A blast from the past.

H

Hinton

New member
Oh, I remember hearing about this; I was living in Colorado when the two boys were found dead and they were blaming it all on D&D.

What I've always found kind of interesting is that there wasn't any evidence to show that D&D was responsible for their deaths. Granted, they were really into it, but correlation is not causation.
 
airhead

airhead

Coffin Dodger / Keymaster
That was not the first crusade against D&D.

I've been playing since '78.

I remember the media storm when the kid in NY went into the tunnels and killed himself. (late 70's - early 80's?). Later there was much more to the story....

I remember the chick tracts.

I remember the 700 club going after D&D.

Meanwhile I had a group that played every Saturday night in a fairly large church. We used the youth lounge. From 6:00 p.m. to midnight. Only rule was that we had to clean up our mess before we left.

My folks have sat in on a few games - either by choice or because we were playing at the dining room table. Same with some of my other friends' folks.

None of them forsake (foresook, forsaked?) their beliefs and started summoning demons, etc.....

I don't still live in my folks' basement. I've moved out a long time ago. So lets not bring up that stereotype either.

****

In all my years of playing, I still cannot cast a simple magic missile. I have taught a lot of people to think creatively and out of the box to overcome obstacles. Yet all of us understood that what our characters did had very little to do with our real world.

****

Maybe you'll forgive me for not wanting to re-live the D&D witch hunts.
 
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Ebonbuddha

Ebonbuddha

Active member
Fair enough. But I just thought it was funny how everyone spoke like they had all of the facts about it and no one who was against it was right. Even the psychiatrist they had turned out to be a fraud.

I think I know what you are talking about when you mentioned the NY kids. They made a movie about it. It was called Mazes and monsters and it starred Tom Hanks.

Did I mention my mom and step dad were involved with B.A.D.D? I rememebr seeing some of their fliers and stuff.
 
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E

evil tendencies

Cake or Death?
Hinton said:
Oh, I remember hearing about this; I was living in Colorado when the two boys were found dead and they were blaming it all on D&D.

What I've always found kind of interesting is that there wasn't any evidence to show that D&D was responsible for their deaths. Granted, they were really into it, but correlation is not causation.
Click to expand...

Exactly. In logic circles, that kind of reasoning is referred to in Latin as post hoc ergo propter hoc - (translation here) - or simply post hoc. It is infuriating to watch anyone use this kind of reasoning, because it is impossible to argue against.

You tell them that, as Hinton says, "correlation is not causation," and they usually come back with "well, there is nothing proving me wrong, is there?" To someone who buys into this, the mere fact that their idea is physically possible is proof against any argument to the contrary.

Post hoc reasoning is usually how conspiracy theories start, and why they are so darned hard to kill.
 
Amazon warrior

Amazon warrior

New member
After watching those videos, it's clear that some people will blame anything rather than admit to being crappy parents. But these people were so clueless about their son's life that they "had never heard of Dungeons and Dragons before." Even though it was apparently an enormous part of his life?!? Methinks that there's more than a little guilt mixed up in there.
 
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