The Gaming Den

I hereby retract my assertion, and any implications thereof, that conservative gaming websites are in the majority or, indeed, even the norm. After some thinking, I realize that my perception had been governed by my personal prior experiences and that those may not be a true reflection of reality.

violence in the media wrote:I hereby retract my assertion, and any implications thereof, that conservative gaming websites are in the majority or, indeed, even the norm. After some thinking, I realize that my perception had been governed by my personal prior experiences and that those may not be a true reflection of reality.

I don't go on nearly enough different gaming websites to even venture an opinion. Has anyone done anything like a balanced study?

I would assume it would go with the games being discussed. Games like Vampire are inherently fairly "gay friendly" and I would expect their fans and their fansites to lean Left. Games like Battletech are inherently fairly "pro military" an I would expect their fans and fansites to lean Right. But I don't really know.

-Username17

My sister did a little look-up on the Den when I mentioned the place to her. She found one person who said we know our stuff, but he doesn't want to come her because this place tends towards liberal and and atheism and he's conservative and christian.

I'll have to ask her what she put into google, really.

"Gaming Den is full of assholes" or something, probably...

Like I explained in the previous thread....

Large scale RPG forums (i.e. Enworld) tend to be more apolitical, because political discussions often result in bloodshed in large forums.

Wargaming forums (i.e. Consimworld) lean conservative. Not just because it involves more military stuff, but because the players are older.

Videogame forums like Gamespot are full of kids with random thoughts.

Yeah, I go to all these sites, but not regularly.

So yeah, Frank's right with the diversity.

Going through the old sites I went to though, I do recall one D&D fan site that was run by a very devout Catholic (it was a 2nd Ed website, I browsed it about 5 years ago). However, given that a major section of the site is focused "D&D isn't actually about Devil worship", he's probably a cool kid Catholic as opposed to mindless bible thumper.

Also, to be blunt when other people talk about the Den on the Internet, they tend to be extremely dismissive of it as a fringe site full of angry nerds that "Has that interesting but overpowered 3.X variant". But then again those people are also usually fans of people the Den likes to make fun of.

Going through the old sites I went to though, I do recall one D&D fan site that was run by a very devout Catholic (it was a 2nd Ed website, I browsed it about 5 years ago). However, given that a major section of the site is focused "D&D isn't actually about Devil worship", he's probably a cool kid Catholic as opposed to mindless bible thumper.

One can turn into another surprisingly quickly. See, for example, when Tracy Hickman said that Monte Cook fantasized about being Osama Bin Laden, because Monte wrote a D&D article Hickman didn't like.

DragonChild wrote:One can turn into another surprisingly quickly. See, for example, when Tracy Hickman said that Monte Cook fantasized about being Osama Bin Laden, because Monte wrote a D&D article Hickman didn't like.

I think that site was referring more to the Monsters & Mazes craze and point out that #1 It's a silly sensationalized story, and #2 The main Catholic objection to D&D is the use of magic. But if magic was such a Catholic taboo, does this mean Snow White and Santa Claus are evil?

Zinegata wrote:But if magic was such a Catholic taboo, does this mean Snow White and Santa Claus are evil?

Yes. Yes it does.

God hates sorcerers almost as much as Skip.

But strangely they love Mary Poppins.

-Crissa

Zinegata wrote:But if magic was such a Catholic taboo, does this mean Snow White and Santa Claus are evil?

Well, Santa is a saint, so all his stuff is supposedly okay.

I've never heard of any religious crazies protesting Snow White. They have, however, protested Beauty and the Beast. Not because of the beastiality issue, but because it had a positive depiction of lycanthropy.

My first thought was "what, do you think the kids are going to be all 'lycanthropy is cool and shit, let's sacrifice a baby, put on a wolfskin, and roam the city in wolf-form eating more babies?'" Then I realized that, yes, that is what they think. Some religious crazies really are terrified by 8th-century folklore.

Zinegata wrote:he's probably a cool kid Catholic as opposed to mindless bible thumper.

It has been my personal experience that Catholics and Bible Thumpers are two separate classes of religious.

All of the Catholics I know tend to have more disputes in the arena of real-world politics, but not fantasy-world hobbies (including books like Harry Potter and such). The Bible Thumpers have been all about real and fantasy-world whatevers.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:Some religious crazies really are terrified by 8th-century folklore.

Don't forget that practically every religion requires its adherents to accept, and in fact base their life around certain supernatural events or concepts. Believing in impossible shit is an entry requirement for these guys, so when you tell them people can literally turn into monsters after watching a disney cartoon they won't bat an eyelid as they reach for their pitchforks.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:I've never heard of any religious crazies protesting Snow White. They have, however, protested Beauty and the Beast. Not because of the beastiality issue, but because it had a positive depiction of lycanthropy.

There are a lot more religious crazies in the Philippines .

That's the thing though. Some religious groups do, in fact, say that all depictions of magic should be taboo. And they've even burned CDs of computer games like Starcraft 1 for depicting psionics and other "demon-worship" stuff.

However, ask the same groups if Fairy Tales are evil, they seem to be okay with it. Which is a pretty hypocritical position.

Pope Palpatine opposed Harry Potter before he didn't.

The current catholic position is that you can read Harry Potter without endangering your immortal soul. But the fact that this has even been a debate - and that the current Pope has been on both sides of it within the last decade, indicates that there is still plenty of crazy to be had in the church.

-Username17

Maj wrote:

Zinegata wrote:he's probably a cool kid Catholic as opposed to mindless bible thumper.

It has been my personal experience that Catholics and Bible Thumpers are two separate classes of religious.

All of the Catholics I know tend to have more disputes in the arena of real-world politics, but not fantasy-world hobbies (including books like Harry Potter and such). The Bible Thumpers have been all about real and fantasy-world whatevers.

I live in a country where... Catholicism can get a little weird.

For instance, I am the son of a Buddhist father and a Catholic mother, who had a Catholic baptism. And that's totally normal and legal.

That being said, people should really be judged individually anyway rather than simply classified willy-nilly as "Bible-Thumpers" or whatever.

Zinegata wrote:However, ask the same groups if Fairy Tales are evil, they seem to be okay with it. Which is a pretty hypocritical position.

It gets worse. Remember king Solomon? Christians and Jews love that crazy motherfucker. Never mind that he was a hardcore polygamist and was reputed to have summoned a small army of demons to build his temple. He was the original "God Wizard".

I tend not to include acts in the Bible as examples of magic, as it can be hand-waved as miracles by the faithful.

Fairy Tales however are universally accepted and lauded, but don't have the same "holy" origins.

Zinegata wrote:I tend not to include acts in the Bible as examples of magic, as it can be hand-waved as miracles by the faithful.

Fairy Tales however are universally accepted and lauded, but don't have the same "holy" origins.

The Witch of Endor summons the soul of Samuel in a distinctly pagan manner. It's an example of outright biblical "magic". Of course, it's also presented as unequivocally evil.

Frank wrote:Pope Palpatine opposed Harry Potter before he didn't.

Very apt name. Why the hell does this crap come up?

Frank wrote:there is still plenty of crazy to be had in the church.

Oh, I don't doubt that. But the followers of Cathol that I have dealt with are generally fairly chill. Yeah, the nutty ones will always be out there, I just have yet to meet them (Thank you, Kizmet).

Datawolf wrote:He was the original "God Wizard".

Some Thumper who got on my case because I looked at a friend's Magic:TG cards came to class the next day armed with literature about the evils of magic. That lovely four page document managed to demonstrate that Jesus was an evil sorceror. I brought that up to the school paper when they ran a story about the potentially soul-reaming card game being played in the library at lunch.

I'm not saying that catholics don't believe some things which I have issue getting my brain around, but I will agree that catholics tend to have crazy political opinions while being decent people, while protestants tend to be all over the political spectrum but have some problems socially (as Catholics tend to not use Jesus the same way Slaad use Giant Frog.)

Our regular Roman Catholics tend to be normal. It's the various Protestant denominations that are... out there.

Jesus told me that socialists go to hell.

Psychic Robot wrote:Jesus told me that socialists go to hell.

No he didn't. Take your meds PR. That's just the voices in your head.

Psychic Robot wrote:Jesus told me that socialists go to hell.

Which Jesus? the one with blond hair from the paintings? or the jewish one from the book? or the one who hangs out infront of home-depot?

on a more serious note...

I'm not saying that catholics don't believe some things which I have issue getting my brain around, but I will agree that catholics tend to have crazy political opinions while being decent people, while protestants tend to be all over the political spectrum but have some problems socially (as Catholics tend to not use Jesus the same way Slaad use Giant Frog.)

I live in a country where... Catholicism can get a little weird.

I don't know where you guy's experiance lies, but my experiance in America has been that Catholics rarely care wat Catholicism has to say on any political subject. the most well known position the church has is a staunch opposition to Abortion, but a vast majority of catholics have proven incredibly loyal to pro-choice candidates.

norms29 wrote:I don't know where you guy's experiance lies, but my experiance in America has been that Catholics rarely care wat Catholicism has to say on any political subject. the most well known position the church has is a staunch opposition to Abortion, but a vast majority of catholics have proven incredibly loyal to pro-choice candidates.

Really? Where are you coming from? I could see that being true in, say, Massachusetts or California or something, but I live near Cleveland, and most of the Catholics I know (and there are a lot of them) are fairly conservative, even if they're not as much in line with the Vatican's Overarching Scheme to Take Over the Planet.