Sorry to hear that you’ve had trouble for playing D&D, Acenra. Hopefully it’s just the typical social friction that comes with growing up (if you’re smart you’re a “nerd” if you’re athletic you’re a “jock” etc.- people always find some way to demean others, probably to make themselves feel better) and nothing too serious. BTW, I’m a Christian too (nondenominational) and I also think that God wouldn’t find fiction -even the kind that mocks him- to be evil or damning in itself- he doesn’t have our human pettiness. Besides, I’ve always believed that fiction is one of the most constructive things humanity ever conceived- it allows people to live the lives of others in their minds, and thus leads to better understanding of each other. Its main purpose may be to entertain (or making $$) but well-written fiction of any kind -even games- are GOOD for people.
If it was deadpan it was probably Brit humour. \deadpan
well, it wasn’t the standard sarcastic bullying that usually goes around, he seemed genuinely scared. It was more embarrasing on their behalf really. Of course, this became awkward for a good few weeks, then the standard bullying came along, and then I went to university and found people who play DnD, so it all worked out in time 
My response would of been “I dunno, I get a +2 profane bonus to dice rolls if I sacrifice innocents, but rituals of darkness are like posting a kill me sign on my back as far as those damn paladins are concerned.”
That or “Nah, you don’t gotta worry about that, but I might feed you to a dragon.”
That, uh, isn’t what Münchhausen syndrome is, really.
Really? I thought Münchhausen Syndrome was a parent harming their child or over exagerating an illness in order to get attention. I was saying it was possible that the parent would make their child seem like a victim of DnD, and, in turn, become a victim themselves. I probably should have worded that part better. Either way, I’d probably still end up wrong, I usually am
Actually you’re right, sort of: there’s “Munchhausen Syndrome” and there’s “Munchhausen Syndrome by proxy”. According to Wikipedia anyway:
Basically, they have to intentionally cause harm to another (in this case, the child) to gain attention. So making up an excuse for why, instead of blaming themselves, is just regular denial.
There’re social stigma against a lot of things that don’t make a lot of sense, and it sucks, but I actually don’t think D&D gets off that bad, really.
D&D wasn’t affected too bad by the whole 80’s satanism scandal mostly because it was obscure even in geek circles. Had it been as well-known then as it is today it might have been a bigger deal.
True, but the scandal would’ve been a bigger deal in America, culturally, then than it is now; Harry Potter has its share of satanism scandal and remains entirely mainstream.
A lot of the controversy probably stemmed from things like demons and summon spells. These usually made sense within context, but self-appointed moral crusaders don’t usually bother with such things. It didn’t help that a lot of the people who played D&D were sometimes pretty far from the societal mainstream.
Harry Potter had the good fortune of receiving THE VATICAN’S vote of confidence. Of course that was back when John Paul II was alive…
Yeah, but a lot of the people who said D&D was evil also insinuated that the Catholic church was founded by Satan. See: Jack T. Chick.
John Paul II was respected even among non-Catholics. Jack T. Chick on the other hand… 
I’ll be damned if I’m going to listen to what some… PAPIST has to say about some godless books.
My point was that the sort of people who make the really ridiculous, inflammatory condemnations of things like D&D tend towards the fringes, anyway, at least from what I can tell.
Sadly, there’s still many people good who are being mislead by religious fanatics, Arac. I can’t believe my own older sister - a Doctor, and one of the persons I admire most- is against letting kids celebrate Halloween because it’s a pagan holiday.:thud: I had to inform her that in that case, children shouldn’t celebrate Christmas either, since it started as a pagan winter festival! The Church just inserted the date of Jesus’ birth (which is not really known) into the celebrations to co-opt them for their own.
To be fair to your sister, there is a big difference between co-opting the date of a pagan holiday and replacing it with a wholly Christian celebration. Now, if you focused on secular side of Christmas with the trees and all that, you would have a point. However, taking over the date is not the same as taking over the aspects of celebration.
Her problem is that Halloween started as a pagan celebration and so should not be celebrated regardless of how we do it to day (I doubt the old Celts put on costumes and went door to door asking for candy, did they?) Thus my example: it shouldn’t then matter how we celebrate Christmas today, if it started as Yuletide or the Saturnalia.
But what really bothers me is that this is not a notion she held previously. I’m pretty sure she got it from local preachers, who have been going on about this around here in recent times. Which given the facts above is really ironic. :noway: Oh btw the Church also hijacked Halloween, since they turned the pagan homage-to-the-dead rituals into “All Hallow’s Eve” another Christian Holiday.
I would still say that Christmas is less of a continuation of older pagan holidays and more of just an usurpation of the date. With the regular Halloween, no, I doubt the Celts of old went around dressed up as Witches, Red Rangers, or Recently Shot Abraham Lincolns. However, you can’t deny that a large portion of the dressing up for Halloween centers around typically Hellish icons. There’s a rather large difference between such celebrations on one old pagan holiday and the religious celebrations on the other (or, in the alternative, the decidedly non-hellish secular version of Christmas).
I’m not endorsing your sister’s parenting methods. I’m just stating that there is a distinct difference between turning one old pagan holiday into pretty much a wholly secular one with what some people term hellish imagery and another holiday whose date was merely co-opted for an entirely different, and originally wholly, religious celebration.
Also, I don’t care about All Hallow’s Eve. As stated before, I’m not a papist. I don’t care for none of that saint worship.