Erik Sofge has Nothing Better to Discuss

I go on MSN news every morning. I typically only read the articles that catch my attention. Although I will always tackle their Peculiar Posts. I love reading those. It's like a never ending fountian of Darwin awards. Who doesn't want to read about a lady in Kansas that sat on a toilet for two years. This shit is BANANAS!

I recently saw this link.. Slate: D&D morally corrupt

When I first started playing D&D after high school. My parents weren't players, but they had heard of the stigma. My mom would ask when I was leaving the house if I was "Off to kill cats again." Strangly enough she never stopped me when I answered "Yes." I ended up coming up with the term, "Cat Killing D&D." This is the kind of D&D that exists in the minds of non-gamers. Where the group gets together and plays by the light of the moon, occasionally lighting a candle and playing scary music. Closest I ever came to that was playing Magic at Ginzel's when the power went out.

I read this guy's article. I didn't get it. He basically accuses gamers of insensitivity and cruelty to Orcs. Gamers are murderous greedy monsters. D&D is also antiquated and table gaming is inferior to video gaming. His ideas reminded me of that church pamphlet denouncing D&D. Definately some cat killing D&D going on there. I also read the discussion posts. Basically they all tend to flame him for Gamer Hate. Then I read the article by Neil Stevens that picked it apart.

Now for a few reasons, I don't think our pal Erik is a gamer. I think he's had some exposure beyond the typical cat killing concept, but I don't think he ever played with a good group of people. He only ever points out the most common of enemies and plot ideas. His views are pretty simplestic.

Those that have played with a good group are the ones that see the Cat Killing style as funny because it's so off. Even the church comic I find hilarious. Especially where the girl's face begins to look like some kind of pit demon.


D&D WILL MAKE YOU UGLY!


I did a quick Google search on Erik Sofge. It seems he did a lot of small article writing in Popular Mechanics and now has made a transition into Slate. I figure he's trying to gain popularity in the media by causing a stir. It seems to have been his schtick for a while given all his articles seem to get flames in their discussion boards. What better way to cause a stir then to mess with the only sub-culture that mainstream society really doesn't care about. He punches gamers, gamers get pissed and raise an alarm. Media gets somewhat involved. Nobody cares since it's gamers. Erik Sofge gets his name out there. No fallout.

The odd thing is why MSN would promote his Slate article. Microsoft itself sells to gamers with a full line of video games and has it's own console system in the xBox. Even if the target was table gamers, it's a forgone conclusion that a table gamer is probably also a video gamer. Why would Microsoft want to alienate it's customer base? My guess is they don't, and our pal Erik might find that out the hard way.

For Erik Sofge finally his 15 minutes of fame has come. History is about to record his existance. Erik Sofge is a small time writer that nobody has really ever heard about. He's also a dick. If you feel like watching someone tazer him, here you go.