Last week, Amy Bishop Anderson, a University of Alabama biology professor, killed three faculty members. According to BostonHerald.com, she also enjoyed playing Dungeons & Dragons, that popular dice-and-paper game sponsored by Satan himself.
Y’know, it always depresses and bothers me to see games (both video and boardgames) as a blaming post for these sorts of acts; I mean, I bet this woman also liked eating a certain type of pizza and had a favorite movie she could watch over and over, but these have yet to be highlighted as driving forces for her horrific crimes. Because if they were, well, I’d like to think most people would go, “Um, that’s stupid.”
But Dungeons and Dragons has a lot of stereotypes. Basement dwellers, Cheeto-tinted fingers, bad skin, horrible social skills, the creation of new smells, intense fights over dragon loot, loneliness, and so on. Some might apply, a lot might not. I’ve met people throughout life that I would’ve never guessed played D&D, and to some extent think that some people have trouble believing that I play it, too.
I could really say a lot about murder and linking games to it because the topic, sadly, comes up all the time. The debates will never end, and there will always be those that strongly believe that Grand Theft Auto IV taught them how to hotwire the neighbor’s car and then run over a prositute. Not mental unstability, no. Yet I only have one point: it’s not about the game, it’s about the person.
Grinding Down 