Look, fire's a big deal. Do we see kids running around with lighters and scorching people with them, or burning down people's houses, just because they play D&D? No. Kids, even bullies, know that burning people is a bad thing. Please stop assuming that the actions of the few people who are both psychopaths and play D&D are representative of the majority of gamers who happen to be huge jerks.
I don't think you understand how fun fire can be to kids - or how dismissive of dangers one can get, when the dangers don't apply to them.
And again - fire is just an easy example of blatant magic; don't focus on it exclusively. The overall point is that magic has a myriad of heavily, visibly supernatural options to it's name in DnD, and many of those options could be disastrous if childishly exercised.
Thank you for bringing it to my attention.
Any time.
Given all that, my best current understanding of your thesis is something like "D&D is reasonably likely to unlock vulgar magical powers of some sort. It is also reasonably likely to push him, morally, to the dark side. Combining those two, there is a danger that he'll start with vicious, magic-driven pranks, and that could get us into serious trouble."
Much closer, but still not right there - it's more that I feel that DnD-derived Gamer skills, generally speaking, are such a wide metaphorical toolbelt that, even if
generally the tools are safe, labelled and won't get misused, the sheer number of options increases the chances of misuse anyway.
I don't expect D&D to unlock magical powers. Direct "throw a fireball" powers don't seem all that in-character for Dudley, and also don't appear to be what the voting public wants. Also, I've no particular reason to believe that D&D *can* unlock powers in this universe.
Well, fair enough on that - me, I see 'kid who generally has a normalish view of what's cool relative to his age' and 'the chance he might be able to throw fireballs or fly or whatever', and I just assume that if he
can get magic, then he will.
And he will go flashy.
Guess we'll see how the collective setting of HP, Gamer and (to some degree, albeit a meta one since it's just that the books exist so far) DnD works out in that regard - still,
if the DnD route does allow Dudley to pick up magic, do you at least agree that there are a myriad of ways a child like he could horribly misuse those powers?
I don't think that D&D has a terribly corrosive effect on morality. Have you any actual evidence that D&D has ever been a source of moral decay for anyone who wasn't already deeply disturbed?
I'm not saying that DnD is morally corruptive; I'm saying that the potential power that Gamer could derive from DnD is corruptive, in the same way that any power that would allow one to dominate others and force their will is corruptive, since DnD has a wealth of in-game ways to do exactly that.
I'm willing to reassess this portion of my understanding of reality, but it would take at least moderate amounts of evidence.
Nope - just again, stepping back from the example originally cited, to see the greater potential issue being referenced through the example.
Dudley is a character who obeys the voting public. If we start voting to magically prank people in vicious ways, then yes, I'll freely admit that that's a dangerous activity (and one I personally would prefer to avoid for a number of reasons). It would have to be something we voted on, however - and playing D&D doesn't seem to me to make it any more likely that that's actually going to happen.
If it does indeed play out that our voting influence is that great, then yes; absolutely you're right and the risk I foresee is far less than I'm portraying.
...That said, if that
is true then it's a moot point for me regardless - I'd be leaving the quest. I've never cared for quests that take a canon character, and allow voting to make them INO. Personal preference thing, really.
