Wednesday, April 13, 2011

The Banning of Dungeons & Dragons



I really thought we were far past this crap, but apparently I was wrong.  Taylor High School in Taylor, Texas has a Dungeons & Dragons Club that is now in danger of being abolished because of the School Board feels that the game, "Promites Death and Violence."

Sigh...It's like a time warp back to the 80s.  Fortunately, some more sensible people are stepping forward and attempting to get the school board to see reason.  So it looks at though there is some hope that things will have a happy ending, but it really makes you shake your head.

Thanks go out to WJ Walton of the Escapist for spreading the news about this issue.  He also made a great video (seen below) to present some of the reasons that RPGs are not only fun, but help to better people in several important way. 

9 comments:

Unknown said...

Before we go lauding The Escapist as the ultimate resource on how D&D is a positive influence on kids, can we keep in mind that the site hosts "I hit it with my axe", a video blog by the guy who writes the "D&D with Porn Stars" blog.

Is that really what you want being focused on when lawyers decide to research the D&D community?

Labyrinthian said...

@ Skaldgirl - Whether we want, "D&D with Porn Stars" to represent the community is a legitimate question, but (and maybe I'm confused here) aren't we talking about two different Escapists?

The Escapist I'm talking about (and linked above) is this one http://www.theescapist.com/index.htm

The Escapist Magazine, found at http://www.escapistmagazine.com is the one that hosts "I Hit it With My Axe" aka The D&D With Porn Stars Video Blog.

Unknown said...

Yes, you're correct, I confused the two, actually thinking they were two sections of the same site. My apologies.

Labyrinthian said...

Confusion is completely understandable given the similarity of the names.

typhoonandrew said...

It makes no sense to me to even talk about banning rpgs.

Violence and death is content that dominates the news, music, popular tv, etc. To ban dnd but not also ban almost every sourec of media and information is crazy.

Does chess encourage a black and white view of the world based upon a lethal conflict?

Its better that the kids are indoors using their imagination tahn bored somewhere finding ways to get into real trouble. Dnd is probably one of the safest activity the could be doing.

Unknown said...

Is it just me, or did that school newspaper website remove the article?

Labyrinthian said...

Weird... I don't see it either. Maybe we're both just missing it? Given that they keep much older news articles on their site I see no reason to take it down.

Anonymous said...

Wait wait wait. How does one 'promote death'?

Labyrinthian said...

I think that is reference to how characters are awarded XP for killing things.