marking

Bubba, shouldn't that be:

"Yea, though I fly through the trench of the Death Star, I shall fear no-one breaking the seal on my unopened original Star Wars (tm) action figurines"

*Muses over what the Star Wars theme song would have sounded like if written by Bach...*

And Darth Vader did say unto Luke: "I am your father."
Luke Skywalker wept.

My only contribution is that I've often said that neo-pagan / wiccan religions are Dungeons and Dragons taken *way* too seriously.

Bloody neo-pagans... I tell ya, if I hear one more person claim that the ancient religions emphasised the sacred bloody feminine... I'll get very cross indeed! It's a nature/earth religion people! Masculine and feminine have to be in balance otherwise it all collapses!

I think the idea of RPGs being addictive is hard to swallow. I've never seen it. I've never heard of it from reliable sources. I don't believe it.

It's just a hobby. There's some strange people who are involved in the hobby, but that doesn't mean RPGs caused them to be odd.

You had better believe it Two Bit. I speak from personal experience. In the early nineties, before the Internet, I was playing on-line role playing games and the addiction cost me a small fortune - and I was not alone.

Playing a RPG is little different than watching a good movie on the TV. The difference is that it is interactive and it is the interaction with other players that can have a compelling effect. One of these games was run in a moral vacuum as mentioned earlier. I found out a lot about myself that would have been impossible in real life.

However, the words NO CARRIER on your screen can have a dramatic effect in bringing you back to reality - often with sweaty hands and shaking knees.

That doesn't mean the RPGs should be banned because they are addictive. People can become addicted to all sorts of things and banning everything that could be addictive would be and endless task.

To read just how addictive RPGs can be I recommend a book called The Cybergypsies by Indra Sinha. ISBN 0-670-88630-0. The author admits to his addiction costing him around £35,000 and nearly his marriage.

Donald

There is no limit to the number of things compulsive people might choose as outlets for their compulsions. I don't think there are any intrinsic properties of the game that encourage that sort of thing.

What game? There are many different types of RPGs - all with different purposes and themes. What do you mean by encourage that sort of thing? What sort of thing are you refering to?

Donald

<>

Bah, any sane role-player tries their best to get their wife doing it as well (like what I did ).

Seriously, getting addicted to something like a game shows that there must be some deeper-rooted problem. I know a lot of gamers (nearly 150 if I count all those I LARP with) and I wouldn't describe any of them as addicted.

To an outside observer I may appear addicted to role-playing games; I spent a lot of money on them and talk about a lot them with my friends... but at the same time if I can't afford the shiny new D&D book I'll get it next month (or not at all if I find out it's rubbish), and can live without the weekly D&D session if one of the players is ill or on holiday.

I'm sure I've spent a couple thousand dollars on D&D since I started gaming. I know I've spent more than that on CCGs. Thang god, the A New Hope expansion of Staw Wars:CCG pretty much ended my interest in CCGs.

I count myself pretty lucky to have a wife who likes to play D&D.

While I'm a huge fan of the game, I don't how you can get that immersed in it. I think it's pretty abstract.

Neo-paganism is not D&D taken too seriously.

D&D is simply paganism and folklore repackaged for the leisure/techonological age and is meant purely for entertainment and so that games manufaturers can make money from selling the games, boooks and other associated merchandise to to gullible punters.

Its like the World Wrestling Federation, sorry "Entertainment" (not federation any more is it) without the steroid-abuse.

Some Religious types do get excited about the images borrowed from pagan worship and worry that this will lead people away from their own brand of god-bothering and into satanism.

The truth is its probably true.

The truth is not nearly as worrying though as the holy rollers would have you believe. Pagan religions are not satanic except in the eyes of those who think that any other way but their strict code is the *path of righteousness*. The only people it leads into satanism are those whop would find satanism anyway because they hate the established religions but still feel the need to talk to the weather and perform meanigless little ceremonies.

At least roleplaying is a pastime that keeps the mind working; makes you deal with new and strange situations and hence can help your ability to cope with RL situations; it allows yuou to play out different moral concepts depending on what characters you play; it has no effect on or puts out other people; it is probably cheaper than buying Sky TV or Cable and sitting in front of it for hours on end watching purile drivel and it's darn good clean honest fun.

<<D&D is simply paganism and folklore repackaged >>

Exactly... there are gods in the various D&D pantheons which are loosely borrowed from Norse, Egyptian and even Mesopotamian religion, and all the gods which are actually evil are clearly labelled as such.

(good God, Blicky... you realise this means we agree on something. .)

One of the things that the whole 'D&D is evil' thing has spawned is that most RPGs now have to have disclaimers somewhere in the credits or introduction which clearly state that the game is make believe.