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Why is Dungeons and Dragons looked down upon by our society?

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Originally posted by: akubi
I think it's fine until you get to the stage where you take the role playing aspect a little too seriously.

see reno 911 for reference.
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Actually, part of it was because D&D was tied Satanism by Tipper Gore and others.
 
i live in eastern nc, grew up about 3 blocks away from the kid who killed his...eh...parents? or just his dad? i dont remember now, but because of that the whole area thought any kid who played it was a nutjob.

i played a couple times with a friend, but i have a short attention span and it was slow paced, not my thing.
 
I am more likely to look down on someone who spends 18 hours a day playing some stupid MMO'RPG' than someone who plays a P&P RPG
 
I play both. The only players I look down upon are those that feel entitled to everything and those that take it way too freaking seriously.
 
Note: ATOT is far from being "society". If someone were to attach an 18" fan onto the side of a PC, we wouldn't call them a freak.
 
I have a gaming group that gathers every other Saturday. It includes my children and my best friends. We play D&D 3.5 (usually) and sometimes Buffy the Vampire Slayer the RPG. I'm the Game Master for D&D (usually) and my wife is the Game Master for BTVS (called a Director in that system).

It's perfect for us. We like the fantasy genre. We like to get together. We get to have a family activity that everyone enjoys. We defeat evil and win prizes.

And we're all basically professionals in our thirties (except my children).

--------

As far as society looking down on it, I do think that that stems from the religious right (disclaimer: my entire group are basically Christian gamers... we're just not fundamentalists in the way that the media/society means that word).
 
Originally posted by: xSauronx
i live in eastern nc, grew up about 3 blocks away from the kid who killed his...eh...parents? or just his dad? i dont remember now, but because of that the whole area thought any kid who played it was a nutjob.

i played a couple times with a friend, but i have a short attention span and it was slow paced, not my thing.
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I think this is a huge part of the reason society kind of frowns on D&D. There are a few highly publicized cases of people being a little too immersed in the game and it distorted their perception of reality. Of course those are probably such a miniscule portion of the total players that it's not really a fair generalization, but that's how these things go.
 
People only look down on the people that get WAY too in to it. In addition theres always the stigma that any activity that doesn't involve physical exertion is considered nerdy, save watching sports/drinking beer.
 
aw. I miss D&D.

I was in a fantastic group all through college, but stopped playing after graduation since I couldn't find a group around here. now I just play WoW.

edit: we had an IRC thing going on after we graduated, and that was pretty fun, but it fell apart as we all started getting real jobs and stuff.
 
Well, there was a lot of christian campaigns against it, so I'm sure that's where some of it comes from. Then there's the folks who take it a bit far (for me) and do the whole live acting thing. That can't help the people who just play pen-n-paper on weekends.

Tomato, nice dress.

edit: I don't look down on any of these people, whatever floats their boat. Where's the poll options for that?
 
I put on my robe and wizard hat.
I cast Lvl. 3 Eroticism. You turn into a real beautiful woman.
I meditate to regain my mana, before casting Lvl. 8 chicken of the Infinite.
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😀
 
It is not the game, it is the pimply faced geeks that do not bathe, nor can socialize that is looked down upon. Has nothing to do with which game they are playing.
Besides, I would rather be a geek any day, than a highly successful machismoic class president popular with all the ladies... (NOT!)
 
generally many of the individuals who partake are of.. questionable social normality...

Hence the general stereotype of that kinda of people is frowned upon.
 
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