YOU'D BETTER WATCH OUT,
OR THE GOBLINS WILL GETCHA
When I was younger, I used to play role-playing games (RPGs). I have played so many, it is hard to recall them all. Dungeons and Dragons was, of course, one of them, but there were others. Boot Hill, Chivalry and Sorcery, The Arduin Grimoire, Traveler, and Gamma World to name but a few.
I was attending Stuyvesant High School at the time and role-playing was very big. Each day, after school, a number of groups would converge like a flock of gulls descending on a fishing boat, to play our games. I remember many of the people in great detail.
Thinking back, the one thing we all had in common was individualism. Each of us did as we pleased, regardless of the way that others saw us. It didn't matter that we were nerds or weirdoes, because we had each other.
I look back on those days with a gentle fondness that few things in my life have earned. RPGs helped us in a lot of ways that I didn't understand back then. Aside from obvious benefits, such as building logical thinking, problem solving and social skills, we also learned teamwork, how to accept loss (such as when a favorite character died) and how to think creatively. Those of you that have read my work, should, at least in part, thank those RPGs for helping to mold my imagination.
Then, something happened in Texas. I remember seeing it on the six o'clock news. A group of college kids had taken the whole thing to the next level... altogether too far. They had decided to add a realistic setting to their adventures and so moved the game to an abandoned sewer system. One of the players got lost. I don't recall if they'd ever found him, but it didn't matter. The damage had been done.
All of a sudden, RPGs were an evil worthy of greater attention. There were demons in the monster manual, it must have something to do with Satan worship. It draws kids into a world of illusion, destroying their sense of reality. It takes good, sane, clean kids and turns them into paranoid maniacs. It was the red threat, all over again. The McCarthy era of RPGs.
It never happened in New York, where I went to school, but there were schools where playing a game became an offense that could lead to suspension. Organizations were formed to rid the world of this horrible menace and articles were written by the score, all screaming out against this horrible plague that seemed to be sweeping the nation's youth.
They even made a movie starring Tom Hanks called Mazes and Monsters. You didn't have to think too hard to know what this film was aimed at. It probably did for role-playing what Jaws did for beach parties. And we continued to play.
I did a little checking up on some of the people I used to play with, back in the "good old days." One of us is a computer programmer, who works for a major software company. Another owns a music production company and is married to a writer/actress. One of our number is a father of two. He married a doctor and works for a firm that builds industrial printers. Even I haven't done too badly, in spite of the RPGs.
The fact is, the world is full of unstable people. A few of them committed suicide when John Lennon died, but I haven't seen a "Ban the Beatles" campaign yet, in spite of the fact that in an interview, Charles Manson blamed part of his actions on hidden messages in the Beatles' White Album. Nor has anyone stood strongly against the organized religions that have caused longer and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of mankind. And I don't think there is a person alive who hasn't heard that West Side Story causes gang activity to increase. So I say, it's time the truth finally came out about role-playing games, after all this time.
Dungeons and Dragons is a game... so is baseball.
Webpage & Graphics by Samandi Adams
Copyright (c) 2003-2004 ~ All Rights Reserved
YOU'D BETTER WATCH OUT,
OR THE GOBLINS WILL GETCHA
When I was younger, I used to play role-playing games (RPGs). I have played so many, it is hard to recall them all. Dungeons and Dragons was, of course, one of them, but there were others. Boot Hill, Chivalry and Sorcery, The Arduin Grimoire, Traveler, and Gamma World to name but a few.
I was attending Stuyvesant High School at the time and role-playing was very big. Each day, after school, a number of groups would converge like a flock of gulls descending on a fishing boat, to play our games. I remember many of the people in great detail.
Thinking back, the one thing we all had in common was individualism. Each of us did as we pleased, regardless of the way that others saw us. It didn't matter that we were nerds or weirdoes, because we had each other.
I look back on those days with a gentle fondness that few things in my life have earned. RPGs helped us in a lot of ways that I didn't understand back then. Aside from obvious benefits, such as building logical thinking, problem solving and social skills, we also learned teamwork, how to accept loss (such as when a favorite character died) and how to think creatively. Those of you that have read my work, should, at least in part, thank those RPGs for helping to mold my imagination.
Then, something happened in Texas. I remember seeing it on the six o'clock news. A group of college kids had taken the whole thing to the next level... altogether too far. They had decided to add a realistic setting to their adventures and so moved the game to an abandoned sewer system. One of the players got lost. I don't recall if they'd ever found him, but it didn't matter. The damage had been done.
All of a sudden, RPGs were an evil worthy of greater attention. There were demons in the monster manual, it must have something to do with Satan worship. It draws kids into a world of illusion, destroying their sense of reality. It takes good, sane, clean kids and turns them into paranoid maniacs. It was the red threat, all over again. The McCarthy era of RPGs.
It never happened in New York, where I went to school, but there were schools where playing a game became an offense that could lead to suspension. Organizations were formed to rid the world of this horrible menace and articles were written by the score, all screaming out against this horrible plague that seemed to be sweeping the nation's youth.
They even made a movie starring Tom Hanks called Mazes and Monsters. You didn't have to think too hard to know what this film was aimed at. It probably did for role-playing what Jaws did for beach parties. And we continued to play.
I did a little checking up on some of the people I used to play with, back in the "good old days." One of us is a computer programmer, who works for a major software company. Another owns a music production company and is married to a writer/actress. One of our number is a father of two. He married a doctor and works for a firm that builds industrial printers. Even I haven't done too badly, in spite of the RPGs.
The fact is, the world is full of unstable people. A few of them committed suicide when John Lennon died, but I haven't seen a "Ban the Beatles" campaign yet, in spite of the fact that in an interview, Charles Manson blamed part of his actions on hidden messages in the Beatles' White Album. Nor has anyone stood strongly against the organized religions that have caused longer and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of mankind. And I don't think there is a person alive who hasn't heard that West Side Story causes gang activity to increase. So I say, it's time the truth finally came out about role-playing games, after all this time.
Dungeons and Dragons is a game... so is baseball.
Webpage & Graphics by Samandi Adams
Copyright (c) 2003-2004 ~ All Rights Reserved