[HoE] April 21st article - 'Trench Coat' Mafia Spun Dark Fantasy [OT]

[Allan Seyberth <darious@darious.com>]

From Darrin's request, I've finally sent a letter to Marc Fisher and the
editor of the Washington Post concerning his comments about RPGs and the
Trenchcoat Gang.
Thought you all might be interested too - though in this case it's a matter
of preaching to the choir.  :-)
If you see any fallacies in the letter, please let me know.  


========================
Dear Mr. Fisher,
	This is in regards to your Washington Post article on April 21, 'Trench
Coat' Mafia Spun Dark Fantasy.  I was sent your email address by a
concerned person who saw the article and asked us to politely refute your
comments linking the Trenchcoat Mafia and role-playing games.
	First, I would like to apologize to you if anyone has taken the
opportunity to send you insulting or abusive letters over this.  As a long
term IT professional, I understand that people often use the anonymity of
the Internet to be less civil in their communications then they should.
But please understand that if the language was not appropriate, the
concerns were.
	There seemed to be no point in attempting to tie role-playing games to the
shooting spree at Columbine.   The links from the gothic subculture, to
gothic based roleplaying games, to role-playing games in general are
tenuous ones.  Perhaps even as tenuous as the claim that blames the
pre-suicide shooting spree on a sensationalist and free-market press more
interested in selling papers and gaining ratings points then in responsible
journalism.  Quite likely the killers remembered the media circuses around
Pearl High School, Heath High School, and Westside Middle School and
understood that their actions would grant them nationwide infamy.  It has
been reported that they have been planning this for over a year, which
means Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold started their planning around the same
time as the March 24 shooting at Westside.
	No, I do not personally believe that the media is responsible.  I was
trying to find an example accusation that might help you understand why so
many of us who play role-playing games get upset when an accusation such as
yours, however indirectly stated, is brought forth.

	As a staff writer for the Washington Post, I understand that you need to
write on and have knowledge of  a wide variety of subjects.  This is
evidenced by the articles with your byline on the Washington Post website.
But I have played roleplaying games for more than fourteen years now, and I
like to think that I have decent idea of a few things about the industry,
though let me get out a disclaimer I am not an industry-insider, just a
long term fan.  From my perspective, I can see a few things that are
inaccurate in your statement "Inspired by fantasy games such as Dungeons
and Dragons, Gothic has become a fascination of many American high
schoolers . . . "  
	I am assuming that when you speak of the relation between RPGs
(role-playing games) and Goths, you are referring to the more gothic style
games such as White Wolf's Vampire: The Masquerade.  Vampire is a
completely different game within the RPG field then Dungeons and Dragons by
TSR.  While they both fall under a certain subset called role-playing
games, your comparison between the two makes as much sense as if I made the
statement "Inspired by football, baseball has become a fascination of many
American high schoolers." Both football and baseball are major team-sports
but they are quite different when you look at any kind of significant detail.
	But your original statement linked the whole gothic subculture with fans
of roleplaying games.  And this is also not an accurate statement.  The fan
base of role-playing games is quite small when you look at it, and authors
such as Anne Rice, bands like Bauhaus, and movies like Blade would be
hard-presses to achieve any sort of success if they had to rely on the
RPGers as their primary audience.  You also seem to imply that RPGs leads
to participation in the gothic scene, but (and I may be going out on a limb
here) if Gothic in its current incarnation doesn't predate RPG's, the
mindset certainly does.  I think it is safe to say that certain people have
been drawn to and have enjoyed darker poetry such as Edgar Allan Poe's for
long before the origination of RPGs in the early seventies.
	While I do have a couple of friends who both Goths and play role-playing
games, none of them happen to be in high school, so I think that it is
another safe statement that both interests last or even develop outside of
our secondary education system.

	 I would like to point you to the web site where Scott R. Krol, writer for
PC Gameworld has expressed his viewpoints on the matter.  His spin is about
the blame being placed on computer games, but a lot of his points are quite
valid in regards to role-playing games.  He is also far more erudite then I
am on the subject .  The web site is
http://www.pcgameworld.com/features/articles/diggingdeeper/.

	On this Sunday the papers are full of the extensive plans that Klebold and
Harris made in preparing for their suicide.  It has been confirmed that the
suicide was planned to coincide with Hitler's birthday.   Politicians are
lining up to get in on the sound bites and big name performers are
scheduled to perform at the memorials.  And the fingers are already getting
pointed.  It's the parent's fault, it's the school's fault, we need prayer
in schools, we need gun control . . .   Maybe this time we will realize
that there will not be a quick answer or a simple explanation.  Maybe it is
not somebody else's fault, or somebody else's problem.  Maybe this time we
won't try and fix everything neatly before the next commercial break in
eleven minutes.

Thank you for your time.

Allan Seyberth
darious@darious.com
PO Box 35488
Albuquerque, NM 87176