I was all ready to type an Academy Awards joke until i read your "innocent thugs who were *only* trying to mug them". I completely understand this is a work of fiction, but I don't see why even a deluded man can't defend himself from potential harm.

It was based off a novel by The Ultimate Bore Rona Jaffe, iirc.

But what those friends don't realize is you rigged it all to burn ala Mel Gibson in Conspiracy Theory.

Tom's brother Jim starred in the softcore porn comedy Buford's Beach Bunnies, which has to be WAY less embarrasing than this film. I'd rather have a bad porno film as my deep dark secret than this bullshition propoganda that the fear-mongering, Jack Chick-fellating parents of the 70s and 80s believed to be gospel.

Ah, Mazes and Monsters, written at the height of the 'D&D is evil' era.
An actually decent read from the same era is Jon Coyne's Hobgoblin (NOT to be confused with the MST3K episode!). You can usually get it at the library or for $.01 + s/h on Amazon.

"Mazes and Monsters is a far out game."

I always thought that what D&D needed was more sax.

And speaking of Buford's Beach Bunnies, it is a must watch. Jim Hanks acts as Buford exactly as his brother Jim would act as Forrest Gump one year later.

Those were the good ol' days, when muggers attacked you unarmed, and would continue to fight even after you drew a knife.

My mom STILL talks about this movie as evidence that people who play tabletop games will inevitably go crazy.

Ack! I remember this. One of my mom's cow-orkers read the book and my mom became convinced that I would be hopelessly addicted.

Another classic from the time was The Dungeon Master, by (self-promoting hack) PI William Dear, about the disappearance of a college student who played - you guessed it - D&D. The book played on RPG paranoia of the time, but the whole D&D thing turned out to be a red herring - the poor kid was gay at a time that it wasn't really okay yet; he was a child prodigy living away from home before he was really ready; he was also depressed and doing drugs, and ran away from campus because of that delightful combination. It goes downhill from there; he eventually managed to off himself after several unsuccessful attempts. Effectively, the book was a big fat bait & switch. But as such, it was exactly the sort of book that parents didn't actually have to read in order to get the wrong message.

nice seeing that clip for i remember the movie had those against d&d up in arms that even some politicians or some big wig mentioned this movie in a study of the evil of dungeons and dragons.espically the part where tom character goes missing after the guys play the game for real. nice having that movie back i my mind again after i wiped it away

Ah, classic insane paranoia over nothing. Reminds me of my youth minister who scolded a bunch of us for playing Magic the Gathering in the church (not during any services of course) because we could "open portals to bad things." Combined with the wonderful lies they told about sex (masturbation can give you STD's) it's no wonder I stopped going.

I saw that this was on TMC a while back. Reminded me why I started playing D&D in the first place. I really just wanted to go hang out in abandoned tunnels, not sit around the kitchen table with my cousins.

Add me to the list of people whose mom's freaked out because of that movie. I didn't stop playing, but was told to. Another friend was told he couldn't even hang out with us anymore no matter what we did because she saw where it could lead.

@R3loy

That's the funny thing, I never started running around in abandoned tunnels until after I stopped playing. Who has time for that when they've got to plan which spells to prepare for the campaign?

Like many others, Mazes and Monsters was the primary reason my mom was incredibly iffy about me ever playing D&D as a kid.

"It's of the devil!" or "It will drive you insane!" were always the refusals I heard when I'd ask for D&D for Christmas or my birthday.

Thank god for West End Game's Star Wars RPG. She was cool with it, got it for me for Christmas and assured my nerdiness for life.

That's what you get when you fuck with a Player Character, Fonzie. Better go back to mugging kobolds.

I really like Pardu's dagger technique. Two-handed uppercut. No one can defend against it because who on earth would expect it? It's like using a plate of lasagna as a ranged weapon. The WTF factor gives you a massive to-hit bonus.

AH! FRELLIC! GOOD FRIEND!

Run Forest Walker, run!

M.

Saw this post and was hoping someone was doing a part 2. Loved this movie so much I ended up having to pay blockbuster like twenty bucks, after I had packed it up and forgot where it was. Found it years later and it has a place of honor on the movie shelf.

So what we've learned here is that a complete dork can fend off muggers, so long as he has his 'spells.'

Where is my dice bag these days? I'm thinking I underappreciated its value in melee combat.

"Good thing his friends care enough to stop him. My friends would still be arguing about how to divvy up my loot, the bastards."

Which of your friends would get TR?

is there any sort of Disaster Plan on who would keep the site running if (God Forbid) Rob Bricken had a Untimely accident?

Yeah I just turned this Discussion Morbid

I think this is a step up from "The da Vinci Code."

I remember that D&D paranoia. It's the reason that my parents decided that they'd be willing to put up with having a bunch of geeks hanging out in their dining room until midnight every weekend back when I was in HS. At least that way they could be sure that we weren't enacting Satanic rituals (or having orgies - I WAS a girl hanging out with a bunch of guys, even if they were geeks!)

What was the other guy doing offcamera? Are this, like, the worst muggers ever? And don't they know that blackmail is WAY uncool?

So, how much XP did he get for that?

Those "muggers" were so pitiful that they probably get a beatdown on a regular basis.

Yeah, Fuck the people who made these movies and fueled the paranoia right in their Bible-belt regions.

I remember arguing to my parents that I was playing Dungeons & Dragons, not ADVANCED Dungeons & Dragsons -- that was the one that made people crazy...

AND being called a satanist through middle school and high school because of it [granted, not by many people].

AND AND -- did anyone ever see the Fucking Quantum Leap Episode about exactly the same thing?!? Excuse me, Sci-Fi Television Show, who do you think your demographic is? Fuck them right in their Bakulas, too.

I have this movie! my mother had a strange need to buy every Tom Hanks movie she could find for a while. I remember her forcing me to sit though this one specifically because 8 year old me hated it so much. My parents recently gave me all their old vhs tapes so maybe I'll dig it out and give it a watch this weekend

Those muggers were working way to hard to mug him. Mugging 101: If an attempted mugging results in a foot-chase, it's no longer a mugging. Also, get a gun.

I have a Christian friend who's dad forbid him from playing D&D... because dad himself got "way too into it". I don't exactly know what that means but I bet dollars to donuts that each D&D session ended in an orgy. '70s RPGers were totally freak-nasty. Not like kids today with their STD awareness and 20-sided dice.

@TrapJaw
WEG's Star Wars was my entry into the hobby, too, and I still hold it up as one of the finest RPGs ever published, period.

Godammit, Tom -- if you don't kill the monster you don't get the experience points. I'm not going to tell you again!

Hard to believe I've never heard of this movie.

I love this movie! Not because it was good or anything like that, but because it was so freakin' hilarious! When it first came out I thought that the geekiness of the M&Mers was so exaggerated as to be laughable. Now, though, after having become a regular attendee of GenCon, I know that gamers like that actually do exist, and that makes it even more hilarious! This movie also scared the bejesus out of my parents because I had just started playing D&D about a year or so before this movie came out and the James Egbert story had started circulating among the area schools. Fortunately, my parents (and the parents of my friends) were sane and rational (for parents) and after talking to us and finding out what we perceived about D&D they realized that it was just a game and, more importantly, that we thought it was just a game.

====================================================

On a side note:

To anyone who gets a chance to watch this movie again, pay very attention to the scenes at the World Trade Center. In particular, pay attention to the extras in the back ground. Look for the woman in the red beret and note how often she keeps showing up!

Oh, since we are talking about the good old days of "D&D is Devil Worshipping," we cannot forget Pat Pulling, who founded BADD (Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons). She was featured on 60 minutes with Gary Gygax (possibly together or just in the same episode, I do not remember) and wrote, "The Devil's Web: Who Is Stalking Your Children For Satan?" in which she thought that the Necronomicon was a real book!

I think that the ultimate culmination of the D&D scare was Dark Dungeons by Jack Chick. Here is link to the publication if you have never read it or if you want to laugh your ass off again: http://www.chick.com/READING/TRACTS/0046/0046_01.ASP