melissa@mit-hector.UUCP (Melissa Silvestre) (10/21/85)
A few weeks ago, 60 Minutes did a show on D&D. Their claim was that there are a large number of homocides/suicides which are linked to D&D recently. They showed interviews with parents and police in a number of cases, with both groups saying "Johnny was obssessed with the game but I didn't realize how badly until he stabbed his brother and himself ..." or such stuff. Gary Gygax (creator of D&D) was interviewed and he denyed that there was any link. He sounded pretty feeble about it. Well folks, it seems to me that if you are a parent concerned about your child, you have two choices. 1) Forbid him to play, or 2) Learn enough about the game to be able to talk to him intelligently and discuss the fantasy vs reality aspects with him. I'm sure all of the readers of net.kids can tell you how well the first way works, which is to say worse than not at all. As for the religious aspect of D&D vs Christianity, it seems even more important for you (you=whoever started this, sorry I forgot your name) to talk to your child about the conflicts you see. Realize that rituals and symbols mean nothing at all unless the spirit is behind them. There's nothing wrong with children playing pretend using what adults think of as Satanist symbols as long as the kids don't think they are having anything to do with Satan. ------- Melissa Silvestre melissa@mit-athena or ...!decvax!mit-athena!melissa