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Israeli Army Frowns on D&D
Big Rob found us a gem of a story about the Israeli Army frowning on D&D players. Apparently '18-year-olds who tell recruiters they play the popular fantasy game are automatically given low security clearance.' I especially enjoyed the pictures of D&D players with swords, as generally the only thing in my hand during D&D is soda and/or swiss cake rolls.
I'm thinking that a few generals should meet up with Jack Chick and have a good long discussion about the evils of role playing.
I do not mean to cast aspersions on D and D players, but if IDF says that people who indulge in fantasy games, as a statistical group, have personality traits that make them a lower security risk, then I am inclined to believe them.
After all, these people have some of the best clinical and occupational psychologists in the world working for them.
One possible characteristic not mentioned in TFA was: People who role-play might be more inclined to game the system - definitely not a desirable personality trait to have in personnel deployed in sensitive positions.
How does the Slashdot Effect happen given that no slashdotters ever RTFA?
"We have discovered that some of them are simply detached from reality," a security source told Ynetnews.
And treating soldiers with marijuana will help?
http://www.hightimes.com/ht/news/content.php?bid=
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
I like D&D. But after seeing some of those pics (before the slashdot effect), I frown on it too!
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
Heck, you'd think they'd get a leg up for it--for example, as D&D precludes any and all contact with females, they run no risk of sexual transgression whatsoever!
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
My level 12 Galil with plumbum bullets strike down the level 4 suicide bomber. 100EXP and 12GP. :D
Wait 'til you hear what they do to recruits who admit they read Slashdot!
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Think about it. D&D attracts imaginitive players who are able to think for themselves. Now does that seem like people you want in your Army? I ship out to Marine boot camp Aug. 1st and people have told me over and over again that when I get there...I shouldn't stand out. D&D players are different...and normally very smart. In an army you want drones who can think for themselves but will never question orders. Why do you think the great dictators killed teachers???
Activated! Your idiotic rants now effortlessly bounce off me!
Judging from the article, it seems that the IDF is frowning upon LARPers, not D&Ders per se.
At least, that's what I get from all the pictures and quotations like "[soon] hundreds of fans are expected to meet in a forest in the southern part of Israel for a two-day game of pure fantasy."
After following a lot of the news regarding reprisals against palestinians and realizing the IDF acts with a higher degree of autonomy than US forces, I've wondered who-the-heck's influencing them. I've known a considerable variety of people who have played D&D and/or been active in the SCA (The Society for Creative Anachronism) and find most are no more delusional that your average baseball fan, stamp collector or technology geek. I rather expect it's more along the lines of these people really not being easily subverted, unlike some ultra patriot who will do whatever a commanding officer says, even it would strike the man-on-the-street as an outrage.
To launch Air To Ground missiles into civilian areas, which may harm innocent bystanders, plow people's homes because they live too close to the egyptian border and enforce some kind of colonial marshall law in a ghetto takes a special personality, quite likely someone who can be easily broken down and then built up into a new unquestioning soldier, rather than someone who can think for themselves and consider 'hey, this isn't right'
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Those aren't D&D players, they're leaked pics from Israeli military training and they don't want to admit it. Blaming it on D&D, where's the love?
Sorry to makek fun of some the regulars, but every D&D player I've ever met is weird. I don't even want to work with them.
My lame blog.
Players are always trying to peek behind the DM's screen so they can see what's coming up next. Cheating on the dice rolls, making up munchkin characters, sneaking a look at the monster manual, etc. Untrustworthy, the whole lot of em.
"which entails directing the game and controlling the labyrinth, "
;)
somebody watched 1 too many bad tv 'movies' in the 70's.
plus, those wherre pictures of LARPers.... freaks.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I think there are certain things that should be warning signs... I like Star Trek, if I sign up to be in the navy and say that, they might laugh... if I show up at the navy dressed in full costume, they have something to worry about, and probably shouldn't give me any position with any access (read security clearence) as I'm probably not the most mentally stable person... don't you think that's pruedent?
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
occupational?
double-entendre there? maybe?
Is a bomb an "edged weapon"? Maybe the IDF just doesn't want clerics to know they have a better chance "to hit" with a guided missile than with a war hammer, mace or morningstar.
--
make install -not war
because damn... the same story was posted there a long time ago (and why aren't links to it working?)
My dreams of joining the IDF are shattered!
*crys*
My level 71 thief can get all the "security clearance" I need. I'll send my level 72 Ogre in with my level 74 Mage and work out that whole middle east issue with a few rolls of the dice.
the Jack Chick pictures of girls playing D&D.
Surely you mean more of a security risk?
I'd also argue that people who indulge in fantasy games have a tendency to be morally rigid and idealistic -- a bad trait in a soldier.
of don't ask don't tell!
come on fhqwhgads
Well, you know, if they are D&D players, they are security risks.
First girl to show a little skin, and your entire North Atlantic operations become a blustered marriage proposal.
Can you imagine what secrets would be divulged if you let them get to third base?
I find that gamers are much better at independent thought and analysis, and are, in general, much more creative than non-gamers. (This is not a 100% correlation. Indeed, many gamers are complete weenies. However, a former employer hired several people out of my gaming group and was specifically asking me for more of them, because they were engineers, programmers and technicians who could come up with more inventive solutions, so it does hold some water). Anyway, this is often contrary to military and security needs.
I don't want to be in the Army any more! I want to be Debbie!
(Attn: Read the Jack Chick tract before modding this offtopic.)
That green slime had it coming.
Pretty funny. Of my dozen-or-so junior high/high school D&D friends, there are now two lieutenant colonels, one captain (he signed up very late in life), and three more of us with DOD security clearances out in the real world. All USA, I should say; D&D has never come up in any of my investigations...
I had a collection of 1980s Dragon Magazines. One of them had an editorial about a brochure that had been circulating, that advertised Dungeons & Dragons as an excellent way to learn hypnotism, control your parents minds, and force them to buy you more D&D books. The editorial did a little digging, and discovered who had published the brochure, but I've forgotten.
The weird thing about it, is to think that people would go out of their way to make D&D look bad. I mean, if you think it's bad, that's your deal, but wtf do you get from villainizing it? It was strange to my 12 year old mind.
Anyway. Adults who are into live action roleplayers are detached from reality. That's the goal. Maybe the Israeli army is onto something.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
I roll the dice .......
i have just inflicted 7 hit points of damage upon you , aa haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
I do not understand what their problem is. D&D players are a productive bunch of people who are driven, goal orientated.........ohhh, I have to finish this later, it is my fighter/wizard/theif's turn to attack the dragon. I use my +5 Sword of....
Having done so much with so little for so long, I now can do anything with nothing at all.
HARRRRR!!!
If I interviewed people who thougth D&D was played with real swords, I'd downgrade their security clearance too - because I wouldn't think they were bright enough to trust with secrets.
Gaming the system means thinking out-of-box. Believe me, you don't want that in a soldier.
"I'm thinking that a few generals should meet up with Jack Chick and have a good long discussion about the evils of role playing."
Because, as you know, the _Jewish_ generals of the IDF really give a crap about what some psychotic _Christian_ thinks about D&D and religion.
But, blah blah, cue the anti-Israel rants, however OT they may be.
-DMZ
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
"generally the only thing in my hand during D&D is soda and/or swiss cake rolls"
What a beautiful metaphor for your penis.
The article says, "We have discovered that some of them are simply detached from reality," a security source told Ynetnews.
Anyone who has played that game knows people who are in fact detached from reality. Of course, that's not everyone but they probably don't have time to do a bunch of research on every recruit to see if that person is safe or not for high security work.
Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood. -- H. L. Mencken
In Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space' (the episode with the smoking alien):
Jose: Aren't you worried?
Video Guy: I didn't spend all those years playing Dungeons and Dragons and not learn a little something about courage.
Most soldiers who play Dungeons and Dragons simply do not admit to it while they are in teh [sic] army, he says.
I wonder what they do to those who say "teh" in proper speech. : )
All comments are properties and trademarks of the voices in my head. Not like I'm gonna claim them.
A DnD player whose character is a chaotic good elf or some such would be averse to slaughtering palestinians and driving tanks over their homes, thus unsuitable for a leadership or "sensitive" position.
Not sure why this belongs on slashdot...
What i found interesting was that they didn't talk about role playing games (RPGs), just D&D. The 'live-action' D&D may be what's spooking them.
eric
"The army is not indifferent to the unique hobby and is trying to locate soldiers who in their free time dress up as witches and play in forests."
roflmao
Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood. -- H. L. Mencken
Yeah, they prefer to have the guys with the keys to the nukes play yuh-gi-oh instead.
Um...no. Dungeons and Dragons is the direct precursor to AD&D. It was played with pencil/paper just like AD&D, except with simpler rules, but basically the same. Further, most gamers generically say "D&D", even when really referring to "AD&D".
A modern day witchhunt.
Since D&D players are above-average intelligence and creative thinkers, they probably make less obedient soldiers and might question orders and the purpose of military action. Also, they realize that the world doesn't have to be the way it is.
Apparently I must be mentally unbalanced though, so don't trust my judgment on that one. I'm all detached from reality and stuff.
cause they would kill Jack Chick, and really, how is that a bad thing?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Fallacious thinking on behalf of Israel military people. I wonder if a county whose identity is rooted so strongly in a state-sponsored faith can see outside of the box as the United States has in accepting almost any religion, yet taking no direct preference in any one.
(This isn't a jab at the Jewish faith at all. I'm about to join the Catholic faith myself, but the question is there, as I'll explain.)
There are a few studies that show positives with game playing. At heart, a proper game based on reality or fantasy settings in an Earth-like setting is a simulation. Sims teach with low costs and reduce or eliminate the expenses needed in live training. Twitch games aid in dexterity and coordination, of course.
And the US Army believes that a good sim of their work is also not only a fun game, but a great recruiting tool.
While board games like D&D itself may not show an immediate dividend to fighting a war, consider that any game helps plot strategy, conserve resources, and deal consequence.
Game playing may help a soldier think "outside of the box" in a combat situation where unusual solutions with conventional weapons and tactics may prove worthwhile. It seems that the Israeli Army may decide to stick to convention.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
Wonder if they ask people if they read fiction or go to movies...
I think this only shows one side of the story.
/do/ have some valuable qualities, too.
They do ask you about your hobbies when you go through recruitment (at 16 years old). They may assume that people who play fantasy games are a 'security risk', but they definitely recognize that kids who play complex rule-based cooporative games in their teens
The Israeli army tends to know how to assign people to jobs they'd be good at. And use the rest for cannon fodder. Or, in my case, tell them to just stay home if it's all the same.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
. . . Gave us the UZI! A fabulously ineffective weapon crucial to the Shadowrun RPG and various bad action movies. Who's to say who's in touch with reality?
Monster Zero is the reason we cannot live on the surface, but must live forever live underground like this.
I was in the US Army.
TS/SBI. Airborne. Served in the Balkins.
Played D&D as a teen. Recently started playing again.
Honorably discharged. Never created a security risk.
For whatever that's worth.
-Peter
I had to pretend I was gay to get kicked out of the military. I'd much rather have just played a board game.
Imagine what they think of World of Warcraft!
A side note about the D&D, it would be funny if they went out on patrols roleplaying a rogue and a mage.
"Gadzooks, Gremai, it looks like we stumbled upon some low level Palestinian Knights."
I think my lightning bolts disagree! Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt!
WoTC started calling both 3rd/3.5 editons just Dungeons and Dragons.
Why does the IDF believe the game is so dangerous?
"These people have a tendency to be influenced by external factors which could cloud their judgment, a military official says. They may be detached from reality(...)
You watching TV ? What is that, holly-fricking-wood liberals ? You outa here ! What book is that, son ? So you say its fiction, like it only exists in your head ? I see. You have been promoted to toillet cleaner, second class. Slashwhat? Look at me! Im talking to you. Stop typing and stand up right away! What do you think you are doing, writing, reading and being influenced by these international techno-babble freaks ?
Quem a paca cara compra, paca cara pagará.
Terminator T-101 picked one, good enough for me :)
So I guess the IDF must take those renaissance faire people and ride them out of their recruiting offices on a rail!
Insert witty sig here.
From TFA:
Ynetnews has learned that 18-year-olds who tell recruiters they play the popular fantasy game are automatically given low security clearance.
"They're detached from reality and suscepitble to influence," the army says.
So, if you're "detached from reality," or as some people call it, "creative," you're subject to "influence"? So no Israeli soldier has an original thought, ever?
No wonder the country is in such a fucked up situation...
Soldiers have to lie about being gay.
From TFA:
The game focuses on the results of decisions made by the players as determined by the roll of the dice. In a more "active" version of the game, players leave the table and go out, dressed as the characters they assume for the game
In the beginning, there was D&D. Then came AD&D. The roots of the game are entirely dice- and paper-oriented. (Plus they have those cute little miniatures, which make great projectiles when you're mad at someone.)
I'm not good in groups. It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent. - Q
Back in the days of John Wayne and Sylvester Stallone, you had to go to Canada or Mexico to dodge the draft. Or enter college.
Now, you just have to play Baldur's Gate and Temple of Elemental Evil.
That is bitchin' sweeeeeet! I'm totally not going to Iraq, now. Sign me up for some barracks gang bangs, and I'll do my duty and call it an excellent experience. Go Army!! Yut Yut!
before he hefted a beer keg over his head while all his frends chanted "ogre, ogre, ogre".
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
They forced the removal of the demons and devils (re-naming, actually, but same difference) and a few other alterations.
Chick was distributing these little tracts back in the 1980s too. I saw my copy back in 1987 or so. Hilarious. Seeing it on the web brought back memories.
I threw it out then. I still have my 1ed AD&D stuff, tho. With the demons and devils.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Didn't know that, thanks. It's been a while for me, but I remember when "Advanced D&D" was just another book in the D&D rules set. Then D&D was dropped, and it was all called AD&D (2nd edition?). I haven't played since the change you mention happened.
A modern day witchhunt.
The IDF has some major internal problems right now. The leftist solders don't want to go into Palestinian refugee camps. The rightist soldiers don't want to go into illegal Jewish settlements. Those factional problems are bigger than the D&D issue.
So what am I?
Rubber?
DM:"This is the evil wizard's castle".
Player:"No it isn't, G-d promised it to us 5000 years ago. It's our castle and he's a terrorist".
All players start off with 13 billion GP a year.
Slashdot: News for Nerds, Stuff that matters only to them
As far as I can see, role playing essentially consists of creating an alter ago for yourself and acting out. Why would anyone do that unless they were unhappy with their real personality and also deeply unable to cope with the reality (with the opposite sex, in particular)? To me that spells a weak personality.
Actually, Suicide Bomber is a Prestige Class you can earn at any level. The main requirements are a very low WIS and 5 ranks in Disguise and Concealment.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, simulate.
IDF is only specifically concerned with RD&D players - that is LARPers. By the way, their specific claim is that they are detached from reality... however, in Atuda - an IDF project that allows one to delay his recruitment and get a scollarship to complete a degree before being drafted - one of the popular majors is mathematics. :)
If it weren't for fog, the world would run at a really crappy framerate.
...and any other possible computer game with roleplaying elements. Dungeon Siege? Jesus. There are some big sellers here. If, statistically speaking, they wish to include the dumb-jock element (who tend to love watching and playing sports and loathe anything remotely resembling an RPG, or even a computer, for that matter) and disenfranchise the smart-creative-gamer element (who tend to not be a huge fan of sports and love imaginative gaming stuff), be my guest. I would just love to see who is the more innovative problem-solver in battle if all they have are people who only know how to brute-force a problem.
I've never seen D&D players do the "dress up with shields and swords" thing. Those pictures look like they're of a meeting of the Society for Creative Anachronism, or some other group of similar ilk. But four nerds sitting at a table with dice and paper maps wouldn't be so photogenic.
you start all characters a about level 3. Then get them a little work out doing some minor animal cruelty, and by the time they've talked themselves through a few checkpoints, or climed a few fences (overcoming an obstical counts even if you don't kill it), level 4 is pretty reasonable.
I cast magic missile.
[Rolls dice]
"A suicide bomber inflicts major damage to you, draining you of 10HP. You are dead."
How could that happen? I had Mordechai's Magical Watchdog.
"No, you didn't. You had a 15 year-old basset hound with three legs and a severe case of diahhrea. The suicide bomber took you out with a Pipe Bomb of Hurting +2. You are dead."
[sob]... where are the Cheetos?
--Chag
Let's all face the facts here. People who are into roleplaying and stuff like D&D are not to be concidered as "normal" people. They are weird. They are often fat. They look funny. THEY SMELL! Putting these crazy anti social people together will regular human beings is a bad idea, especially in a millitary scenario.
I take serious issue with the blanket classification being applied in this case. What it appears they have missed is that within almost all gaming communities, more than one archetype of players exists. Players almost always fall into the "power gamer" or "casual gamer" category.
The people I think they are attempting to target are the casual gamers. These are the people who obsess over what color their character's eyes are, what they're wearing, etc. If that's what makes them happy, then more power to them. However, if the Israeli military feels this type of person is less attached to reality and thus a liability, then I could see a justification in the actions they have taken.
Power gamers, on the other hand, are concerned with winning. That is what drives them. They don't care if their "character" is represented by a detailed miniature, or a piece of pocket lint. Making optimal decisions and maximizing their chances of success are key. I would think the military would want to target these people for recruitment. Instead, they are being lumped together under the same label as the casual gamers.
I suppose I take issue with the actions themselves being singled out and not the motivations behind the people taking the actions.
This is not the sig you're looking for.
From TFA:
They're detached from reality and suscepitble to influence
I wonder if they give low security clearance to kids who like movies, books, or any other kind of fiction? Consuming those involves being "detached from reality." What about actors? What about intelligence analysts who pose "what if" questions about their enemy's actions?
I was in a combat engineering group (ariborne!), had secret clearance, and was in charge of many men and equipment. My squad would often play D&D or other RPGs during down time. I think it helped us to think outside the box and come up with unique solutions to the problems presented to us during military exercises. In fact, it got so the whole platoon used to play Squad Leader (and other board games) along with my squad.
I think it has to do more with being creative and maybe anti-establishment. My squad (and I) would often ruffle brass when we did something that worked and worked well BUT wasn't by the book.
Oh well, that was 20 years ago. Now the US Army just wants bodies...
"If you are on fire you can just stop, drop, and roll. If you fall into Lava you are just dead." - my 5yr old daughter
"Lightning Bolt! Lightning Bolt! Sleep!!!" You don't want him in the military?
Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this: that you are dreadfully like other people. - James Russell Lowell
How long is it until D&D players start lobbying for a don't ask don't tell policy like the US has on homosexuals?
I'm sure long time fans of the Star Trek franchise are on their radar now. Especially after Trekkies and Trekkies 2.
What the US military has done is simply to extend the boundaries of the box whereas the personality traits of a D&D (or any other role) player accepts no limits. Most role players and geeks in general are just way too idealistic for military life.
D&D players sit around a table and roll dice, and write information on forms.
SCA members get dressed up in medieval clothing and have feasts, do battle in armor, brew beer and wine, do nice calligraphy & illumination, and so on. Basically, they re-enact life in medieval times, omitting plagues and other hardships.
Personally, I don't think the ban is against fantasy role playing...just that far too many Israelis childhood memories of dungeons were about real dungeons, and real dragons.
Into anonymous coward mode I go.
Just think, if he did, these kind of measures could have stopped lots of American secrets going to the USSR.
Slashdot: News for Nerds, Stuff that matters only to them
I you want the rules, minus the character creation and some of the names of the items/spells/creatures, you can go to http://opengamingfoundation.org/ and download the 3.5 Edition SRD for no charge.
Not allowed in the army because you have an imagination? I guess they just want a bunch of unthinking drones to fill the ranks. I'm glad I'm not going to be in the Israeli army any time soon.
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
Sometimes common sense, like, works and stuff. After 9/11 the Israelies were telling the U.S. that it was nuts to body search 80 year old, white caucasian grandmas from Chicago and allow the 6-foot muslim to walk on by in airports. Which one, really, is more likely to be a terrorist?
Howard Hughes and the CIA only hired Mormons for the longest as they had proven to have the highest, personal, integrity.
And if you're concerned about someone trying to "see what they shouldn't see" then don't hire an AD&D player (D&D? -- that's what was out before AD&D when I was a kid) or a slashdotter.
This stuff ain't rocket science folks....
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
female foreigners. Cheap joke, but I had to go for it.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Scott Kurtz (creator of PVP comics) made a very funny comic in 2000 as a rebuttal to JTC's comic. His writeup is worth reading, but if you're in a hurry or just not in the mood just scroll down for the comic.
http://www.pvponline.com/rants_jesus.php3
And who do you think occupational and clinical psychologists respond to, you pompous ass? I weep at popular idolization of state-sanctioned authority.
HAD
The military mortification process will not work on people who have an internal escape mechanism of the strength of that which is created by D&D players. Mortification is the process the military uses to breakdown ones personality and remodel it into their hierarchical command based model. This is done in boot camp to make nice obedient soldiers. People they can not remodel are risky to them. There is good and bad in this. Those who are most apt to resist the process are equally divided among the most talented and most pathetic people in the world. The psychological tests seeks to reveal which type these people our and track them accordingly. The sad reality is that for the most part the military wants psychologically malleable people. While they will make exceptions for the brains in the DD groups they most certainly do not want the people who use the game to escape reality as they can not remodel them so they cannot trust them and the reason they like to play the game means they are more vulnerable to manipulation.
A few years back, Wizards of the Coast (who bought out TSR, and were then bought out by Hasbro) released a new version of the rules. At the same time, they reverted the system to the old name; Dungeons and Dragons (D&D). Version numbers are now added to the name, so it became D&D3e, for the 3rd editition of the rules. As they released an 'update' to the rules just over a year ago, the most up to date version is called D&D3.5
A short history of D&D can be found here
And the official home page for D&D can be found here
Actually, in one of my pre-recruitment interviews I told the interviewer that I read Slashdot and he was enthusiastic because he did too. :) That was an interview by technical people for a technical job, though, not the generic screening interviews that all Israeli teenagers do. (Recruitment is mandatory in Israel)
However, it should be noted that this was news to me, as I know quite a few people who played or still play D&D and other RPGs (I did, too) and served in highly classified jobs (Like myself).
Also, a prominent Israeli portal posted this caricature about the issue.
The guy on the dragon is saying (Very loosely translated) "I won't go anywhere but Golani", which is an elite unit.
And for the Slashdot crowd, the artist (Miki Mottes) was once the Sysop of a major Israeli BBS.
Ehrm...And who exactly doesn't frown on D&D, other than sadistic DMs and the dicerollers who love them?
Elmar, a level 12 half elf thief walks into a college party:
Rolling 20 sided die, possible outcomes:
1-15 Every girl there that happens to notice Elmar laughs and shakes their head sadly - Charisma -3
16-18 Other partygoers dump beer on nerd taunting him unmercifully - Defense -3
19 Jocks perform +5 super atomic wedgie on Elmar grievously injuring him
20 It is dark in the closet you are locked in. You are likely to be eaten by a GRUE.
Imagine the irony!
Call it the --Revenge of the Geeks--!
Right now, I'm sure they are freaking out...
Oohh... I want to play too.
You know every person I've ever seen who posts messages that say they think D&D players are weird has been an idiot (and a bad speller too...)
Then again... I've only seen one!
And in honor of the MAGNIFICENT Jack Chick: The Antlers of the Damned!
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
I especially enjoyed the pictures of D&D players with swords, as generally the only thing in my hand during D&D is soda and/or swiss cake rolls.
Yes, and that is why you are fat sitting at home and these guys are joining the IDF and killing people.
You mean: going to Israel, then being traded by the Israelis to the Russians.
Pollard was a spy for the Israelis.
For privates? No, independant thought is not prized. You want people that will do their job, as they are ordered to, without question. The same is not true of officers. Even NCOs, but certianly anyone above Sergeant needs to be able to think, and the higher the rank, the more true that is.
Is it just me, or was it obvious that they're not talking about D&D, Live Action Role Playing is quite different.
I've done both, BTW, I'm just saying, and I'm in security, so Bah!
Personally, I first played the summer of 1974 with photocopied rules. One of the group from back then did airborne and eventually ranger training. The last time I saw him, was in Time magazine giving chocolates to kids in Lebenon.
Then again, most of us spent time with the works from SPI and Avalon Hill, so take this for whatever it's worth.
Bah! Screw D&D. I'm trying to move my players over to Fudge, a lightweight system that doesn't bog you down in rules.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
That is all.
BTW- Black Leaf in the Chick tract is a hottie.
According my observations on my friends and myself several decades ago, D&D style role-players are more (if not completely) resistant to propaganda, brain-washing and military drill. The real problem of recruiters with new recruits is, security clearance in military is not about trust, but about thought control. They trust no one. So they can't give security clearance to someone who's mind they can't control.
Let me comment some headers of TFA:
'Simply detached from reality'
Does mean subject is mentally independent from factual perception, able to create experience according his own intentions. That allows him potentially diverge from lined propaganda. Note, the military propaganda is also somewhat "detached from reality", but other, organized and controlled way.
'The game indicates a weak personality'
"Strong personality" in military sense is someone who obeys all commands unquestionably and is capable to force them out to the lower levels. Higher intellect, which is often a characteristic for D&D players, is not a bonus for performing something that "does not make sense to do" in critical situation. Actually, in D&D all good players are very picky about what does make sense to do in dangerous conditions. Sometimes, simply stand and fight is not an option in dungeon and players already know about it.
There you are, staring at me again.
Quote: "They're detached from reality and suscepitble to influence," the army says.
I thought these were in fact basic necessities for a person to be admitted to any army? - They are characteristics of a truly moldable person, perfect to go out and kill without questioning!
+1 Slashdotting Jack Chick
They're only hurting themselves here. I worked in a building with no windows a few years back, and the cubicle decorations were typical geek couture: Star Wars, Star Trek, Tolkien, Dilbert, Far Side, math puns, archaic computer hardware, and whiteboards crammed with crazy doodles. You'd be an idiot to think there weren't dungeon-masters there!
Everyone in the building had a high security clearance, and the vast majority of them were "free thinkers." The traits that made them most valuable in D&D also made them great analysts:
- quick lateral thinkers
- work well on small teams ("parties")
- open to new or contradictory data ("plot twists"/"betrayals")
- efficient min-maxers
- logical approach to difficult situations
I know if I ever go back to that kind of work, there'll be plenty of Elvish Paladins and Dwarven Mages and so forth. I wouldn't have it any other way!
Perhaps the IDF has determined that people with a rich fantasy life are easier to subvert. Not that I really agree with this. I just think that people who are into RPGs can let reality get away from them.
For example, when I was stationed at Langley back in the mid 80's, there was a 1Lt in my unit who was "Warload of Quux" - or somesuch - by night. During the day, his actual duties tended to interfere with his imaginary life - which was much more important to him.
Last I heard, he got a bad OER, left the military, and now sells used cars in Hampton, VA.
And still does the RPG thing at his trailer park.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
biggest breaker of UN treaties on this planet, holds nuke weapons without any oversight or regulation and is busy building a Berlin wall MKII
just the kind of people i couldn't give a shit about
It just means you hang out with creative smart people who happen to have the same hobby.
Yes I game, no this isn't anti-gamer.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"Ynetnews" is written much like another "news" site I know: an outrageous headline, some carefully omitted facts, and a long enough article so that the majority (read: ADD) of readers get the "facts" the author intended, instead of the actual truth. That truth is buried at the bottom (probably to avoid litigation due to libel) of the article, natch.
According to the actual facts, if you say you play D&D (not "D and D," dumbass), you are "evaluated." Note that evaluation is not always performed by a Psychologist, ("usually" != always). And then
Note that they didn't say that the people who are evaluated are only the ones who admit to playing D&D; surely there are other reasons that could make one eligible for "evaluation." In fact, they could have ONLY ONE GUY who admitted to playing D&D, got evaluated and received a low security clearance, and their entire article could be true.
One last thing: a real news site's editors would stamp out something like
So my guess is "Ynetnews" subscribes to the same story editing that /. does: queue's getting big, this one sounds good, post it, is it a
dupe? who cares; just pass the gin 'n' juice.
Yeah, right.
people I'd want in certian aspects of my army...those aspect are generally high clearence.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Hahahahah! Where's your Jesus now?!
" Most soldiers who play Dungeons and Dragons simply do not admit to it while they are in teh army, he says. "
In other news, Israeli reporters like to play teh Counter-strike!! Pwned!!!
"D&D attracts imaginitive players who are able to think for themselves."
This statement is funny. I mean. REALLY funny.
Tthe Jack Chick site is /.ed
good job.
I always thought AD&D was just D&D for people with a short attention span.
cLive ;-)
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
No! No! No! In the beginning there was only the void, then there was chainmail... :)
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Enjoy.
Don't Panic.
and I told that f*&#ing shrink that there was no way anybody could beat my DC25 + Wisdom modifier for influence. They still kicked me out.
The kind that they lob into Palestinian villages are still perfectly OK, right?
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
I have no idea if it's just a bad translation, or if they just really have no clue that there are other fantasy role playing games other than Dungeons and Dragons, so they're using it as a generic term.
Also, just because you have folks who are dressed up and have foam weapons, it's not necessarily a LARP. There's also the category 'Live Action Wargamers', who fight, but don't go for that whole character development type stuff. Darkon, Markland, Dagorhir and to some degree, the SCA come to mind. (but the SCAdians will probably take offense to that).
LARPs tend to be less about combat... stuff like NERO and Archaea.
(I have no idea where Amtgard falls, as the only times I've seen their members, they were swinging pretty soft.. and they were using PVC cores, which would break quickly in most wargames, but that might not be all groups)
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Damn us godless barbarians who're interfering with god's work.
The D&D and AD&D split happened when Gygax and Arneson couldn't agree on a royalty dispute. AD&D and D&D became separate rule sets. AD&D then became AD&D 2nd Edition. And when it came time for a new edition, they looked at the name and decided to drop the 'Advanced' and just call it D&D 3rd Edition, since all those old disputes had long since been worked out. And now, of course, it's 3.5.
So D&D begat AD&D begat AD&D 2nd Edition begat D&D 3rd Edition, which is really AD&D 3rd Edition, sorta kinda.
So D&D is not just the precursor any more. The name has come full circle.
Maybe it's the role-playing aspect that they don't like - putting yourself in someone else's shoes.
Heaven forbid that a grunt might think back to being a schoolkid him/her self and not pull the trigger on a child who strayed off a path.
I agree with your sentiment.
But I find that anybody who uses the word "immature" is usually under 20. At some level.
Not to be mean but some of you trekkie / D&D types are really scary. Don't get me wrong, I love to program, but I get scared when I see your long greasy hair/cowboy hat/D&D attire.
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
i'm sure there's a jack thompson quote somewhere that would help them support their reason for doing this haha
-- lol pwned
I'm almost certain I told my recruiter (US Air Force) that I played D&D. In fact when I joined, I had a weekly game going on at the rec center across the street from the recruiter's office, with military players involved. I most definitely told told the recruiter I smoked pot (but was quitting, which I did for four years).
They gave me a TS SCI clearance. Also, the Army hired me years later and gave me a Secret... (or they tried... I quit before it came through, nearly two years later. Still, I had a interim secret clearance for that period)
On the other hand... If anyone had ever stuck a gun in my hand and told me to shoot someone, I'd have probably deserted.
To address what you mentioned about radical Christians supporting Israel: you are wrong in that it is only radical Christians; almost all Protestant churches now openly proclaim support for Israel. Also, this support is not contigent on Christian end-time beliefs, as some progressives would have you believe.
Hope that gives you a better knowledge of why we support Israel and the Jewish people.
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit
Am I then only one that see's a bunch of soldiers with rocks yelling
Soldier = "LIGHTNING BOLT!!! LIGHTNING BOLT!!"
Enemy in big homemade suit = "RAWGRAWGRAWRG"
Soldier = "LIGHTNING BOLT!!! LIGHTNING BOLT!!"
"Your description fits the old Soviet military, but not ours."
Simply not true. Our army and the soviet's army have a lot more in common than you think.
Ask the Nazi's what they thought of the soviet army.
D&D. Runequest. Warhammer. Heroquest. Everquest. Lineage. Worlds of Warcraft Battlefield 1941? Dark Ages of Camelot The Sims Online? There are a LOT of "fantasy" reality games out there and they are only increasing. Having played D&D and Everquest, let me tell you the folks playing everquest are a lot farther out from reality (some spending 60+ hours a week in game) than the average D&D Player (6 hours a week, maybe less). Some D&D players are spacy- some are hard headed realists. Some movie buffs are spacy- some just like movies a lot. It sounds like the DFF is sterotyping a huge group of people based on a part of it's population.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I think you hit the nail on the head. I wish I had mod points for your post.
Being impressionable and in a sensitive position means you are ripe for the harvest in a counter intelligence situation. You will be much easier to convert to the opposition's cause as it will be much easier to have you see the issue from their point of view and develop sympathy for their position.
A flexible mindset isn't automatically an overly flexible mindset; it's just that much more prone to changes over time. A changed mindset and set of beliefs can manifest as treason.
So, in a way, the IDF is doing those soldiers a favor. They protecting Israel from an increased likelihood of treason, and they're protecting those soldiers from themselves.
Yeah, it's kind of a control freak thing, but it *is* a military organization.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
Perhaps that's the reason? They're worried that the soldiers will try and cooperate with the enemies to maximize the richness of their war stories?
In all seriousness, D&D with its levels and experience points, encourages the mindset that advancement/promotion merely comes from working hard, and that everyone does it eventually. Not to mention the fact that in D&D one gets experience points from 1) Killing things ("Why can't I be a seargeant? I killed thirteen terrorists last month!") or 2) Collecting loot. Now, I'm the number two directive of the IDF (after national defense etc) is "Don't piss off the palestinians, neighboring Arabs, and other countries any more than you absolutely have to." You can see how wanton killing and plundering would violate this.
...I put on my robe and wizard hat...
Perhaps someone should make a sports-based RPG, like playing basketball or football or football with a bunch of dice-rolling.
...or has this already been done?
People still play D&D? I thought it was all just a joke for nerds that lived in the '80s.
// This is not a sig.
The game has also increased in popularity due to the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Yeah, before 1955 D&D wasnt NEARLY as popular...
Once word of this spreads, anyone who does volunteer that they play D&D is probably too stupid to trust with state secrets anyway.
Or try the HTML version. (Much nicer formatting.)
Only they give their retards uniforms and call them recruits. ^_^
I don't know about you but I certainly don't want the guy next to me in the fox-hole rolling for initiative before deciding to fire. Besides, the pointy wizard's hats stick out of the top of most fox-holes.
"It's difficult to meditate on amphetamines." - Joe Walsh
"I went over to the sargent, said, "Sargeant, you got a lot a damn gall to ask me if I've rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I'm sittin' here on the bench, I mean I'm sittin here on the Group W bench 'cause you want to know if I'm moral enough join the army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after bein' a litterbug." He looked at me and said, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send you fingerprints off to Washington."
It's simple: I demand prosecution for torture.
make them role play...ain't it a funny world!
The article (at least the original one in Hebrew) doesn't talk about D&D but about LARPing (apparently it was mistranslated). Also these people are not automatically discarded but go through a psychological evaluation to decide whether they might pose a problem. The article mentions that about 50% of these people don't receive a security clearance, which means that 50% of them do get it. The problem with the other 50% being that they have trouble distinguishing between reality and fantasy (this decided after a thorough psychological evaluation and not just because the army doesn't like the games they play). Obviously the IDF believes that LARPing might be a symptom of a psychological problem but not necessarily the problem itself.
When Geiger counters are outlawed, only mutants will have Geiger counters
Of course the article was about the Israeli Army, but don't let facts get in the way of your ideology.
I think we need to import this idea to the US. Imagine if you couldn't be drafted or join the military if you'd played D&D...
"Poor kid, he played D&D at 15, now he can't get a free ticket to Iraq!"
Id be more worried about recruits who have been directly affected by suicide attacks because it just fuels the circle of violence and ends up with them sniping kids or running people over in bulldozers. no way do i trust an 18 year old (or most other people for that matter) with a gun and raging hormones who has seen his best friend, girl friend or parents blown up, to act responsibly and professionally and without bias and in the situation that Israel and Palestine are in one soldier can do way too much damage, same goes for the other side but hey.
Not trying to thread-jack, just think they need to get their priorities straight.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
If you want lightweight rules, try GURPS lite, available as a free download from your buddies at Steve Jackson games.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
I was actually thinking of a pen-and-paper game, but thanks for reminding me--it's been a while since I last played FFX.
Just remember that you know that lobotomy and ECT don't work because some experts told you.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
I was never terribly impressed with GURPs. I like Fudge a lot better. It can be very rules light, and I've even got to the stage where I don't even use attributes any more.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Your current sig:
Yellow ribbon magnets on cars- true patriotism or just a fad? Support the troops, acknowledge the lies behind the war.
With a cousin in Regular Army (meaning that he's in for life), I opted for the blue ribbon. Its message: "Bring Home Our Troops". I only wish they'd designed it with the message in boldface instead of wimpy italics.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
So, if you want to bring up playing around with fantasies...
Um, let's say someone believes that his country has a right to occupy a piece of land because 3000 or so years ago his ancestor obediently offered up his son to be a human sacrifice because a voice he heard in his head told him to. The voice in his head later rescinded its instructions to kill the guy's son, because he showed that he would value the approval of the voice in his head over that of a little boy one of his wives dropped off for him. This of course showed that human sacrifice was a-okay with the people of time, of course, but that's a talk for another time.
Okay, and then we have the guy who obtained great favor with his voice in his head when he offered up his virgin daughter to the mob for rape and/or murder if the would leave the three guys (who he suspected to be angels) alone.
Then we another guy who listened to the voice in HIS head which told him to clear town with his family because the voice was fixing to burn everyone alive because they were pissing the voice off. A wife looked back as they were leaving, the guy says, and was turned into a box of Morton's salt. At least that's what he told her kin when they asked where the hell she was.
Then we have the guy who heard a voice telling him to build a boat, put two of everything in it, and wait out a world flood which later no one else remembers happening, like, say, the Chinese, having been around for 4000 years or more.
That's reality-based community, not like them D&D fantasists.
You wouldn't want people who had strange ideas about reality in the ranks of your specialist armed forces.
If IDF thinks D&D are bad, what do they think of MMORPGers?
Dammy
No one touches my Dark Ages of Camelot, no one gets hurt!
.. is D&D?
Simply not true. Our army and the soviet's army have a lot more in common than you think.
Hey, I'm not saying that the Red Army had a single strategy of "send wave after wave of cannon fodder until the enemy collapses" (though they did use this tactic on occasion in WW2). All I'm saying is that the Red Army did not value the same degree of "individual initiative" the US Army does. The fact of the matter is that the Red Army expected the officers and mid- to senior-grade NCOs to direct the actions of the privates and junior NCOs, and they were expected to obey. This is basically true of any army, but the Red Army took it to the extreme that (say) if their officers were killed, a motorized rifle platoon would often be at a loss to continue until they could get the company commander to assign an officer to them to relay orders. The divide between the "head" and the "body" was a lot wider, mostly because the filled the lower ranks with conscripts fulfilling their compulsory service.
Ask the Nazi's what they thought of the soviet army.
The Nazi high command mostly thought they were crazy hordes of untrained peasants, and that whatever skill they appeared to have in night fighting or camouflage was due to the "natural cunning of the slav" rather than training. Their asessment was, naturally, in error. My grandfather, a private in the Wehrmacht at Stalingrad, did not concur with this sentiment.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
invincibility may not work on suicide bombers, and that is perhaps one of the concerns that the military may have.
im a hippie
From the article:
Ynetnews has learned that 18-year-olds who tell recruiters they play the popular fantasy game are automatically given low security clearance.
Then, later:
"One of the tests we do, either by asking soldiers directly or through information provided us, is to ask whether they take part in the game," he says. "If a soldier answers in the affirmative, he is sent to a professional for an evaluation, usually a psychologist."
More than half of the soldiers sent for evaluation receive low security clearances, thus preventing them from serving in sensitive IDF positions, he says.
Half of the soldiers being given low security clearances after being sent for psychological evaluation isn't the same thing as "automatic." Which one is it, Ynet?
Remember *NEW*s For Nerds?
Only thing left to do is dupe it tomorrow.
Nick
I bet it is hard to find kosher disc anyway... sigh.
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. - Martin Luther King, Jr.
Awesome.
I for one welcome our dungeon master overlords.
Sadly, something got lost in translation.
The original article in Hebrew talks about RD&D Players. I personally know a person who said he plays RD&D and was called to a 2nd meeting with a psychologist. The psychologist explained him that he's been called just to verify that he's mentally 'ok'. But you don't get classified automatically.
Don't worry - D&D players feel the same way about the IDF. =P Seriously though, I always thought that all the numbers and stats floating around in D&D were probably helpful to intellectual development. With absolutely nothing to back up my case (much like TFA) I'd tend to believe that D&D veterans actually have an intellectual edge over people that simply run around a track or kick a ball around a field throughout their education. And if they are smarter then perhaps they really do frown upon the IDF.
The IDF knows what it's doing, as an Israeli that "did his time" in the army, I've meet a few d&d players... i can say that about 90% of them were out of touch with reality, so i have to agree with the IDF decision... plain and simple
I'd expect this sort of stupidity in a country that has the luxury of indulging fat-and-happy bureaucracy, but not so much in a tiny country surrounded by a sea of people who want them all dead.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
They don't want people to question legal and competent orders. Whitness Hugh Thompson. There are of course other examples new and old, but I like this one.
What they do is an interesting, and pretty clever. They set the rules in opposition in such a way as to leverage the advantages of the culture to enhance the doctrine of manuver warfare. Some of that has disadvantages. Notice in Abu Grabe that you had people who formed their little groups, and people who dissented and got the information out. And the inventiveness with which they pursued their ends in that goofy little community. Well,... that's self evident. Naked Iraqi pyramids just wouldn't have occured to me. That said, it's not so unbelievable. Everyone knows the story of the Berkley experiment involving grad students as prison guards and prisoners. In a way, it just reminds how dark nearly all of us are deep down inside where the lizard lives. We would expect roughly 4% of all POW's under control of US forces to have that kind of experience historically speaking. Which is actually pretty good, historically speaking. Again, it's just one of the many things that could have been prevented by better planning, but on some level, was always inevitable.
AD&D wasn't just another book. It was an entire line of rulebooks. AD&D was derived from D&D, but had more complicated rules and options. The main different I remember is that in D&D character races were also classes (you played an Elf class). With AD&D, the were separate (You could play an Elf whose is of the fighter class). When WoTC bought TSR and created the 3rd edition, they dropped the advanced from the name. I have pretty much every rulebook since the original "whitebox" and can readily see firsthand D&D's changes throughout the years.
Anonymous Cowards suck.
Palestine == Palestine. Palestinian land was occupied and settled by the Israelies after the '67 war inspite of international law. Add to that that the IDF doesn't allow Palestinians free travel in their OWN country, that they want to the Palestinians to give up arable land for waste dumps and you see how the indiginous Palestinians get shafted by Israeli settlers.
Sounds like there is a good career for you in the US Army, son!
Anyone that has walked into a gaming shop where there were multiple gamers knows the gamer stench. Unwashed, greasy teenagers are easier for the enemies to detect and that detracts from their soldiering.
Maybe getting turned down for military service or being religated to a low clearance desk job is not such a bad thing?
i just want to play go
I've seen the same thing. In fact, me and my girlfriend were having a conversation about this last night, but not about D&D. Her sister's kids are really into pokemon. They've memorized extensive lists of monsters, their abilities and stats, and how they compare to each other. They make up their own pokemon-like games spontaneously.
The core mechanics and memes of roleplaying games have exploded in popularity among kids these days, just in a different more socially acceptable form. I can't prove it, but I think it'll have a great effect on the intellectual developments of kids. They're motivated, by the competition of playing the game and the cooperation/competition of trading cards, to learn new skills such as memorizing many statistics and relationships, assessing the strength of an opponent, predicting the outcome of a confrontation/interaction, assesing the trustability of a trading partner, building trust relationships, basics of a barter economy... The list goes on!
And it's all the child of D&D.
I wonder what it is about D&D they object to. Is it the fantasy aspects of it? What about roleplayers who the Star Wars RPG or a modern based RPG like Spycraft? Are they in the same group? Also, do they object to the time and devotion given to the game or the fact they are playing an imaginary character? If so, what about all-strategy games like Warhammer? It would seem to me that wargamers might actually be looked upon favorably in the military due their familiarity with strategy.
It's been a while. The last I played was the AD&D 3rd edition. I had no idea they reverted the name back to plain old D&D.
Wasn't there, in one of the earlier rule sets of D&D, a series of rule books like "Basic", "Medium", "Advanced"? I seem to remember the first one was Basic, and I also seem to remember the advanced book, there may have been more than one in between.
In any case, I thought that the way D&D was set up a while back, was that there was a series of rule books, each book covering the character development rules for a set of levels, like "Basic" might have been for levels 1-6 or 1-10, something like that, then after that level you used a different book in the series to define the character development/progress.
Maybe I'm just making that up...but I'm pretty sure I remember it being set up something like that when I started playing in the med to late 80's.
A modern day witchhunt.
first, rpg is russian for ruchnoy protivotankovy granatomet - portable antitank-grenade launcher. such things are called bazookas in usa, as far as i know.
second, do you really think, palestinian villages own tanks? because shaped charges are only used for penetrating armor, they are practically useless against people.
Conservatism: The fear that somewhere, somehow, someone you think is your inferior is being treated as your equal.
If you know the truth and don't act on it before the Rapture, you have no chance.
So, ignorance is bliss!
Ah, I see your confusion now. Yes, there were boxed sets like that (there were 5--Basic, intermediate, expert, master, and immortal I like was the progression). They were all D&D. But I can see your confusion think the progression led to advanced. It doesn't.
Anonymous Cowards suck.
Just did some googling (since I couldn't find my DM/Players guide right now), the last rule set I played with (and own the books for) was AD&D 2nd edition, I've been saying 3rd ed., but that was incorrect
l
Also read up more, and I guess we were playing with the D&D books after the split occured where you had Basic and Expert, as opposed to the AD&D set. I guess I've just gotten that confused with the word "advanced", thinking that "advanced" was another of those books in the Basic/Expert series.
http://www.lyberty.com/encyc/articles/d_and_d.htm
A modern day witchhunt.
First of all, most of those crazy settlers did serve in the army. They hang around with weapons given to them by the IDF for self defence and they take (too) active part in the defence of their towns (we call them by a different name in Hebrew, but the contempt does not translate well).
They also control a lot of the army. They are now what the Kibutz and Labour people used to be when Israel was established - the idealistic crowd that carries the load. More and more of the officers in the IDF are thir dudes.
That said, I've been a field-inteligence officer in the IDF, and have played D&D for years as a child. I didn't tell it to my recruiters, but it wouldn't have mattered back then - some other military-head (again, the contempt in the word 'Falafel' does not translate right) was in command.
Lastly, I don't have a Slashdot account, so my name is Yosef.
God, they should at least give them a d20 to roll with to decide security clearance.
Often in Error, Never in Doubt.
Just wait till this schmuck runs in to the Call of Cthulhu fans. He's going to have a real fun time with that.
But, who knows, if you give him to us for a few days in a sound proof room he might come out agreeing with us... nevermind the bruises and cuts (and the odd way he twitches), please.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Clear, concise, and full of factual information and such.
But I failed my Charisma check.
Sorry guys, you miss out on some great writing.
You will be baked, and there will be cake.
I'll just say it straight a lot of D&D players have flake tendancies.
.. you do your thing you leave when you can.
people who play D&D esp the hardcore types tend towards flakiness.
I don't understand why people are clamouring about getting so deep in the arm as it is. I mean you join
Now anyone who complains about this will be labeled an antisemite.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
...and in other news the sky is blue.
You nerds can't get pussy now you can get Navy ass either!!!
Being in the military in Israel is risky. Low security often means less important, low risk jobs. Ergo, Israel are breeding more rpgers.
You left Arafat off of your list of monsters...
I do not mean to cast aspersions on D and D players, but if IDF says that people who indulge in fantasy games, as a statistical group, have personality traits that make them a lower security risk, then I am inclined to believe them.
If you look at the ratio of black people in the US prison system to whites, and compare that to the ratio in the general population, you might say that African-Americans are more prone to crime, and thus shouldn't be trusted. How is one statement any less Predjudice than the other?
Oh, and since you post to Slashdot, you don't mind if the police search your house for pirated software, since slashdot posters are more prone to participate in piracy, do you?
"I am an equal oppurtunity cynic, I hate everyone equally"
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Me and a bunch of friends were some of the original game add-on designers at SFU for AD&D (heck, I've still got stuff that Gary Gygax signed, and a bunch of the original versions of the books), and I ended up holding a SECRET clearance in the Canadian Armed Forces.
...
I suggest that this stunt will result in a 1D4 roll for self-inflicted damage to the Isreali Army, as RPG players are frequently better able to compartmentalize information learned with a higher classification and only release that which is appropriate, as well as how to deal with semi-conflicting rules sets to preserve the intention of security.
But, hey, what do I know - I was only Acting Security Officer for the whole Pacific Region
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
D&D I can do without. Diablo RPG? OK, similar subject matter, satan's in the title, fine. But is it unChristian to futuristic role playing games like Warhammer? I know now that Magic is bad, but what about Pokemon? Oh god. Please don't say WoW is off limits! I WOULD JUST HANG MYSELF.
The military would certainly reject me on the grounds that I am Chaotic Evil, and just as likely to fire on my comrades as the enemy --- discriminating bastards.
Chaotic neutral is the best alingment to be. I might shoot an enemy. I might throw a greande into a friend's tent. I might help an nun cross a busy street. I might quit the army to become a nun. Who knows? I sure as hell don't. It will be as much as a suprise to me as everyone else...
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Recruits who are fans of 'Ozzy' Osbourne are automatically given low security clearance as well, while those who enjoy the "Heavy Metal" band Judas Priest are automatically put on suicide watch.
Where is the Israeli army getting their youth culture intelligence... 1982?
It would appear to me that the Israeli army isn't saying "All D&D players are X and shouldn't be given clearance". It does semm that they are saying "If you fail this psychological check, then we're not letting you near sensitive stuff."
I've been a gamer for a long, long time. Vampire, Mage, Werewolf, D&D, Call of Cthulhu and Cthulhu Live, even some old Grups. Honestly, I have to say that , to me, sombunal gamers shouldn't be near any weapons... ever.
RPG's and LARPS attract intelligent, quick witted, imaginative and resourcful people. That makes up about 20% of most gamers. Gaming also attracts the socialy inept, the clinically depressed, boarderline psychopaths, and a host of rather odd people. Of course, those same sets of people also play online games, card games, etc etc etc.
The Israeli army isn't doing itself any favors by focusing on D&D, they'd be much better off getting everyone's head examined (Dear Gods, they need their heads examined for actually permitting the government to have a mandatory draft to begin with.)
Ratatosk, Squirrel of Discord
Chatterer of the Words of Eris
Muncher of The ChaoAcorn
POEE of The Great Googlie-Mooglie Cabal
I'm not detached from reality, I'm just customizing it.
Get a life, not a lifestyle. - Hikem Bey
Hey guys,
It's part of their religion. They see D&D as one of the highest forms of witchcraft. Read the first five chapter of Christian bible, the laws of Moses:
Exodus 20:3-5 Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness [of any thing] that [is] in heaven above, or that [is] in the earth beneath, or that [is] in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God [am] a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth [generation] of them that hate me.(The Ten Commandments)
Exodus 22:18 Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
Deuteronomy 18:10-11 There shall not be found among you [any one] that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, [or] that useth divination, [or] an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.
Beyond the Book of Law there is:
1 Samuel 15:23 For rebellion [is as] the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness [is as] iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from [being] king.
2 Chronicles 33:6 And he caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom: also he observed times, and used enchantments, and used witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar spirit, and with wizards: he wrought much evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.
Before you start piling on, why not at least understand their mindset.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
you do realize "lower security risk" would merit higher security clearance? i think you meant to say "lower security clearance," like in the summary.
Was anyone else readig the cartoon and waiting for the erotica to begin?
Welcome to the land of the free...pay toll ahead...no photography...please open your bag...
After all, these people have some of the best clinical and occupational psychologists in the world working for them.
Really? Doesn't seem so to me. Some possible theories why the IDF is skeptical of roleplayers (TFA says D&D, but seem to refer to RPGs and LARPs in general):
- RPGs do have a bad image due to some Christian fundamentalists spreading FUD. The same Christians are avid supporters of Israel and Zionism so maybe the IDF actually believed these guys.
- there's a higher percentage of left-leaning among roleplayers than among the general population. This may also be the case in Israel. Beeing a roleplayer thus makes you more likely to be exposed to leftists. This is indeed a security issue.
- roleplayers are more individualistic and creative and thus less likely to accept orders without questioning.
- the IDF are prejudiced. Psychologists have a tendency to view everything trough psychologist-glasses. This makes "escapism" a bad thing.
- some idiot deceided this some years ago and nobody has corrected it since due to hiearchy issues.
- the IDF are idiots
Probably a combination of some of the above.
Evolution is just a scientific theory. Creationism is not.
Just so it's clear, the article is talking about RD&D (the kind you play fully costumed) and not D&D (the kind you play with paper and dice).
"Programming is life, the rest is mere details"
Maybe now he'll do one of those tract comix on how reading Slashdot will send you straight to Hell! I can see it now: "Satan has mod points"
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
They should also include players of Evercrack and the Sims.
-ted
That's just what the Iraqis used to think.
I've read some of the comments and aparently there were some mistranslations. Anyway, after a psychoogical evaluation, many of these people who play a game similar to D&D (not D&D itself) are given low security clearance cause they don't have a clear sense of reality.
Now think about all those RPG players in your dorm rooms. I'm not sure about you guys, but I knew quite a few who were in the lobby playng EVERY NIGHT and they never took a shower. Man they smelled bad.
Not all RPG players were like that, but there was a good percentile that really did have troulbe escaping that fantasy world.
Actually, in one of my pre-recruitment interviews I told the interviewer that I read Slashdot and he was enthusiastic because he did too. :)
During the interview, did you cut the interviewer off with a "Frist Psot!"? That would be pretty funny, in an annoying sort of way.
Better you stick to the cloven chicken. Err. Umm. I mean... Hmm.
What's cloven?
Oh I know! Pig! Stick to pig! That's kosher!
Sarcasm aside, goats really are kosher.
The key difference between a Programmer and a Senior Programmer is that one of them is Mexican.
OK, maybe creative type people aren't so grounded in reality, but religious wackos are way, WAY worse. Take a look at most of the problems in the world today - almost all of them are caused, or made worse, by religious fanaticism.
-ted
I dunno, talk to members of the Jewish diaspora that aren't Orthodox and are under 60, and you'd be shocked at the utter lack of support for the state of Israel. It is definitely higher than the atheists that they share their other political beliefs with, but it isn't that pro-Israel...
The American "Christian Zionists" seem to be much more pro-Israel than any other group...
Not happy about it, just observing it...
Alex
is don't lose wars.
As for the IDF automatically lowering RPG-ers security clearances,
RTFA. The IDF does not automatically lowers the security clearance of recruits who proclaim they play D&D. These recruits are sent to a psychological evaluation. More than half of these are found to have psychological traits that are not wanted in high security clearance positions.
Interesting line of though: Lets start spreading counter propaganda supporting RPGs...
Crisitianity: Multiple crusades into the middle east to purge the 'heathens' from the holy land.
Dungeons and Dragons: Multiple crusades to AM/PM to get fresh bags of 'Cheetos'.
Crisitianity: The Inquisition, where thousands of innocent people were rounded up to be tortured and killed in faux witch hunts.
Dungeons and Dragons: Alingment quizes, where thousands of hours were wasted discussing the phillosophical ramifications about wither Han Solo was Chaotic Good or Chaotic Neutral.
Crisitianity: Failed to take a moral stand against the actions of the Nazi party as they killed millions of Jews.
Dungeons and Dragons: Failed to take a stand againts gamers who don't bathe enough. No Jews have died to date, however one Saul Rosenberg of South Beach Florida once had to stand in a small elevator for four and a half minutes with a smelly gamer.
Crisitianity: Failed to take a strong stand against sexual crimes performed by Catholic priests for decades, often involving children.
Dungeons and Dragons: Failed to take a strong stand aginst childish sexual antics during post adventure drinking binges where the 'dwarf tries to pat the serving wench on the bum.'
While neither group is perfect, I think that this proves, scientifically and without any shaddow of a doubt, that Cristians are clearly morally inferrior to Gamers. QED.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Would you really want THESE guys in charge of national security?
-R
If they were playing Testament instead of just straight D&D, I'm sure they wouldn't be running into any problems. :)
-------
"Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief."
"...and labels them problematic in regard to their draft status." So if you want to draft dodge, make sure you come to your interview in tinfoil armour, tell your recruiter that you play 46 hours of D&D a week, your real name is Bjorn Stronginthearm, and roll the dice before you answer any of their questions.
Well, don't they, unless i don't know what cloven means, I aasume they would never eat horses????
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
swiss rolls rock, especially if you're a student with a sweet tooth ;)
"The marine corps doesn't want mindless drones who cant think for themselves. the marine corps wants killers." -- Full Metal Jacket.
Lightning Bolt Lightning Bolt Lightning Bolt!!!!!
Geez if people actually believed this strip I would think it would make them want to play more DnD. DnD as training to be a real witch and get magic powers. Sign me up!. Scary last frame with the "good guys" at the bonfire.
I miss playing AD&D. I would still play if life didn't get in the way. Have to settle for the occaisional CRPG binge now and then.
I thought the idea was to put your highest score in the spot where it'll benefit your class most (i.e. 18 goes to CHA for a sorcerer). That way your character is above average, which is what a charater is supposed to be anyway. That's why they adventure and not farm. I have a half-elf sorceress w/STR 10 CHA 18, which means she's really hot, but has average strength (for an adventurer, not a housewife) is that MIN/MAX'ing? Are you supposed to place the abilities in the order you roll them? Cause there's like 3-4 different ways to roll out a char in the DM guide. (I'm gonna get so flamed for this post)
But my dwarven cleric never misses his will save!!
In other news, women frown on D&D, by disallowing players access to their sensitive areas...
I currently have no clever signature witicism to add here.
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST
... of having the right D&D player as a solider is that he'll only take half damage if he's shot!
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST
Yup, that's what you said, and it's dead wrong. The kashrut are far more complex than you portray. A properly slain chicken, for example, (if properly raised and properly prepared) is kosher.
Chickens are neither vegetables, minerals, or blue-green algae, THEREFORE THEY ARE ANIMALS. And THEY DO NOT HAVE CLOVEN HOOVES.
Doofus.
Much (but not all) of the 'shut up and blindly follow any orders' attitude on the part of the Red Army came from the political imperative of keeping down the only force that could conceivably threaten the power of the communist party. Hence the political officers, who could on occasion overrule the regular officers.
After the initial shock of the invasion the soldiers in the red army became very effective, parlty because in the desperate times with national survival at stake some of the totalitarian bullshit was swept aside. The political officers lost their primacy, for instance, during the 1942 nazi offensive, IIRC. And the individual soldiers either learned to think on their own, or got killed.
It got to a point that, when the war was nearly over, Stalin was quite alarmed (the red army and its commanders, e.g., Zhukov*, being very and deservingly popular), and moved quickly to reassert the political control over the army.
____________________
* All postwar soviet leaders felt threatned by Zhukov`s popularity. After the war he was sent to a far-off command where he could pose no threat to Stalin. he was briefly back in the center of power under Khrushchev, before being kicked out of the central comitee. He made one last public apearence with Brejhnev. The response was so overwhelming (people were clapping and banging on the table, yelling his name) he was sent back to retirement almost imediatly.
I've played D&D or some other RPG (here in the US) most of my 31 years, and I for one think it's probably a good idea. I've known A LOT of creepy gamers of high school age aspiring to and then enlisting in the marines. These aren't stable people, they usually don't have a lot of friends, have some messed up social habits, and have a love for guns and weapons that quickly makes me uncomfortable. I can only guess at their motivation for military service, but I'm pretty confident it's not primarily to better ones character and earn money for college.
Since the service in Israel is compulsory, I wonder if there is an statictically high rate of D&D players there that don't conform well to military service.
I did know a lot of Israelis that played on MUDs.
-dynamo
*sigh* No need to yell or call names.
The laws of kashrut are operating under the assumption that chickens (and all birds), as well as fish (and several other submembers of the Kingdom Animalia), are to be considered as different creatures than the rest of the animals. Just like how some people who consider themselves vegetarian will still eat eggs, drink milk, and have chicken and fish.
So, we can go into semantics all you want, but my original point (that we are limited to "animals" of cloven hoof) is still true (under a non-English, non-Darwinian definition of animal).
The Defense Language Institute has without any doubt the highest concentration of role players (including, disturbingly, LARPers) of any place I have ever even HEARD of barring a gaming convention.
These are people who, if pass, almost always get Top Secret clearances.
The good news is: LARPers seem to be really good at failure.
I have problems associating with reality, see my profile (Space Pirate from 4096 AD). :)
I played D&D, AD&D, Traveller, Marvel Super Heros, and a few others.
I scored high on the ASVAB tests well within the top 8% of the scores. I went into US Army ROTC classes and almost enlisted in 1986-1987. College was too stressful for me, and my mental illness took over, and I withdrew. If it hadn't, I'd be in the Gulf War as an Officer.
I held US Army Top Secret clearance when I worked as a Federal Contractor. I was able to do the job, though I did still suffer from the mental illnesses, I was not prone to violence or anything like that.
I lost track of most of the people I played Role Playing Games with. A few are still my friends, and one was my best friend and the Game Master of many games we had. He killed himself in 1999, not over the game, but over real life situations he faced. He was deep in debt, divorced, his mother was dying of cancer, he lost his job, unemployment ran out, he couldn't find work, he became an alchaholic, etc. The only thing that kept him sane at times was playing RPGs.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Actually you don't have to be jewish to get drafted into the israeli army, you just have to be an israeli citizen.. there are in fact besides jews also arabs, druze, bedouin, moslems, christians and even vietnamese in the israeli army!
While the Christians seem' supportive of Israel now, don't think for a minute it is based on any perceived similarity or solidarity of beliefs. Probe a Christian long enough, and he'll tell you he still thinks all the Jews are going to hell for "killing Jesus".
Current Christian support for Israel has more to do with an intense fear and/or hatred of Islam, and Israel is in the good guy slot purely by virtue of being not Islamic. If Islam were erased tomorrow, most of these kindly Christians would happilly restore the Warsaw ghettos.
cooks get a Secret Clearence. not exactly hard to gte.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
People who believe they're God's favorites and have a divine right to occupy a miserable little stretch of desert obviously have a problem with reality as well.
in a desert to protect our freedoms from no one.
You want to protect our freedoms? you want to do your share? become pollitically involved. Are most basic rights are underfire on capital hill right now.
In a world where a teenager is arrested because he wrote a story about zombies invading a high school, radio people are being effectivly censored, the FCC fines people for being 'indecent' without a clear definition of what that is, where the fine for saying something some jackhole doesn't like is the same as illegal human experimentation, I think we have bigger problems against are freedooms then any terrorist could do.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Yeah, it was confusing even at the time. There was also, in addition to the "Basic D&D" and "Advanced D&D" lines of books/boxed sets, a "D&D" book that was an introduction to either (it had a blue and white cover IIRC), and only covered through some low character level. This was after the original D&D "Greyhawk" books (pocket games format books), which followed the "Chainmail" book that started it all.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I found this interesting comment at the bottom of the article that puts a bit of a different perspective on the issue:
20. Would you guys stick to the subject?
I'd like to first ask you all to read the whole article. It specifically says "In a more active version of the game" (Namely, RD&D).
Also, remember that you are reading a TRANSLATION! As someone who has read the article in Hebrew and English I can tell you that it's not a very good translation, either, as the Hebrew version mentions LARPing and RD&D specifically, with traditional D&D only mentioned as background on the game.
As for the subject at hand, I happen to know some LARPers here in Israel (In fact, I think I may know the people interviewed here...) but haven't heard of any problems with the IDF thus far. Obviously the very thought is ridiculous, you can't just generally say "LARPers are a bunch of lunatics". I'd admit that many of them are, but no more than other people enlisting.
Elad Droree , Ramat Hasharon, IL (03.09.05)
Send/track messages to 100K people: www.xPressAlert.com
Insanity
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
of computer gamers are adult, his statment is kind of meaningless.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The ideal, of course, in the modern Western state is the bureaucratic killing mind. Somebody like Eichmann, who, as Hannah Arendt told us in Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, wept the day he was given the order to begin the destruction of German Jews...and then doggedly went to work. A touch of sentiment. The hankie. And then the killing work.
We see much the same thing in Washington and Iraq now: bureaucratic detail men, the kind for whom the life and death of entire peoples are merely different standard forms to be filed accordingly, or as in the case of the uncounted Iraqi civilian dead who are their responsibility, corpses not even to be flattered with numbers. Thinking spoils slaughter. Dispassion gets it done.
This is not to say that D&D is any guide to moral imagination. To the contrary: a fantasy life based on killing orcs might, given the right temperament and conditions, actually prove useful to some military applications. But D&D is a test of another essential quality, which is itself the enemy of the bureaucratic killing mind: you project your self into an Other, and that's the beginning of empathy. You inhabit another life, and you care for it. And you can't trust that impulse in the people to whom you assign the terrible work of colonialism.
Of course, many RPGers veered off into competing rules systems, or just rolled their own over the years.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
that's being insane.
Chaotic Neutral means you strive for neutrality outside of the law.
Sure, you might shoot your own people, but not 'just because it might balance out something.'
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I really hope the US military rejects people that play D&D. That would be great. That way if there is a draft I can say "I play D&D" instead of lying and telling them I'm gay. Come on US military... D&D is EVIL. Paper + dice = worst soldiers ever.
check out the best blog ever:
http://oehlberg.com
...we screen out members of the IDF.
Probably redundant... I can't be bothered RTFComments
You were in an HQ unit, not a line unit. I don't put half as much credibility behind what you just said because you cited your Pencil Operations Group status.
Joseph Burlas Owner/Director, USA The Braxas Corporation
In the 1980s, D&D did have additional rule sets for higher level characters. But this was separate from AD&D.
Please follow these links. They may jog your memory:
Cause DnD Sucks
-Emoticon
Dammit, why weren't you the PREVIEW button?
I was, once. Talk about a shitty job...
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
I do not mean to cast aspersions on the IDF, but I suspect all the D&D players I knew in college (Stanford) are smarter than a bunch of policy-makers in the army.
My guess is that some army guy just didn't want the IDF to be seen as a bunch of geeks.
So much for the Tel Aviv Gencon next year...
"I'd rather win in an ugly car than lose in a pretty car" - Jari Lahdenpera
[quote]"It's not a game of winners and losers...but rather an entry into another world with stories and plot changes"[/quote]
Sounds suspiciously like the Bush administration.
Only tyrants and oppressors need fear a well armed populace.
Who also served in the IDF.
:)
.. there's an arrangement here where your base can make you re-join for a couple of weeks each year after you've finished your service.
1. Don't give that much "weight" to that new law. Our army tends to be stupid and has many illogical rules that nobody really cares about.
There's a rule, or at least everybody says there is one, that says that if you close the top button of your uniform's shirt, it means that you're suicidal. I'm not sure whether it's a real law or not, but hey - I wouldn't be surprised.
Still, nobody really cares about that.
2. Yes, as people mentioned, it's RD&D (LARP) , not all D&D. If they'd ban all D&D players then half (or more) of the people in the base I served in would have to turn their uniforms in and go home
(and it's an important base)
just FYI
Galia
or maybe "sergeant galia"?
well, technically it's "staff sergeant galia", which is one level above sergeant, but that title sounds bad. oh well, i'm only sergeant if they call me in
but i'm a girl. they hardly bother to call us in.
enough offtopic, me go now.
-= ailaG =-
Our army has some of the best clinical etc... LOL, It's nice to know that we look that serious on the outside.
Well, when I was about to join (it's mandatory, pretty much) they sent me to their "mental health dept." due to a small reason that is quite common. They almost didn't let me in because of that. It may be a very common issue, but everyone else knows that they should just lie about it, so the army thinks that it's a rare one.
Well, I went in and some 19-year-old kid chatted with me a bit, then asked me if I wanted to commit suicide, I said no and they let me join.
Same thing happened with my security clearance. "Do you drink?" "No." "Drugs?" "No." "Are you sure?" "Yes" "alright, you're in" (and I know of two people who used to take drugs, both got into the intelligence force)
So please, don't count on the IDF for being smart or rational.
Plus, if they ban D&D they'll miss out on many of the smart people, including those who are sent to college before their army service so that they could give better service. They all play D&D, almost.
(as other posts say, the article referred to RD&D, not all D&D)
-= ailaG =-
Somebody call a Doctor!
This man is over-gasped!
I'm an ex-IDF soldier, and I'm telling you this: This story is COMPLETE CRAP. There is no basis to it. If there were, half of Israeli soldiers would be the ones frowned upon. D&D is extremely popular in Israel (at least it was 8 years ago), and nobody makes a secret out of it - coz there is no need.
run run for your lives Israelis! The 80's satanic panic has hit your shore somehow.
"And friends, somewhere in Washington enshrined in some little folder, is a study in black and white of my fingerprints. And the only reason I'm singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if your in a situation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's walk into the shrink where ever you are, just walk in say 'Shrink, You can get anything you want, at Alice's restaurant.' And walk out."
Couldn't resist following that up!
If you've played D&D with enough people, you know that as a result of playing D&D with some people you're less likely to trust them with complex, difficult, important things.
If you've ever inadvertently mentioned that you play D&D to people who match the "living in parents' basement" archetype, you know that some of the most visible D&D players in the world are not exactly discreet people who should be trusted with sensitive information.
When I was growing up, the father of one of the neighborhood kids, who used to do (and maybe still does?) covert work and now mostly does high-level analysis, wargames, etc., for military intelligence would run a game for a bunch of us in the neighborhood. He created an incredibly detailed and self-consistent world, and adapted it on the fly to accomodate the most stupid and brilliantly clever things we tried to do within it to keep the experience engaging enough that we could play his campaign for months on end, with pre-adolescent to adolescent attention spans.
Maybe these traits improve the likelyhood that someone could get away with doing something deceptive long enough to really do damage to a security-sensitive operation, but what is the cost of excluding them? Role-players, especially DMs and such, tend to be extremely good at working with scenarios that are untestable, which describes many security-sensitive operations. When you're preparing for a raid into hostile territory, something the IDF does a lot of, you need lots of people who can put themselves in that situation during the planning phase, and who can then think on their feet when the plan goes out the window the moment people start shooting.
Sure, maybe these people have personalities less well suited for being gate guards at your secure facilities, but they have cultivated on their own time operational skills that would take years of training and experience to develop otherwise, and with the short careers typical in military service, that's not a viable option.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
"How appropriate, you fight like a cow!"
Min Maxing is pretty much choosing everything about your character to maximize the positives and minimize the negatives.
You start with stats then compare every class/race combo to see what gets you the best numbers for everything important in that combo without undully screwing anything else.
Choosing where to put your 18 and where to put your 9 so it make sense for the 1/2 orc ranger you've decided to play is just using some brains.
Also what you said about character is reminesent of one of the two big schools of thought on "HEROS" in rpgs and fiction.
Is a hero someone who lived up to his heroic potential, or a normal person forced into situations that gave him the oportunity to become a hero.
You can take the aproach that there's something about hero's that make them hero's or that the difference between your farmer and your hero is that the hero did something the farmer didn't or took an opourtunity the farmer could/would not.
Is hero born to greatness, or doese he sieze it? Doese he meet his fate or make it?
Not shure how to explain it clearly. Except through these sorts of questions and perspectives.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
Anyway, I've only played D&D 3rd edition 5 times...and never AD&D, 2nd edition, or 1st edition. I have a lot of the books (1st - 3rd edition - stuff from 1977 on...WTF is THAC0?) but have never had the opportunity to play much. The guys I knew when I was young wouldn't let me play, and the people I know now won't let me play either, no room in the quest and all. I know the PM and the DM almost by heart, but have never really played that much. So I'm not sure how people really play.
I am just wondering what you mean by "choosing everything about your character to maximize the positives and minimize the negatives". Aren't you supposed to do that when assigning your ability scores anyway? Sorry if this is a redundant question.
A geek among geeks but never one of them...odd john.
And they all moved away from me on the Group W bench.
Best Slashdot Co
Oh yes, naturally most of that bullcrap would get swept aside in real combat. Mostly what I'm getting at is that the Soviet training and doctrine, specifically that of the cold war era, almost without exception mandated the "smart head, dumb body" approach, as opposed to the US military's emphasis on "individual initiative". Even then it was indeed mostly a political maneuver intended to ensure that the military didn't "get any ideas" rather than a rational approach to conducting modern warfare.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Ah, someone to debate alignment with!
A chaotic neutral is someone who values individuality and personal freedoms (chaotic) and has no bias toward good or evil. Since their morals aren't strongly alinged to good or evil, they might commit acts that fall under either catagory in the name of self-interest. Any impulsive or selfish personality could fall under this category. They have no desire to spread woe or promote the greater good, simply to be allowed to do whatever they wish.
Now, someone who was mentally ill could certainly fit this patern, but there is a whole sub-topic of alingment and sanity. It could be argued that anything with a basically human mind that was chaotic evil would be homcidial and deranged. Many serial killers would certainly fit the category. However, I would say that the reason one acts out an alingment is moot in the discussion of what alingment a person is.
You mention the phrase, 'striving for neutrality'. That sounds like a out of the book description of neutrality, which I don't buy. Nobody goes around saying, 'Hmmm, the forces of good are getting to strong, let's throw in with evil today'. I mean, really, how does one 'strive for neutrality' in the spectrum of good and evil?
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
I'm always happy to see other Christians on here supporting Israel. You may want to follow my journal.
I know the shot at him was just a joke, but I'd rather Jack Chick be locked in a closet. There's something even more frightening than him out there, people in power that are stupid enough to listen to him. Don't give him ideas.
True min/maxing is not just making smart choices about assigning stats. It means the final numbers are ALL that matter, you don't care if it's a dwarven fighter or a elf druid or whatever. You don't pick any skills that don't 100% support a maxed out char or pick anything to make your character fully formed (as in no roll playing elements).
The reality is everyone doese this to some small degree. It's obnoxious when it passes a certain threshold, that threshold varies from person to person. Think of it a line from totaly random (or totaly driven by concept/story) character to one who's creation is total driven by the final numbers. You should try to create a character with SOME versimilitude, some concept beyond really good fighter, or very powerfull mage.
But my tolerance for min/maxing or stat crunching is fairly high, as long as the player is trying to create a character that's fun to play and not just trying to 'win' it's cool.
THAC0 is To Hit Armor Class 0. Once apon a time (that phrase had to show up somewhere here:) lower armor classes were better, you started at 10 and anything that made it harder to hit you lowered this. Small shields were a -1 to ac and so on.
Now each class had different starting odds on hitting an ac of 0 (middle of the range, which went from -10 to +10) that got better with level advancement, which also varied from class to class. Fighter classes generaly got better each level or nearly every level whereas mages were something like every 4 or 5 levels. Next you had to add in all the various modifiers, such as magic and exceptional stat bonuses. Once all these were added to gether you got what you needed to roll to hit an AC of 0, thus your calculated THAC0. since the number you needed to hit varied 1:1 with the targets AC this number and a single addition/subtraction told you what you needed to hit any particular critter 99% of the time. Whereas if you stopped and added everything up each time (gee I'm 17 strength that's +3 and my sword is +1 and....) it'd slow the game down durring battles to a borring crawl. When THAC0 was introduced it bassically codified and simplified what most players were already doing, prefiguring anything they could before play to speed up mechanics so they could focus on the fun.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
Hrm... aside from the fact that he never said that, I consider myself "different" and "very smart." And the Marine Corps made an officer out of me. I've been in over eight years (combining NROTC and active duty) and I'm very happy. In fact, I've thrived and I've seen others like me thrive time and again.
So next time make sure you know what the hell you're talking about before you spout off. Thanks.
Why is slashdot linking to porn. Inocent minors might click that chick link.