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.

Comments

Israeli D&D

[Nine Tenths of The W]

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.

Really?

[cliveholloway]

I always thought AD&D was just D&D for people with a short attention span.

cLive ;-)

Re:Hah!

[Have Blue]

Frontline grunts aren't supposed to have original thoughts- they're supposed to follow orders and perform their assigned functions. Original thought is for officers and politicians.

Re:There's a good reason

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad they succeeded in misleading you that way. Now you'll have to sacrifice your life for Texaco and Haliburton. Hopefully the board of directors and the shareholders will appreciate it.

As to them paying for your school, I've always said - "it's much better to have a big student loan but to stay alive rather than become a piece of smoked ham fighting for the wrong cause"

Re:There's a good reason

[swimmar132]

Hah. Water polo's not wimpy. It's gay as hell, with your underwater grabbing and "hole sets" and wings and balls and speedos.

Re:You got it wrong

[Zeinfeld]

Bullshit. US military doctrine is built on soldiers who are flexible, able, and motivated. They don't want to see it in bootcamp, or expressed in ways deemed harmful to the unit. But they count on the fact they'll see it expressed in ways harmful to the enemy.

They want very particular types of initiative, in particular the initiative to take command of a situation when necessary. What they do not want is people who question authority.

If the US army was such a terrifically well run organization they would not have ended up turning the Iraqi prison camps into torture chambers. Either there is a serious discipline problem or the senior officers gave illegal orders that the soldiers had a duty to refuse. That little fiasco is one of the reasons why there are car bombs going off every day and the insurgency is increasing. It is also on of the reasons why recruitment is 25% under target.

D&D probably does make someone unsuited to military service, but so what? It probably means that they are better adjusted as a person. The Israeli army has been performing a brutal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza for over thirty years. Refusing to serve in such an army is a moral duty.

Re:IDF has smart people working for them ...

[operagost]

The IDF works with some of the worst relgious zealots in the world. I think this is the primary reason for discouraging D&D-- the game deals with religious ideas which are foreign. That is forbidden among many fundamentalists.

Mister, they del with foreign religious idealogues every day. They're called "Muslims." Ever heard of them? They're the ones bombing the cafes.

Re:You got it wrong

[SenatorOrrinHatch]

I sure did. What I meant was, if the valiant Sons of Moses are confronted by a Swedish-made anti-Muslim bacon-and-egg-sandwich minefield, they will be forced to retreat in disarray, since if they accidentally eat any ham then the benevolent, all knowing and merciful Lord will transmit them into lakes of burning brimstone for all eternity, where they will be tormented by demons with pointy sticks.

Goat-sandwiches are cool with God tho, since goats chew the "cud" (whatever the hell that is.)

Interestingly, I see that eating whalemeat will earn you a one-way ticket to eternal flaming hotness since whales are mammals that don't chew the cud. I bet a bunch of folks a few hundred years ago showed up real surprised at the gates of hell and said "WTF do you mean whales are mammals? I thought it was a fish!"

Re:IDF has smart people working for them ...

[EnronHaliburton2004]

Mister, they del with foreign religious idealogues every day. They're called "Muslims."

So their solution to dealing with foreign religious idealogues is to become religious idealogues. There will be no end to that war.

Thanks for stating your opinion. At least now we know you are incapable of telling the difference between the every-day Muslim and a terrorist.

Wait, so You Were in the POG?

[DoubleZer08]

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.