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School trying to ban D&D...
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Phaedran
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Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2011 3:55 pm

This story brings me right back to 1980. I thought we were past this stage by now.

http://www.examiner.com/rpg-in-national ... ns-dragons

Kingofpain89
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Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2011 5:58 pm

Phaedran wrote:I thought we were past this stage by now.

Why would you think that? We still have the same prejudices and bigotry that we always have. And its no surprise we still have jackasses running our school boards who have nothing better to do than this crap.

Sad really. Taylor, TX is a small town (less than 20 thousand population) not too far from Austin. I just drove through it last week and had some of the best bbq brisket on the planet. Remind me not to bring my D&D stuff with me the next time I go there.

You don't like your job, you don't strike. You go in every day and do it really half-assed. That's the American way. - Homer Simpson

LordJR
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Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2011 8:18 pm

Pfft! Next time if ever I roll through there on my way to Austin, I'll be sure to wear proudly one of my Dungeons & Dragons 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th edition T-Shirts. Yes, I have a t-shirt for every edition ever released.

I would say this makes me ashame as I grew up in Texas during the 80s playing D&D in a small city, but then again I know the mindset behind these idiots and it doesn't surprise me one bit. With a few exceptions, Texas has always been a bit too religious for my blood. Glad I don't have to live there anymore.

Badmike
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Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2011 8:41 pm

LordJR wrote:Pfft! Next time if ever I roll through there on my way to Austin, I'll be sure to wear proudly one of my Dungeons & Dragons 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th edition T-Shirts. Yes, I have a t-shirt for every edition ever released.

I would say this makes me ashame as I grew up in Texas during the 80s playing D&D in a small city, but then again I know the mindset behind these idiots and it doesn't surprise me one bit. With a few exceptions, Texas has always been a bit too religious for my blood. Glad I don't have to live there anymore.

Ironically, we're all glad you left! :roll:

But seriously, this is more a small town problem than a Texas problem.

Mike B.

"THE MORE YOU THINK ABOUT WHY i DONE WHAT i DONE THE MORE i LAUGH" Cougar
"The Acaeum hates fun" Sir Allen
"I had a collecting emergency" Nogrod
Co-founder of the North Texas RPG Con
NTRPGCON

SimperingToad
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Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2011 10:13 pm

LordJR wrote:Pfft! Next time if ever I roll through there on my way to Austin, I'll be sure to wear proudly one of my Dungeons & Dragons 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th edition T-Shirts. Yes, I have a t-shirt for every edition ever released.

Wow! Do you have OD&D, Holmes, B/X, and BECMI T-shirts too? :wink:

Grug Greyskin
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Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2011 10:06 pm

Perfect situation for the Acaeum Texas Mafia to exert some "community influence."

sauromatian
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Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2011 11:01 pm

Grug Greyskin wrote:Perfect situation for the Acaeum Texas Mafia to exert some "community influence."

Splendid idea! LordJR, next time you're in here in Austin, we should go down to the local community center to volunteer, helping disadvantaged youth & the homeless to reach their inner shamans through creative role-playing. Probably RuneQuest, maybe the ElfQuest variant.

As far as that high school goes, I hear there's a wonderful day-spa near Hutto or Taylor somewhere (read about it in the New York Times Review of Books), we could stop on the way to conduct a protest. Bring an acoustic guitar. Although it's summer & school's out, so maybe the protest should be conducted at an appropriate roadhouse or tavern, to really get in touch with the local rustics & just vibe out, you know? Bring running shoes.

SimperingToad
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Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2011 11:39 pm

sauromatian wrote:Bring running shoes.

And countermeasures.

LordJR
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Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2011 1:30 am

@Mike B. Yeah? Well all my family lives there so I'm not entirely gone from Texas. And my fondest memories of watching the D&D cartoons every Saturday morning are there along with my first adventurers in the SCA. So the place is still special for me. It's just I have a sore spot for anyone hating on D&D and even had to defend it when I was kid as I was the local Dungeon Master in my neighborhood. Not only that, but I had some serious times with my own family members damning me to hell, so this crap just digs up old feelings. Cheers!

@SimperingToad Yes, it's a reproduction, but I do have the Red OD&D T-shirt. Everything else I got off of Jinx through the years. No Holmes, B/X, or BECM(have no idea what those are or if this was meant to be a joke).

@sauromatian I still have multiple family members in Austin, so the chances of me showing up there are good. Although, your comments would assume you know me better than I care to admit. Did you go a snooping perhaps?

clangador
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Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2011 8:02 pm

Sad. Just sad.

~Clangador
---------------

Black Blade Publishing imprint of OSRIC is not only the most definitive printing of OSRIC to date, but also the single greatest resource for old school gamers since the three original hardbacks written by E. Gary Gygax.

Blackmoor
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Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2011 3:47 am

I was cursed by a religous freak at a flea market around 20 years ago!!

She said she must curse me to save all others from the evil I was selling. She said I would never make another sale!! (probably made $500 - $600 that weekend :lol:

)

Games can get you through times of no money but money can not get you through times of no games!!

Gnat the Beggar
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Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2011 10:20 am

LordJR wrote:I would say this makes me ashame as I grew up in Texas during the 80s playing D&D in a small city, but then again I know the mindset behind these idiots and it doesn't surprise me one bit. With a few exceptions, Texas has always been a bit too religious for my blood. Glad I don't have to live there anymore.

Really?

First off, did any of you read the entire post at that link?
The School board is having several of its board members participate in a D&D campaign to determine the validity of their previous ruling.
No doubt this will be reversed.

I also grew up in a small Texas town and never had any of the troubles you described when playing D&D in the 70's/80's/90's and so forth.
No one ever gave me a hard time for it, other than my current wife.
And her feelings on that subject are not religious in nature.

As for religion, you just think Texas is too religious, in reality it is no more so than any other southern state, Arizona included.
Additionally, like many other things and contrary to many so-called cultured opinions, Christian Religion (especially when taken in moderation) is not exactly an Evil thing.

But I do agree with you about one portion of your post.
Considering your apparent feelings towards Texas, I too am Glad you left, and you should not return to Texas any more than you must.
Perhaps you can convince the remainder of your family to leave too, so you never have a reason to come here?

"Guys, I am starting to think Tegel Manor might be haunted..."
Stated by me as a PC during a run of Tegel Manor DMed by killjoy at NTRPGCon 2010

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Badmike
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Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2011 11:32 am

Blackmoor wrote:I was cursed by a religous freak at a flea market around 20 years ago!!

She said she must curse me to save all others from the evil I was selling. She said I would never make another sale!! (probably made $500 - $600 that weekend )

Wow, so you're living in a box now (cause you never made another sale)? That sucks Blackmoor!

I reiterate the problem of the poster is a small town problem, germane to any state in the union, not particular to Texas. I've run into far more suspicion of gaming and gamers in Missouri, for example, than Texas. The key I've found is not hostility but logical discussion. I don't know if my wife's parents still think D&D is the devil's game, but they've been unable to counter any of my logic so far, so they don't talk about it anymore (at least around me).

My wife's best friend gave her a book (when my wife and I first started dating) detailing all the devilishness associated with RPGs and D&D and particular (don't worry folks, there were chapters on heavy metal, video games, and of course the Smurfs also). After my then girlfriend showed me the passages in the book, I simply countered them by showing her how ridiculous the charges were (for example, the Players HB doesn't show you how to cast any spells or detail any rituals no matter how hard you look), and she realized the book (and her friend) were ill informed at best and outright sensationalizing liars at worst.

There is nothing inimical between religion and RPGs as many religious people with half a brain realize, it's the people who are close minded to anything that are the problem. Sadly they are often people in small town America with little depth of experience.

Mike B.

Mike B.

"THE MORE YOU THINK ABOUT WHY i DONE WHAT i DONE THE MORE i LAUGH" Cougar
"The Acaeum hates fun" Sir Allen
"I had a collecting emergency" Nogrod
Co-founder of the North Texas RPG Con
NTRPGCON

benjoshua
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Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2011 1:23 pm

Badmike wrote:
There is nothing inimical between religion and RPGs as many religious people with half a brain realize, it's the people who are close minded to anything that are the problem. Sadly they are often people in small town America with little depth of experience.

Mike B.

Agreed. I hate to say this, but even gamers can be closed minded. Just look at me! :wink:

Truth is worth finding and life is too short to work for money.

Kaskoid
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Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2011 7:05 pm

Blackmoor wrote:I was cursed by a religous freak at a flea market around 20 years ago!!

She said she must curse me to save all others from the evil I was selling. She said I would never make another sale!! (probably made $500 - $600 that weekend :lol: )

Gary and I once received multi-page, hand-written letters from some woman who not only told us where in hell we would spend eternity, but also enumerated some really ghastly torments we would suffer. It was some twisted stuff. While I in no way make any claims of Biblical scholarship, or even more than a passing knowledge, Neither Gary nor I could find anything even remotely like what she prophesied for us referenced in ether the Bible or the Talmud (we did not have a Koran). She would have made a good horror writer, but you would not want to have been her neighbor.

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Guidelines, not rules...

sauromatian
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Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2011 7:17 am

Kaskoid wrote: Neither Gary nor I could find anything even remotely like what she prophesied for us referenced in ether the Bible or the Talmud (we did not have a Koran). She would have made a good horror writer, but you would not want to have been her neighbor.

Try the books of Enoch, or even Zoroastrian texts, for explicit descriptions of hell. Sounds like her letter would make a good module, if it hasn't already.

Icar
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Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2011 11:59 am

Fear of D&D isn't limited to small town America. I worked with an east indian fellow who was afraid I would cast a spell at him. I hadn't done anything strange, he just heard I played the game and got freaked out.
He got even more spooked when I told him his name, Balraj, was cool.

sauromatian
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Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2011 11:25 pm

LordJR wrote:Although, your comments would assume you know me better than I care to admit. Did you go a snooping perhaps?

Don't have to. The discussion here follows the sacred Texas form, as true 10,000 years ago in the Hyborian Age as it was when thus was spaketh:

Tommie Lee Jones
How's a fella like you get to be
a specialist in psychos, anyway?

Tom Sizemore
I spent the first part
of my life in Texas.

Tommie Lee Jones
You don't have an accent.

Tom Sizemore
I don't wanna talk
like those a******s.

Tommie Lee Jones
My mother was from Texas.

Tom Sizemore
I meant those other a******s,
the ones that used to beat
the s*** out of me every day.

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