D&D and satanisim

BOOOO! Boo to 4th edition!
I am a second ed. stuck in the mud. The later stuff seems a bit power gamey to me, with all its feats and prestige classes and whatnot.
I've been playing RPG's for a good twenty years (the name I use on this board is that of an old PC of mine) and not once have I felt inclined to worship the devil, not even when I was a player in a long-running game where all the characters were lawful evil devil-worshippers. This is because I know the difference between reality and fiction.
I think that people link D&D with Satanism, because they have never seen anyone engage in either practise. Only the other day, I was asked by a friend "Do you all dress up then?". I think that a lot of people imagine D&D payers gathered around an engraved pentagram, chanting and sacrificing goats. If people knew that all the average game consists of is a bunch of silly sods sat in a room giggling, rolling dice and eating pizza, they would have a lot less problem with it. Actually, the same could probably be said for Satanism!
As for MERP, have you seen Rolemaster? Now there is a system for rules lawyers. Any rule set that expects you to roll for weapon breakage every time you hit is beyond loony. Note that each different weapon has a different breakage chance. Just loony. It did have some good crit's though. My favourite went something like "Foes entire skeleton is shattered, he is reduced to a gelatinous pulp. Try a spatula."

---

Mutate and Survive

Funny you should bring up the hilarious "Dark Dungeons", only a few days ago I was showing that to one of my players. It blew his mind, and he's from Texas, so fundies have to try quite hard to shock him!
If you think that second ed is old-style, another friend of mine spits on anything later than 1st edition. Ultimately, it doesn't really matter. I adapt whatever material I have to hand, using a lot of house rules. Might have...
Actually I've played most of the basic classes at one time or other, but I usually GM. D&D and Shadowrun mostly. Tomorrow I'm starting as a player in a Middle Earth game (not MERP, a new one), playing an enormously fat dwarf, with a comedy Yorkshireman accent.
Any money the Star Wars game is popular round your way.

---

Mutate and Survive

Hi Phatboy,
Have to disagree with you here; So when I go out and do voluntary work for a local conservation charity, I'm acting out of self interest? How? The work is often miserable and the wildlife never thanks you (ingrates!).
Humans are altruistic.
Christians are altruistic.
Atheists are altruistic.
Bonobos are altruistic.
I'm sure that not all humans are altruistic, many are venal, selfish grasping scum, but I'm not sure that you can draw a religious dividing line between the two groups. Your observations seem to be based upon the idea that all morality stems from God, but if that were the case, wouldn't we see religious folks only being altruistic to one another, whilst atheists were wholly selfish? This just isn't what we see.

---

Mutate and Survive