And at least 3 pages on here! :)

I have now written 38 pages worth of papers and one short story in fourteen days.

That's funny - I read an interview with a D&D gamer durning my research who said that he and his buddies (all male) would have some female characters in the group so they could role-play having sex. There's definately a link between role-playing games and sex.

I don't like the war games - I'm a terrible strategist (sp?).

No... I haven't played any roleplaying games in a couple years now. I got into war-games and then even ran out of time for stuff like that.

We had a lecture about ScriptEase in Cmput301... my project group and I were joking around calling it scrip-Tease ... since all of the profs characaters that he was demo-ing with were scantily clad chicks.

Are you playing with anyone right now Ed?

So can I quote you again?

Roleplaying games are definitely social. That was every saturday for me during high school... we had about a group of 6 to 8 people sometimes. Communities of gamers can be pretty tight knit, and can be a lot of fun. I would agree and say that computer games, and especially things like online MUDs should fit the stereo-typing more appropriately...

That's funny, because one of the ideas that's being worked on right now in my lab is ScriptEase, which is a tool that lets you write stories (essentially) for NeverWinterNights, the Bioware video game adaptation of D&D. I don't know if that helps, but it's a twist on the 'safety' of video games.

I know Paras - I wasn't taking it personally, I'm just writing a paper on it right now so I am interested.

And I agree D&D is certainly not alone in this treatment. Almost any pop culture phenomenon (sp?) has been subject to this at some point or another. My prof wants me to argue that the threat of D&D goes beyond just the usual complaints of violence, youth subcultures, and Satanic elements and has to do with the idea that the stories and characters created by the Dungeon Masters and the players are actually created by the kids (or adults) themselves and therefore haven't been "okay-ed" by anyone as video games or music albums are (not that this guarentees moral cleanliness) and also that the content of specific D&D games cannot be monitered. I guess this could be true, but I also agree with you guys when you suggest that the outrage over D&D isn't any different than any other outrage.