Ask The Readers Blogging Just my two cents News & Reviews Non-RPG Random musings RPG RPGaDay2015

RPG a Day 2015 Challenge – Day 8

Lazy Saturday post! We continue with the #RPGaDay2015 Challenge and we are venturing outside the realm of tabletop games and discussing about their appearance in other media.

Day 8 – Favorite appearance of RPGs in the media

Bear with me, this is going to be somewhat controversial. There are good appearances of RPG in other media, for example the RPG scene in the movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, ot the recent YouTube Series Titansgrave. And then there are bad appearances, such as Mazes & Monsters, or the razy 60 Minutes piece on D&D and all the 80s fears! While I’m sure that paranoia affected some people negatively, parents refusing to let them play, or destroying their books, Oscar Wilde said it best, “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.”

With that being said, my favorite appearance of RPGs in medias is, Dark Dungeons.

Dark Dungeons

Bear with me and allow me to explain. The little religious tract was meant as an attack on role-playing and the perceived evils in the eyes of extremist fundamentalist religious nuts! But the whole thing is so ludicrous, so comical, it has spawned so many parodies, even a movie, that it’s become iconic in my mind, and is a well that doesn’t seem to dry up. Without that little tract, we wouldn’t have gems like these:

Dark Dungeons MST3K style parody

Dark Dungeons the Movie, not perfect, but I just couldn’t stop laughing…

I truly believe the paranoia and fears so common back then, and so clearly expressed in that pamphlet, meant that fans of the hobby had to engage in conversation, we had to know how to debunk those arguments and defend our hobby against baseless attacks, I really think we turned a negative into a positive. Dark Dungeons gives us a platform to address those concerns and speak to the truth of our hobby.  Some of those fears persist, but by and large, the concept of RPGs has entered the mainstream and that ultimately is a positive thing!

What do you think? Agree? Disagree? Let me know! See you all tomorrow…
Sunglar

Welcome, reader; thanks for taking the time to discover who I am! My name is Roberto, although I usually go by Sunglar online. I am a longtime tabletop RPG player, primarily a GM for the better part of that time; some will say that’s because of my love of telling a good story, others because I’m a control freak, but that’s debatable. I was born and raised in Puerto Rico, an island in the Caribbean with a small but active gaming community. I’ve played RPGs for almost 40 years, and for most of that time, I played D&D in all its permutations, including Pathfinder and D&D 5th edition. Other games our regular gaming group plays include Mutants & Masterminds, Castles & Crusades, Savage Worlds, Stars Without Number, Alien, and more. I have played many games through the years and plan to play many more. I am a compulsive homebrewer and rarely play a campaign I have not created myself. You can follow me on social media as Sunglar, and I’m regularly active on Facebook where you can find me posting regularly in the Puerto Rico Role Players group. I am looking forward to hearing from you!

view all posts

Related Posts

7 comments

comments user
timsbrannan

Very nice! I loved that old Dark Dungeons tract.

One of the reasons why I wrote that MST3k parody. Glad to see people are still enjoying it!
Reply
    comments user
    Sunglar

    timsbrannan that MST3K parody is one of my favorite things on the Internet, so feel proud, I’ve shared it hundreds of times!
    Reply
      comments user
      timsbrannan

      True story. I wrote it all in one day at work while the printer was down. I am glad it has taken on the life it has!
      Reply
        comments user
        Sunglar

        Cool, I discovered it, some years ago and re-read it regularly. Do you remember when you wrote it? The year I mean…
        Reply
          comments user
          timsbrannan

          it would have been ’99 I think. I was working at the UIC College of Medical Education and I think it was before my son was born. I was still using “Web Warlock” as my nom-d-net to keep my gaming life and professional life seperate.
comments user
Sunglar

I think I first read it about 3 jobs ago, in 2000 or 2001 and I printed it out to show to my gaming group since not all of them had Internet access. As much as I liked the Dark Dungeons movie, I still think your parody was better…
Reply
    comments user
    timsbrannan

    Thanks so much!
    Reply