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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.
haha... your funny. This is nothing more then ignorance.
The numbers they cite where pointless. How many people would not qualify for high clearence if ALL recruits went to see the psychiatrist? who knows.
Another case where someone who does something different has to experience bigitory. Personally, I would welcome some good open studies on role-players. The few that where done(that I know of) never found in results worth reporting.
I say this as someone who has play role-playing games since '76*.
*I loath to put out how long I have been playing, because I hate those 'I've been playing for x years therefore I am right' types. I do feel that disclosure is neccessary for context in this discussion.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Something carried on 60 minutes (take with whativer size grain of salw you wish) One other thing you may wish to consider, few of the radical-right, orhtodox jews, serve in combat rolls in the IDF. Why? Because they're religious scholars and exempt from such duty. Yet, they are usually the ones howling the loudest about how it's their promised land and establish these lovely settlements in whatever speck of land the palestinians have left. You can usually tell, when you see some footage on TV, these people are heavily armed and ready to die for their house on the pile of rocks they claimed for themselves. They also tend to have larger families and are expected to control the majority of the electorate in a country where the armed forces are mostly composed of the secular or moderate jews.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I'm guessing that the IDF pshrinks found that D&D gamers tend to be more indivualistic. Being in the military is, by necessity, to be part of a team and the team has to come first, thereby presenting an inherant conflict of interest which may present itself at some very inopportune moment.
The biggest supporters for the state of Isreal are radical Christians, who see it as a neccessary precursor to the rapture.
:-)
Not that they'd neccessarily agree on much in one-on-one dialog
Last time I heard of anyone applying for a high clearance job, part of the interview process was talking to a psychiatrist...
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
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.
Then your DM was a weenie. One of my players tried to pull that once. He had a nice time watching TV while the rest played the rest of the session after he offed a character that wasn't "maxed out" to his satisfaction.
Had he done it a second time, he'd have found his seat taken come the 3rd session.
That's exactly the sort of people you want in your army. Clueless nimrods who can't function if the expected parameters are altered are exactly what they should be trying to avoid.
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.
You assume that being smart will make you stand out in the military. Well, sorry to burst your bubble but the military has a LOT of smart people, and chances are your intelligence won't stand out as much as you think. Anyone who says "don't let on that you're smart" is really saying "don't spout off trying to be a know-it-all". Keeping your mouth shut and your eyes open (particularly when in boot camp) is the wisest course. Once you've been in a while you'll figure out when it's appropriate to offer your "smarts". Nobody (particularly drill sergeants) likes a wise-ass.
In an army you want drones who can think for themselves but will never question orders.
You got a lot to learn about the nature of the US military. Your description fits the old Soviet military, but not ours. In an army you want people who can understand an objective and modify an operational plan of the fly as the situation changes. Soldiers who stop and look at their commanding officer every time they run into an unexpected obstacle are worthless. I suspect you'll get quite an eye-opening education on this come 2005AUG01, courtesy of the US Marine Corps.
Why do you think the great dictators killed teachers???
Which "great dictators"? Name a dictator that had an effective army full of mindless, uneducated "drones". Name an effective army that wasn't backed by a solid educational system. Killing teachers is a move to solidify a political position, not to create an ignorant pool of cannon fodder.
As for the IDF automatically lowering RPG-ers security clearances, I think they're idiots. I spent 4 years in the US Army as a SIGINT analyst, and I'd say that fully half the people I worked with played role playing games. I wonder, do they think that D&D is "bad" and that hex-map war games are good? At what point does pretending you're Rommel the general become OK, vs. playing Skorzeny the commando? Is it the level of abstraction? Is it the medieval fantasy aspect of D&D? Perhaps it has to do with the fact that most people entering the IDF are there for compulsory service. I knew a lot of D&D dorks in high school who would never be a good fit for military service. The thing is, those of us dorks who were a good fit would have been stuck as truck drivers or something under an IDF-style rule. I think the IDF is tossing out the baby with the bathwater here, but hey, it's their stupid army.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Well, this is the same calibre of people who find pro-gay messages in Sponge Bob and Teletubbies. I've known quite a few roleplayers in fairly fundementalist churches who have had to abandon their hobby after being pressured or outright threatened with being given the boot. I think it's sad, and I do get mad that a perfectly reasonable and enjoyable recreational hobby is so misunderstood and maligned.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I've had a very Fundie Christian relative who started blabbing off about how roleplaying was letting Satan into your heart with all that magic and fantastical creatures.
In his autobiography 'Black Boy', Richard Wright recalls his grandmother's attitude towards his writing. She believed that fiction was the work of the Devil. Paraphrasing: 'You writin' down things that ain' true. Tha's the Devil's work, boy.' (My apologies to Richard Wright for my crude approximation of his characteristic style.)
Things are getting a little better as time goes on, I hope.
I did not become a vegetarian for my health, I did it for the health of the chickens. --Isaac Bashevis Singer
No, seriously, it has always struck me as rather odd that guys who sit around and collaboratively make up stories, be it about dragons or spaceships or spies, are considered weird, and yet guys who sit around memorizing and arguing passionately about statistics for rich athletes who they've never met and never will is considered perfectly normal. The athletes may be real but it's still fantasy to live vicariously through them. I think going out and PLAYING sports with my buddies is better than either, but for some reason being a sports fanatic is normal and RPGing is strange. I don't get it.
Actually, I was trying to be Insightful, not Funny.
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.
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.
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.
I'm no cleansing nazi (godwin!), but if someone had a gun to my head and forced me to choose between the suicide bombing of 100 "average" people, or 200 mental retards, I'd choose the latter. *gasp!* Not until the ratio got up to around 20:1 would I rationally favor the murder of the normal group. *GASP!!!* (At this point my empathy for the familys of the larger retard group outweighs the rational reasons for the smaller group of productive people to continue living.)
It's nice to pretend that everyone has an equal right to life-- even to the point of selfishly keeping your vegetable relatives alive -- but it's not that simple.
(not posting anonymously)
I'm sure somebody's just appalled by my line of thinking. :)
Power to the Peaceful