Friday, October 27, 2006

Why Does the Media Hate Me?

According to Court TV, a defense attorney is claiming that it was obsession with Dungeons and Dragons that made James Flemons walk into his workplace with a Samurai sword and slash a co-worker to death. You see, according to the defense, Jack Chick was right and D&D, is corruptive and evil (you can read an MST3K-esque parody here).

As you know, I hate the association that is constantly put in front of the public that roleplayers are "deviants" and "outsiders" who don't merge well with society and are in constant danger of committing homicide. I wrote about it last year when discussing Anti-Harry Potterism and when discussing Penny Arcade's charity.

This is just another one of those ploys. ICV2 describes many of these "rpgs-are-evil" types as small time Savonarola's and I'm just wondering when Americans will really evaluate the claims made by the press regarding rpgs and give them the same amount of credence as the "Twinkie Defense." When are we going to come to understand that storytelling and catharsis aren't action? When will we come to learn that the News Media is so obsessed with sensationalism that facts don't matter? When will we learn that these modern Brother Girolamo Savonarola's are manipulating us and making a Bonfire of the RPGs? Do we really need Court TV to save our children's souls? And to be fair, though we may have disdain for Savonarola's attacks on art and games he was opposing actual corruption in the Church. So let's not give him a worse name by associating it with people who just want to remove any sense of personal responsibility from the actions of their clients.

This very night, I am opening up my first edition Dungeon Master's Guide and putting a hex on the attorney.

Why the first edition? It's the one with the real hexes!

No comments: