296: Satan, Bad Acting, and Dice
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Well, I'm glad it's not just me who saw that.Serris said:
... "integrity"? That's the word you're going with? Really? Okay....Serris said:
Sounds about right, gaming definitely makes me want to make sexy-time then murder nubile young women. But I just can't seem to get the women to want to sex me. Are the tips in this movie about how to make that happen?
Also, what the hell is naughts-and-crosses? Can't picture some guy with that on his back cause I have no idea what its supposed to mean.
Also, what the hell is naughts-and-crosses? Can't picture some guy with that on his back cause I have no idea what its supposed to mean.
Well, see, now here is one of the reasons why PnP gamers had problems for such a long time.funguy2121 said:
One of the problems with geekdom, is that in defending the things we love, we tend to both get ridiculously offensive, and also tend to intentionally overlook it when the other side has some legitimate truths involved in what they are saying.
I'll be blunt, I've met more Pagans, including some very dark ones, as a result of playing PnP RPGs than I have in pretty much any other way. People tend to overlook how the fandom communities overlap, and how you find tons of pagans involved in things like the SCA, and how a lot of SCA members are involved in PnP RPGs as well. All of this ties into the counter-culture of course, and things like Heavy Metal... which is pretty popular with RPG fanboys. Plenty of people who have gotten into Heavy Metal have gotten involved in the devil worship stuff for the "cool factor", or what I should say is "faux devil worship" given that they generally have no real idea what they are doing, and it's all about the fun.
Now, understand that to a Christian there are only two "forces" out there, God and The Devil, anything not from God is the result of The Devil trying to turn you from him as the great deceiver. Someone who "doesn't believe in the devil" is actually hurting their own case to a lot of Christians because a totally benevolent religion still gets you sent to hell for not embracing god and Christ as your savior. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" so to speak.
At any rate, the mistake the PnP RPG community made here was engaging in outright denial, or exagerrated "booga booga" counter attacks with the people playing up this whole aspect of things. The proper response would have been to take a more laid back approach to the entire thing, explain the paganism for what it was, and how it bled in from other assorted geek cultures, and similar things. That isn't what happened however.
To put things into perspective, some parent with a strong Christian attitude drops by the local gaming group, and finds some new agers with an alter on their stove boiling up some kind of incense brew for casting a spell of prosperity or whatever, and it's understandable where this kind of reaction is going to come from. This kind of thing doesn't have to happen with EVERY gaming group, just often enough for people to compare notes and start seeing patterns.
The worst thing you can generally do is treat the other side like mouth breathing idiots when you have a conflict that's expanding on a national level. Things like the Chic tracts were the direct result of the situation being addressed the wrong way, as misinformed as they might have been, gamers brought that level of activity on themselves.
might have to see this movie, just for the grind house vibe.
As far as tabletop goes, its less culty than most college phrat houses...
As far as tabletop goes, its less culty than most college phrat houses...
Ah memories. I grew up during those times, too. And Theru's right, the D&Ders response was mostly juvenile. Ooooga booga, indeed. The thing is, back then, the vast majority of players were pretty close to the stereotype: geeky male teens. Oh, sure, I lettered in wrestling. But I was still a complete geek, and so were my friends. What's cooler? Dark ritual or dork ritual?Therumancer said:
I'll confess to dragging a copy of the Necronomicon to school, just to see if the fundie kids would wig. And yeah, some of them did. Yay dork teen me. Adult me would have said "Sheesh, you can be a fundamentalist Christian and get into games. Why not invite them over?" But hey. Making fun of the ruckus was so much "cooler" (according to our definition of the word. In other words, not at all)
I guess I can just be glad that LARP didn't exist when/where I was growing up. I'd probably be skulking around the woods to this day, bean bag in hand ready to scream "Lightning Bolt!!!"
Wait. Well-written article on all, but isn't this just an article telling us to read another article saying the same thing on this very website? It's redundant. It's all been said in an area of this very website that is spotlighted extremely efficiently.
You mean Logan's reposting?Andy of Comix Inc said:
You haven't noticed that every week not only is the main article posted, but one of the staff re-posts it a couple days later, while a third tweets about it a few days after that? It happens for all the Featured Content weekly articles.
I wish people actually still played tabletop rpgs... I've only played one twice but it was really quite fun :/
Such a long response, I have to do this by the numbers...Therumancer said:
(1) I have played D&D twice, over 12 years ago. I can't stand video game RPGs. The closest I'll come to one is Zelda. So I wouldn't say I was blinded my love of RPGs.
(2) Dark? How? Pagan simply means you aren't a Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, Jew or Hindu? OK, fine, we can also exclude Ba'hai and Shinto. I've never met a Pagan who said 'let's worship Satan!'
(3) Your information is nearly as old as me (3 decades). System of a Down and Deer Hunter and Mastadon don't sing about Satan. Hell, no one's even called it "heavy" since like '91! It's just METAL. You may hear some devilish stuff out of Dethklok but the fans understand that it's satire (Murderface Murderface Murderface!) Leaving aside how dated and no longer relevant this information is, your approach can be applied to video games. Tell me how feasible you actually think this is: I played Super Mario Brothers in the arcade when I was 8 years old. That Christmas, I got an NES. Someone recommended I try Legend of Zelda. There was minimal use of magic in Zelda, the theology of which was polythiest. Ergo, Mario Brothers led me down the path to polythiestic witchcraft!
(4)Let's be honest, and this is where we're going to reach an unresolvable conclusion, to a Christian, snakes talk. A guy lived in a fish for 3 days. But I really think that what you stated here isn't even the Christianity of Jesus' and Paul's time. Jehovah said "have no other Gods BEFORE me." You and your ilk say things that are far more Bush-like: "If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists." This mode of thinking leaves you very vulnerable to charlatanry. I'll tell you like my favorite televangelist, Bill Maher, tells it: "I'm selling doubt."
(5) Because it's the truth? Because no one on Earth ACTUALLY worships Satan?
(6) This sort of thing doesn't happen. NO religion, least of all that non-religion Satanism, recruits through D&D or geek culture. Krishnas hand out literature at airports. Christians take to the airwaves. No one recruits through roleplaying games, or ever did during the paranoid 70's and 80's.
(7) I can only presume that this conflict you're describing is some form of "spiritual warfare." So, from a rationalist to a mystic, we'll just have to agree to disagree.
Real quick, I'd like to point out some of the other things that these fundamentalist D&D detractors had to say during the 80's.
Cabbage Patch Kids' middle names came from the monikers of demons from Hell.
Star Trek is a vessel for promoting witchery.
He-Man and She-Ra promotes the worship of demons and devils.
Homosexuals have brought the plague of AIDS to America, where it will spread to the heterosexual population as God's divine wrath for us tolerating and accepting them.
Understand, I don't believe that any faith, any belief, is worth holding onto if it can't stand up to a little internal doubt.
People still play it. I'm in three campaigns right now (well, 2, the third one seems to be on indefinite hiatus). If you don't mind my asking, how old are you and where abouts do you live (near a city, out on a farm, don't need specifics)? I'd be happy to give you some advice in how to find a proper gaming group.Puzzlenaut said:
Umm, Escapist, my Captcha has Hebrew characters in it...how do I do that?
Well there is this shop near where I live where some people go to play tournaments and stuff, but tbh if I'm going to play I'd rather do it with my friends, but none of them will even give it a shot :/bojac6 said:
DnD, etc, just have too much stigma attached to them
Well, the trick there is not to start out on DnD. There's a table top for everything. If your friends like Star Wars, you have to pick one of the three Star Wars RPGs. If they like Lord of the Rings, Firefly, whatever, you get them into it through that. Then, once people are hooked, you bring them over to DnD because you "think the rules make more sense" or whatever. The stigma will be gone, your friends just want a good game.Puzzlenaut said:Well there is this shop near where I live where some people go to play tournaments and stuff, but tbh if I'm going to play I'd rather do it with my friends, but none of them will even give it a shot :/bojac6 said:
DnD, etc, just have too much stigma attached to them
Alternatively, make new friends that like gaming. I've found that gaming shops are usually a terrible place to do this. Best gamers I ever met I got to know through a Fencing club. So pick up a few nerdy pursuits and see what happens. If it's High School, try the chess club. I can't stress fencing enough.
