Gaming Advocacy

[contracycle]

I was thinking more on this last night: have any of you who set-up a campus gaming club run into this issue?  ie: "I don't think we can support that because we've heard bad things about it."  If so, what did you do?

My highschool gaming society was banned after complaints from "concerned parents".  There was not much I could do.

[simon_hibbs]

The best approach I can suggest is to point out the breadth of material covered by gaming :

Science Fiction games like Star Wars or Star Trek, pointing out that there are games for these specificaly;

Superhero games in the style of Spiderman and Fantastic Four;

Point out that one rolelaying game, Hero wars, is published by a
member of a native american shamanic tradition. Banning works
such as this on religious grounds is clearly persecution.

Roleplayign games are kile novels. Would he ban all fan fiction
because some of it might be satanic? Would he ban all digital
photographs because some of them might be pornographic?

If there is specific material that he feels uncomfortable about
then you may have to compromise, after all it's not your
computer system either. If you can show you're being reasonable
and are willing to be flexible, it may give him a comfort factor
and encourage him to be more tolerant and open minded too.

For example, it might be reasonable to remove a 'killing puppies for
satan' article from a message board frequented by young children.



Simon Hibbs

[Wart]

If it's the latter, well, you could go First Amendment on him, but I doubt that would work.

It might do - ISTR that in the court case Pat Pulling brought against her son's school (for failing to stop him playing D&D, which she alleged caused his suicide), the judge ruled that roleplaying games are "protected under free-speech provisions of the First Amendment of the Constitution".

[Walt Freitag]

I was thinking more on this last night: have any of you who set-up a campus gaming club run into this issue? ie: "I don't think we can support that because we've heard bad things about it." If so, what did you do?

I withdrew the proposed "Fantasy Gaming Club" and resubmitted it under the name "Society for Interactive Literature."

Approval was practically instantaneous (after months of unaccountable delay on the previous proposal).

True story.

And worth considering as a tactical option even today, I believe. Opposing "a form of literature" is a little harder for conscientious college administrators to admit to than opposing "a type of game."

(BTW, the only reason we wanted official sanction in the first place was so we could use a certain common room after hours that had a big honking table in it.)

(BTW again, that's how the SIL, which later spun off the still-operational ILF, got its name. That's why that particular style of live role playing ended up with the unlikely "interactive literature" generic term. The shift to live role playing games occurred several years later than the original campus org; same people, though.)

- Walt

[Mike Holmes]

If it's the latter, well, you could go First Amendment on him, but I doubt that would work.

It might do - ISTR that in the court case Pat Pulling brought against her son's school (for failing to stop him playing D&D, which she alleged caused his suicide), the judge ruled that roleplaying games are "protected under free-speech provisions of the First Amendment of the Constitution".

Matters not.

Freedom of speech does not require that a business provide access to any particular information to its employees or clientele. It requires that the government in no way restrict said rights. If I own a bookstore, I can sell whatever I like, and refuse to carry anything that I like.

In the Pulling case, the Judge decided that the Public school in question, an agency of the government, could not prohibit people from access to this material. Very different than requiring a business to provide connectivity to such materials.

Raven's boss, however wrongheaded, is well within his rights. Otherwise he would have to allow pornography, likely, as it is, to an extent covered by the First Ammendment (thanks to wonderful "patriots" like Larry Flint).

Mike

[greyorm]

Heya all,

I've talked to my boss about the issue again, and what it ends up boiling down to is: The Golden Rule.  That is, he who has the gold makes the rules <bu-dum-pa>

Simply, he's worried about our funding. He spoke to a similar Center in a nearby town to see how they handled it, and found their motto is "Nothing Controversial." Since we (and they) are currently funded by a variety of private grants, we need to keep the grant-granters (er?) happy and not stir the waters or the Center loses money when funds are pulled out or denied the next time they are applied for.

(tangent: this sort of shennanigans, btw, is a perfect example of why I'm an avowed communist)

He seems to have been convinced that there's nothing really wrong with Dungeons & Dragons or RPGs, given the extensive evidence I outlined and pointed him towards, but the funding issue has been is main concern, and with good reason.

Second, for those who might think otherwise, I'm more-than-inclined to believe him, and dismiss any possibility of him agreeing-just-to-agree or using one concern to support another.
He's never been anything but honest and straightforward with everyone who works here, he's very upfront about everything with no beating around the bush in regards to anything, and we run a very casual workplace (heck, he cooks huge lunches just for the heck of it at least once a week...and anyone and everyone, employee or no, can come and gobble what they will).

So, that's where the issue stands, and I can deal with this as a criteria for a filter, since it isn't reactionary or moralistic...just terribly, horribly practical.

Again, thanks to everyone for responding, I do believe it helped, since it helped clear up the personal misconceptions of an individual, which is one more individual who won't be unknowingly or ignorantly contributing to the "controversy."

(BTW, for those who care about the other issue -- the witchcraft one -- we pretty much agreed that we couldn't filter it unless we decided to filter all things of a religious nature (not including hate-sites, bogus "satanism" tripe and similar junk))

[Lance D. Allen]

Well, it's unfortunate that you had to give in on practical considerations, but at least you managed to win the important fight (religious freedom). Roleplaying has always been, and I think will always be, despite WotC's efforts, a sub-cultural phenomenon. It will never become mainstream, and it will always come under unfair attack by those who wish to destroy what they do not understand. It is inevitable.
That doesn't mean that gaming advocacy should give up, though.. We just need to realize that it is a fight we will never win, but instead will have to fight for as long as we want to continue playing and creating our games.

[greyorm]

I don't know if I necessarily agree with all that, Lance.
Never...always...pretty strong words.

I don't doubt that role-playing games could easily become a popular, well-known passtime.  Or they could fade into obscurity as a cultural phenomenon of the latter half of the 20th century.

After all, women gained equal rights, african-americans can vote and men can fly...the "status quo" is always a passing thing.

[M. J. Young]

Lance thinks we won't win; I think we are winning.

There will always be that handful of nuts who benefit from stirring up trouble; it is unlikely that they will ever go away.

But the opposition to role playing games is not just the nut cases. There have been quite a few intelligent people who got the wrong idea early on and led to others getting the wrong idea--and that seems to be changing. Several influential publications among Evangelical Christians, including at least one influential in anti-cult organizations, are considering the publication of articles defending and even promoting role playing games as a particularly Christian form of entertainment (and not Christian role playing games--ordinary fantasy role play).

I'm waiting to hear which ones are going to actually go through; but there are already articles appearing in Christian magazines in support of fantasy.

The tide may well be turning.

--M. J. Young

[Andrew Martin]

If it helps, the satanist that was in our RPG group no longer plays RPGs. Instead, he's working on his degree in Chinese Acupuncture. I don't think he became a satanist through playing or running RPGs.

[Mike Holmes]

MJ is correct about the tide turning. The biggest effect is from the aging of the gamer populace. As the wave of gamers that I represent are now in our thirties and forties, even (some older), we are now more in control of some of the same agencies that may have previously caused problems for gaming. This will only increase for a while.

Heaven help us when the Magic CCG munchkins gain power, however.

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hi folks,

I split off the latest posts about Raven's job into a new thread in Site Discussion. With any luck, given the post I'm about to add to it, you'll see why.

Best,
Ron