I have been noticing a upswing in the anti-gaming vitriol as of late most of it is rehash of stuff We have dealt with before. What gets Me is the number of EDUCATED PEOPLE, the ones with College diplomas who believe this stuff. It has been My purpose of late to speak out when falsehoods and outright lies are spoken about gamers and gaming. Here is a example last week I was talking to a friend and the subject of Dungeons & Dragons came up this is a guy with good education but he subscribes to every conspiracy theory he hears he spewed out the usual stuff "Gary Gygax was a Satanist and offered up small Animals/Children in his Basement" the quote is accurate even if on the wild side of things and easy to defeat. The ones that are hard are the twists, half quotes and exaggerations about who we are as gamers and people. In My case these attacks come from people involved with Churches (being a Minister this should be expected). Here is how I have dealt with some of this:
1: role playing games talk about demons/the devil
Answer: So does the Bible and both have nothing good to say about them.
2: It's so violent
Answer: Read much of the old Testament? it has a lot of violence.
3: What about that kid in East Lansing MI that killed himself?
Answer: His name was James Dallas Egbert and his suicide had nothing to do with D&D or steam tunnels I will let you Google his name and read for yourself about this troubled young Man.
4: It is anti social.
Answer: No, it played with other people acting together to accomplish a goal.
The best way to beat the lies is to be armed with the truth
I don't encounter this much. I'm more prone to encounter people that say "huh? what's D&D? What's an RPG? You mean like Final Fantasy or Zelda or something? Is that new? Is it on X-box?"
ReplyDeleteThough when I do encounter the "D&D is the devil" crowd I use many of the same arguments. However, it generally falls on deaf ears. As you are a minister it would carry more weight than if I said it.
I'm assuming you're an actual working minister in a church and not just one of those people who are legally "ordained", but not practicing... like me.
Oh, man. The antisocial part is the best. Seriously, when people don't know about something, they should not try to give competent opinions.
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