As a new teacher (having just finished my first year in my new career), working in Oregon, I can say that not only is D&D not brought up in any teacher training, that it is also far down on the list of most teachers worries (higher up right now are Meth, Gangs-man that one really has traction, pregnacy, dropouts, ect.) While I do not tell many of my students that I am a gamer, only those who are gamers, and only after I get to know them a bit, that is partially because I feel it is kinda something more personal and so is something that most of them really don't need to know about me, maybe though this is just a throw back to the 80s culture of fear.
What is interesting is that a goodly number of students play card games, such as magic and yu-gi-oh, at school, but I don't hear much about any people playing RPGs at school, possibily just because the books are so heavy. I know when I was in high school (early-mid 90s) there was a gaming group at my high school (in Salt Lake City at that) and we played some Rolemaster *shudder* and a few other games, it was fun.
Now times have changed. Geek is Chic, as I say. Geek movies, such as comic book movies and LOTR, are some of the highest grossing films ever. Geek books make the New York Times best Seller List. A multinational corporation that would fit into any shadowrun campaign, owns D&D. Video games, with an emphasis on RPGs are outselling movies. But even with all this, us dice and paper players are somewhat looked down upon, more so than those guys that sit alone in their apartments for hours staring at a computer or Tv screen (not writing board messages like me!). What an odd and interesting world we live in eh?
I visited a friend of mine at his final exam to getting his Doctor title (in Biology) today, and on the black board there was a advertisment from a professor of theology holding a lecture on how evolution and creationism can be reconciled.
This led to a short discussion about the strange development in the US that some people doubt the evolution theory so strongly that they try to cancel its teaching in school, some going so far as to abolish all biology lessons. Someone commented that he had never seen so many pregnant teenagers as in the US. I don´t really know if one is the reason for the other, but it is nothing new that teenagers mature bodily ever earlier, as early as the age of twelve.
What the hell? Discussing at length if it is proper to teach the kids biology, but ignoring that the same kids discover how human biology works on their own and get pregnant ? Talk about losing the frame of reference. I just can´t believe it. There is not much ruining a girls life as thoroughly as being 18 and having to care for a five year old. Try to get a job with that history, if you even managed to finish school. And in our highly-developed countries, preventive measures are easy, if you know about them, and if you get rid of false prudishness that inhibits society telling the teenagers, it is easy to prevent these unwanted pregnancies. You can´t stop them from developing and maturing, so at least make ´em play it safe.
Stefan
Sorry for the rant, but the previous posters list of problems in school inspired me...
As a new teacher (having just finished my first year in my new career), working in Oregon...
Where you at, Sol? I'm in Bend.
Talk about losing the frame of reference. I just can´t believe it. There is not much ruining a girls life as thoroughly as being 18 and having to care for a five year old. Try to get a job with that history, if you even managed to finish school. And in our highly-developed countries, preventive measures are easy, if you know about them, and if you get rid of false prudishness that inhibits society telling the teenagers, it is easy to prevent these unwanted pregnancies. You can´t stop them from developing and maturing, so at least make ´em play it safe.
If only everybody was so enlightened, Stebehil, I imagine a lot of our current hangups would go away. I had friends in high school who kept telling themselves "it won't happen to me." Which of course, it did. They were too embarrassed (or didn't want their parents to find out) to take any sort of preventative measures, but proceeded anyway. These people were more terrified that their parents would find out about what they were doing, rather than being scared about picking up any number of nasty diseases or getting pregnant.
*sigh* Hindsight is 20/20, I suppose. If we could change some of the dumb things we did when we were kids, I imagine that things would be different. But I do think that those "dumb things" have hopefully made some of us stronger and better people. (At least, that's what I keep telling myself.)
As a new teacher (having just finished my first year in my new career), working in Oregon...Where you at, Sol? I'm in Bend.
I am currently teaching in Salem, we just moved up here last year from Eugene. Bend, I remember when it used to be just a blip on the radar as your drove at 100mpg east, now it is one of the great metropolis' of Oregon. It turns out Salem is not such a bad town either, gets a bad rap for being boring, but hey when your married, have a 1 1/2 year old kid, and are teaching most of the time, you aren't looking for big city excitment. Just a little bit of gaming every couple of weeks or so.
As far as high school and pregnancy, I have had at least a couple of students get pregnant or who already have kids (out of the roughly 500-600 I taught last year). One girl in particular, I was really worried about, she was a senior, so she was 18, but she had some developmental disabilities, and was already showing (about 6-7 months along) quite a while before the year ended (she dropped out to an alternative program as I understand). Talk about rough. I mean raising my kid now is tough, and I am 27, have a good job, am married, and also chose to have a kid. I would hate to think about the anger and resentment added with lost opportunities and youth that having a kid when you are 15,16, or even 18 would cause in most folks. This having been said, a good friend of mine was born when her mom was 16, and she turned out great, so I know it is not an aboslute killer all the time, just really really really makes things hard.
Maybe Bush should change from his Abstinence only program (which according to studies doesn't work worth a damm) and promote:
"Gaming Only Program!" Game instead of have sex! Role Play it out vs. the real thing....
hmm on the other hand that leads down roads I better not follow....
opps, messed up that post. My post is in the quote above....
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Talk about losing the frame of reference. I just can´t believe it. There is not much ruining a girls life as thoroughly as being 18 and having to care for a five year old. Try to get a job with that history, if you even managed to finish school. And in our highly-developed countries, preventive measures are easy, if you know about them, and if you get rid of false prudishness that inhibits society telling the teenagers, it is easy to prevent these unwanted pregnancies. You can´t stop them from developing and maturing, so at least make ´em play it safe.If only everybody was so enlightened, Stebehil, I imagine a lot of our current hangups would go away. I had friends in high school who kept telling themselves "it won't happen to me." Which of course, it did. They were too embarrassed (or didn't want their parents to find out) to take any sort of preventative measures, but proceeded anyway. These people were more terrified that their parents would find out about what they were doing, rather than being scared about picking up any number of nasty diseases or getting pregnant.
*sigh* Hindsight is 20/20, I suppose. If we could change some of the dumb things we did when we were kids, I imagine that things would be different. But I do think that those "dumb things" have hopefully made some of us stronger and better people. (At least, that's what I keep telling myself.)
Chalk me up as on of those.... My child support order ends in the beginning of september. She is turning 18. I had my 18th b-day and 8 days later a child. Her mother used the courts to her advantage and I haven't seen my oldest kid for 3 years.
What doesn't kill us, sucks.
FH (Wiser, maybe...)
What doesn't kill us, sucks.FH (Wiser, maybe...)
Yea, verily. Thou speakest truth, Fakey.
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I been thinking about this for a while.
I had one coworker who, after I learned my job at school, taught me how to really do my job. I figured since he'd been doing the job as long as I'd been on the planet, I might as well be his sorceror's apprentice and learn something. And he was the father that for whatever reason went away.
And I had another coworker who was the fire. She was kin to John Wesley Hardin, the man who once shot a man just for snoring, and she was tough. I have a rule that I stay on the good side of red heads, and she was why. And she was the daughter whose father for whatever reason went away.
And so for them both, whom I equally adored, I truly do root for you. It does suck, and you are wiser than me anyway; I only know anecdotally it sucks.
Timault Azal-Darkwarren wrote:
I heard that during the height of the gaming craze (early 80's) that many police officers were trained to pick up on D&D hints regarding a suspect because it may mean that they were unstable and more prone to violence - but that was a rumor as far as I know.
Back in 1991 I played D&D with a pretty rough crowd. In the end, one of my players killed another of my players over some drugs; it turned into a real media circus when it turned out that the dead kid's father was a cop (no one knew at the time, his parents were seperated). D&D was seriously considered as a possible motive, and this even got into the papers; I still have the clippings. It all blew over, and in the end D&D didn't factor into the trials, but it must have stuck in some officer's minds.
Later, in 1999, while I was passing through a 12 year bit in Michigan's U.P., a couple of detectives from Kent County's cold case squad came to visit me. It seems someone had told them I'm an expert on D&D. I didn't get many vistors, and I was kinda curious, so I agreed to see them. They had an unsolved murder, and they were trying to determine a motive. Some idiot (and I use that generous term only because there might be sensitive readers here) gunned down a homeless lady for no obvious reason. The detective's working theory for the killing was that it was D&D players that were trying to earn experience points. Really. The cops had a copy of the old 1st edition DM's guide, and were asking me questions like, "How many experience points is a lady-of-the-night worth?" We talked for about a half-hour about experience awards and random encounters, and I tried to explain that their theory was crazy, but I don't know if I convinced them. In the end, they drew some blood (for DNA testing, apparently they didn't rule me out as a suspect) and went on their merry way. I never did hear what happened in the end.
As for me, I when I got out last October, I went back to playing with my old high-school buddies. It's a tamer scene, but I don't miss the crazy stuff at all. Oh, and I have to agree with one of the earlier posts, that there are definately some people that can't handle the game, but they're unstable and probably couldn't handle Monopoly either. The game shouldn't be scapegoated for what some crazies do.
And how do I make quotes stand out on that gray background? I had to cut and paste, and I don't like the effect (or more precisely, the lack thereof). Is there some keyboard command I'm missing?
And how do I make quotes stand out on that gray background? I had to cut and paste, and I don't like the effect (or more precisely, the lack thereof). Is there some keyboard command I'm missing?
Just hit reply on the post that you're replying to and the previous poster's comments will be inside "quote" notations, thus creating the "gray" background you seek.
Sounds like those cops with a theory about XP were really grasping at straws!! How interestingly.....idiotic!!
I personally prefer the real world way of earning XP--going to the gym, going to the pistol range, sparring, getting into simunition gunfights.
One of my gaming friends was shot and killed by his wife during a standard domestic dispute. Since she gamed as well and they lived in a very right wing Christian Southern Baptist part of the country, we all felt that D&D was going to get dragged into the story by the frenzied local media which hadn't had a murder to get all ga ga about in several years. We were actually surprised when it didn't happen....I guess the fact that she was also a prison guard having an affair with another prison guard was enough dirty laundry to satisfy the sensation pimps.
Back in 1991 I played D&D with a pretty rough crowd. In the end, one of my players killed another of my players over some drugs; it turned into a real media circus when it turned out that the dead kid's father was a cop (no one knew at the time, his parents were seperated). D&D was seriously considered as a possible motive, and this even got into the papers; I still have the clippings. It all blew over, and in the end D&D didn't factor into the trials, but it must have stuck in some officer's minds.
I'm sure it was just a localized thing, because down here in the Southwest, I've never heard of anything like that and I've been a LEO for 18 years. Back in '91 I was still working the streets and I got a report of a possible burglary in progress at a storage facility. When I got there I found eight teens and some adults in their early 20's gaming in a storage unit they had converted into a game room (cheap couches, rickety coffee table, single light bulb run from a 200' extension cord). They told me that their parents didn't want them gaming at home, so they pitched in their funds and rented the storage unit so they could game during hours of darkness in the summer and on weekends.
They all thought they were "busted" and that they were doing something illegal and were quite surprised to find that I was a fellow gamer....we had a lengthy conversation about different RPGs we had played. I warned them that the only thing they had to be careful of was drinking (illegal in public--I told them just keep it out of sight) and drugs (if the cops smell pot all bets are off usually-although I usually gave people with small amounts a break unless they were jerks to me).
I asked them if their parents knew what they were doing and they said "no." "So they don't want you guys gaming at their house, but they don't care that you guys are gone half the night and they have no clue where you are?" I asked. They all nodded and I just shook my head.
I asked them if their parents knew what they were doing and they said "no." "So they don't want you guys gaming at their house, but they don't care that you guys are gone half the night and they have no clue where you are?" I asked. They all nodded and I just shook my head.
LOL. That is good parenting for you there. As long as you don't know what they are doing it's ok! I ran into that kind of mentality when I lived in Utah. As long as nobody knew about it and it was all done behind closed doors its ok, just put a smile on and a nice dress when you walk outside. Probably one of the reasons the state has the highest sposal and child abuse rate in the country. One of my girl friends, her dad went after her with a 2x4 with nails in the end of it. Nasty stuff.
Yah my folks were always ok with gaming. Heck my Dad bought me the old Red Box Set when I had Chicken Pox in 3rd Grade, although my brother and I had been gaming without any books for about 2 years by then. Even though I wasted way to much of my youth just rolling up characters and writing worlds that were never played, my folks were always supportive about it and figured it helped my imagination and gaining an interest in history, which it did.
I am not supprised to here there are cops who are gamers. I mean just amongst my friends there is a teacher (me), 2 Doctors (my Brother and Brother-in-law), a plumber, a future dentist, a engineer, a midwife, a University Professor, a Social Worker, a writer, a couple computer engineers, a janitor, and a couple school bus drivers. I mean if you look at that list, it would actually seem that I know more gamers who are in professional careers than not. I guess we are a well educated lot, although that also might just be a hint at the crowds I run in, who knows.
I must confess that being a Pastor, Minister, Preacher and radio talk show personality on a christian radio station tends to get me "the look" any time I mention I play D&D. Other than "being a source for the devil to work through me as well as the game in and of itself being demonic." I pretty much gave up on telling any of my fellow Christians on what I do on my Friday nights which by the way is the Sabbath.
Then of course when you share with the unsuspecting young Christian what D&D consists of they run in horror. From waht I understand ther are some religions that have actually outlawed D&D in some states, maybe in Utah. Whatever! Any way my wife is not too hot on me playing either, she feels the Lord will correct me when the time comes. My explanation doesn't seem to sway to many Christians but its better than getting drunk, chasing woman and talk like a broken sailor. GBU :)
I'm sure it was just a localized thing, because down here in the Southwest, I've never heard of anything like that and I've been a LEO for 18 years.
If you have some professional interest, Send me an email at TheBruke@gmail.com, and I can send you scanned copies of the original articles. Or, you could try to track down some of the detectives involved; there were ten but the only one I remember is Ed Rusticus. Ed wasn't a gamer, but he was a good cop and a good person, and the first cop I ever met that I respected. I owe alot to him. The last I heard was that he's retired, but if you contact the homicide department at the Kent County Sheriff's in Grand Rapids, MI someone may be able to put you in contact with him.
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All my older brothers played AD&D 1ed and it was never a problem. Then I came along ten years younger than my next oldest brother, and my mother was always very overprotective.
She didn't like D&D from the beginning, but tolerated my brothers playing it. When I was about 10 she had my dad read through a couple Dungeon magazines I had looking for anything 'bad'. He was a reasonable person and told her it was perfectly fine. She wasn't happy with that and the first time I got in the slightest amount of trouble, she tore them in half and threw them away.
A few years later I tried again and discreetly bought a PHB and DMG 2ed. I kept it on the down low for a few months but inevitably she found them under my mattress. I got home and got to watch my mom (who was so infuriated and full of adrenaline) tear my the covers off my PHB and rip the pages in half all in the span of about 2 seconds. And trust me, she's not a real strong lady, she just hated it THAT much. She claims her anger stemmed from the fact that I got a couple B's on my report card because I was wasting my time with D&D.
As the years went on I did develop a fascination with the game that was probably in some way just to spite her. Any time I acted up or was feeling acting lazy like any normal teenager does, she blamed it on D&D and Bart Simpson.
It was easier for her (and I imagine thousands of other parents) to lay blame to a collection of books rather than on themselves. Gee, maybe I was unually lazy because in our household, we had one live-in servant and about five others who worked at our house regularly.
Anyway, I'm not sure what my point is, but I'm still playing the game to this day. If my mom had just let me go through the gaming phase with no incident I probably would have given it up in high school.
My mom was neutral on D&D when I was a teenager. She had no money to spare, so I had to work to earn the money I used to buy books and modules, so she never felt it was her right to say anything about it. She made some snide comments now and then, but because I got good grades and D&D helped me learn English, she didn't push it. It was funny when I joined the army at age 17 and she had to sign a waiver for me, she thought that the Army was going to make me "grow up and out of D&D." She just shook her head when I told her that I gamed just as much in the Army and met and made a lot more gamers than I ever thought I would.
I think D&D kept a lot of my friends and me out of trouble in high school because whenever we didn't have any money or nothing else to do, we played D&D (AD&D 1e actually). I think maybe that fact gets overlooked by those who condemn D&D as an unhealthy activity--it gives kids an outlet and a time consuming activity that keeps them from doing stupid stuff (sometimes).
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It's funny, all the waiting around you have to do whilst soldiering. I never was permanent Army, but I'd imagine 2-3 guys would get a game up in a tent on a field project, and 15 more guys would gravitate over and start wanting to play too.
If anything, it's a D&D magnet. Boredom does things to people.
Interestingly, a well-known D&D author - I think it's James Wyatt - is or was a Christan minister of some kind. He once wrote an interesting piece on how he felt he couldn't reveal his gaming hobby to his churchgoers because of the reputation attached to the game that some people won't let drop.
He drew an interesting parallel between free will in real life and in D&D. God, like the DM, lets bad things happen because otherwise it would be no challenge, he doesn't intervene (or only does so subtly) because otherwise people would rely on him (and that'd be metagaming because characters shouldn't perceieve Him), and He affords us free will because otherwise, that'd be railroading. Now who says the game has no religious benefit?
Interestingly, a well-known D&D author - I think it's James Wyatt - is or was a Christan minister of some kind. He once wrote an interesting piece on how he felt he couldn't reveal his gaming hobby to his churchgoers because of the reputation attached to the game that some people won't let drop.
He drew an interesting parallel between free will in real life and in D&D. God, like the DM, lets bad things happen because otherwise it would be no challenge, he doesn't intervene (or only does so subtly) because otherwise people would rely on him (and that'd be metagaming because characters shouldn't perceieve Him), and He affords us free will because otherwise, that'd be railroading. Now who says the game has no religious benefit?
LOL! What would Kant or Hobbes or Descartes have to say about this eh? The great philosphies of the world, 2,000 years of theology, and we explain it with a Geeky game! I love it!
I myself was involved with church activities heavily when I was in High School (I was living in SLC, Utah at the time and was not Mormon, and experience I always described as being Jewish in the Vatican, church was the palce you found the Punked out Pot Smoking Heavy industrial listening, D&D playing Teenagers every Sunday, thats just SLC for you) I even led a Youth Group my Freshman year of college. I never particularly felt any problems with D&D and religion (although I am now no longer a praticing Episcopalian, I am more Gnostic now, but that is another story) and played regularly, mentioning it and discussing it with my fellow church going friends.
On the other hand, I think it is like many personal interests, they don't have much place as a regular feature in the workplace. I remember at my confermation, the Bishop giving his sermon about...Basketball. I mean it sucked! Terrible sermon and completly unrelated to the rites of passage that were going on around him. But he was 6'4ft and had played in his youth and loved the sport, so thats what he talked about. He should not have talked about basketball (at least in his sermon) and likewise D&D would proabaly of been out of place even if I would have though it was Geeky Cool!
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It was funny when I joined the army at age 17 and she had to sign a waiver for me, she thought that the Army was going to make me "grow up and out of D&D."
Hah same here. When I joined the Navy and was later assigned to the Marines as a medic, she commented that maybe now I'd learn what happens when people who sit around dreaming of D&D see real harship. She (the wife of a very senior officer) pictured the enlisted men as brutes who would beat someone up for doing something so dumb.
Little did she know that in between casevac missions in Iraq, a few other gamers and I would sit around chatting about D&D and RPG's in general. We would have played but the schedule was too hectic at times to really get anything going. Back in garrison when you have nothing but time, it was a different story.
The worst reaction I ever saw to gaming was in highschool when one of my gaming buddies, whose mother was extremely religious but had allowed all four of her sons to play D&D for years, heard a sermon about the satanic dangers of gaming. He came home from school one day to find his entire RPG collection (a shelf's worth of sourcebooks), his warhammer 40k miniatures, EVERYTHING gaming-related in the fireplace, and his mother standing next to it... at which point she said "it's for you're own good" and dropped in a match. Whoosh.
Considering I have several thousand dollars worth of Warhammer figs, this would be justification for emancipation fro the parent....
One sunny day back in 1997 I was sitting in my room writing up an adventure for the nest session. I'd been playing D&D for about a year and had just started DMing. My mother came into the room and, very nervously, asked me, "are you worshipping Satan?". Now, my mother is a devout Catholic, so her question carried some pretty heavy implications with it. Being 14 I considered messing with her, but (luckily) decided against it and after a leagthly conversation managed to convince her that rolling dice and pretending to be someone else for a little while would not endanger my immortal soul. I could just chalk this up to a mother's natural paranoia, but over the years I experienced a lot of bias associated with RPGs. Especially D&D for some reason. It has ranged from just not having people take me seriously to full blown THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU! sermons from several religious folks I've shared my hobby with. I've never been a violent, unkind, or otherwise unbalaced individual, so while I may understand it's source this prejudice has on occation been very hurtful. I don't do it as much now, but I used to be very reluctant to share my hobby with new friends until I knew how they might react to it.