Our town got embroiled in the controversy as some fundamentalist parents tried to shut down the after school D&D program that Parks & Rec put on.  It got a lot of press in the local paper and a nice little back and forth letters war.  My mom was the head psychologist at the general hospital there and she was interviewed for one of the articles.  She was very positive about D&D, said it encouraged the imagination and problem-solving skills.  A couple of years ago, she put together a little scrapbook of all the articles and letters and gave it to me for my birthday.  It revealed two things:  1) my town was pretty liberal and open-minded, judging by the majority of the letters and 2) I was an insane railroady control freak GM who believed in a "right" way to play D&D (this is based on my letter to the paper).  I've scanned them all and will put them online one of these days.  

Another funny side story from that is that the parents who first complained about the D&D had "666" burned into their front lawn.  Later, when I got into partying, one of my buddies (whom I didn't know at the time) told me that he had been one of the kids playing in the after school program.  He also was the one who stole his dad's tiger torch and burned the 666 in the lawn.  At the time, it had been used as a sign of the influence of satanists.  He just did it as a prank because he was pissed off at them.

I only remember all this as a humorous bit of foolery on the news. I realize that for many it was serous business, maybe even for me, I just didn't notice the worry worts.

My father, a first generation atheist from a deeply christian family, had no problems with any of it. A math geek at heart, he probably would have played, if he wasn't so busy hacking away at obscure and unsupportable assembly for rare and broken hardware vital to the U.S. Air-force (to this day I'm none to clear exactly what all he was doing)

My mother, a first gen U.S. immigrant from Japan, had no problems with it either. My mother chaperoned at my first con and wondered at all the geekery.

It's ironic that the uproar over the non-existant dangers of rpg's seems to have caused more harm than any of the games.

Only hassles I got were over how much we played (3-4 times a weeks from when we were 11 until about 14) and some adminishment to get outside and run around instead of sitting in a house all day.

One of my buddies did have a born-again mom, and she gave him a cassette tape about the evils of D&D. We listened to it at our next D&D session and had a good laugh.

Quote from: walkerpOur town got embroiled in the controversy as some fundamentalist parents tried to shut down the after school D&D program that Parks & Rec put on.  It got a lot of press in the local paper and a nice little back and forth letters war.  My mom was the head psychologist at the general hospital there and she was interviewed for one of the articles.  She was very positive about D&D, said it encouraged the imagination and problem-solving skills.  A couple of years ago, she put together a little scrapbook of all the articles and letters and gave it to me for my birthday.  It revealed two things:  1) my town was pretty liberal and open-minded, judging by the majority of the letters and 2) I was an insane railroady control freak GM who believed in a "right" way to play D&D (this is based on my letter to the paper).  I've scanned them all and will put them online one of these days.  

Another funny side story from that is that the parents who first complained about the D&D had "666" burned into their front lawn.  Later, when I got into partying, one of my buddies (whom I didn't know at the time) told me that he had been one of the kids playing in the after school program.  He also was the one who stole his dad's tiger torch and burned the 666 in the lawn.  At the time, it had been used as a sign of the influence of satanists.  He just did it as a prank because he was pissed off at them.

Got any newspaper clippings you could share?

(I'd ask for a link, but most newspapers acknowledge the Internet age only from 10 years or less ago, so its harder to get access to older articles.)

Quote from: ancientgamerAnyone live in a household where you wanted to play RPGs as a kid but your parents or other authority figures were against it?  What influence, if any, did it have on you?  As for my one funny/weird thing said:  My momma said D&D was the work of the devil (no joke).  I also got hand-written notes warning me about what I was doing was wrong.  She suspected but never proved anything.

No. I was 21 before I ever played an RPG, in 1977. In fact it was a gift for my my 21st birthday - from my mother.

-clash

Quote from: AosHaving experienced this myself as a kid, I still don't get the motivation behind it. I wonder if it's an American thing.
And why are so many dads down on fun?

I wander if they feel like it's class betrayal, like the kid is trying to break out of lower class labor jobs?  Or they're distrustful of anything that they couldn't understand?  Or, they think "I think I work hard and have no fun so it should be the same for everyone."
 
This is all pure speculation.

Quote from: NicephorusI wander if they feel like it's class betrayal, like the kid is trying to break out of lower class labor jobs?  Or they're distrustful of anything that they couldn't understand?  Or, they think "I think I work hard and have no fun so it should be the same for everyone."
 
This is all pure speculation.

Yeah, that's definately part of it.  I've seen plenty of working and lower class parents (mine and several friends) absolutely hate the idea of their kids being smarter than them or getting ahead of them in life.  Aspiring to anything beyond community college and 8 dollars an hour is considered to be "uppity".

My D&D experience was odd.  My first D&D set was bought by my grandmother (who, of course, had no clue what she was buying).  Mom didn't really care one way or the other (oddly, she showed no interest in the games despite being something of a sci-fi/fantasy geek).  And dad spent the next 10+ years hassling me about playing "nerd games" from the "nerd store" (that is, whenever he wasn't being borderline emotionally abusive to me about something else).  He also sometimes referred to them sarcastically as "devil games".

I did see some other parents have issues, though.  We had one friend in elementary school whose parents flipped out over him playing D&D.  We then switched to Star Frontiers for a while, which seemed to be OK with them (though eventually they did get him to stop playing all together).

In high school, one of my friends' girlfriends shrieked like a harpy when she came over while we were playing games, insisting right in front of everyone that eventually the people running the game "make you go out and kill someone".  Being the person running the game, I was not amused.

Another guy in high school had parents that were wary, but let him play after reading the AD&D player's guide through to make sure it wasn't satanic.  It later caused a lot of static though, because they blamed it for his drop in grades.  Sadly, they were more or less correct on that point - he did start to spend more time in class working on AD&D-related stuff (I was a bad influence, I suppose, because I always did stuff like that; but then I was smart enough not to need to pay a whole lot of attention in class).

Here's the thing - if it weren't for D&D, I might have learned how to study and learned things in school.  D&D completely ruined by burgeoning academic career.

For this, it was derided often by my Father.

However, there were no philosophical/theological issues - this from a man who up until the day he died reminded me that I was raised catholic and should return to being one. He was a quietly religious man who could have cared less about D&D other than the fact that it distracted me from "working up to my potential" - boy was that a reoccurring theme.

Quote from: James J SkachHe was a quietly religious man who could have cared less about D&D other than the fact that it distracted me from "working up to my potential" - boy was that a reoccurring theme.

At least you knew what you were living up to, LOL.

I have no clue what my father wanted me to be.  My two brothers and I have all taken quite different paths in life, and he rarely ever seems happy with any of us.  I have to laugh at the idea that we've all failed him in different ways.  

Quote from: jgantsAt least you knew what you were living up to, LOL.

I have no clue what my father wanted me to be.  My two brothers and I have all taken quite different paths in life, and he rarely ever seems happy with any of us.  I have to laugh at the idea that we've all failed him in different ways.  

My Dad wanted me to become something called a "personell manager." I'm not really certain what that is, but it sounds really awful. I think that he had an idea that any job that required a tie was a step up.

Quote from: AosMy Dad wanted me to become something called a "personell manager." I'm not really certain what that is, but it sounds really awful. I think that he had an idea that any job that required a tie was a step up.

Personnel Manager No tie required but a big, fat gold chain and pendant helps.

Quote from: blakkiePersonnel Manager No tie required but a big, fat gold chain and pendant helps.

Wow, that's a good look- and now I know how to spell personnel. Thanks Man!:D

I never had any problems with my parents, in fact they were both pretty supportive, although my dad was recently surprised to discover that I'm still playing "those games I was really into when I was younger".

I recall one occasion when my parents went to a friend's house for a dinner party. Apparently some of the other guests were trying to convince the hosts, whose daughter had apparently joined a LARP group at university and had played TT while still at school, that her soul was in danger. My parents pointed out that they had a won who played RPGs too and it was nothig to be worried about. They thought the whole panic was pretty funny and told me about it the next day.

One guy at school had a few problems with his mum, a born again Baptist, who dragged him off to see the minister and told us she'd pray for our souls. It was pretty wierd because she was a huge fan of pulp sci-fi and fantasy so really should have been one of us, but she eventually saw the light and even tried a little RPing herself not that long ago.

People who are worried about the state of my soul really fucking scare me.

Quote from: ancientgamerThis isn't it but I think this is in the same spirit.

Some guys never recover from a rail-roady GM.