My colleagues now think I’m in some sort of cult just because I put down D&D as one of my hobbies during my interview, at least it’s only the few of them.

To be honest, I think D&D’s bad reputation is not due to it’s obscurity. It’s simply because there are no reprecussions the munchkins can think of that comes from slandering D&D, afterall, the word “Roleplayers” invokes the very imagery of skinny bespectacled prepuberscents who can hardly throw a punch much less anything else.

Truth be told, D&D is much less violent than video games like counterstrike, dota and left4dead etc etc (the list goes on). Much less likely to cause physical harm than practicing martial arts, heaps less suggestive than heavy metal music. YET, no one dares to link elevated crime rates to these stereotypes in fear of an uproar.

To the argument about escapism: Escapism? Maybe. At least my form of escapism advances my prowess over the english language, that’s only the tip of the iceberg. What does yours do? Think about it, playing D&D is acting+reading+making impromptu out of the box decisions all rolled into one. Surely that outweighs plain old reading, right?

I played D&D only recently and find that the people I meet there are generally more well-mannered than the general populace, writers, artistes and the likes.

But woe the day D&D truly becomes a cult and the players it’s scions, wielding powerful anti-christ magic and eating babies because YOU. WILL. BE. THE. FIRST. ONE. WE. WILL. GET.

…
Jeezus, I’m living in munchkin land.

There may be some correlation. However, if there is, I would like to see a study that shows this correlation before we say there is one. After all, violent people come from all walks of life. I could make the claim that another criminal was the quiet type, and therefore portray quiet people in a negative light. This wouldn’t make it the right thing to do though.

Furthermore, even if there is a correlation, the next job the media has is to understand that just because they may be correlated doesn’t mean one causes the other. There would need to be more study about that afterward.

Finally, other commonly beneficial activities, such as reading, can also be means of escapism, and could be just as big (or more accurately, small) warning signs of danger. Singling out D&D simply because it’s less well understood by the public at large is inappropriate. That’s primarily where I’m coming from on this post.