Wednesday, June 02, 2004
D&D is bad, 'cause the church says so...
My gaming group almost fell apart a couple of times between 1987 and 1992 or so. It wasn't because of lack of interest or the inability to afford new supplements or simply because members moved away and I couldn't replace them. Ignorance is what caused my group to come to the brink of folding several times.
Perhaps it was only a few months -- or maybe it was about a year -- after I bought the famous Red Box and began running my own D&D adventures, but I do quite distinctly recall taking the game and one of the adventures over to Tim's house (Tim actually lived right next door, so it wasn't far) and setting up the game one Saturday afternoon. His parents came and went, asked what we were doing and did their own thing. We played for a few hours and then gave it up -- probably to go eat dinner or maybe to go do something else.
The next day, after Tim came home from church, he told me his parents had forbidden him to play Dungeons & Dragons ever again. The way I remember hearing it was that Tim's parents had heard of D&D before, and they'd heard the bad things -- the supposed suicides linked to the game, the real black magic hiding in the pages of the rule books and the other rumours that make most old-time D&D players roll their eyes these days. Before or after the morning's church ceremony, Tim's parents had asked their pastor about D&D, and they got the response you would probably expect -- it's a demonic game that teaches kids to hate god and to learn black magic from Satan and blah-de-blah-de-blah. You have no idea how many times I've heard that crap since then.
However, Tim was a defiant youth. Instead of doing what his parents told him do, we started playing without their knowledge. D&D was a taboo subject for the group from then on whenever we were in earshot of his parents. We kept things quiet and went on our merry way, adventuring to our hearts' content.
The next problem we had was in early high school. Steve had joined the group, and the story is quite similar to that of Tim's. His parents had heard bad things about D&D, learned Steve was playing it and then forbade him to ever play it again. Steve was a little more goody-goody than Tim, and he was sure if he continued to play, he'd eventually get caught. Well, he didn't get caught playing D&D, but when Steve had collected a few Shadowrun books, he was not careful enough in hiding them. At one point, he had left his core Shadowrun book out (SR is kind of a futuristic fantasy game), and his father had discovered it. At least his father was somewhat forgiving. Instead of taking the book away and destroying it, he offered Steve a hundred bucks to throw his thirty-dollar Shadowrun core book away. Simple bribery.
Unfortunately, the idea of bribing someone to hand over a book like that isn't a very sound idea. Just do the math. Steve handed over the Shadowrun book, took the money and was soon at the store buying a replacement copy, which he learned to keep hidden. After all, he had other Shadowrun books stashed away that weren't much good without a core book.
To be continued...
Perhaps it was only a few months -- or maybe it was about a year -- after I bought the famous Red Box and began running my own D&D adventures, but I do quite distinctly recall taking the game and one of the adventures over to Tim's house (Tim actually lived right next door, so it wasn't far) and setting up the game one Saturday afternoon. His parents came and went, asked what we were doing and did their own thing. We played for a few hours and then gave it up -- probably to go eat dinner or maybe to go do something else.
The next day, after Tim came home from church, he told me his parents had forbidden him to play Dungeons & Dragons ever again. The way I remember hearing it was that Tim's parents had heard of D&D before, and they'd heard the bad things -- the supposed suicides linked to the game, the real black magic hiding in the pages of the rule books and the other rumours that make most old-time D&D players roll their eyes these days. Before or after the morning's church ceremony, Tim's parents had asked their pastor about D&D, and they got the response you would probably expect -- it's a demonic game that teaches kids to hate god and to learn black magic from Satan and blah-de-blah-de-blah. You have no idea how many times I've heard that crap since then.
However, Tim was a defiant youth. Instead of doing what his parents told him do, we started playing without their knowledge. D&D was a taboo subject for the group from then on whenever we were in earshot of his parents. We kept things quiet and went on our merry way, adventuring to our hearts' content.
The next problem we had was in early high school. Steve had joined the group, and the story is quite similar to that of Tim's. His parents had heard bad things about D&D, learned Steve was playing it and then forbade him to ever play it again. Steve was a little more goody-goody than Tim, and he was sure if he continued to play, he'd eventually get caught. Well, he didn't get caught playing D&D, but when Steve had collected a few Shadowrun books, he was not careful enough in hiding them. At one point, he had left his core Shadowrun book out (SR is kind of a futuristic fantasy game), and his father had discovered it. At least his father was somewhat forgiving. Instead of taking the book away and destroying it, he offered Steve a hundred bucks to throw his thirty-dollar Shadowrun core book away. Simple bribery.
Unfortunately, the idea of bribing someone to hand over a book like that isn't a very sound idea. Just do the math. Steve handed over the Shadowrun book, took the money and was soon at the store buying a replacement copy, which he learned to keep hidden. After all, he had other Shadowrun books stashed away that weren't much good without a core book.
To be continued...
// posted by Chris @ 8:34 AM 
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