It’s very simple, glee. You’re making this waaaayyyy too hard.
If your students’ parents ask about this or any article which claims D&D or other RPGs are a dangerous hobby run by child molesters, mass murderers, et al, then you say: “That article was written in America twenty years ago when the game first came out and nobody knew anything about it. Why don’t you stop by for a session and see for yourself? We’d love to have a visitor. We can even videotape a session if you can’t make it.”
Given your by-me-uncontested assertion that the best research involves sitting down and watching the game, this solution seems pretty obvious—talking to the parents isn’t enough. Give the parents an opportunity to sit in on the child’s educational progress. Keep them involved. Invite them to observe. If you’ve nothing to hide, demonstrate your confidence by being open about your material. If you make the offer, I suspect many parents will express interest in sitting in, but not many of them will actually show up to do so. They will feel more confidence because they see you are open to their participation.
If your institution doesn’t permit parent observation, arrange an extracurricular event at another location. Videotaping your sessions as a matter of habit might not be a bad idea, just as a way to dispel any possible later accusations, too, but that’s advice from an American who lives in a litigious society.
As for your other complaints, I still don’t see them.
Yes, the referee of the game is “vaguely Mansonesque.” In the manner of, or resembling, Charles Manson, the puppet master who controlled his flock of followers. I had to put the word vaguely back in because you have been going out of your way to ellide from “vaguely Mansonesque” to just “Mansonesque” to “he’s calling me a mass murderer.” Please look up the word “vague(ly)” and add “vague” to “in the manner of or resembling” and you’ll see how thin the comparison is meant to be.
Sheesh, an umpire is “vaguely Mansonesque”—he arbitrates between right and wrong, the players fear his decisions, he can throw any of them out of the game, his word is law—and I’m a fan of baseball. I can see the comparison being made, especially by someone like Cecil. An umpire is as vaguely Mansonesque as an elephant is vaguely lionesque (four feet, tail, warm-blooded, live-birth-bearing, lives in Africa, weighs more than a human).
Still having trouble finding the arcane formulae that litter the book? Try 2d8+1. d100/2 round up. Try 3-4/3-4/5-8 claw claw bite. +1/+3 vs undead. No, they’re not hard to us because we know what they mean. No, they’re not even all true formulae: one’s a listing for a three-attack monster that only is written like a division problem to the untrained eye. They fit the definition for arcane: known or understood only by a few. And mathematical modifiers appear everywhere on D&D items and merchandise; how and to what do you apply the modifier if not with “mathematical finagling?” I have played so many pen-n-paper RPGs that these formulae no longer phase me; I see them as patently obvious. You have to resolve an arcane formula every time you roll initiative!
(Before you say it, yes if Cecil had read the entire manual he’d understand them too. Yes he’d understand them if he’d got advice from a player or a GM. Read my previous posts: I already agreed that he didn’t get the whole picture and he set forth some pretty damned stupid formula in the belief that it gave a complete picture of the game, much the same way that Elvis impersonators are sometimes paraded forth by the heckling media to give a complete picture of Elvis fans, f’rinstance. Educational? Not very. Accurate? More or less, in its own limited way. Does it need to be updated? For the third time, yes.)
Is the D&D book sacred? Hardly: but surely you recall the admonition in the original hardbound DM’s guide that forbade players from peeling back the pages and looking within. I remember when my own brother Cervaise wouldn’t let me look in the DM’s guide because I might learn more about the game and lose some of the magic and mystery.
Apart from updating with new information, there is only one essential rule I think Cecil should quote from the original AD&D manuals, and that’s where the rulebook says all of these rules are optional. If you don’t like a rule or don’t need it or it makes the same slow or boring, don’t use it. Some gamers absolutely insist on having every mathematical advantage in their favor calculated down to the gnat’s ass; some don’t. Some just want to try to make up fast-n-loose rules to generate favorable events in the absence of rulebook dicta, yet somehow, somewhere, there is a chart or a die roll that can settle the question without excessive lawyering. Again, if your players don’t need that rule, don’t force it upon them: that’s what I’d add.
And there is only one essential change I’d make to Cecil’s column in regards to how successfully he answered his OW’s question: “You’re asking me for a list and summary for D&D and all D&D-like games, and all the rules therein? Hey, mushbrain, ever heard of a library? Ever think of calling a game company and asking for a catalog? Kids these days, I swear. Maybe you want I should do your homework, too?” Good grief, any answer to the D&D question that’s as exhaustive (and up-to-date) as the pinball answer would have to updated bimonthly and be sixty or seventy pages long! That’s not the job of a columnist in any publication except Dragon.
I can understand you’re upset that he’s impugned D&D, glee with his, um, opinion. After all, I play too. I still think you’re overreacting and taking this far too seriously.
), could I ask what you mean by ‘arcane formulae’?