http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3052074,00.html

I especially liked the picture.

I roll 4d6+400 damage with the laser-guided missile against the Hamas leader's motorcade...

I couldn't read it all -- what repetitive bull. First of all, the pictures looked like Society For Creative Anachronism meets -- not D&D at all.

And the article kept repeating "People who play D&D are detached from reality...". It's a Game, people! There are military campaign games played the same way, do those count?

I haven't played a game of D&D since 1980 -- but I still don't like such transparent bull spread around like it was true. They even repeated the "take their swords outside into the woods" line used after Columbine. Give me a break.

It's strange, considering the US military is adopting all sorts of training & decision making tools ranging from video games to decision making games.

Comic book and Anime fans.

Those are the kooks they should be shunning.

I remember a few years ago that one company of Marines used Doom for battlefield simulations. I lost the bookmark for it, but it was very amusing.

I saw a news story just the other day about a Navy officer who was playing combat oriented games alongside gamers. It could've been pure PR/recruitement, but I think it was real. The military has been doing combat simulations since the beginning of time, and I know the Navy is big in to this stuff.

Nice to know they're not prey to irrational prejudice...

Anyone remember Harpoon? That was a commercial offspring of real wargames we used. The Marine Corps commissioned an urban warfare variant of Doom in the late 90's.

I suspect the group that's got reality issues is the group that doesn't realize that some people can actually tell the difference between play acting and real life.

Somewhat tangential, one of my favorite movie quotes of all time was in "Teachers" when an escaped mental patient was teaching classes by putting on costumes appropriate to the era they were covering. When the orderlies showed up to arrest him he was dressed like General Custer. They started to drag him off, and he exclaimed "Unhand me! Do you know who I am?!"
"Uh, you're General Custer?"
"I am a teacher. And I will be treated as such!"
and he strode away with dignity.

Philo

Perhaps they found a real correlation between D&D players and sympathy to the Injuns?

Of course the penultimate example for the US armed forces is, aptly named, America's Army.

http://www.americasarmy.com/

This game is sponsored and supported by the US DOD, and indoctrinates young potential recruits early. In it you set up a virtual persona where you earn your way up the ranks, much like a D&D game.

Did I really just type penultimate? Make that ultimate.

Actually, it is the penultimate. The ultimate is the America's Army variant the army actually uses, as well as wall-sized, voice recognition, AI powered simulations. Well, for video games anyway.

Just don't wear your pixie shoes and cloak to the interview and you should be okay.