Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Gary Gygax Defends D&D on "60 Minutes"

From a 1985 episode of CBS's venerable news magazine "60 Minutes", with Gary Gygax in a particularly dapper sweater...

Posted by Joseph Bloch at 8:49 AM
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4 comments:

Riley said...

I've never really understood how people could make the connection between the game and the suicides. It's anecdotal evidence at its very worst.

April 25, 2012 at 9:49 AM
scottsz said...

I believe fuelling the D&D scapegoating was a very tangible parental fear of a very real phenomenon: cults.

April 25, 2012 at 9:53 AM
Kevin said...

A truth since the dawn of man, if you were "vulnerable" to commit suicide or a crime from playing an RPG, you were also "vulnerable" to being driven to commit the same acts by music, art, etc. The game (or the art) did not make you do it, your defective personality made you think it was ok, so you did it. No one makes people commit heinous acts, people choose to do them, not always at a conscious level.

Humans scapegoat so they can feel safe and pass the blame on to those different people over there. Often they grasp at straws to find a place to shove the blame so they can feel guilt free.

So parents cling to the idea that Timmy commited suicide because he was in to D&D, and not because he was clinically depressed, and mommy and daddy ignored the warning signs for 5 years, or some other logical reason.

Fear sells. Reason fails. It is the root of the human condition. Many leaders (religous, secular, and cult) have made bank off that nugget for centuries.

April 25, 2012 at 10:06 AM
grodog said...

Somewhere in my (still being re-organized) office I have an official transcript of this that I ordered from that "60 Minutes" episdoe.

Allan.

April 25, 2012 at 9:34 PM

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