THE D&D STIGMA
Ever since Dungeons and Dragons was released into the general role-playing world, there have been multiple problems attributed to how the game affects the social lives of various individuals throughout the world. As a result, the news media and even movies have gone to certain lengths to display the poor properties of role-playing games as it relates to the youth in all manner of countries. One such movie was Mazes & Monsters with Tom Hanks as one of the lead characters; the character begins to lose his mind, and instantly the role-playing game is to blame. A similar made-for-TV movie came out in the late '80s, although I don't remember the name, where a young man murdered his parents and the only factor the authorities could delineate had to do with the "evil influence" of the role-playing game.

I have come to term this the D&D Stigma, although I'm certain I'm not the first to coin the term, and the relationship itself has developed beyond D&D. Fortunately for those of us who do role-play, nearly all of us tend to be well-developed, balanced, individuals who only desire an experience different from what the mundane world has to offer, and we do not fall into the D&D Stigma.

Indeed, I would posit that ANY section of life, whether it is religion, music, role-playing, or even writing, etc., ad nauseum, has the opportunity to push people over the edge, and not a single one of us in this world could be considered normal as far as standards of peace, calm, and a desire simply to exist go. Each of us has our different moral, ethical, and integral likes, dislikes, and all of us in this world are extremists in one fashion or another. As a species, Humans were developed -created if you will- to fight for everything we have in our lives, so we may survive and advance. To that end, each of us selects an activity or an organization through which to express our desires, to fight for lack of a better term, for what we believe in.

In religion, the three big ones in particular -and I'm a Christian, mostly, so for me to say this would be heresy in the church- of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, each has their leaders who teach good things, but also some who teach bad things. Members of each sect within those religions, with a group mentality -a person is smart, but a group is stupid- have a tendency to believe what the rest of the group believes. It is comfortable to be accepted, to be a part of a social dynamic where one does not necessarily

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