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12-13-2006, 02:07 PM | #1 |
Elven Warrior
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Israeli Army says "Do NOT roll a D20 to make a save vs. gunfire!"
Army frowns on Dungeons and Dragons
IDF says players are detached from reality and automatically given a low security clearance By Hanan Greenberg Published: 02.28.05, 14:17 Does the Israel Defense Forces believe incoming recruits and soldiers who play Dungeons and Dragons are unfit for elite units? Ynet has learned that 18-year-olds who tell recruiters they play the popular fantasy game are automatically given low security clearance. “They're detached from reality and suscepitble to influence,” the army says. Fans of the popular roleplaying game had spoken of rumors of this strange policy by the IDF, but now the army has confirmed that it has a negative image of teens who play the game and labels them as problematic in regard to their draft status. So if you like fantasy games, go see the military psychologist. Dungeons and Dragons (also known as D&D) has been a popular roleplaying game for decades and is based on a fantasy world. One player assumes the role of “Dungeon Master,” which entails directing the game and controlling the labyrinth, while the others select from a large selection of characters that includes warriors, magicians, dwarfs and thieves. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7...052074,00.html |
12-14-2006, 05:57 AM | #2 |
Elven Warrior
Join Date: Dec 2006
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this is news or comment, not rpg Bish.
Interesting article ..you can see a smidgin of a point ...but it's completely OTT ..and reeks of the desire to socially conform a whole society to a militarism that, whilst understandable, is not good imho. |
12-14-2006, 12:05 PM | #3 |
Cardboard Harp of Gondor Join Date: Sep 2001
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Quite true. Moved to general messages.
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12-14-2006, 06:05 PM | #4 | ||
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That policy is... utterly ridiculous. There are so many things wrong with it. The stupidity burns. There isn't even a semblance of a point.
1. There is no correlation between being easily influenced and playing D&D. 2. If you wanted to find out if there was a connection, you'd have to isolate other social factors like upbringing, education, and who knows what else. 3. It is far more logical to assume that an 18-year-old has a firm grasp on what is fantasy and what is reality. Somewhere in the Israeli army is a brasshat who's a complete moron.
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12-14-2006, 06:17 PM | #5 | |
Elven Warrior
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'ere Nurv de la "Vice" lord ... if me an Tessar agree, it's officially indisputable. it DOES belong in GM .... you know how nice it is not to get accused and bashed on any and every post? Goodstuff! ............. anyway, back on topic - yeah, it's carzy and in a sinister way, ...er, sinsister-leaning ... but, i contend, in isreal's situation ... there is a point there ... but the really interesting question is about what that actually reveals rather then ther D&D stuff... ...anyway, you good Nurv? xx |
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12-14-2006, 06:31 PM | #6 |
of the House of Fëanor
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I don't understand what the problem is, I mean D & D is an excellent way to fine-hone strategic fighting skilss. It's like the same kind of mental excersice for thinking in a great war-minded strategic way as is playing Chess. You'd think the Army would be encouraging the soldiers to play a little D&D once in a while; it's an excersice to strengthen mental acuity like that. People are weird, man. And yeah, you'd have to be a real yutz to confuse role-playing games with reality, for chrissake.
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12-14-2006, 06:42 PM | #7 |
Elven Warrior
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well, true,
but when the S*i* is very real, in blood and limbs and very intense, you can get VERY "real" perhaps you understand this, from personal experience, as I ... but ... taken from an objective distance - what this really seems to be saying is the ever increasingly Militarisation of a society, not unlike, ironically, the Nazis ... now, i say that only as an artistic impression as it were ..if i was to hold up an iconic mirror to this issue and draw what i saw ... that would be my take. Odd, but frighteningly real ... but wrong? all depends where you are standing, doesn't it? (and of course where ya left ye staff! ) |
12-14-2006, 06:52 PM | #8 |
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How come every time anybody ever takes issue with how things might be going wrong in a terrible way, always with the comparisons to the damn Nazis! Ta hell with the Nazis, man; there's a ton of other evil empires from the past we can use as comparisons, too. Like, I dunno, the Mongols? or, whatever. Everyone knows the Nazis were evil bastards, but man it gets so old always seeing them and stupid Hitler used as the ultimate paragons of evil. I guess for the 20th century they sure made their mark that way, but so have all kinds of other so-called evil empires. There's Quaddafi, there's Al Quaeda, there's Idi Amin, there's Pinochet, tons of other examples. well anyway. I think the Israelis would be pretty pissed off to be compared to Nazis! Heh. I guess that was the point, though, huh? The irony, the irony...
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12-14-2006, 06:54 PM | #9 |
Master of Orchestration President Emeritus of Entmoot 2004-2008
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Because Nazis were so evil...they're the perfect pinata, deservedly so.
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12-14-2006, 07:03 PM | #10 |
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Yeah, obviously, no argument there, but I'm just sayin', too bad we can't be more aware of the other evil empires still operating their particular stripe of evil, the ones who haven't fallen yet. I think if we all knew more about the present-day still-in-operation bad guys, we'd be more motivated as a whole to strike them down before they got around to mass-murdering millions like the Nazis succeeded in doing. I guess I'm fairly idealistic, but still, you know knowledge is power, right?
Stupid Nazis. Oh - I thought of another evil bunch - the Sudanese! And those whadda ya call 'em, Tutsies? The guys who to this day mercilessly and seemingly without restraint continue to murder and wreak genocide upon the tribe they share land with, what's the name of that tribe - someone help me out here - who.. ah, BAH! I wish I had a better modern-history education. The Hutus? Is that them? Tuitsies still continue to hack hundreds of thousands of Hutus to death.
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12-14-2006, 07:07 PM | #11 |
Master of Orchestration President Emeritus of Entmoot 2004-2008
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I know, it's horrid. But I think it's either too close to home for some people, or they don't know about it. It's the classic case of when someone important dies, one of the first thoughts for some people is "Oh, he was still alive?"
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12-14-2006, 07:48 PM | #12 | |
Elven Warrior
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12-14-2006, 09:11 PM | #13 | |
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If I recall Hotel Rwanda correctly, it was the Hutus who were the evil ones killing the Tutsies. They only did this after the tutsies being the elite oppresive ruling class for so long.
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12-14-2006, 09:26 PM | #14 | |
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Well, in this world of geography- and history-impaired people, you can't assume people will know those other regimes. The Nazis are just plain handy to use as an example (at least we got some good out of them!)
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. I should be doing the laundry, but this is MUCH more fun! Ñá ë?* óú éä ïöü Öñ É Þ ð ß ® ç å ™ æ ♪ ?* "How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! ... For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand outside." (from Psalm 84) * * * God rocks! Entmoot : Veni, vidi, velcro - I came, I saw, I got hooked! Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium, sed ego sum homo indomitus! Run the earth and watch the sky ... Auta i lómë! Aurë entuluva! |
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12-14-2006, 10:33 PM | #15 |
Elven Warrior
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I wonder if Hitler ever played D&D?
Speaking of genocide. Darfur. There you go. 'Nother example. Not that I'll go about using it. People just look at ya weird then wonder where the heck it is. Use the Nazis. The masses understand. Unfortunately this means the dumb are being catered (sp?) to. Now, does it make me dumb if I'm not sure how to spell catered? No, I'm simply a victim of the school systems catering to my classmates who have a rather low intellect. I'm no Hawking, but I'm not stupid either. There see, I could've said Einstein, Tesse...but I went with Hawking. I bet he'd enjoy a nice game of D&D. Does that make him militarily unsound? Also, I didn't realize that Israelly teens enjoyed D&D. I assumed it was an American thing. Not that other nations can't play it, it just surprised me. Does the US military feel the same way?
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12-14-2006, 10:35 PM | #16 | |
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12-15-2006, 03:06 AM | #17 | |
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. I should be doing the laundry, but this is MUCH more fun! Ñá ë?* óú éä ïöü Öñ É Þ ð ß ® ç å ™ æ ♪ ?* "How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! ... For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand outside." (from Psalm 84) * * * God rocks! Entmoot : Veni, vidi, velcro - I came, I saw, I got hooked! Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium, sed ego sum homo indomitus! Run the earth and watch the sky ... Auta i lómë! Aurë entuluva! |
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12-15-2006, 04:31 AM | #18 | |
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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12-15-2006, 06:12 AM | #19 | |
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You wonder why the Yalta conference went on for so long? Churchill kept insisting on "just one more level", Stalin's mage got turned into green slime and an Iron Curtain descended across Europe... Hey, I wouldn't complain. If you are an Israeli and get drafted, you now know what to put under Hobbies in your enrolment form. |
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12-15-2006, 06:45 AM | #20 | |||
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I lifted that from Bester's lines in Babylon 5 "Dust to Dust".
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