Satanic D&D... for the kids!

[zombiebex]

I work at a day care center, and the second half of my day with with a large group of school age children, mostly boys, who come to the center after school until their parents pick them up.

In an attempt to keep the boys occupied and to keep them from their usual bullying, fighting over the video games, and destructive boredom, I dusted off my old Dungeons and Dragons books, hauled them into work, and whipped up a simplified version of the game for the boys, aged about 9-11. They're hooked. They love it. They love making characters, they're always calling me over to roll up a monster and help them level. I'm thrilled that they're getting along, that they look forward to coming, and they're being creative and using math skills at the same time.

Well, the inevitable happened today. The parent of a girl who doesn't even play complained that the game was Satanic to a co-worker. The co-worker knows diddly squat about the game, and carried the complaint onto me. I said "Dungeons and Dragons is about as Satanic as Harry Potter." I should have expected the reply, "Well, her mom doesn't let her read Harry Potter, either."

Now I'm afraid the other shoe is going to drop when the parent inevitably goes to the boss with these complaints.

Any thoughts? What should I argue when asked about the Satanic nature of this silly little role playing game by the boss, the parents, and the kids?

 

[quixotecoyote]

You're probably going to have to stop the game, unfortunately. Ignorant angry parents tend to cause a lot of damage when they get going and it's unusual a boss is going to risk losing a client just to make his employees happy.

 

[A Christian Sceptic]

You might want to talk to the boss before someone else does.

Then you have control of how your boss hears about it and that your boss gets accurate information instead of waiting until you are put on the defensive.

Then respect any decision that is made.

 

[zombiebex]

Boss wasn't in today... I told her ahead of time I was bringing in the books and thought the kids would really enjoy them. I know the office is sick of making copies of the character sheets...

You're right, I'll try and snag her tomorrow.

 

[gnome]

Or to risk losing a client by arguing against their ignorance, even if he knows they're wrong.

Unless you can get some angry parents to threaten to pull their kids if the game is stopped

 

[NobbyNobbs]

Ask them to define "Satanic".

Ask them if they've ever played the game or read any of the rules.

Ask them where they get their information from.

 

[Kochanski]

Go here: http://members.tripod.com/~limsk/pulling.htm

This is the Pulling Report that Michael Stackpole put together about gaming and Satanism and suicide and such. It smashes the whole stupid and very old idea.

 

[zombiebex]

Ask them to define "Satanic".

Ask them if they've ever played the game or read any of the rules.

Ask them where they get their information from.

Much as I would love to educate this woman, I don't think that's all the best idea. She's a client and a mother of one of the little angels in my care. The spell casting side of the books are probably what rankles this mom, even though I don't even bother with spells, it's too much work for casual fun with these young boys. We just look at the pictures, come up with characters, and roll die to track hits and damage. One of their favorite parts of the game is conquering a cool looking monster and making it a pet.

Even though this game lets the kids work together, sit quietly, hone math skills, come up with stories... we all know cooperation, peace and quiet, arithmetic, and creative writing are tools of Satan.

 

[athon]

D&D is indeed a great way to get kids to become creative, increase team work and to do some pretty complex arithmetic. It all comes down to how much pull this mother has. You need to find where your boss stands and flow with it, unfortunately.

If it's one thing we all know well here, it's that the ignorant few often get their way simply through raising enough of a fuss to create fear.

Athon

 

[patchbunny]

If you wanted to move off of D&D, there are a host of other role playing systems out there that the kids may like. I'm currently playing a sci-fi game in the GURPS system where we're interstellar merchants with a planetary mafia on our tail and mysterious crystalline aliens roaming about. Not your typical dungeon crawl, but it's still a load of fun.

As a nice bonus, our GM lets us earn experience by writing about what happened in the previous session. Most write letters home, but I'm taking the opportunity to try and improve my writing skills by turning out 3-5 pages of short fiction. Might be fun to let the kids do the same.

 

[Marquis de Carabas]

You should cast the mind bondage spell on the parents. It will make them buy you $200 worth of new D&D figures and manuals.

 

[Dan O.]

They say telling the truth never hurts.

Take the games away and tell the boys that one of the girls parents is objecting to them playing and they won't be allowed to play while that girl is still attending.

 

[Wildy]

I fail to see why this woman is complaining. It sounds like her daughter isn't doing anything in relation to her complaint.

It sounds like a real life Chick Tract.

 

[skeptifem]

you could show them this, lol

 

[Furi]

I had very similar once at scouts, D&D and a small group of scouts playing it, one of the lads parents, started going on about ouija boards and black magic and the like, to which as a responsible SL I could only blink at her in total and utter disbelief.

reasoning was along the lines of "it is satanic because it involves magic and as magic can be interpreterd as miracles it is cheapening holy miracles by making the ideas of magic common thus is the work of satan" and then the usual crapulence against summoning demons and such.

So I rolled a d20 and made my charisma check and had a word with the scouts and the Mum, stopped the D&D and I brought Aftermath in for them the next week so they could play post biochemical apocolyptic Punk thugs armed with adhoc urban weapons and home made explosive, THAT was acceptable as no magic, just breaking & entering, mindless physical violence, and good chemistry.

 

[timhau]

For the proper way to deal with morons like this, you have to be of high enough level to cast Stinking Cloud.

 

[slingblade]

For the proper way to deal with morons like this, you have to be of high enough level to cast Stinking Cloud.

They'll just whip out a Saviour throw.

 

[JFrankA]

Any way you can get the boss to play D&D? I mean sit in on one of the times when the children are playing and roll a charactor and play along? It may be a little exterme, but if the boss actually knows what goes on in a game, she see it for what it is.

 

[dglas]

Once I had some kids fresh off some church function or another approach me in a store where myself and a few friends were playing Magic: The Gathering. One of them asked me if the cards let us cast spells. I put on my most diabolical face (peering out over the top of my glasses) and used my best ominous voice, dramatically held a card up and said,

"This....


....is a piece of cardboard. let's try to stay in the real world, shall we?"

 

[BlackKat]

If you do go to your boss and explain the situation to them I wouldn't mention the Harry Potter thing about that girl's parent. That way if D+D gets shutdown you'll have a fall back activity.