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It was just starting to get comfortable, playing Dungeons and Dragons with my friends and not hiding the fact from the general public. We played openly, in plain site of people as they walked by and paid us only a cursory glance. They saw dice, they saw books and they saw the Dungeon Master with his viking-esque long hair and bushy beard gesticulating wildly as he explains that our group of imaginary characters are surrounded by imaginary baddies.

I was featured in my University's art magazine for my work in ceramics and they wanted to take pictures of me that would involve another of my hobbies. I told them about role playing and D&D. The pictures are printed in that magazine with myself in good clothes seated at a table with a pile of D&D rulebooks stacked in front of me and a bag of dice scattered around. Everyone who saw the pictures was interested. They asked about the game, they were impressed with the idea and interested in perhaps trying it out.

Then recently I read this article about a couple that neglected their children in order to play a "Dungeons and Dragons" game on their computer. Considering the time they devoted to the game I can only guess that they referred to the Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game version of D&D. But the article did not say that. The article said "Dungeons and Dragons" and therefore managed to incorporate every incarnation of the D&D title from the Pen and Paper version to the single player computer games. I groaned upon reading those three words. Did the writer of those words think about the effect they might have on a public that already lays a thick stigma on people who gather to tell stories about magical adventures and heroic doings? Did they go out and interview other D&D players to get a broad perspective that may have proved that the two parents weren't influence by the D&D name as much as they were influenced by their ineptitude in caring for their children? No. They slapped a title on the problem and passed the blame from the parents to the video games.

Upon telling my mother that I played Dungeons and Dragons she replied "Oh my god, Robbie, don't you know that's dangerous?" I replied, "There's nothing dangerous about this, mom, you know what we do? We sit around a table with books and dice. We tell stories. We aren't sacrificing sheep on the table. We're not even drinking beer. We're rolling dice and talking." And that's all it ever is. And even with the powerful stigma, we will still continue to roll dice and we will still continue to tell stories of great deeds.

Learn more about this author, Robert Getz.
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