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Post Posted: Tue Jan 03, 2006 1:19 am 
 

Zippanthropus wrote:I also remember that Dallas Egbert wanted to write computer programs, but his mom would not let him. She thought that it was a waste of time. It is not hard to imagine that if this boy was alive today he would be one of those computer gurus who made megabucks from the late 1980's and 1990's.


   You know...I have been churlish.  I had never considered sympathizing with Dallas Egbert.   :?

   Were he alive, he could be a member of my gaming group right now.   Too bad.

Mark


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Post Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 9:49 am 
 

Back in the day (very early eighties)  one of those roving preachers was scheduled to speak at a local church.  The topic "The evils of Dungeons and Dragons".  Well myself and a bunch of other players decided to attend.  You guys should have seen this guy.  He's not a local preacher just one of these guys the churches bring to give speeches on topics.  He was fat and slick if you know what I mean.  Well he roused the crowd up something fierce.  The crowd was mostly women who had sons who played the game.  He got them crying and swinging their arms and all bedazzled.  That's when they passed the plate, of course.  He maintained that 'thinking the way you have to to play this game allows demons to enter your head'.  He said role playing allow the demons to get a grip on your soul.  At the end of the speech, when he has the crowd the most woundup he asks all of them to come up and "touch him and be filled with the glory of God".  I could not hold back any longer and just flat out broke out laughing.  My friends are trying to get me to "be respectful", but I'm sixteen and anything but respectful.

His use of this disturbance was masterful.  He pointed to me and said "that young man there is an example of what the demons can do."   :twisted:   Well now here we go - he and I go at it.  I'm asking him if he will give another speech about con men that come into church whip up the people and then pass the plate.  Then I ask him how much he collected tonight.  He counters wonderfully by having the crying ladies circle me and pray saying this will help "RELEASE THE DEMON INSIDE OF HIM".  So all of a sudden I'm encircled by roused up women holding their hands high in the air and saying prayers.  Well I decide its time to leave and very carefully weave my way thru the circle and out the door.

I know I did no good for Dungeons and Dragons but I was sixteen and standing up for myself like that really helped me in the transition to a man.

Every now then when I see those friends we always talk about the night I was "Exorcised".


Great Times
Martin

  

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Post Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 11:04 am 
 

Prufrock wrote:Back in the day (very early eighties) one of those roving preachers was scheduled to speak at a local church. The topic "The evils of Dungeons and Dragons". Well myself and a bunch of other players decided to attend. You guys should have seen this guy. He's not a local preacher just one of these guys the churches bring to give speeches on topics. He was fat and slick if you know what I mean. Well he roused the crowd up something fierce. The crowd was mostly women who had sons who played the game. He got them crying and swinging their arms and all bedazzled. That's when they passed the plate, of course. He maintained that 'thinking the way you have to to play this game allows demons to enter your head'. He said role playing allow the demons to get a grip on your soul. At the end of the speech, when he has the crowd the most woundup he asks all of them to come up and "touch him and be filled with the glory of God". I could not hold back any longer and just flat out broke out laughing. My friends are trying to get me to "be respectful", but I'm sixteen and anything but respectful.

His use of this disturbance was masterful. He pointed to me and said "that young man there is an example of what the demons can do."  :twisted:  Well now here we go - he and I go at it. I'm asking him if he will give another speech about con men that come into church whip up the people and then pass the plate. Then I ask him how much he collected tonight. He counters wonderfully by having the crying ladies circle me and pray saying this will help "RELEASE THE DEMON INSIDE OF HIM". So all of a sudden I'm encircled by roused up women holding their hands high in the air and saying prayers. Well I decide its time to leave and very carefully weave my way thru the circle and out the door.

I know I did no good for Dungeons and Dragons but I was sixteen and standing up for myself like that really helped me in the transition to a man.

Every now then when I see those friends we always talk about the night I was "Exorcised".


Great Times
Martin


    Great story.  That guy is probably still around preaching about the evils of video games, making a nice buck.
  Reminds me of a friend that was in one of those churches that had a "Evil of the month" club.  One month it was heavy metal music and record burnings, a fewmonths later it was the evils of pre-maritial sex, then later that year they wrapped it up with a book burning of sinful books like Catcher in the Rye.  We still kid this guy because he got caught up in the hype and donated his entire cassette tape collection to the music burning, several hundred tapes burned to a crisp, he immediately regretted it in like a week or so! :roll:
    Anyway, he's in church one Saturday night which was the time they had talks on "Special Issues" and they went at it about D&D.  The talk lasted an hour and sounded like a classic case of misinformation.  I don't remember the entire talk since he told me about it second hand, but at one point the preacher holds up the Dungeon Masters Guide (with the picture of the Efreeti fighting adventurers) and tells everyone he's read this book and this is one of the demons you can summon by playing the game.  He said the Players Handbook (with it's demon idol cover of course) is also a summoning manual and in addition lists spells you can cast! (Silly me, I never did get that Wish spell down right, darn it).  Of course he points to the page in either the PHB or DMG that shows the pentagrams.  The funniest part my friend says is that he tried some kind of half-ass "back masking" experiment with one of the books by reading every six word or something (you know, 666 mark of the devil) and came up with some convoluted wacky sentence saying something like "Demon find way to heart today love you", I used to know where it was but it was really a reach ( I think a couple of times you actually had to skip a word or count 7 words instead of six).  For years afterward we would hold up DMGs during the game and say "We summon this demon to defeat our foes!!!"
  The story had a happy ending, the preacher flamed out in a couple of years after he was found to be ripping off the church funds for his own gain and booted out of the flock (the mercedes and BMWs he drove should have been big tip offs).

Mike B.

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Post Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 1:43 pm 
 

The only thing I can add is that in high school, I was a member of the Military History Club - as well as being on the ski team and football team. Well, the Military History Club was a gaming group. We played D&D, WWII minis and the like. I started in 1978 as a freshman and stayed in until graduation. There were about 20 members including the teacher who ran it. We played on Friday after school and some odd meetings on weekends and of course conventions. We even battled rival high schools in the area.

The club went on but a year or two after I graduated, it became the "Gamer" club. It was not a voluntary name change...

Then a few years later I heard that the school board disolved the whole thing. That would have been right in that era of anti D&D frenzy.

Now, this club was a game club, but I can't tell you how many times WWII games - be it naval or armor - broke down into arguements about how wars were started in relation to economics and politics. You had to know your history or you would get embarrassed in a second. That club played D&D and a few other rpgs, but those games were pretty much straight up  and used tournament type modules. Actual role playing was practically nonexistent.

But the ax fell nonetheless.


And I could've bought these damn modules off the 1$ rack!!!

New modules for your Old School game http://pacesettergames.com/

Everything Pacesetter at http://pacesettergames.blog.com/

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Post Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 3:05 pm 
 

Badmike wrote:
MrFilthyIke wrote:"dumb like a moose, Dib, dumb like a moose"


  Everything is relative, every era will have their boogeyman that prevents kids from living a normal life (Rock Music, Drugs, Long Hair, D&D, Heavy Metal Music, Violent R-Rated Movies, Video games, Internet, etc). I'm going to be going through the same thing several years from now...what exactly do you say when your kid wants to play Grand Theft Auto San Andreas? I don't think any kid under the age of 17 should have this in the house, am I just like the parents of the 80's? I don't think so, since al the speculation about devil worship and mind control via D&D was just that, speculation. Whereas in Grand Theft Auto you can actually run over a bystander, carjack a hot rod, shoot a cop in the head, or beat your girlfriend to death and see the results in living color on the TV screen. Never was D&D so viscereal an experience when we were younger, that is unless you were dressing up in full plate, swinging a longsword and beheading the family cat.... :twisted:
  Speaking of which, if you had given several 80's era mothers the choice between letting their kids play D&D or bringing Grand Theft Auto back in a time machine and setting kids down in front of a TV with controllers, is there even any question? Like I said, it's all relative. Our parents protests to D&D seem laughable now, whatever protests we make to our kids will probably seem laughable to today's kids in 20 years.

Mike B.


All valid point Mike, it'd be stuff for me to comment, I have no kids.  But I do know that you have to talk to your kids.  If this is out there, and you try to prevent them from getting it or ignore it, THEY WILL SEEK IT OUT.

Trust this from someone who always went after what his parents refused to get or would find objectionable (they were restrictive and uncommunicative parents).  Talk to them about whatever concerns you. :)


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Post Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 5:15 pm 
 

Just something to consider on this topic strand....

    When you think back to some of the hysteria and misinformation about RPG's of the day, try turning the scope on yourself.

    We are all roughly the same age and income level, very similar education and mostly male (sorry ladies, you count too).  I would also wager that most of us are the same caucasian race, or something close to it (culturally speaking).

   What prejudices and misconceptions do we harbor?  What notions do we have in our heads...cultural/religious, social/political and whatever else...that people will laugh about in 25 years?

  (Role-playing games do not count...people laugh at that already.)

Mark.   :?


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Post Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 7:45 pm 
 

MShipley88 wrote:Just something to consider on this topic strand....

  When you think back to some of the hysteria and misinformation about RPG's of the day, try turning the scope on yourself.

  We are all roughly the same age and income level, very similar education and mostly male (sorry ladies, you count too). I would also wager that most of us are the same caucasian race, or something close to it (culturally speaking).

 What prejudices and misconceptions do we harbor? What notions do we have in our heads...cultural/religious, social/political and whatever else...that people will laugh about in 25 years?

 (Role-playing games do not count...people laugh at that already.)

Mark.  :?


My kids listen to rap music.  I think about 95% of it is absolute crap. No one is playing an instrument, no one is singing (just chanting), there doesn't seem to be any talent involved in any step of the process (for gods sake even the beats are ripped off of established pop songs).  Of course, this isa cycle that goes on every generation.  My parents hated loud rock music aka Led Zeppelin, The Who, Rush, etc.  I'm sure my kids will hate whatever their kids will listen to, and so on.
   Deep in my heart I know my hatred of rap is illogical, and I continually compare myself to my parents (whose favorite "artists" were Neil Sedaka, Neil Diamond and Paul Anka) and their mindless screeds vs rock music, but damn if I don't break out in a rant occassionally when lyrics about shooting cops or slapping whores break out.

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Post Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 1:58 am 
 

Yeah, see the problem with rap is not that I disapprove of it.  The problem with rap is that it is bad music.  It is impossible to shock parents of our generation (maybe I have spoken too soon...?) but we have lots of really good music to compare to rap....and the comparison ain't pretty.

    I don't know anyone who thinks Disco is good music.  They might like it, but they don't think it is good music.  Rap is one of those things comedians will joke about three decades from now.
:roll:
Mark :roll:


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Post Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2006 5:09 pm 
 

Hi, I'm new here, and I just happened upon this topic. Now, from what I've read, a ot of people really hated that book & movie.  Now, when this all came out back in 82 or so, I was around 9 or 10. And to be honest, I was sort of interested in RPG's and it just enticed me further.  In all honesty, I can see  why so many people have such vehemence towards it, but I actually liked the book ( I thought it was well written, even it did debase my favourite game) and in the ensuing years, the movie cracks me up.  Tom Hanks and his big hair! :lol: He always looks like he's ready to go to a hoe down! I don't think I've seen that many plaid shirts at a lumberjack convention! :P
 Regardless, the way I look at it is that stuff never affected what I thought, nor will it. People just cashing in? Sure. But in the long run, who won out?
The game. And I believe the players as well, because really, the movie and book are great fodder.


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