Playing tabletop role-playing games is one of my hobbies. As you may have heard, there’s been a bit of noise in the gamer community lately after a McCain staffer used “Dungeons and Dragons crowd” as an insult. I found this mildly annoying, but it in no way made me want to switch my support to Obama. Some of my friends, however, are deeply offended, and have declared that there’s now no way they’ll vote for McCain (I’m a small-l libertarian who votes primarily on fiscal issues, while the friends in question are mostly left-leaning moderates who were already leaning against McCain because of his stances on abortion and Iraq.).
It should be noted, however, that Obama’s camp is not entirely friendly to non-mainstream hobbies, either. Instapundit reminds us that in 2002, Joe Biden authored a law intended to make it easier for police to prosecute event organizers and venues if people at the events used drugs. Among other things, this law defined glow sticks and overpriced bottled water as “drug paraphenalia”.
Granted, people do use Ecstacy at raves, and Ecstacy is illegal. But even leaving aside the argument over whether Ecstacy should be illegal, trying to shut down raves is a ludcrously ham-fisted way of enforcing the ban. The bulk of rave-goers don’t use illegal drugs, and glow sticks and bottled water are widely used even by clean-and-sober rave-goers.
Let’s compare here — a member of McCain’s campaign staff made a disparaging remark in passing about one out-of-the-mainstream hobby, and the man Obama chose to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency wrote a law which took a big step towards criminalizing another hobby. I’m rather more concerned about the latter.
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Is nothing sacred!? Gary Gygax is barely worm food!
I will so use a daily power on that guy. (4th Ed. RULEZ!!!)
Anyone who decides their vote on a triviality such as the D&D remark is probably too stupid to find their polling place.
The rave legislation is marginally more consequential, in that it’s not just a passing remark, but an actual legislative agenda. But only marginally, because I doubt that law will ever be taken seriously.
I must be the most insensitive guy on Earth, but here’s another case where I can’t quite figure out what’s so offensive about that comment.Â
Who exactly is offended, and why? Â
Is it Republican or Libertarian or basically, any non-Obama backing D&D players who are offended because they might be associated with the pro-Obama crowd? Â Â
Is it non-D&D playing Obama backers, who are offended because they might be associated with D&D players?Â
Or is it the actual D&D playing Obama backers (surely some exist) who are offended for being called out here.  Say by lumping them into the Kos crowd? Or by inferring that they live in their mom’s basement?
From context, it appears that "Dungeons and Dragons crowd" is intended as an insult, which implicitly insults D&D players regardless of their political views and living arrangements.
Like I said to some people (who were voting for Obama anyway) that were terribly offended by this outrageous, egregious, discriminating, bigoted hate speech from McCain’s camp:Â "BAWWWWWW"
Elisha Feger’s last blog post..Stolen from warkitty
 That seems a bit of a stretch to me, but offense is in the eye of the beholder so to speak.Â
I guess it’s like a left leaning friend of mine who gets offended if someone refers to him as “liberalâ€, “progressiveâ€, or “eliteâ€.
Let’s see…. I’ve been playing D&D for 24 years so far, and have no intention to stop (in spite of the bizarre new 4e rules) but I still plan to vote for McCain.
It would be disingenuous of me to say that I myself have never used the term "typical D&D player" as a mild insult. Of course it’s one thing to BE one and do it and another thing to NOT be one and do it.
At least he didn’t compare them to LARP-ers….
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Iraq sets timetable for US withdrawal?
At least the apology is kinda cute:Â
“If my comments caused any harm or hurt to the hard working Americans who play Dungeons & Dragons, I apologize. This campaign is committed to increasing the strength, constitution, dexterity, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma scores of every American.†Â
Michael Goldfarb
Heh… that’s great. But what about their at will, encounter and daily powers? After all that’s what really counts now.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..I’d like to hear McCain and Obama’s position on this issue?
That may be what really matters to us young whippersnappers, but to McCain, THAC0 is still a newfangled innovation.
Heh…. nothing beats obscure role playing references for pure nerd cred….
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..I’d like to hear McCain and Obama’s position on this issue?
And BTW, that apology came from Ace of Spades HQ. I should have pointed that out in my original comment. I didn’t want to include a link because of Dean’s spam filter issues.
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