Redstate

Posted at 6:04pm on Mar. 11, 2008 Truth Holocaust

Slate's factually-challenged and reprehensible attack on Gary Gygax

By Neil Stevens

Erik Sofge virtually peed on the late E. Gary Gygax's grave yesterday with an attack on the family man and innovator that is so ridiculous, I hardly know where to begin. So I'll just walk through the article bit by bit and pick it apart.

When Gary Gygax died, the gaming community lost an icon, its founding genius. At least that's the story being told in countless obituaries this past week by writers as eager to praise Gygax as they are to out themselves—with faux embarrassment—as former nerds whose lives he changed with 20-sided dice. And lo, what a fascinating and tortured bunch we are, with our tales of marathon role-playing game (RPG) sessions in windowless basements, our fingers hardened to nacho-cheese-encrusted talons, and our monklike vows of celibacy. Part testament to Gygax, part cathartic confessional, these obituaries are rapidly cementing his position at the head of the geek pantheon.

From the first paragraph, Sofge sets the tone. This is no mere opinion. This is a personal grudge against someone or something. The man believes there's something fundamentally wrong with role playing games. If a group of men get together for an evening of harmless fun, engaging in a mental and social game, there is something amiss. Sofge is embarrassed that he didn't instead engage in the hedonistic culture pushed by Hollywood. You see, he apparently thinks young men should be out in bars trying to have promiscuous sex rather than take part in "celibate" activities.

Of course, below that we find the assumption that these games are played only by men. Of course it's not true, but why does Sofge think it? Is there something about the way he acted that drove women away from his games? Who knows. But women do play RPGs, so there must be something going on behind the scenes here.

Read on...

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