Role Playing Games blamed...

[Rob Pincus]

DAve Thomas, The Jefferson County Coloardo District Attorney, just held a press conference and blamed role playing games for the densensitization of these and other kids to acts of violence.

Does anyone out there buy this for even 2 nanoseconds?

 

[motorep]

Rob,I hope you saw the whole press conference, here we got got the whole thing. My sense was that Dave Thomas was just kind of standing there, almost thinking out loud, trying to figure out what the hell happened to set these kids off and what we need to do to try to prevent it hapening again.The thrust of his speech was asking anyone in the community that had *any* ideas to please contact him at some future point.He also started his speech by saying that he's spent his whole life here, his kids attended Columbine High School. He's not another politician looking to make a splash like the others that have raced here to get their hypocritical faces on TV, he's from here and he does a good job.
(my biased .02 worth)

 

[thaddeus]

In a word, no.

%99 of my friends and associates for the last two decades played roll playing games, most of them adamantly. I am talking hundreds of people that I have known. They are all very sane and it has not affected them in any noticable adverse ways. Role playing games have been blamed since the 70's when the church targeted them purely because of the mystical and demonic subjects. Since then, people cannot get it out of their heads to always question them. I am a church goer, but sometimes the emotional bandwagons that churches get on about things are as bad a gun control advocates: they are completely irrational, unsubstantiated witch-hunts about things that they don't take time to invetigate thoroughly.
Anyway, RPG's are the least of our concerns as far as things that influence people to do crazy things. Having experienced both. I would see a detailed, violent video game to have more of an affect on the psyche than a role playing game, which is nothing more than "reading a book" where you are the character, and write the book as you go. RPG's are very simlar to readin a fiction book, and not many people put action novels on the top of their list of bad things.

JMHO,
thaddeus

Ps- I still play RPG's. It is quite fun to go to the store, buy a bunch of junk food and stay up all night with my friends playing a game. It gives me quite an escape from my grueling studies.

 

[Dan]

Of course role playing games are to blame. And of course popular media ie:video games, movies, T.V. and music are to blame too. Lets not forget that guns are wayyy tooo prevalent as well as propane, gunpowder and pipes.

Lets blame everything...BUT... the parents, school administrators and local law enforcement who obviously knew these two kids had big problems.

For christsakes they were crying out for help.

Lets also blame the sh**heads who did this. They may have been troubled, but they still planned and carried through with thier plans.

Thats all I got to say about that.

 

[Rob Pincus]

Motorep,

I did see the whole conference.. In fact, I also saw MR. Thomas's comments this morning at the early confernece.

He TOLD the press that he was coming back at the next schedule conference to give everyone his opinion on why this may have happened.

This was not an off-the-cuff response to a question from the press corps.. this was a thought about, probably rehearsed, statement.


Thadeus,

In the past I could've said the same thing. While it has been years since I have been around anyone who actively plays true role playing games (my step-son plays some games that might be generalized as such..), I know that many of the people who did play them are now very successful adults, college grads, and in some cases, military officers. I think there are a lot more positive aspects to Role Playing than negative....

 

[Grayfox]

Listen up, this is the voice of experience speaking.
My older son (19) is very heavily into the card game "Magic" and the RPG "Vampires: The Masqurade" When we first found out about this both my wife and myself were shocked. Demons! Vampires! and Witchcraft! Oh my! Where have we failed!
My son assured us that it's only a game, we have nothing to worry about. In fact, he has tried several times, unsuccessfully I must add, to teach us how to play. Trusting our son, we quieted down but kept an eye on things.
A few weeks ago he asked if he could host one of these Vampire games at our house. We, rather reluctantly, agreed. What showed up at our house was six very normal teenagers.Three boys and three girls. No wierd make-up, no one dressed in black, not even any finger nail polish. While I pretty much left them alone, my wife sat in with them for several hours and had a wonderful time. Final conclusion: it's just a game.

So to those who claim these games are to blame, I suggest you get some first hand experience. You just might be surprised to find that you are wrong.

BTW: I'm an avid Doom player myself.

 

[DHH]

Games, the Internet, the media and society will all be found to have had some part in these lunatics actions. It bothers me that people of public importance were giving "answers" to the "problem" before a formal investigation had even begun.
As for the Thomas remarks I could only find this part in my local news:

"Meanwhile, Jefferson County District Attorney Dave Thomas issued an impassioned call for a change in the culture of violence in the United States, a place where ``Guns are everywhere. You can buy them on the streets ... They're readily available.''

Thomas added, ``If we as Americans can't seize this moment I'm not sure what else will wake us up. ... Fifteen people met their death Tuesday of this week in what I believe is one of the most tragic events in American history.''"

The gun spin is the most heavily played at this time.
I happen to think that things are not "evil" but that these kids could have been.