Re: [HOE] Father Ramos site

["Kai Tave" <kaitave@harborside.com>]

I'm
>afraid that White Wolf might change the opposition to role-playing from
>psycho-extremists to mainstream Christians which would be very, very bad
for
>our hobby.


Why?

What, mainstream Christians are going to start firebombing game stores or
something?

Look, guys...seriously.  Remember the stinkup that happened/does still
happen with video games?  Remember Mortal Kombat and Night Trap and Doom?
I'd say that the video game debate was far more mainstream than anything
that's ever had to do with pencil-and-paper games...and yet, I still got
myself a copy of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City a few days ago.  For those that
don't know, Vice City, like all of the GTA series, is a crime simulator.
You play a criminal and you commit criminal acts for money.  You can kill
random people off the streets, hire prostitutes for health, beat senior
citizens with golf clubs, firebomb stores for protection money, rob drug
stores...  All the bitching about how video games are a corrupting influence
and so on, and yet Vice City got TELEVISION ADS.  They're selling it in
Wal-Marts.  Video games are far from dying, and are frankly a lot more
graphic these days than Doom ever was.

Right, so point the first is that just because something manages to piss a
large group of people off (and I can't help but imagine that Vice City could
easily do that), doesn't mean that it's going to die.  Rock (or metal, or
punk, or your musical genre of choice) was once equated with moral and
social corruption, and it's still being played.  It's even still being MADE.
What's more, not that many people even CARE.  Remember that at one point,
Chuck Berry was the social equivalent of Marilyn Manson.  Back then, Chuck
Berry was the devil incarnate.  Now, Chuck Berry is played on oldies
stations where folks listen to him and reminisce about the good old days.

This leads me to point the second; this, too, shall pass.  Nobody really
complains about The Beatles anymore.  Hell, speaking of Marilyn Manson, I
don't think anybody even complains about HIM anymore.  It's been years and
years since anybody's really accused D&D of being satanic.  The thing about
these kinds of protests is that they usually fade into impotence before too
long.  All that protesting and arguing about violent video games did was
give us the ESRB, which hasn't stopped any games from being made that I know
of.  All the Pulling Report really did was give Michael Stackpole something
to deconstruct.  So far, Demon: The Fallen hasn't seemed to cause much of
anything except a few local incidents.  I seriously doubt it's going to
cause more than that.

Point the third is that saying that there's this be homogenous group of
"mainstream Christians" that are all going to be of one mind about things is
a little strong.  You have to take into account the mainstream Christians
that actually WON'T be offended by the site (or those who get the joke), the
mainstream Christians that just don't care, the mainstream Christians that
won't ever see the site, and the mainstream Christians who will take
offense, but won't actually be spurred to much more action than a nasty
e-mail, if that.  I just can't see any large (and I mean large, not small
and vocal) group of Christians actually uniting against what's basically a
parody of a religious fruitcake used to advertise a fringe-hobby game.  It's
small, it's insignificant.  It might piss some folks off, sure, but LOTS of
things piss LOTS of folks off.  Besides causing some irate e-mails or
personal boycotts, what else is likely to happen?  White Wolf's fanbase
isn't really too likely to care, and that's really where D:tF is aimed
anyway.

Look, I think it's great that folks care deeply for this hobby.  I
appreciate the fact that folks feel the need to defend and uphold
roleplaying as something that isn't satanic or evil or whatnot, but I really
do feel that this whole issue with D:tF is just a little over-reactionary.
When piles of roleplaying books are being burned in the streets and gamers
are being beaten by priests, I'll be one of the first folks logging onto the
internet to post vaguely concerned messages to forums and mailing lists.
Until then, I think it's best to just wait and see what really DOES happen.
Ten to one says that in six months, nobody even remembers Father Ramos and
D:tF gets its first splatbook.

Betcha.

--Kai Tave